Title:        Gun Club's Pierce Runs Out of Ammo
Author:       Jim Washburn
Source:       The Los Angeles Times
Date:         July 24, 1989


In 1981 Jeffrey Lee Pierce's Gun Club promised to be one of the more
interesting tangents aiming out of the L.A. punk scene, with Pierce's
post-Morrison decay 'n' voodoo musings backed by a mutated white garage
version of the blues. While hopelessly arty and infantile, Pierce was
at least trying to arrive at something new. Eight years on though,
Pierce has failed to arrive at a destination worth calling his own, and
on Friday at Bogart's he had evidently even given up on trying.

The return to the quartet of well-traveled guitarist Kid Congo Powers
lent the 18-song set some atmospheric noise and grunge-riff
sensibility. But Pierce seemed to be locked into the most constricting
of punkoid conventions, with his vocals set apart only in their varying
degrees of detached rage. He did achieve a workmanlike froth on "Fire
of Love" and the moody "My Cousin Kim," but overall it was like
watching a junkie sweat for 80 minutes: It might have been "on the
edge," but it is an edge long since blunted by stasis and indifference.


© The Times Mirror Company; Los Angeles Times 1989


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