The Las Vegas Story

The third album by The Gun Club, The Las Vegas Story, was released in June 1984. A lot of different dates are mentioned, of which June 15th and 25th seem the most legit, but I haven’t found any confirmation on both. The month of June is definitely correct. The band’s sound had become more melodic and had moved away a little from its punk roots, resulting in a kind of alternative rock. The album was dedicated to Debbie Harry “for her love, help and encouragement”.

After the intro in The Las Vegas Story the album starts off with the fantastic drum beat to Walking With the Beast. Feedback and divine singing immediately sets the tone and level for the rest of the album. And, the band keeps it up. The great Eternally Is Here is followed by A Stranger In Our Town, the unsettling story about a (necrophiliac?) serial killer: “There’s a stranger in our town / pulls out a punks spinal cord / piss and blood on the sidewalk of hearts”. The best The Gun Club ever recorded, My Dreams, closes the first side of the vinyl album. The beautiful music almost detonates with the paranoid lyrics, “You can’t take my dreams / You can’t take my dreams / You can’t take and steal from this body…”. The anger, sorrow and fear come together in the last sentence that keeps on being repeated until the end of the song: “They were supposed to be MY DREAMS”. Beautiful!

Time for side two then. Two covers that smoothly transition from one into the other. The short instrumental The Master Plan turns into My Man Is Gone Now, originally a part of the George Gershwin opera Porgy and Bess. The Gun Club turns it into a heart wrenching blues: impressive! Bad America is about what the title suggests. America is bad and is to blame for all that is wrong with the world and Pierce’s life. Moonlight Motel is sung from the viewpoint of a prostitute: “Low rates and color T.V. / Money on the bed, left there for me and / One of these days I’ll kill you while you sleep…”. Even more seamy side on the album’s closing Give Up The Sun: “Oh, don’t you leave me here / There’s ghosts and rooms of pain / There’s a storm out on the sea tonight / And bodies filled with pain / Palm wind across the sea tonight / Black with whirling pain / Alone against the docks tonight / Nobody knows my name”.

In short, an album filled with anger, sorrow, loneliness, desperation, pain and hopelessness. Happy? No. Beautiful? Yes, and then some!

Ripped, you lucky people, from the 2009, two disc expanded European edition to desperate FLAC

The Gun Club; The Las Vegas Story

Disc 1: Original Album

1.      The Las Vegas Story

2.      Eternally Is Here

3.      The Stranger In Our Town

4.      My Dreams

5.      The Master Plan

6.      My Man’s Gone Now

7.      Bad America

8.      Moonlight Hotel

9.      Give Up The Sun

10.   Secret Fires

Disc 2: Live Show From Le Loft, Strasbourg, France, 20th November 1984

1.      Walkin’ With The Beast

2.      Run Through The Jungle

3.      Moonlight Motel

4.      The Lie

5.      John Hardy

6.      Bad America

7.      The Stranger In Our Town

8.      Death Party

9.      Fire Of Love

10.   Sexbeat

11.   Jack On Fire

12.   Louie Louie

13.   Do The Twist

14.   The House On Highland Avenue

More from the Gun Club and Jeffery Lee Pierce here