Suoni Review: {{{BROTHERS UNCONNECTED}}} A Tribute to the Music of The Sun City Girls

www.charlesgocher.org

I arrived early for the Richard Bishop/ Alan Bishop show on Wednesday evening. A small crowd gathered outside to smoke, chat, hang out and kill time before the performance. I couldn’t help but notice a slightly melancholic vibe that hung over the small crowd, as if the spirit of Charles Gocher were present and longing to be a part of the show.

The evening began with a 40 minute presentation of experiments in film created by Charles Gocher. It featured music from the Sun City Girls, along with some performance pieces by Gocher and other experiments. One segment was made using multiple video screens that expanded the two-dimensional depth of field, projecting images of Gocher in various dispositions. Here’s a sample…

Alan Bishop took the stage after the screening ended. He roused the audience any way he could, prodding us with foul language and making us feel guilty for being “too comfortable”. He went on to sing vulgar songs about black leather shoes, fishing with a hammer and sickle and ended his first few songs by shouting “now fuck off you fucking fuck, etc, etc…” at no one in particular. I could appreciate the “take no shit” attitude that came across in his lyrics:

“when you get under the light/ you gotta reach up/ and SMASH THE BULB!!!“

“rodent with a view/ a vermin at the pew/ the flaming of the shrew/ and there’s a weasel fucking you“

There was definitely a strong sense of aggression directed towards what possibly could have been politicians or business leaders for all I knew. Alan Bishop wrapped up his set with a Serge Gainsbourg cover, sung as a duo with an female audience volunteer who he coined as “the only one in the room with balls“. He then asked where it might be possible in Montreal to buy some dwarfs…

Sir Richard Bishop followed with two instrumental composition/ improvisations that lasted almost a half hour. He plays a flatpicking guitar style with open tunings, fingered at a lightning speed, while constantly running up and down the fret board. On the second composition, he created a droning effect that mocked the sound of a sitar, and then played a gorgeous raga over top of the effects loop. His style made me think of what a middle-eastern/ indian fusion would have sounded like. I can’t say much more about this set as I was in a complete trance….

The fourth act brought the two brothers together to cover the songs of the Sun City Girls and pay tribute to the late drummer & vocalist Charles Gocher. If you’re unfamiliar with this cult band, they had been around for the last 27 years, producing independent, experimental music on their own imprint (Abduction) before the passing of Gocher finished the band for good. The Bishop brothers stated that they would no longer continue to tour using the name Sun City Girls, to honour their late friend (Gocher passed away in February 2007 after a lengthly battle with cancer).

The songs of SCG are macabre, sexually explicit and funny as hell. They contain a classic feeling that you might find in old Roscoe Holcomb recordings or in the dilapidated haunted house ride at your rural county fair. There is something genuine about these guys that makes you forget that they’re singing songs about annihilating the whole human race or suffocating children in their sleep (title: Crib Death) and just appreciate the whole experience.

The final gesture of this dark tribute occurred after a brief dialogue between the brothers over some vintage musak, when Alan Bishop reached into a box that sat upon a table, poured something into his hands (I thought he was rolling a joint) and walked up to the front of the stage. He tossed a dusty substance into the air as a cloud billowed upwards into the stage lights. Applause filled the room as a small portion of Charles Gocher’s ashes slowly settled on the heads of those in the front row…