The Gun Club were from California, as was Credence Clear Water Revival. The Gun Club mined Bayou culture for their sound, as did CCR. The Gun Club sang about murder, sex, drugs, violence and feelings of abject depravity, unlike CCR.
While many of the influential Los Angeles punk band’s songs mention swamps or voodoo and shamanistic tendencies, the second track on The Gun Club’s second album, Miami is their most obvious appropriation of Southern culture.
“Like Calling Up Thunder” features a guitar lick very similar to the opening notes of “Dixie” and contains the refrain, “Look away, look away, look away and leave me alone.”
There doesn’t seem to be much of a reason for evoking the anthem of the Confederacy, but it’s influence is obviously present, and it does add an appropriately ancient, decrepit air to a song about summoning lighting, communicating with spirits and killing.
“Like Calling Up Thunder” is a typically excellent, unhinged song by The Gun Club.
The Ear Regular 