Sun City Girls was a melting pot of free rock, demented surf, ragas, Arabic folk songs, free-form freakouts, gamelan percussion and dada poetry, among various others. A fiercely independent trio, their only credo seemed to be to continually stretch boundaries whilst leaning towards performance art in their live shows. This process led to a dizzying array of vinyl, cassette and CD releases stretching over 20 years.
Formed in Phoenix, AZ, Sun City Girls first performed under the name Fuck You in 1979, and after morphing into the short-lived Paris 1942 (with former Velvet Underground drummer Maureen Tucker), the group emerged as a trio with brothers Alan Bishop and Sir Richard Bishop and percussionist Charles Gocher in 1982. They released their first album, Sun City Girls, in 1984 on placebo Records, going on to release nearly 30 official albums and countless limited-edition vinyl, cassette, and CD-R projects, making their discography almost impossible to completely document.
Throughout their history, Sun City Girls remained a challenging, unpredictable and eclectic musical unit, operating outside the commercially driven mainstream recording industry and eventually becoming something of a beacon to independent musicians and artists everywhere. Relocating to Seattle in the early ’90s, Sun City Girls established their own label, Abduction Records, as well as an archival imprint, Sublime Frequencies.
The Girls’ lineup changed forever on February 19th 2007, when Charles Gocher passed away. In memoriam site with eulogies, articles and a/v media: http://www.charlesgocher.org. The Bishop brothers then went on one last tour, throwing a bit of Gocher’s ashes into the audience at the end of each concert. |
