The Burning Nerve Ending Magic Podcast :: A Sun City Girls Story

The year was 1978 at CMU in Mount Pleasant, MI, the U.S. was in a period of "Deep Standby" after the end of the horredndous Vietnam War in 1975, there was the Jonestown Massacre, the beginning of the Iranian revolution, and a historic blizzard that took place in January, which caused over 20 deaths, 100,000 cars to be abandoned on highways, prompting President Carter to declare a disaster area, fo...

Ian Folke Svenonius is a multi-instrumentalist, author, filmmaker, and host of the acclaimed web video series Soft Focus in the late 2000s. A legend in the Washington, DC, punk/hardcore movement that shaped the radiating subconscious of the American youth during Regan's destructive reign in the 1980s, Svenonius has lead groups like the mighty Dischord Records' band The Nation of Ulysses, Weird War...

Campisano has an incredibly interesting relationship and a cosmic connection to the Sun City Girls and its members, in particular, the late, great Charles Gocher. While attending Arizona State University (ASU) in the 1980s, she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography, but not without its creative challenges. Many may not know this, but Gocher worked in the school cafeteria through Marriott...

On this episode, we speak to local legend, engineer, musician, and founder of Tempest Recording, Clarke Rigsby, who knew the band before their prolific output of metaphysical material in the 1980s with the Cloaven Tape series. With the release of the legendary compilation "Ominous Clouds - Produced For Citizens For A Non-Nuclear Future", which featured the Sun City Girls' first vinyl appearance, a...

Before the highly influential and groundbreaking "Riot Grrrl" movement began taking shape in the 1990s, with bands like Bikini Kill and Bratmobile, empowering women in music and the arts, there was the Phoenix, Arizona-based trio Burning Bush out in the desert, laying the groundwork for perhaps one of the most important periods in the American underground scene at the time. Featuring members Audre...

Several groups come to mind when reflecting on the sonic scene of Tempe/Phoenix, Arizona, throughout the 1980s. While surfing across the spiritual surface of the desert, and its dry destinations into the vibrant void, one can still hear the staticky screams of Mighty Sphincter, Poet's Corner, Joke Flower, Killer Pussy, J.F.A., or course, the Sun City Girls, and the brother-led trio the Meat Puppet...

Depending on when you where born, most people know exactly where they were, who they were with, and if it was on a school night, or not when Fugazi's "Repeater" was released, or "Facelift" by Alice In Chains, "Goo" by Sonic Youth, "People's Instinctive Travels and The Paths Of Rhythm" by A Tribe Called Quest in 1991, and rightfully so. These are just a just a few academic artifacts of a decade tha...

Jeff Jones's all-around philosophy of music would forever change once he relocated to Arizona to attend ASU in the late 1970s. Coming from a more traditional atmosphere that approached music parallel to its time, Jones began to infiltrate the local scene in search of like-minded people to connect with. Not only would he be creatively challenged, but his spiritual senses would be harmoniously heigh...

During the summer of 1990 (we discovered later after recording), a Minneapolis-based radio DJ (KAFI), artist, and musician by the name of Patti Walsh, shared an unforgettable season of spirituality, laughter, madness, and epic travel with the Sun City Girls as the "unlicensed" bus driver for the band's tour with the City of Lakes-based female rockers of political power, The Pseudonymphs. Both grou...

To kick off a brand new season, we decided to go back to the very beginning, where it all started, and catch up with Paris 1942's Jesse Scrogoncik to talk a little bit more about Moe's legacy and the integral role she not only had in the band's short-lived history but also for the revolution of women in music everywhere over the last half century. Even though the group only played four shows, they...

If Alex Coxen, the madman behind all things Milk Music/Mystic 100's/Graffiti Phallico/Worn Spiral, were alive during te Sun City Girls' radioactive reign on society's senses in the 1980s, his iconic illustrations would have been all over the band's bootlegs, t-shirts, show posters, and other various alchemical artifacts without a doubt. Bridging the gap and endless distance between the parameters...

It's bitter-sweet wrapping this two part episode up with the legend behind the Phoenix, Arizona-based label Placebo Records, Tony "Victor" Beram, but all good things must come to an end. Or do they? For this epic episode of "The Burning Nerve Ending Magic Podcast," we sit down with Beram to discuss the band's last two cult classic LPs on the label, 1986's "Grotto of Miracles," and 1987's "Horse Co...

It's hard to say, if at all possible, where the Sun City Girls would be if they hadn't released their groundbreaking self-titled LP on famed Phoenix, Arizona-based label Placebo Records in 1984. As a prolific powerhouse that would later go on to self-release a treasure trove of metaphysical material, the band's harmoniously humble days in the 1980s were marked by their cosmic connection with local...

Imagine being on the road touring with the Sun City Girls for over a month in the autumn of 1992, pulling poetic pranks, and making memories that you'll continue to carry with you for the rest of your life. Memories that you reflect upon to make sure that life wasn't some Truman Show reality trick, and that it really did happen. From Vancouver, Canada, to Winnipeg, Columnus, OH, to home base in Te...

Before his long-running career as a legendary stand-up comedian, Neil Hamburger, Gregg Turkington was a prominent fan figure in the highly influential Tempe/Phoenix, Arizona music scene of the 1980s, which ultimately gave birth to such notable acts like the Meat Puppets, Mighty Sphincter, skate punk legends J.F.A. (Jodie Foster's Army), and, of course, the Sun City Girls. As a young teen, Turkingt...

For this episode of The Burning Nerve Ending Magic Podcast, we decided to cover some bands and cultural happenings adjacent to SCG to add context to the times. We begin by diving into Grails' classic cover of "Space Prophet Dogon" and discussing some of Emil's time with Jandek as it runs parallel to his meeting with Alan Bishop, and how both of those characters helped change the course of his arti...

Have you ever wondered about the deranged details and mind-numbing narrative behind the Sun City Girls' infamous comic "The Brothers Uncconected" that was featured alongside the 1992 7-inch "Napolene & Josephine"? If there was some graphic novel, and I do mean graphic, to come out of the collective's consciousness that ultimately demonstrated the poetic possession of demonic dynamics between thoug...

Arizona-based music journalist Marc Masters has contributed to several notable platforms over the years, like Pitchfork, Bandcamp Daily, The Wire, and NPR Music, and has even published his own books, "No Wave," and, most recently, "Hi Bias: The Distorted History Of The Cassette Tape." A brilliant writer whose dedication to the collective culture of sound and its harmonious history is just as inspi...

Hailing from The Great White North, Sam Shalabi is one of those rare talents that effortlessly bridges the global gaps, both musically and politically, in a familiar way that echoes the essence of society and culture at its most critical condition. From the boreal borders of his country's forests to the poetically sharp physiographic regions, while simultaneously inhabiting the ancient atmosphere...

There are several topics, cosmic concerns and esoteric elements that spiritually surround the wild and wonderful world of the Sun City Girls. One in particular that comes to mind is the universally dense phenomenon of the UFO subject. Smitten by the legndary lore, the band has effortlessly explored and eagerly expressed their critical connection to one of the greatest mysteries known to man, which...

From the cold, calculated catacombs of Kolkata, formerly known as Calcutta since 2001, a spiritually sophisticated system of songs, esoteric emotions, and liberating legends lurks in its sinister shadows. It's a safe assumption that when you think of Seatlle in the 1990s, bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden come up, but what about the Arizona-based collective and institution of intensit...

The short-lived, Phoenix, Arizona-based outfit, Paris 1942, consisted of the Bishop brothers, Alan and Rick, who had recently established the famed Sun City Girls, former drummer of the Velvet Underground, Moe Tucker, and Jesse Srogoncik. Together for a short four months in the early 1980s, the band took atmospheric advantage of the time given together by relentlessly recording their feverish find...