Sun City Girls

- by Steve Leggett
An eclectic mix of every musical style one can think of -- demented surf, Indian and Asian improvisation, free-form noise, fractured folk, you name it -- with doses of kabuki theater, shadow puppetry, and maverick guerilla stagecraft thrown in, the avant-everything Sun City Girls are a fiercely independent and experimental trio whose only credo seems to be to continually stretch boundaries while remaining amazingly inclusive, a process that has led to a dizzying array of vinyl, cassette, and CD releases in the past 20 years. Forming in Phoenix, AZ, Sun City Girls first performed under that name in 1981, 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 Richard Bishop and percussionist Charles Gocher in 1982. SCG released their first album, Sun City Girls, in 1984 on Placebo Records, going on to release nearly 30 official albums since then, along with countless limited-edition vinyl, cassette, and CD-R projects, making the group's discography almost impossible to completely . Throughout its history SCG has remained a challenging, unpredictable, and eclectic musical unit, operating outside the commercially driven aspirations of the mainstream recording industry, and the group has become somewhat 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.
They ceased to function as a band when Charles Gocher passed away in 2007, though the Bishop Brothers have remained active--separately and together--issuing recordings under their own and different names.
- translated by phoulx
你能想到的所有音乐风格的揉合，狂躁冲浪、印度和亚洲即兴、自由噪音、破碎民摇——随便你怎么称呼它。加上歌舞伎表演、皮影戏以及游击队的舞台风格，这支先锋的 Sun City Girls 明显是一个极其独立而实验的三人组合，他们唯一的信条大概就是不断地扩大他们的音乐边界，同时不可思议地包容一切——最终带给我们的是令人眼花缭乱的一系列黑胶、磁带和 CD。
Sun City Girls 成立于亚利桑那州的凤凰城，1981 年第一次演出。在短暂更名为「Paris 1942」（加入 Velvet Underground 前鼓手 Maureen Tucker）之后，他们在 1982 年重新成为三人组合——两兄弟 Alan Bishop、Richard Bishop 和打击乐手 Charles Gocher。他们的第一张同名专辑由 Placebo Records 发布于 1984 年，之后不断发布了近三十张专辑，另外还有不计其数的限量版黑胶、磁带和 CD-R，使得集齐他们的所有唱片近乎不可能。
由始至终，SCG 保持了一种富有挑战性的、不可预测的、兼收并蓄的音乐团体，远离主流唱片界的商业气息，也在某种程度上成为了各地独立音乐人和艺术家的灯塔。九十年代早期，他们搬到西雅图，并成立了自己的唱片公司（Abduction Records）和 Sublime Frequencies（一个限量发行田野录音、民族音乐和影像的厂牌，材料主要来自东南亚、北非、西非和中东地区）。
成员 Charles Gocher 在 2007 年去世之后，乐队停止了活动，而 Bishop 两兄弟仍然以他们自己的名义保持创作。