Sun City Girls :: “330,003 Crossdressers From Beyond The Rig Veda” - Abduction
A circus of cerebral celebrations in anarchist analog elements, blending the simultaneous sounds of both the metabolic mind and the anthology of the afterlife in one fair swing of an ax. The Lebanese decanted brothers Alan and Richard, known to many as The Bishops Brothers, or Brother Unconnected, were born in Saginaw, Michigan with the vibrant influences of family, lodge members that periodically practiced the spiritual sounds of the sacred oud, while also being well versed in the Knights Templar doctrine and the Egyptian Rites of Memphis and Mithrais. Giving the brothers an early entry into esotericism and the magical memories of family tradition to pull from during their more formative years, the siblings eventually found themselves in Phoenix, AZ towards the end of the 70s to initiate their ectoplasmic explorations in righteous ritual, melodic meditation and the ultimate connection to the hilarity of the hive-mind.
Performing at coffee shops and open mics, while simultaneously interrogating the local scene, the brothers eventually met the miraculous mastermind of the late Charles Gocher, and together formed one of the most creatively conscious and sincerely sinister groups of the last 20th century. The iconic impact of their cultural consciousness and depraved dynamics is something only legends are made of. The radical risk-taking and androgynous ability to be in the present moment shatters the thin eggshell walls that separate them from being ‘just a band’, but that of a rare renaissance of extraterrestrial excellence in poetic justice. Officially becoming Sun City Girls as far back as 1979, the trio, without wasting any precious time, immediately got to work on the metaphysical material, world traveling and sonic summoning of their shape-shifting excellence in expression.
With the release of the “Cloaven Tape Series”, most notably “God is My Solar System” and "The Multiple Hallucinations of an Assassin”, throughout the 1980s, the band had already generated enough material to retire thousands of groups across the United States and beyond, but with a shift in format for the band, they released, one of many, monumental classics on vinyl with 1984’s “S/T”, “Grotto of Miracles” in 1986 and the band’s 1990 ‘Dark Side of the Mood’, "Torch of the Mystics". While some may not notice this valuable detail, it should be greatly noted that the vinyl format brings a more serious, confident element to any band's history and output into the obvious oblivion. Naturally, it turns up the volume as well as heightens the vibrations of the creative process and Sun City Girls didn't leave off the productive pedal to this visceral vehicle until the untimely departure of the late Charles Gocher in 2007, retiring the group most indefinitely.
But something happened to the band in the 1990s that remains a murderous mystery to this day and what better place to start than with the subliminal masterpiece, “330,003 Crossdressers From Beyond The Rig Veda”, that was released in 1996 on their very own imprint, Abduction Records. A double album of telepathic tangents into the intimate darkness of the molded mind that circles the world cultivating crop circles like that of some medieval machine. It’s truly remarkable just how intense and instantaneous this album can teleport its listeners to a candle-lit seance someplace in Kolkata, or any of the ritualistic rivers of Indonesia within moments of its listening. With tracks such as “Lies Up the Niger”, the half hour long opus that is “Ghost Ghat Trespass / Sussmeier”, “Cruel and Thin” and “Cineraria Blue” all bridging the seemingly endless gap between life and death, the band finds sincere success collaborating with legends like Eyvind Kang and Scott Colburn, while also communicating with the dead via the unholy gadgets brought on by spiritual smoke, calculated chanting and the almost holographic unity of solidarity that can be found on every single release in the band’s notoriously narcotic catalog of mutilated mystery and exciting enchantment.
