While I am listening to an album, I will often look up the rock band or artist that I am listening to on Allmusic in order to check out something about them.  I will also hit Wikipedia to see whether there is an article there, meaning that they might be a future UARB or UARA.  

One day, I put in PHIL GAMMAGE in Allmusic . . . and nothing came up.  Still doesn’t.  In some ways, it was less than nothing – there were 7 (yes, seven) albums listed by Phil Gammage, released between 1990 and 2014.  But there was not a word of review about any of them, not a biography, not an Allmusic rating (number of stars).  In fact, until I just put in a 4½-star rating of his album Cry of the City, there wasn't even a “user rating” – many albums on Allmusic have hundreds or thousands of them, and I have posted several dozen myself. 

*       *       * 

Naturally Wikipedia has nothing on Phil Gammage either, or I wouldn’t be writing this.  But there is a long article on the post-punk band Certain General that Gammage co-founded in 1980. 

But in Allmusic?  Nothing on Certain General either – well, almost nothing.  Eleven albums by Certain General are listed on Allmusic, coming out between 1984 and 2010.  A short review by Richie Unterberger of their first full album, November’s Heat is provided; but this is the only album with an Allmusic rating, and there are just 8 user ratings among the 11 albums.  This is from the website which has as its aim to compile “discographic information on every artist who’s made a record since Enrico Caruso gave the industry its first big boost”. 

*       *       * 

I knew of Phil Gammage from a sort of CD EP that I got many years ago called The Electric Radio Sampler Music Test, I believe in a grab-bag package from Bomp! Records.  Two of the songs from Cry of the City, “The Stranger” and “High Roller” were on that record that I immediately took to – slice-of-life stories that were well written and backed by a strong rock band.  His vocals are a little idiosyncratic – he doesn’t have a trained voice and has some trouble with high notes, but he packs a lot of emotion into his music.  It never occurred to me that Phil Gammage might be someone who had fallen so completely through the cracks. 

At the beginning of the “Bio” section of his website is a quote from Trouser Press that says of Phil Gammage’s music:  “. . . underwrought darkside Americana echoing Nick Cave’s fascinations minus the melodrama.  Which might well make Gammage this generation’s Hank Williams.” 

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Before long, I picked up a copy of the full Phil Gammage CD Cry of the City, and the whole album is equally good.  The opening track, “Tough Town” sets the mood:  the narrator has lost his job, found his woman in bed with another man, drinks all night, but:  “Yeah, it’s a tough town, but I’m still around”.  In “Castle Made of Sand”, he relates:  “Yeah, ain’t it funny how things sometimes work out / One day you’re on easy street, the next you’re down and out”.  Other songs follow the same theme:  “I Took a Walk”, “Wait for the Dawn”, “Motel Called Loneliness”. 

The closing song, “The Stranger” is maybe the best song of all on Cry of the City; this is the first time Phil Gammage openly sings from the standpoint of a traveling musician, and he seems out of step with everyone and everything around him (which is not exactly the stance of the earlier songs on the album).  The subtext of the song might be his own experience of being an American who finds himself more popular in Europe:

     Is there anybody here who speaks the language?

     Is there anybody here who knows what I mean? 

     I am but a stranger here

     And I have traveled long and far

     with just the shirt on my back and my guitar

     I’ve come to sing you songs of love

     I’ve come to sing you songs of hate

     But someone pass me the wine before it gets too late 

     Alright!

     O.K.!

     You don’t speak my tongue but I’ll sing anyway

“The Stranger” is preceded by a fine cover of a Robert Johnson song (always a good sign) called “Me and the Devil Blues”.  It is played and sung pretty much like the rest of the songs – no need for Phil Gammage’s band to disturb their groove even for a classic blues cover.  But each song has its own personality. 

The best word to describe the album for me is genuine – so much so that it is not hard at all to imagine Phil Gammage himself being genuine as well.  It might be because Phil appears to be singing about home, that is, his hometown of Houston, though it could just as easily be an amalgam of all of the cities where Phil has lived over the years.  For instance, the crashing waves imagery in “Waves” doesn't really fit Houston (although Galveston isn’t that far away), and the grit in so many of these songs seems all New York to me – but of course, I have personal experience in that city. 

Phil Gammage clearly has made a lot of friends in what had already been a dozen years in music.  Martin Blazy, who was a fellow bandmember in the Corvairs, serves as the drummer on Cry of the City; and the female vocalist, Wendy Wild had been an artist in the East Village scene when Certain General was starting up.  Bassist D. Lee is from Band of Outsiders, and David Kaufman had been in the Nails / the Ravers. 

Also, Peter Holsapple, who produced the first Certain General effort Holiday of Love, is a kindred soul – he is another Southern musician whose band, the dB’s had greater success in Europe than in the States. 

*       *       * 

As to the stance that Phil Gammage takes on Cry of the City, other rockers have taken this tack, but it usually doesn’t sound that bad.  Bob Seger’s “Turn the Page” – a longtime favorite of mine, and if anything, Metallica’s 1998 cover of “Turn the Page” is even better than the 1973 original – explores themes of boredom and isolation, but not poverty and danger.  This is not true of the music video that accompanied the Metallica song, however, which follows a single mother who works as an exotic dancer and a prostitute. 

In Bruce Springsteen’s “Glory Days”, ballplayers and good lookers from schoolboy days are mentioned; in Phil Gammage’s “The Glory Years”, he is talking about happier times in an oil town that has gone bust.  (To be sure, Springsteen has talked about hard times in many of his other songs). 

In Phil Gammage’s songs, the imagery and the settings are strong enough that you are there with the singer, even when he is in the gutter.  On the other hand, his songs are not gloomy at all; the music is upbeat for the most part, and there is a sense of triumphing over hardship, of being blessed with what you have. 

The band backing Phil Gammage (on lead vocals, guitar and harmonica) on Cry of the City – Martin Blazy (drums, percussion, vocals), Dennis DeMeo (pedal steel guitar), Vincent DeNunzio (percussion, harmonica, vocals), David Kaufman (piano, organ), D. Lee (bass), Wendy Wild (vocals), and Victor Winograd (guitars) – has an easy, loping sound.  The basic template I suppose is blues rock, but the steel guitar gives much of the album a country sheen; and it is nice to hear some great harmonica for a change (two harmonica players are listed in the credits, and how rare is that?), along with occasional bongo drums.  The piano is particularly welcome in the mix, and all of the wonderful guitar of course. 

At the beginning of the liner notes for the Phil Gammage CD Cry of the City is a free-verse poem that reads like verses and a chorus for a song; it must lay out the philosophy behind this album.  (As it turns out, this poem forms the lyrics for a song called “Route 65” that is included on both Lowlife Street and Motel Songs).  It ends:

     My car’s standing still 

     And the world is whizzing by my window

     That’s how I like it

     Me and my dog

     And this cracklin’ voice

     Coming at me from my radio

     He’s telling me who I am, 

     He’s telling me what I think, 

     Well let me tell you something pal

     I ain’t no dead cat on Route 65

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The two songs that introduced me to Phil Gammage were on a sampler album entitled The Electric Radio Sampler Music Test (1993).  The album is probably intended to be played inside record stores as an inducement to purchase albums on sale by the label who released it, Marilyn Records.  It doesn’t look like much, but there is some great music on this little CD.  Besides the two Phil Gammage songs, there are two by Flamin’ Groovies guitarist Chris Wilson.  The opening track, “If Wishes Were Horses” is based on the old saying “if wishes were horses, then beggars would ride” – one of those sayings where everyone only seems to say the first half and often forgets how the rest of it goes (I had for this saying).  On this song, he is backed by a San Francisco indie rock band, the Sneetches. 

The other Chris Wilson song, “The Derelict” is even better – it is the “yo ho ho and a bottle of rum” pirate song.  The original song was made up by Robert Louis Stevenson for his 1883 adventure tale, Treasure Island.  Young Ewing Allison, a newspaperman of that era, wrote a full poem based on the short verse included in the novel.  Accompanied by a gritty rock band called (appropriately enough) the Barbary Coasters (also from San Francisco), the lyrics are taken from that poem and I believe include all six stanzas.  I also have the full CD by Chris Wilson that includes both songs, Back on the Barbary Coast. 

There is also a Kim Fowley song, “Rockin’ in the Balkans”, and the EP rounds out with “I Pledge Allegiance To Disobedience” by the outrageous GG Allin & the Murder Junkies. 

*       *       * 

Marilyn Records was a European label that was founded by French musician Patrick Boissel in the mid-1980’s.  After a number of French and Spanish releases, Marilyn began handling the sort of musicians and bands that gravitate to Bomp! Records.  Suzy Shaw of Bomp! Records met Boissel at a record convention, and Marilyn Records became their distributor in Europe.  One result was a great compilation album that I have of previous Bomp! Records releases called From L.A. with Love (1992) that features the Plimsouls, the Flamin’ Groovies, Stiv Bators, Jeff Dahl, the Stooges, and the Zeros. 

In the mid-1990’s, Patrick Boissel moved to Los Angeles in order to work for Bomp! Records.  Right away he formed his own label called Alive Naturalsound Records (usually shortened to Alive Records).  He and Suzy Shaw married, and they now run the Bomp! empire together.  

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Phil Gammage’s early years in music are told in a website on the Colorado New Wave/Punk scene called scarletdukes.com.  The author on many of these posts on various bands is named Icepick Phil, and there is a good chance that this writer is also Phil Gammage, since Gammage has been in a band called the Scarlet Dukes.  The reportage is certainly from someone who was there to see this music happen, that’s for sure. 

Phil Gammage is from Houston and went to college at the University of Colorado.  He was walking through one of the classroom buildings early in the school year in 1977 and heard some raucous music being played.  It seems that a fine arts professor at the college, Jerry Kunkel had been to the CBGB club, the punk-rock mecca in New York City; there he had heard Ramones, Television and some other early punk bands.  He came back to the university inspired to start a rock band himself.  

The practice session that Phil Gammage heard was Jerry Kunkel on lead vocals, his new wife Marsha Vann Kunkel on bass guitar, and Jerry Budwig on guitar.  Phil picked up a guitar and plugged in; by the end of the night, he was asked to join the band.  Drummer Peter Roos was originally from New England and had also seen Television; he joined the band shortly afterward. 

Originally called Sidewalk Strut, the new band took the name Joey Vain and Scissors.  In the spirit of the times, several of the bandmembers took new names:  Phil Gammage was Phil Damage, the drummer Peter Roos became Peter Vacant, and their original guitarist Jerry Budwig took the name Sevin Sister (a play on the bug killer Sevin Dust I guess).  The Kunkels kept their real names. 

Joey Vain and Scissors played early punk rock classics like the Ramones’ “Beat on the Brat” and Jonathan Richman’s “Pablo Picasso” but soon began writing their own songs with titles like “New Tattoo”, “Why Do I Have to Wear This Collar”, and “That’s What I Like”.  They put together a six-song demo and started playing local clubs.  An overview of the band by Icepick Phil says this about their live performances: 

“Singer Jerry Kunkel cut a dark and menacing stance on stage.  Wearing his silk Tokyo jacket and sporting an earring (one of the few men to do so at that time in Boulder), he soon grew adept at working the crowd.  With the band playing their churning and sometime droning rock behind him he sang or spoke his lyrics with a satirical tone that was sometimes humorous, sometimes disturbing.  Needless to say, this was not your typical music coming out of Boulder, Colorado in 1977.” 

In early 1978, Joey Vain and Scissors had the good/bad fortune to play as the opening act for Elvis Costello on campus at the Glenn Miller Ballroom.  This was the biggest crowd they had ever played for, but the audience evidently was expecting Ramones clones and were hostile during their set.  The discouragement from that experience soon led to the band breaking up.  Jerry Kunkel would shortly be appointed head of the Fine Arts Department at the University of Colorado, Jerry Budwig moved to San Francisco, and Peter Roos became the drummer for the Nightflames, whose first concert was opening for Joey Vain and Scissors at their final performance in March 1978. 

*       *       * 

After Joey Vain and Scissors broke up, Phil Gammage got another band together called the Corvairs.  He and another student Miles Syken agreed to form a rock band; Syken had been the guitarist in a high-energy cover band called the Mutilators, with the remaining members of that band becoming a punk band called Defex.  Jon Cormany had just returned from playing in New York City with Boulder’s first punk rock band the Ravers (who by then had become the Nails – they are now one of my favorite New Wave bands since I picked up their album, Dangerous Dreams), and he was in the audience for their first show at the Moose Club as the opening act for the Nightflames.  He became the band’s bassist by their next concert.  By the spring of 1979, Jimmy Frost joined up as their permanent drummer.  Icepick Phil describes their sound in the early years as “a hybrid of a 60’s pop sound, surf, and artsiness”. 

In June 1979, the Corvairs recorded a demo consisting of five original songs, including a Phil Gammage song, “Hands of Time”.  A CD released in 2000 includes this music; called Denver Sessions ’79, it is still available from PreFab International Recordings.  Also that summer, the Corvairs played two shows at the Blue Note club, one of them opening for the Cleveland band Pere Ubu. 

*       *       * 

After several dates on the West Coast, with two New Yorkers in the line-up the Corvairs moved East, where they stayed together for nearly a decade.  Over that period of time, Miles Syken left the band before their main recording period, and Martin Blazy joined as the drummer in 1986.  The Corvairs released two EP’s – Temple Fire (1983), which included “Hands of Time”; and Sad Hotel (1985) – and two LP’s – Rio Blanco (1987) and Hitchhiker (1989 –France only).  A 22-song retrospective called Unsafe at Any Speed – also the title of Ralph Nader’s famed book Unsafe at Any Speed on the ill-fated Chevrolet car – came out in 2006 on PreFab International Recordings. 

*       *       * 

Certain General came together in late 1980 in the East Village art scene.  Before they ever played a club date, the duo of painter and poet Parker Dulany (vocals) and Phil Gammage (guitar) gained some renown by performing at private parties, art openings and after-hours parties.  The rhythm section for the band was bass guitarist Russell Berke (who had played with free-jazz pioneer Carla Bley) and drummer Marcy Saddy (who was in the Toronto band the B-Girls).  At different times, Certain General was the house band at two legendary New York nightclubs, CBGB and Danceteria. 

*       *       * 

In 1982, the band signed with the New York independent record label Labor Records and issued their first release, an EP called Holiday of Love.  The mini-album was produced by Peter Holsapple of the dB’s and mixed by Michael Gira of the experimental rock band Swans – “an interesting pairing if there ever was one”, said Nick West in a review for Bucketfull of Brains.  (I don’t know much about Swans, except for their startling 1988 cover of the Joy Division masterpiece, “Love Will Tear Us Apart”).  According to Wikipedia:  “Holiday [of Love] garnered rave reviews, among them a Trouser Press piece that cited the disc as being created ‘for all the teenage devils of the world’.” 

*       *       * 

November’s Heat, Certain General’s first full-length album came out in 1984; like much of the Corvairs’ music, it was first released only in France, in 1984 on the L’Invitation au Suicide record label (yes, that means “the invitation to suicide”).  In 1995, the French music magazine Rock & Folk named November’s Heat as one of the best albums released between 1985 and 1995.  The album was finally released in the U.S. in 1999 and has recently been reissued on CD. 

Since Allmusic has nothing else about Certain General, it is not surprising that Richie Unterberger’s review of November’s Heat is lukewarm.  After granting them three stars (basically equivalent to a “gentleman’s C” in the Allmusic rating system, which goes up to five stars), Unterberger has some backhanded compliments for the album:  “It’s very much a record that’s emblematic of the post-punk dark ages descending on the underground in the mid-1980’s.  Funky basslines and mannered vocals (by guitarist Parker Dulany) convey a muted anguish, somber and obtuse lyrics, and not a whole lot of melody.  There’s a somewhat goth mood to the sound, though it’s not as over-the-top as that of the true goth bands of the time; there’s also something of a British feel to the approach (especially in the vocals), although again it’s not quite as dyed-in-the-wool UK as actual bands from that country.  It’s not as creepy or disturbing as it tries to be.” 

*       *       * 

More generous praise can be found in the Wikipedia article.  Reviewing a 1984 Certain General show at New York’s Pyramid club, the UK-based New Musical Express called the band “New York’s answer to [Echo and] the Bunnymen with a few [Jim] Morrison tendencies thrown in” [but with] “plenty of individuality and a lead singer full of passionate presence — agonized lyrics torn from twitching limbs.”  The review concluded by observing that Certain General was “almost psychedelic in their unfettered spirit”.  Bomp! Records – whose affiliated label Alive Records reissued November’s Heat in America in 1999 – has called them “NYC’s 80's cult favorite”, while Rock & Folk identified Certain General as “the bridge between Television and Radiohead”. 

*       *       * 

Phil Gammage left Certain General in 1985 and evidently returned to the Corvairs for a time; he then began pursuing a solo career.  Prior to Cry of the City, he released two albums on a French label, New Rose Records, Night Train and Kneel to the Rising Sun.  Last Call Records, yet another French label that issued his fourth solo album Lowlife Street (1999), says of this early trio of albums:  “These records showcased Phil’s songwriting, guitar playing and vocals talents and found him exploring in depth blues and acoustic musical styles.”  Of the new album, the promo material states:  “This record takes up musically where his previous three solo records left off . . . original songs written by Gammage and performed in his unique and dynamic style.”  A retrospective album, Motel Songs came out in 2003 featuring songs from Phil Gammage’s first four CD’s. 

*       *       * 

The Last Call Records website also mentions two other bands that Phil Gammage has been in recently:  “As the nineties have progressed, Phil Gammage has continued to grow as both an artist and musician.  On the 1998 Voodoo Martini release Exotic and Mysterious, the Sounds of Voodoo Martini, Phil explored Latin and lounge rhythms as both a composer and vocalist/guitarist.  He has also worked with New York City jazz musicians in a new project called the Scarlet Dukes.” 

The 2008 album Rogue Escapades by the Scarlet Dukes is another Phil Gammage recording that Allmusic has listed but not otherwise discussed. 

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In 1999, the original line-up of Certain General, including Phil Gammage reunited for an album called These Are the Days that was recorded in the CBGB club’s basement studio for Hilly Kristal’s CBGB Records.  The French label Fantastica Records officially released the album, and the band mounted a tour of France accompanied by the Fleshtones, a band that came along with the early punk and new wave bands but was basically a garage rock band. 

These Are the Days by Certain General was produced by Genya Ravan, the former lead singer of perhaps the very first all-female rock band Goldie and the Gingerbreads.  She was also in the band Ten Wheel Drive and has released several solo albums; I have Urban Desire (1978) myself.  Among her other production credits are the Dead Boys’ first studio album, Young, Loud and Snotty (1977).  That’s two important punk rock albums that I know of which were produced by women, the other being the 1979 album by the Germs, (GI), which was produced by Joan Jett (a veteran of another all-female band the Runaways). 

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Since I only have Cry of the City thus far, I have Phil Gammage’s playlist on from his website, www.philgammage.com.  Just one great song after another; they are mostly original songs, but one is a cover of “Baby, Let Me Follow You Down”, a traditional folk song that Bob Dylan included on his first album that I discussed earlier, Bob Dylan; another standout is an instrumental guitar-driven track called “Royal Flush”.  (Two of Phil Gammage’s solo albums have been all instrumentals). 

The playlist is mostly coming I imagine from his 2014 album Adventures in Bluesland that has made several “Best of 2014” lists by Rock NYC (New York), NBTMusic (Germany), Musik fra Kyst til Kyst (Denmark), and Insurgent Country Radio Girl (Holland).  Iman Lababedi of Rock NYC Live and Recorded has written of this album:  “It is really about Phil’s wonderful singing. . . .  Phil doesn’t have a bad song in the bunch on this perfectly executed faux-blues album.”  

*       *       * 

Stephen Graziano, the manager and booking agent for Certain General, put together a label called SourMash Records in order to issue music by Phil Gammage and his associated bands in the US.  As described by Graziano:  “Stressing cooperation, sharing, and interdependence, both Certain General and Band of Outsiders, in partnership, financed, and organized, totally in-house, the first SourMash Records release, Far Away In America.”   Band of Outsiders was a band that was reorganized from a late 1970’s power pop band called The Limit.  Another band released on SourMash Records was Phil Gammage’s earlier band the Corvairs, which was in New York by this point. 

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In 1995, Phil Gammage founded PreFab International Recordings as a way to present his music on the Internet; their site can be found at:  http://www.scarletdukes.com/prefab/index.shtml .  Many records by Phil Gammage, the Corvairs, Certain General, the Scarlet Dukes, Voodoo Martini, and others can be found there.  

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Phil Gammage never made a lot of noise over here, but he has had a productive career through France and elsewhere in Europe.  As compiled by Stephen Graziano, this discography that is provided in the SourMash Records tribute on the same website is given below, as an indication of the torrent of music from Phil Gammage over the years.  The list is not exhaustive; I mentioned several albums earlier that are not on this list.  

Here follows a reprint of the Trouser Press Record Guide (4th Edition) listing for the SourMash family of bands. Though slightly garbled, it presents a fairly accurate overview of our thing in the 1980’s.

Steve G.  

CERTAIN GENERAL  

Holiday of Love EP (Labor) 1982 

November’s Heat (Fr. L’Invitation au Suicide) 1984 

     Reissued w/ bonus tracks (Fr. New Rose) 1990; (Alive) 1999; (Fr. Fantastica) 2002 

These Are the Days (Fr. New Rose) 1986 

     Reissued w/ bonus tracks (Fr. Fantastica 1999) 

Cabin Fever (Fr. Barclay) 1988 

Jacklighter (Fr. Barclay) 1990 

Signals From the Source (CBGB) 1999 

Closer To the Sun (Fr. Fantastica) 2000 

Live At the Public Theater (Fantastica US) 2001 

An Introduction to War (SourMash USA) 2002 

Invisible New York (Easy Action UK) 2008 

CERTAIN GENERAL /  BAND OF OUTSIDERS  

Far Away In America (SourMash) 1984 

Far Away in America / The Live Side EP (Fr. L’Invitation au Suicide) 1985 

BAND OF OUTSIDERS  

Up the River EP (nr/Flicknife) 1985 

Everything Takes Forever (Fr. L’Invitation au Suicide) 1985 

I Wish I Was Your Kid EP (nr/Flicknife) 1985 

Longer Than Always EP (Fr. L’Invitation au Suicide) 1985 

Act of Faith (Fr. Barclay) 1986 

Acts of Faith (SourMash) 1987 

Armistice Day (Nocturnal) 1989 

THE CORVAIRS  

Temple Fire EP (SourMash) 1984 

Sad Hotel EP (SourMash) 1985 

Rio Blanco (Cryptovision) 1988 

Hitchhiker (Fr. New Rose) 1989

Denver Sessions ’79 (MP3.com) 2001 

Unsafe at Any Speed (SourMash USA) 2006

PHIL GAMMAGE  

Night Train (Fr. New Rose) 1990

Kneel to the Rising Sun (Fr. New Rose) 1991 

     20th Anniv. Reissue (2011)

Cry of the City (Marilyn) 1993 

Lowlife Street (Fr. Last Call) 1999 

Motel Songs (SourMash USA) 2002 

MARC JEFFREY 

Playtime (nr/Conviction) 1990 (Behemoth) 1991  

(March 2015)

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Items:    Phil Gammage