Jeremy Samuel Gluck is an expatriate Canadian writer, artist, musician, and stuff ; for many years Jeremy lived in London, where in 1978 he formed The Barracudas, a cult garage surf-punk band with a Flamin' Groovies fetish filtered through anybody from Sam the Sham to The Stooges. He also wrote about rock'n'roll as Ralph Traitor, principally for Sounds but also under many names for MOJO and lots more. After The Barracudas died in their attempt to spawn upstream, Jeremy forged a solo career, sort of inventing alt. country with the help of Rowland S Howard, Nikki Sudden, Epic Soundtracks, Jeffrey Lee Pierce and other living and/or eternal legends, releasing an album and a half before disappearing into writing, churning out three novels, two of which even got published, tons of journalism, a screenplay, a lot of poetry (see...sensitive!!), and, for the demon gelt, some copywriting.
Amongst others Jeremy has collaborated with Zone, Nikki Sudden,Rowland S. Howard, Circo Fantasma, Indianpalms, Jack O'Leroy and many more.As of writing, Jeremy has published a memoir, Victim of Dreams and is releasing an eponymous solo album, to be released soon on Diesel Motor Records. A companion album of rare and unreleased material, The Rich Man's Burden is due on iTunes. He will also be performing live in London. A single, I Am Time has just been released on Perpetrator Records and tracks have been completed for various compilation albums including a forthcoming Television Personalities tribute on The Beautiful Music, who will also release a limited edition Jeremy Gluck album featuring rare and unreleased tracks, some which are posted already at Last FM . Jeremy also records electronic sound collage as Datawhore, whose albums can be obtained from iTunes and featured tracks heard and/or downloaded at Tapegerm.com. Jeremy is available for weddings, bar mitzvahs and exorcisms.
Buy Victim of Dreams - Civil War in the Soul now:
Photo by Kate McEwan
More than a decade after its original debut, the reissued version of classic cult album I Knew Buffalo Bill on CD combines all the original Flicknife material plus previously unreleased tracks. This critically-acclaimed work features a unique collaboration between Jeremy Gluck (Barracudas), Nikki Sudden (Swell Maps, Jacobites), Epic Soundtracks (Swell Maps, Crime and the City Solution, These Immortal Souls), Rowland S Howard (Birthday Party, These Immortal Souls) and Jeffrey Lee Pierce (Gun Club). Produced by Tony Cohen (Nick Cave).
Clock by Eleanor Gluck.
I Knew Buffalo Bill Forever stained, yet eternally unstained
It was a long, long time ago when I first met Jeremy Gluck. It was actually even longer than that it was back in the summer of 1978. Almost three decades have passed since those halcyon late Seventies days. He and his band, the Barracudas, seemed to spend every Saturday afternoon transversing Portobello Road, desperately looking for the surf or the big wave. As the song almost said, London's a lonely town when youre the only surfer boy around.
I remember that the Barracudas looked so young and adorable back then. Times change but our reasons for doing what we do never do. It never occurred to me then that wed record together. Swell Maps and the Barracudas occasionally played joint gigs but they always supported so that was fine. Ill assume that fate set its tender fingers lingering towards us from that instant. From that first Notting Hill moment we didn't stand a chance.
Jeremy and I got together one early Eighties evening in a strange cooperative type house he lived and loved in just up from Kings Cross. He thrust a bundle of raggedy and pretty ragged lyrics my way and after thinking for a couple of seconds I put some chords to the words. He seemed to like the results and so we went in the studio to lay down a version or two. For some reason known only to Jeremy the choice of locations was in a completely frozen and freezing warehouse somewhere in Brixton one of the more unlovely parts of old Albion. My chum Dave the Kusworth late of the wonderful but sadly unknown Subterranean Hawks and my pal, Tyla (then the guitarist and now the whole lot) from Dogs D'amour, joined us for this first recording session. The tapes havent been played since they were recorded but I have them safely stored in an ottoman that once belonged to my grandfather. Better was to come next time.
Jeremy interviewed me for the British music rag, Sounds, in the early eighties. With a touch of class involved I pipped for doing the chatter in the St. James Tea-room at Fortnum & Masons on Piccadilly to which I was accompanied by my ever-gorgeous friend Lizard (Max Edie). Jeremy did the piece and grabbed Liz for a while. A two-track demo session done at Lizards beautiful Kings Road house is also stored somewhere in my tape archives. One of these tracks, an early version of Four Seasons Of Trouble, ended up on a free LP given away with the third issue of What A Nice Way To Turn Seventeen.
Shortly after this I ended up at one October evening in the blight of 1983 at The Adams Arms in Conway Street, Fitzrovia. It was a girl called Sandys 21st birthday and I ended up as her chosen gift. Sandy lived in a strange tangled house up the hill in the doomed parish of Brixton for a while in the middle-eighties. Dave K and I got the Jacobites together and made an album. Then Jeremy tried to steal my girlfriend but I stole her back and by way of compensation Dave Kusworth stole a Barracudas tune for a Jacobites single. I was hanging with a lovely thing called Claire at the time so in the end fair turned out fair and everything came up pinned to the roses. Dave and I recorded our classic and then I split for Germany and new love.
A couple of girlfriends and a year or two later Jeremy and I ended up at Dave Peggs Woodworm studio in Barford St. Michael. Set in an old Baptist Chapel our purity of soul acclimatised itself perfectly into the idyllic surroundings and we began recording. We being Rowland Howard and Andy Bean who both played alongside Jeremy and me. My brother, Epic Soundtracks popped in one day and duly ended up on tape. It was that kind of record. If Barford St. Michael hadnt been so out of the way more folks would have dropped by and made their fleeting contributions but stuck as we were in the midst of Fairport Country we had to make our own way to heaven. Peggys local was out the door, up the street on the right but we werent there long enough to do more than pop our heads round the door a few times a day and it takes a bit more than that to be properly accepted by the locals. My parents lived in a Warwickshire village for fifteen years and were still seen as fureigners on the day they left.
I was already in the middle of sessions for two albums. Dead Men Tell No Tales and the joint Nikki / Rowland record, Kiss You Kidnapped Charabanc. Frenchy Gloders Flicknife Records bankrolled I Knew Buffalo Bill and Im sure I saw the hand of God there somewhere. Flicknife had released The Bible Belt, my second solo album, and never paid me for a single copy. They certainly paid more than their fair share of the recording budget for Buffalo Bill, but they got a great album out of it. Its a great way to confuse record companiesno one knew who was paying for what. And as long as the dealers got paid we werent too bothered
One evening my father popped along to Woodworm. He wandered into the studio during a playback of my song, Gallery Wharf. He commented that he liked the tune. This was the first time I can remember my dad posting enthusiasm for something Id done. I shouldnt have given the track away. Rowland and I should have kept the song back for our album. If nothing else I should have made a mix with my guide vocal track.
The recording sessions were a breeze. Dire Straits fan, Tim Matyear, engineered and although more used to folkies did a fine enough job. One strange memory from that time is that my father walking into the studio one night and saying that he really liked Gallery Wharf, It used to be very rare for him to actually comment on one of my songs. Rowland and I shouldnt have given the track away. At least I have a copy of the track with my vocal somewhere
Time rolls on and apparently the master-tapes got lost somewhere along the road. Most important though is that the music still sounds good. Rowland I havent seen since he returned to his homeland of Australia over a decade back but we still talk. Epic died long before his time and I still miss him most every day. Andy Bean remains a good friend and has journeyed from journeyman musician to record shop proprietor to accountant.
Jeremy also stays a friend though our meetings become more and more seldom with the passing of the years. But when you hide in the hills you have to come down to the valley at times. Jonathan Hodgson remains alive and well and living in London. He was once one of the Cult Figures, now he runs his own video company. Jeffrey Lee Pierce I never got on well with at all but he made some great records and I hope he sleeps easily.
I ended up taking Lucky Joe Drake to Tokyo with me and later on we played on a paddle steamer called The Cajun Queen on the Mississippi out of New Orleans. Cohen became immortalised as JC in Phil Shenfelts book Junkie Love but Tony was immortal from the day I first met him. Tony has also returned to Down Under. Its strange how these things come to pass.
This I remember. I should have forgotten so much but never really do. Forever stained yet constantly unstained. Jeremy and I have plans to record together again. Almost twenty years or more have rolled by since we last entered a studio together. But what is twenty years between friends? Too long, or not long enough? The trail leads on until the sunset and the sunset is many years away.
Nikki SuddenBerlin, Germany20 October 2005
R.I.P. NIKKI & EPIC
DANGEROUS RHYTHMS:
Jeremy Gluck
I Knew Buffalo Bill (Flicknife) 12" - LP - 33.3The band involved with Jeremy Gluck here should raise quite a few eyebrows, and infest the turntables it hits quite frequently, I'll bet. Gosh, Gluck's cast features Nikki Sudden, Rowland S. Howard, Jeffrey Lee Pierce and Epic Soundtracks. But any literate fool could have told you that. Past greatness associated with the names here would merit high expectations and they're certainly met. Not really trying to label it as a late night album, parts of this are dare I say, very pretty. Though input by members of the Gun Club and Crime & The City Solution provide this with some hypnotic atmosphere, the contribution by Nikki Sudden (Swell Maps, Jacobites) carries much of the weight. Acoustic guitar carries most of the melody, but Pierce's slide work and Howard's note bending and signature amplification aren't missable.
AWAY FROM THE PULSEBEAT:
Jeremy Gluck & Nikki Sudden
I Knew Buffalo Bill LP
Looking For A Place To Fall 12"
Guess you could call it a "comeback" of sorts after the last few years of schizophrenic, erratic Gluck. And a razorsharp comeback it is. LP fully titled Jeremy Gluck With Nikki Sudden & Rowland S. Howard featuring Jeffrey Lee Pierce, Epic Soundtracks (EP shortened to JG & Friends), 'tis a return to the bare-bones roots appeal of the Barracudas, as if Civilization Machine and Life Ahead never happened. Oh, I'll drink to that alrighty, and don't bother me with details like the fact that this ain't really got a whit in sonic common with the 'Cudas of yore. Purportedly 3 or 4 years in the planning, with words by Gluck and music by Sudden, is a predictable collision of the spirit 'n energy of their respective pasts, stripped naked and juiced up high fulla raw emotion. You can figure on an amazing mix 'n match line-up of musicians that could easily burn you to a crisp, but would prefer to jab a spit through your gizzard and baste ya slowly. You can figure on experiencing the same gut-tightening jolt that some lucky priest might've felt when an anonymous voice from the booth next door confessed to Ed Gein's lifestyle. Gems, kiddies. Dig in.
FORCED EXPOSURE:
Jeremy Gluck and Nikki Sudden
I Knew Buffalo Bill LP. . . I don't know what brand of witchcraft was used, but credit Gluck for roping these stumblers (Nikki, Epic, Rowland, Jeffrey Lee(!)) into the pond to produce this shockingly coherent statement of aloofness. Non-sensitive warbling that'll keep for years.
ROCKINFO.DE:
That original album became a cult classic, a Gothic masterpiece in styles approximately Cave or The Cure, but with a breath of America /roots (before the category was at all defined). Together with the guitarists Nikki Sudden, Rowland S. Howard (The Birthday party) and Jeffrey Lee Pierce (Gun club), as well as the drummer Epic Soundtracks and bassist Joe Drake, Gluck created an amazing mixture of acoustic guitars colliding with cutting e-guitars and noise elements.image hosting