Alan and Richard Bishop are touring this summer as the Brothers Unconnected to honor Charles Gocher, who passed away last year, and the music they made with him as Sun City Girls.  This may be the last chance to hear Sun City Girls’ songs played live by the surviving members so see them in San Diego or Santa Cruz if you missed their show at Echoplex last month.

The show began with a forty-minute video showcasing some of Charles Gocher’s experimental films.  One of the highlights being Charles Gocher jamming with a television playing a recording of him playing another instrument with a television behind the second generation Gocher showing yet another Gocher playing another instrument, creating a kind of M.C. Escher visual effect and a mournful drone.  His videos explore the potential of what one man can do with a camera, their uninhibited exploration putting all those YouTube bloggers to shame.

When the Bishops took the stage and sat down, I found that I couldn’t see a thing (and I’m six feet tall).  I could see only one brother at a time by twisting and craning my neck.  I finally found a spot on the mezzanine where I could see Richard and part of Alan’s right hand.  But where the Knitting Factory lacks in choice vantage points, it makes up for in sound fidelity.  For only two guitars and two voices, they had a rich and full sound.

They tear into an acoustic “greatest hits” set.  A dozen songs in, Alan Bishop gets up to restring Sir Richard’s guitar for the third time.  “If it wasn’t for my guitar tech here,” Richard says of his brother, “We’d be playing one string attached to a stick. It’d probably be cooler but only ten people would show up.”  But thanks to Alan’s technical skills, not to mention the fifty-some albums Sun City Girls have released over the past few decades, the brothers played to a full house at the Knitting Factory, which for this small venue couldn’t hold much more than ten people anyway.

Richard stood only to bless the audience with a handful of cocaine that he ceremoniously rubbed onto the heads of the lucky few in the front row (my friend who had spent the last six months in Bolivian coke dens nearly jumped off the balcony).  Amid the hits they read some of Charles Gocher’s hilarious poetry: “Flesh Balloons of Tibet,” “Encyclopedia Vomit” and  “Aristocrats of Impertinence.” It was over all too soon but I bought the Brothers Unconnected tour CD as a memento (and is an excellent acoustic recording of the songs they have been playing on tour).

— Jon Hustad