Paris 1942 (1983)

To attempt a definition of the Sun City Girls is to dare them to defy it. Over the course of two decades and a plethora of albums, singles, cassettes, compilations and side projects, the Girls' sprawling, hallucinogenic body of work ranges from their signature alien-jazz improv to Asian tinged psychedelia, middle eastern meditations, trashy rock covers, smutty satire, ranting psychodrama and far beyond. Live, the band is infamous for often adding an unhinged dramatic element, incorporating elements of everything from Kabuki theater and conspiracy theory to shadow puppetry and pan-global instrumental exotica.

Evolving from Paris 1942 (a short-lived Arizona band featuring Velvet Underground drummer Maureen Tucker), the current Sun City Girls core of brothers Alan and Rick Bishop an percussionist Charles Gocher congealed in 1982, with a name belying their sardonic inscrutability (Sun City is a planned retirement community outside of Phoenix). Widely considered archetypes of America's subterranean musical underground, the trio has gained infamy over the years for instrumental versatility, psychic improvisational skills, and an affinity for genre blenderization. Resolutely uncompromising, they have a well-earned reputation forunpredictability and pranksterism as well.

In the early 90s, the Sun City Girls gradually relocated to their current home base of Seattle, where the band established the Abduction record label and has continued to work and record prolifically. Still driven by unshackled creativity and an eclectic polyglot of influences, the Sun CityGirls are currently as productive as ever, continuing to take their work to new realms, and greaterheights. — Mike Rowell