The Burning Nerve Ending Magic Podcast :: A Sun City Girls Story

21 episodes

Season 2 - Ep. 9 :: "Soft Focus Eggshell Minds w/ Ian Folke Svenonious"
04/03/2026 | 55 mins.
Ian Folke Svenonius is a multi-instrumentalist, author, filmmaker, and host of the acclaimed web video series Soft Focus in the late 2000s. A legend in the Washington, DC, punk/hardcore movement that shaped the radiating subconscious of the American youth during Regan's destructive reign in the 1980s, Svenonius has lead groups like the mighty Dischord Records' band The Nation of Ulysses, Weird War, XYZ, and his most recent outfit, Escape-ism, whose album "Charge of the Love Brigade," was released last year with radical reception.
Where Svenonius comes into the fractalated fold of the Sun City Girls' legendary lore is the mighty interview he conducted with the Bishops in November 2008, not long after Charlie had passed the previous winter. Taped before a live audience at Cobb's Comedy Club in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood, the three, along with a mysteriously masked Mark Gergis, whose piercing presence remained frozen like a statue, set off on a dystopian dialogue through the tonal trenches and spiritual side streets of two of the most celebrated artists of their time.
Season 2 - Ep. 8 :: "666 HR. Photo w/ Kim Campisano"
25/02/2026 | 1h 28 mins.
Campisano has an incredibly interesting relationship and a cosmic connection to the Sun City Girls and its members, in particular, the late, great Charles Gocher. While attending Arizona State University (ASU) in the 1980s, she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography, but not without its creative challenges. Many may not know this, but Gocher worked in the school cafeteria through Marriott Hotles, and would often pull "pranks" on the more deserving students, but not Campisano! Often seen in the library or lounge area, hidden behind a spiritual smoke screen from his esoteric exhales, reading various books on jazz, art, etc.
Gocher gave alchemical advise to the young student, and it had nothing to do with going to school to be an artist. All the tools we need to achieve the essence of expression are available all around us, and that's exactly what Campisano has done with her career. Having captured some of the most subliminal shots of the band over the years, Campisano's photography and participation in the scene are critical to the culture and the electrifying energy that birthed the Girls, and several others. While music holds the merciless magic of the human spirit, it's the photos that freeze everything in time, safe from sickness and death, and the reaper that patirently waits.
Season 2 - Ep. 7 :: "Engineer Extraordinaire w/ Clark Rigsby"
18/02/2026 | 49 mins.
On this episode, we speak to local legend, engineer, musician, and founder of Tempest Recording, Clarke Rigsby, who knew the band before their prolific output of metaphysical material in the 1980s with the Cloaven Tape series. With the release of the legendary compilation "Ominous Clouds - Produced For Citizens For A Non-Nuclear Future", which featured the Sun City Girls' first vinyl appearance, at the time, when the group was a quartet with LInda Cushma, as well as local groups like Hans Olson, who founded the influential Sun Club in Tempe, Jamaican-based blues singer Big Pete Pearson, Pete Cannon, who played in Poet's Corner, and Rigsby himself, we virtually travel 1,708 miles across country to better understand the genesis of the band, and their heroic history.
Season 2 - Ep. 6 :: "Grrrls, Grrrls, Grrrls! w/ Thomascyne Buckley"
11/02/2026 | 1h 16 mins.
Before the highly influential and groundbreaking "Riot Grrrl" movement began taking shape in the 1990s, with bands like Bikini Kill and Bratmobile, empowering women in music and the arts, there was the Phoenix, Arizona-based trio Burning Bush out in the desert, laying the groundwork for perhaps one of the most important periods in the American underground scene at the time. Featuring members Audrey Creed (drums), Denise Tanguay (bass, vocals), and our most recent guest, Thomascyne Buckley (guitar, vocals), the band's music symbolized a giant fist made of creative concrete that punched through the fake shiny veneers of the system that led with a crooked smile during the pungent politics that riddled the 1980s. Like most of the groups coming out of the Tempe/Phoenix scene at the time, Burning Bush were one of the many that coexisted alongside the Sun City Girls, as each of their electrifying ethos cut through the existentialism of life, and exposed the beauty of community connection, and creative freedom.
Season 2 - Episode 5 :: "A Meating Of Minds w/ Derrick Bostrom"
04/02/2026 | 1h 10 mins.
Several groups come to mind when reflecting on the sonic scene of Tempe/Phoenix, Arizona, throughout the 1980s. While surfing across the spiritual surface of the desert, and its dry destinations into the vibrant void, one can still hear the staticky screams of Mighty Sphincter, Poet's Corner, Joke Flower, Killer Pussy, J.F.A., or course, the Sun City Girls, and the brother-led trio the Meat Puppets. Consisting of members Curt and Cris Kirkwood and Derrick Bostrom, our most recent guest on the podcast, the group was born from the anarchist ashes of Atomic Bomb Club before its melodic metamorphosis into the Meat Puppets, which has since become a household name amongst the underground community and mainstream over the last four decades.
The Puppets and Girls' psychedelic paths crossed many times over the years, sharing the same bill at local venues like Mad Gardens, Whiskers West, Vivians, Merlins during the rare sighting of Paris 1942, as well as appearing together on the infamous comp "Amuck". Still, it's their shared memories and liberating legacy that bind them together within the harmonious history of the local scene, and beyond, and Bostrom is here to share a few of those ancient anecdotes of a time that has long since passed.

More Music podcasts

Trending Music podcasts

About The Burning Nerve Ending Magic Podcast :: A Sun City Girls Story

The world doesn't necessarily need another podcast, or maybe it does, who's to say? It's hard to tell these days, but one thing is for certain: if something is worth doing, it's worth going all the way. An indescribably specific band and spiritual institution of sound comes to mind that not only deserves a poetic platform to be consistently celebrated but also acknowledged for its atmospheric alchemy, which continues to push the boundaries of music, art, and the cosmic nature of the world. Of course, I'm talking about the Phoenix/Seattle-based outfit Sun City Girls. As an obsessed fanatic, it is my honour and deep privilege to announce that The Self Portrait Gospel will be launching a brand new podcast, "The Burning Nerve Ending Magic Podcast - A Sun City Girls Story," completely separate from our weekly show, that will be entirely dedicated to the harmonious history and liberating legacy of the band's multi-decade run. Join us as we take a deep, dark, and dystopian dive into the esoteric environment and liberating landscape of perhaps one of the most frighteningly original groups to have shattered the subconscious since Sun Ra and John Coltrane walked the earth. From Tempe to Thailand, Seattle to Singapore, let's take a trip around the world as we connect with the band's critical community of cosmic collaborators, friends, engineers, and much more.

Podcast website

Music Music Interviews