by CHRIS BARRY

Like the Stooges, the Velvets, the New York Dolls and a zillion other class acts before them, Jeffrey Lee Pierce and the Gun Club—as brilliant as they were—rarely got the respect they were due back when they were in business. Much like their pioneering musical predecessors, there were plenty of people who knew and dug them, but plenty more who didn’t. Even in the band’s heyday (around 1982), people often dismissed Jeffrey Lee as just one more junkie musician with embarrassing literary pretensions.

Slowly, that vision of the Gun Club is fading, and today, a decade after his demise, people are looking back at Pierce’s legacy and giving him props for being one of the few bright lights in the predominantly dire musical decade known as the ’80s.

Director Kurt Voss’s thoroughly entertaining new film, Ghost on the Highway, is an oral biography of Pierce’s life, as told by his friends, ex-band members and others who shared the misfortune of hanging around the guy too much.

“I absolutely loved Jeffrey—and the band”, says Voss. “I believe they’re criminally underrated, but Jeffrey could be an utter prick. He was merciless so far as keeping this gig he had going. Literally, everyone was dispensable to him—band members, everyone. It was a painful and tawdry life he had, and I felt it really important I didn’t whitewash his portrait in this film.”

Voss says Ghost on the Highway, three years in the making and, unfortunately, lacking any actual Gun Club music, was nothing short of a labour of love. “I felt the band was in danger of being forgotten,” says Voss, “and figured making this movie was my chance to throw something into the pot. I figured I’d give Jeffrey a Viking funeral, but in the end I couldn’t find anyone who wanted to help me carry the corpse—except, you know, my editor.”

“Truth is”, Voss continues, “I’ve made a lot of movies, maybe 15 so far, and this had to be the hardest, most thankless of the lot. I had no financing whatsoever and ended up paying for the whole thing out of my pocket. Quite frankly, if I had to do it again, I wouldn’t.”

One might suspect not being able to secure any music rights could have something to do with Voss’s bitterness. “The thing is,” Voss explains, “getting those rights involved his estate and publisher. And the bottom line, really, is that I couldn’t cut people cheques. And everyone wanted money to help carry the coffin. In the end, shame on them, because the film only serves his legacy. On the other hand, I can’t honestly judge his mother too harshly for her lack of rationality, it must have hurt a lot to have had a kid like that.”

Still, don’t be turned off by the film’s lack of any Gun Club music. One needn’t be an über-fan to appreciate the good old-fashioned tragedy that was Jeffrey Lee Pierce’s brief existence on the planet.

“The history of rock is littered with unreleased films that were sunk because of music rights issues,” offers Voss. “I figured Jeffrey is an interesting enough character, and there’s enough lore out there about him, that his story works in an hour-and-a-half movie. And there’s guys like Peter Case [the Plimsouls] and Dave Allen [Gang of Four] speaking in the film. These are very smart men, saying a lot of real interesting stuff. There are a lot of interesting ideas running through this movie.”

Ghost on the Highway: A Portrait of Jeffrey Lee Pierce and the Gun Club plays AS PART OF FILM POP at the Associaçao Portuguesa (4170 St-Urbain) on Saturday, Oct. 7, 7 p.m., $6

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