8-Eyed Spy
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8-Eyed Spy was an early 1980s No Wave/Post-punk band featuring Lydia Lunch, Jim Sclavunos, Pat Irwin, Michael Paumgardhen and George Scott III. They covered the Swamp rock classic "Run Through the Jungle" by Creedence Clearwater Revival and Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit". Their music was infectiously rhythmic and visceral, using throbbing bass guitar, lugubrious saxophone playing and Lunch's petulant vocals. The band recorded only briefly, and released a live album. 8-Eyed Spy broke up shortly after the death of bass player George Scott III.
The 8-Eyed Spy recordings featured on Lunch's retrospective album Hysterie open with the instrumental track "Swamp" and features the folksy song "Diddy Wah Diddy" (Willie Dixon/Ellas McDaniel) which Lunch adds No Wave effects to by screaming alternated with alienated howling. 8-Eyed Spy was a fusion of Swamp rock and what was at the time, more fashionable No Wave style. In the song "Dead Me, You Beside", Lunch mimics the sharp vocal and lyrical style of No Wave singer Bobby Swope and stop-start "Peter Gunn"-style guitar playing featured in Lunch and Swope's band, Beirut Slump.
Another cover performed by 8-Eyed Spy was "Lightning's Girl" (Nancy Sinatra/Lee Hazelwood), sung in a Southern U.S. accent which suggestively states a lover's warning of when her tough boyfriend would return.
Liner notes on the Hysterie compilation describe the "frantic patchwork" of 8-Eyed Spy. The band's motif was an octopus and the 8-Eyed Spy LP cover features a pen and ink drawing of a bohemian man wearing a pork pie hat, suggesting a mid-twentieth century roots musician of South Eastern U.S.A., but not specifying a particular style of music.
Lunch and Sclavunos later rejoined on Lunch's In Limbo mini LP, with Thurston Moore, Pat Place and Kristian Hoffmann.
[edit] Discography
- Diddy Wah Diddy 7" (Fetish Records) 1980
- Live Cassette (ROIR) 1981
- 8 Eyed Spy LP (Fetish Records) 1981
- 8 Eyed Spy CD (Atavistic) 1995
- Live CD (Atavistic) 1997
