While the
Sun City Girls and the
Minutemen stylistically had essentially nothing in common, both groups were sterling examples of how punk rock, instead of being a template as it was for most bands, could instead be a door that led them into a rich world of sounds and ideas. As the
Minutemen allowed jazz, funk, and prog rock to influence them as much as the fast/loud stuff, the
Sun City Girls emerged from the Arizona punk scene and, instead of creating hardcore for skate rats, tapped into a deep vein of experimentalism, world music, and creative wanderlust that resulted in a large and rewarding body of work. Since the
Sun City Girls folded in 2007 following the death of drummer
Charles Gocher, guitarist
Sir Richard Bishop has continued to follow his muse with similar passion and focus, fashioning music that often strikes a midpoint between the free-form internationalism of his work with his former band and the American Primitive school of guitar founded by
John Fahey (who was enough of a fan to release
Bishop's solo album
Salvador Kali on his Revenant label).