We Have an Issue: “Bad Girls” Make Waves
On photographing Pleasure Venom's Audrey Campbell, and remembering the late singer-songwriter Jo Carol Pierce
By Kimberley Jones, Fri., Dec. 9, 2022
When we first started discussing Kriss Conklin's Pleasure Venom profile as a possible cover story, we automatically thought to pair the band with staff photographer Jana Birchum. Jana had previously photographed founder/frontwoman Audrey Campbell in a series of images I still remember years later – for their infectious sense of fun, and for the sad fact they never ended up in print. I'll let Jana explain:
"The first time I photographed Audrey, it was for the preview issue of South by Southwest 2020. The SXSW that was canceled. The picture never ran.
"This was just a few days before COVID, in the Before Times. I drove out to her manager's place, which was just out of town, or just on the edge of town, down a gravel drive. It was pitch-dark when I arrived.
"Went inside and it was a cute but small, dark, and stuff-filled house. I was doing my best to come up with something we could do. I'd brought a big light and we started shooting on her manager's couch, which then evolved into her jumping up and down on her manager's couch, at my request. Don't ask me how it came to mind, it just did. And she did a bunch of jumping while I took quite a few takes. It was a bonding experience. So fun! I know we were both sad that the picture didn't run.
"We stayed in touch, just social media in touch. But I completely support her and her band, Pleasure Venom. If you've never seen them, and you can do some headbanging, GO! They're great! Her voice! What she does with her voice! Wow!! I guess the first time I shot them I shot them live. 'Cause boy, I really remember that! What a show!
"So now it's the third time I've shot her. She and the band met me at Tweedy's [newly opened in the old Spider House space]. We were hoping to shoot at the bar, but it was packed and busy. So we went outside. We shot a lot with the whole band, playing with the Christmas lights. For some reason I asked her to get up on something again. She killed it, as always. Next time (if there is a next time), I'm doing close-ups."
Check out Jana's photos and Kriss' story on p.52.
Also in the Music section this week: an obituary of Jo Carol Pierce, who passed away Dec. 2 from cancer at the age of 78. Perhaps best known for Bad Girls Upset by the Truth – a mix of songs and monologues the Chronicle once dubbed a "stunning honky-tonk manifesto" – Pierce's songwriting inspired a tribute album, Across the Great Divide: Songs of Jo Carol Pierce, featuring artists like Terry Allen, Jimmie Dale Gilmore (to whom she was once married), and Darden Smith. In a 1992 column, my predecessor, Chronicle co-founder and longtime editor Louis Black, wrote his own tribute to her:
"The first time you see Jo Carol Pierce perform, you're not entirely sure what to make of her. It's like performance art, only more than a touch daft performance art; it's like theatre, only real personal theatre. It's like music, though, when the songs start and, your head still reeling from the monologue, you so sweetly fall in love, and it's more than music."
You'll find Doug Freeman's remembrance of Jo Carol Pierce on p.54.
