Season 2 - Ep. 9 :: "Soft Focus Eggshell Minds w/ Ian Folke Svenonious"

Season 2 - Ep. 9 :: "Soft Focus Eggshell Minds w/ Ian Folke Svenonious"

Author: The Self Portrait Gospel March 4, 2026 Duration: 55:04

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.


It’s a strange and wonderful thing when a band becomes more than just music-a kind of shared language for those who find it. The Burning Nerve Ending Magic Podcast :: A Sun City Girls Story is an attempt to speak that language, to trace the contours of a group that defied easy categorization. Created by The Self Portrait Gospel, this series isn't a standard biography. Instead, it unfolds as a series of conversations and deep dives into the atmospheric alchemy of the Sun City Girls, treating their work as the spiritual institution of sound it truly is. You'll hear from those who knew them, played with them, or were forever changed by their records. Each episode leans into the poetic and the specific, celebrating the band's relentless creativity and the boundaries they pushed, not just in music, but in thought and performance. This podcast provides that consistent platform, a space where the band's peculiar magic isn't just explained, but felt. It’s for anyone who believes that certain art requires going all the way, and that the story of such a phenomenon is best told through many voices, all trying to capture something that, at its heart, remains beautifully indescribable.
Author: Language: en-us Episodes: 22

The Burning Nerve Ending Magic Podcast :: A Sun City Girls Story
Podcast Episodes
Season 2 - Ep. 8 :: "666 HR. Photo w/ Kim Campisano" [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:28:57
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 198…
Season 2 - Ep. 7 :: "Engineer Extraordinaire w/ Clark Rigsby" [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 49:46
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 s…
Season 2 - Ep. 6 :: "Grrrls, Grrrls, Grrrls! w/ Thomascyne Buckley" [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:16:09
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-b…
Season 2 - Episode 5 :: "A Meating Of Minds w/ Derrick Bostrom" [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:10:36
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, on…
Season 2 - Episode 3 :: "Me and Mr. Jeff Jones!" [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:29:21
Jeff Jones's all-around philosophy of music would forever change once he relocated to Arizona to attend ASU in the late 1970s. Coming from a more traditional atmosphere that approached music parallel to its time, Jones b…