Julie "the" Bruce

Julie "the" Bruce is a True American Original who's often been Mistaken for Someone from Another Country Despite the Fact She's Never Left Her Own. Either that or from New Jersey. Despite this, she's still an artist and musician.

Julie grew up in a small town Mike Watt complained about in song, it was so bad. It was a small town where the local motto was "Where the dirt's red and the necks are too" and BOY ITS TRUE! Her mama even once sang in a country garage band. If she hadn't had some good friends with musical taste, introducing The Clash, The Dead Milkmen, and Stiff Little Fingers into her life, things might not have gone so well. She escaped from the small town, moved to Sacramento and went to college, soon spending her grant money for tuition on a bass, bass amp and a drumset after she was introduced to the local punk scene and found out rock n' roll CAN save your life. She saw a lot of shows in her basement where the best punk bands that "nobody" ever heard of played. Everything happened on 21st Street.

She played bass with the punk band The Phlegmings after she kept meeting the guitarist at shows and they had the same homemade haircuts and liked to see the same bands. That became 3 girls driving around the suburbs of Citrus Heights on late nights, listening to Throwing Muses and Bongwater, and writing a song called "Sunny Day" at a Denny's while police surrounded the building because there was a gunman on the roof. Eventually Mickie Rat convinced them he should play drums, and they toured in some different forms.

Julie was also playing guitar and writing songs with the Secretions; including 4 Speed Automatic Jesus, I-5, Advanced Global Replacement #3, and Freaks Like Us. She lived in a van for a while after touring, stealing slices of lemon and lime from the local salsa bar for the nutrition Jolt Cola lacked. Eventually she had a Phillip K. Dick style freakout, quit the band, listened to a lot of old school honky-tonk gospel, learned some Johnny Cash gospel tunes, and fasted and spoke in toungues for a while, which was pretty interesting. One night during a lunar eclipse the preacher ripped the bible apart and she left the church soon after. There were no snakes though, sorry.

Looking for some real inspiration, Julie did a stint as a DJ at the local college radio station she had DJ'd at once before- KDVS 90.3FM in Davis. What she found from this experience was that what she really needed was some rock n' roll, and that rock n' roll was mostly the Kinks; and she went on a bender of listening to "Preservation" once a week for a year, counterpointed with "Lola vs...." A little Finnish noise/metal and celtic tribal drum music since then with a drop of jug band is some of what inspires her most recently, along with many inspiring local performer's work.

Julie has designed many promotional posters for gigs and has created CD cover art for local bands. She is currently working on her first graphic novel, photography interests, and writing a lot more songs!