"I think I fucked your girlfriend once, maybe twice", sings Big Black frontman Steve Albini, dry as desert sand, on "Bad Penny" one of 12 live recordings which appear on "Pigpile", a previously unissued live set from the final days of the group's career. Remorseless in throwing back aspects of the world around them that people usually pretend don't exist, Big Black's irreverent, amoralist bent was suitably couched in a tight, musical style that has the critics fumbling around for alternatives to much-used adjectives like 'punishing' and 'abrasive'. Essentially, the group was a sound experience, a one-fingered salute to anyone who imagined rock music's most potent force lay anywhere but in its electricity.
"Pigpile", taped at the Clarendon, London, during the band's farewell tour in August 1987, provides the flagship for Touch & Go's forthcoming Big Black reissue programme (see news story elsewhere in this issue). The band's career will be examined in a full retrospective shortly, but as a scene-setter for that and the reappearance of the back catalogue, this welcome live set will be more than enough to rekindle the old allegiances. It may even tempt a few unsuspecting guitar-group fiends into further investigation.
Containing a selection of material that stretches as far back as the debut EP, "Lungs" ("Dead Billy"), through to the then-unissued "Songs About Fucking" ("Pavement Saw", "Fish Fry", "L Dopa" and "Bad Penny"), "Pigpile" contains few surprises for those already acquainted with the band's music. The twin guitars, one white-hot and piercing, the other thick and downright nasty, trade off each other, while Dave Riley's bass struts like the Birthday Party's Tracy Pew in a bad mood. With Roland the drum-machine providing rhythms that never let up for a second, there's no slacking either; which can make Big Black's music positively dangerous if you've a fragile disposition.
The "Racer X" EP, from a couple of years earlier, offers more of the same on the first side, with "The Ugly American" and upgraded British punk rock circa '77 on "Shotgun". Switch over, though, and the three songs reveal an altogether different, and rarely aired, side to the band. Walking bass-lines, sparse guitars, even a near-convincing dose of avant-funk on "The Big Payback", indicate an acquaintance with late-70s British post-punk, namely the Pop Group and Gang Of Four.
It's a welcome revival nevertheless, though for Big Black at their best,
try "Pigpile" for starters and hold your breath for the rest of the
catalogue and our retrospective. (MP)