Best Pigfuck Band

Cop Shoot Cop Shoot Cop Shoot Cop Shoot Cop Shoot Cop Shoot Cop Shoot Cop Shoot Cop Shoot Cop Shoot Cop Shoot fucking Cop!

room 429

Killdozer pretty much define Pigfuck so I went for them. We need an Arsequake poll too, what was the difference again?

Haha there are flaws at every turn when you write up a list of these bands and then try and find a common thread, but that appeals to me

xpost was about to mention Arsequake, was it a Reynoldsism? I know it included The Young Gods so it must have meant something marginally different

I don't know about that genre tag but the Birthday Party is the best band on that list by about a mile, and I say that as a a huge fan of at three other bands on it

this one is truly impossible. cannot choose from The Birthday Party / Flipper / Swans (early) / Big Black / Butthole Surfers/ Foetus / Wiseblood etc.

aresquake would add skinny puppy, young gods, world domination enterprises etc. would it not?

Pigfuck moment #1 : David Yow telling a child abuse joke from the stage, Jesus Lizard, London, 1993-ish.

Pigfuck moment #2 : PW Long telling a racist joke from the stage, Mule, London, 1995-ish.

Arsequake would add Adrian Sherwood, Front 242 yadda yadda as well I suppose. Never really took off as a genre in the way that, say, goth did.

Pigfuck moment #3 : Michael ira waving his arse at the audience before the power was cut by the police due to noise complaints from half a mile away, Swans, London, 1987.

Gira, sorry.

Pigfuck moment #4 : Gibby Haynes setting fire to himself while a nude dancer with a shaved head and stick-on Fu Manchu beard gyrates in front of a film of penis reconstruction surgery, 15 minutes into a grinding boogie number, Butthole Surfers, London, 1987.

i guess Pigfuck moment #4 has swung my vote for the buttholes.

melvins!

Pigfuck bands that didn't quite make the poll : Barkmarket, Big'n, Daddy Longhead, Reverb Motherfuckers, Shorty, everything else that ever came out on Amphetemaine Reptile or Skin Graft.

Pigfuck moment #5 : Killdozer performing "American Pie" in its entirety in front of a confederate flag on some godawful Channel 4 "yoof" show, 1989.

Killdozer, EASILY. Birthday Party a better band, but didn't they predate all those other bands by years?

the problem w/most of these bands is they fancied themselves dangerous and transgressive when they were really more than anything else: assholes. some of the music is great tho.

If Flipper count, where is No Trend? :( /obligatory moaning

I just downladed TMH from some blog or other yesterday, coincidentally.

Flipper's my fave on the list, but I don't think their slo-core (or whatever the hell people called it back then) quite counts. So it's Big Black for me.

Pigfuck moment #4 : Gibby Haynes setting fire to himself while a nude dancer with a shaved head and stick-on Fu Manchu beard gyrates in front of a film of penis reconstruction surgery, 15 minutes into a grinding boogie number, Butthole Surfers, London, 1987.

ha -- I saw that tour when it plowed through the midwest (Newport Music Hall, Columbus Ohio - `87).

Brilliant. I'm stil voting for Cop Shoot Cop, though.

This is really nightmarishly impossible for me. I'm voting for Foetus, but this is a good example of why ilx polls need the rate your top ten option.

Also, it warms my heart to see Barkmarket in print again, even if it's in the "didn't quite make the poll" category.

i voted flipper, i like pussy galore and happy flowers a lot too
i've never listened to more than half of these though!

big black

Great list, takes me back. Now for the obligatory what no Claw Hammer? Vertigo? Nice Strong Arm? Babes in Toyland? Band of Susans? Live Skull? Die Kreuzen???

Voting for Laughing Hyenas.

Flipper

Poison Idea?

Do the Melvins really belong here?

I'm loving these pigfuck moments.

Do the Melvins really belong here?

"Basically The Birthday Party, Flipper or bands heavily influenced by either of them" would cover that I'd say

Claw Hammer? too crap
Vertigo? too nice
Nice Strong Arm? too post-punk
Babes in Toyland? too grunge
Band of Susans? too arty
Live Skull? too no-wave
Die Kreuzen??? too serious

Forgot Oxbow, darn.

Poison Idea? too punk, ditto Big Boys etc

This is really hard, I like a lot of these bands. I'm leaning towards Big Black, if only because they introduced me to all of this stuff. Then Killdozer does seem like the consummate Pigfuck Band as has been stated. Flipper and The Birthday Party deserve consideration for inadvertently getting the thing going. That said The Jesus Lizard is probably the band on here that I listen to the most.

I really need to think about this.

Some omissions: Drunks With Guns, Stick Men With Ray Guns.

Guess there's not much love for Lubricated Goat then. 'Twas always thus.

Pigfuck moment #6 - David Yow rushes out on stage with a six pack of beer, opens one and drinks from it, then proceeds to toss the rest can by can out into the all ages crowd. Jesus Lizard are permanently banned from the venue. Eugene, OR 1992.

***

Since it's your list, I voted from the alotted choices and Birthday Party (the Beatles of noise) win by a landslide.

I'll assume the handful of artists I haven't heard on this list (Artphag?) are not about to dethrone them.

vic liking happy flowers is just... amazing. A+

How do I choose among Melvins, Killdozer, Buttholes and Jesus Lizard?

Mr. Horribly Charred Infant is an acquaintance of mine. He's really nice in person.

Claw Hammer? too crap
Vertigo? too nice
Nice Strong Arm? too post-punk
Babes in Toyland? too grunge
Band of Susans? too arty
Live Skull? too no-wave
Die Kreuzen??? too serious

Nicely played! I agree with everything you say except each instance of "too" and your use of "crap" to describe Claw Hammer who were great.

mr. hci posted here i think

Whatever happened to the Happy Flowers?

ned scared him off, as usual

do halo of flies count? or too garage?

Still thinking if early White Zombie shoulda been on this list...

I have it on good authority that several of the members of these bands have in fact never had sex with a pig.

define pig

Lydia Lunch doesn't count

I think the Birthday Party, Swans and the Jesus Lizard are at the same level of quality as, if not higher than, Big Black, but I probably listen to Big Black the most of these bands so Big Black it shall be.

When times are tough, there's always Jesus Lizard records and memories of debauchorous shows at Lounge Ax in Chicago - they get most turntable time for me outta tha batch so they get the vote - but mad pigfuck props to the Butts, Killdozer, Scratch Acid, Big Black, Shellac, Swans and Melvins.

I don't think Birthday Party really fit with what I'd consider pigfuck. I always thought it was predominately American bands making sludge music that was willfully immature and shouty. Flipper, Drunks With Guns, Jesus Lizard, Killdozer and Butthole surfers sure fit. But I think maybe even Big Black is too arty for this.

do halo of flies count? or too garage?

They're actually up there on the ballot, near the bottom.

The White Zombie omission does seem strange, tho. I mean their early stuff wallowed in the same shit-strewn pig-trough as many of the rest of them, no?

NO

TBH, I don't really think that most of the stuff on this list is really "pigfuck" per se, but White Zombie isn't even close.

Of course White Zombie isn't close.
But I was talking about EARLY White Zombie...
In which case...
I'm still not too sure.

Apples, meet Oranges.

Whether Flipper belongs here or not, they're the best band, so that's my vote.

most intriguing poll in some time
i voted jesus lizard simply because they're my favourite band on the list, not because i think that they typify the term 'pigfuck' the best or anything

poll is impossible

but scratch acid since no one else is voting for them

Voted Flipper.

Might have considerd Die Kreuzen, if they were there.

i like a lot of those bands up there.

i lied to kim gordon once and told her how much i liked that harry crews album. i was drunk. backstage at tuxedo junction. danbury, connecticut. she looked frightened. sonic youth killed it that night. bunnybrains sucked. cell were boring.

i don't think i've ever heard janitor joe. or bastards. or art phag. i still own silverfish records.

scratch acid since no one else is voting for them

---

Might have considerd Die Kreuzen, if they were there.

i heart these dudes.

scott, janitor joe were a mpls am rep band that is mostly notable for Kristin Pfaff, who left to join hole and then OD. sorta grungy meh who cares stuff with sludge vocals that never really did it for me.

Yeah Janitor Joe were in that morass of second-to-third-rate Amrep bands that were never in danger of being particularly great, along with Guzzard, Chokebore, Hammerhead, Vertigo etc etc.

Die Kreuzen, as I said above, were too serious and windswept (at least by Century Days). Is this new band October File named after that DK album or is there some other meaning I don't know about?

Art Phag did this one awesome album called Gods Of Grunge (pre-dating Mudhoney et al), the song 4 Basic Vegabo Groups was a Peel fave at the time iirc.

Drunks With Guns was a major omission from this list I admit.

I think October File the band are named after the DK album. Everything I've heard by them bored the tits off me but eh

this is the first time i've seen Art Phag mentioned anywhere since i bought their album in ohhhh 1988? really scuzzy guitar/drums/yelping, the LP sleeve was another records sleeve turned inside out & spray painted on.

Aw I think Hammerhead were pretty great. Not so much the others. The only bands I'm not familiar with are the last 3 in the poll.

I went for Pussy Galore in the end.

xpost

I'm going for Scratch Acid. I've never really heard the Jesus Lizard though. Did they do a better song than Owner's Lament?

I really like Die Kreuzen, but I've never understood why and how they got locked into the Pigfuck genre. Same with Negative Approach.

Noise dudes seem to have taken hold of these guys. Explanations?

I never heard them myself, but did Naked Raygun count as pigfuck back-in-da-day?

"I've never really heard the Jesus Lizard though. Did they do a better song than Owner's Lament?"

Not sure if you're being serious here ("Owner's Lament" is a GREAT song), but if you really haven't heard Jesus Lizard--go buy Goat right now. You will thank me. It's like the Back in Black of Pigfuck.

Big Black, closely followed by Killdozer.

I really like Die Kreuzen, but I've never understood why and how they got locked into the Pigfuck genre. Same with Negative Approach.

Noise dudes seem to have taken hold of these guys. Explanations?

Die Kreuzen - released records on Touch And Go.
Negative Approach - Laughing Hyenas connection.
Naked Raygun - Big Black connection.

I guess.

Wolf Eyes have repped hard for Negative Approach in the last few years, I think that's helped

John Brannon was a fucking awesome singer, is he still around?

Art Phag were pretty great (though I haven't heard them in years) and also have the best band name EVER.

It's like the Back in Black of Pigfuck.

that cascading riff in 'Then Comes Dudley' deserves its own thread.

John Brannon was a fucking awesome singer, is he still around?

NA reformed (well, two original members) to play some shows towards the end of last year. They did ATP and were pretty great. Don't think any new stuff is planned altho who knows

no trouble with this one for me, has to be Foetus/Wiseblood.
i have to admit, i never did understand his constant use of Pigs in lyrics/photos/stageshows around the Nail era, i was young and it just looked and sounded amazing ..

x-post

he's also got a band called Easy Action. or did, at least.

"I've never really heard the Jesus Lizard though. Did they do a better song than Owner's Lament?"

Nope. Never did a better song than "Damned For All Time," either.

did Naked Raygun count as pigfuck back-in-da-day

Feel free to offer any evidence proving me wrong, but people do realize that the genre name "pigfuck" was invented, basically as a joke, by Christgau in the Voice, right? I wrote a long lead Voice piece about it a few weeks later (c. 1987), revolving it around Forced Exposure and Wiseblood I think, I seriously doubt that any bands were really considered pigfuck by their fans back then, including Naked Raygun (who I liked -- well, I liked their first couple albums anyway). Never would have really occurred to me to consider them pigfuck then (Live Skull and White Zombie and, um, Rat At Rat R would have been a lot closer -- probably G.G. Allin too, come to think of it), but given the Albini connection, apparent Killing Joke/Husker Du influence, military fetish, a song called "Leeches," etc. it probably wouldn't have ridiculous to do so.

"...wouldn't have been ridiculous..."

Flesheaters and Lydia Lunch may have been as proto-pigfuck as Birthday Party or Flipper, too (at least judging from my thinking back then), too, fwiw.

Also, leaving out Sonic Youth is pretty silly. I'm pretty sure the first bands actually given the label were them, the Buttholes, and Big Black. (I lived in the midwest myself, but the phrase came from NYC.)

I think "Pigfuck" appears somewhere in the liner for Right Now! by Pussy Galore but I guess that was 1987 as well so might have been after Christgau used it.

Oh I just it as a generic term for those Killdozer type bands. I only heard the term fairly recently, it used to be called post-hardcore in the UK (if it was called anything at all). Like I said above it's that snarky sensibility with possibly-ironic-possibly-not Grand Funk / Foghat influences creeping in. Which admittedly doesn't cover Swans or whatever, but what the hell.

I liked all those Killdozer/Scratch acid bands at the time, but had never heard the term "pigfuck" until Tom E started a thread about it in '02:

Pigfuck

I think "Pigfuck" appears somewhere in the liner for Right Now! by Pussy Galore but I guess that was 1987 as well so might have been after Christgau used it.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that was a response to Xgau.

From 1986 Pazz & Jop essay (published early 1987):

http://robertchristgau.com/xg/pnj/pj86.php

Not that I expected the universe to agree--tastes differ, many dissent from (Paul) Simon's refined literary liberalism, wimpophobes have hated his guts for years, and the electorate now includes a smattering of convinced pigfuckers who think Hüsker Dü is Julio Iglesias in disguise.

But in general I've reserved my sharpest enthusiasms for music that breaks new ground within the aforementioned bounds of democratic accessibility, a parameter I interpret more liberally than the most progressive bizzer and nowhere near radically enough to suit your average pigfucker

I'm accused of mistreating Sonic Youth, the old farts of pigfuckerdom, who made their surprisingly belated (and at 29, modest) P&J debut with a third (fifth?) album that certainly deserved to finish higher than True Stories or Peter Case

After WSQ Plays Duke, 42-50 went Big Black (young farts of pigfuckerdom)...

The pigfuckers could wind up mucking about anywhere, and they're welcome to their wallow as long as they don't blame the universe for not joining in. But if you're going to truck with pop values--which often means no longer modish/commercial biz values, with many roots types and by now some pigfuckers feeling the urge--you're better off doing it right.

pigfuckersymps insist I'll understand Das Damen when I catch their act.

If I can accuse the voters of stroking the Amerindies, though, I can't accuse them of unfairness to that catchall called black. Pace Ron Wynn as usual, it was a terrible year for black popular music. Granted, my critical perspective, despite what a few pophead and pigfucker ignorami believe--biases this judgment.

James Brown up there at number four, where he can remind a few popheads and pigfuckers that obituaries for black music are invariably premature.

Personally, I pay (Elvis Costello) back for his cold cool by remaining an admiring nonfan, but there's no question that he confounds past and future and expressed and found as defiantly as any pigfucker.

Any truth to the supposed great "pigfucker" feud between you and Dave Marsh, Chuck? I mean, it may well have been a figment of my imagination, but I seem to remember reading something to that effect in the Voice back in '87/'88 or so.

I seriously doubt that any bands were really considered pigfuck by their fans back then

I was totally immersed in the stuff, and never really heard the term broadly applied until this decade. The Sonic Youth of "Death Vally 69" and "Expressway to Yr. Skull" certainly put them in this camp. Tho' around the time of Sister, they seemed to rise out of the gutter. I mostly called it "Noise Rock". I remember constructing a mixtape in 1986 with Sonic Youth, Swans, Pussy Galore, Neubaten, Buttholes, Big Black and No Trend, calling it "A Nose for Noise". At my college station the other term I remember was, amusingly in retrospect, "Grunge".

I think the Birthday Party/Flipper foundation is appropriate. I didn't hear BP 'til after making that mixtape, but it was a revelation. And Flipper's emergence from the US Hardcore scene provided the model. Though Flipper's contrary optimism sets makes them more interesting than the murder-and-beastiality slumming of most of these bands. Ministry struck me as the worst slummers of all, totally co-opting the sound.

If you notch the later Albini projects down to the lower half, this list is nearly in perfect order, already.

Ministry struck me as the worst slummers of all

but in 86/87 weren't Ministry all On-U Sound'd up with Twitch - and not really into the noise element yet ?

Alex nails it on the Pigfuck thread:

Colorful if enigmatic term to categorize a particular vein of skronky, 'tude-heavy rock not entirely unlike the bastard child of 'No Wave' and classic 80's Hardcore.

-- Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, September 16, 2002 7:45 PM (5 years ago) Bookmark Link

re Marsh pigfuck feud:

I don't think there was an actual "feud," really. But anyway, I think I had written something about "the Dave Marsh fallacy vs. the Steve Albini fallacy," but hell if I know what my point was -- I guess that their tastes both seemed really walled off, in different directions? Or something. (It also bothered me -- and I said so in a P&J comment at one point, maybe a couple years earlier -- that he liked Madonna, which I said was as silly as liking Bon Jovi. Both of whom I soon wound up liking, doh.) I'm not sure how pigfucking came into all that, though.

Is that piece available anywhere, Chuck?

Um, my copy is available in a storage garage somewhere in a backyard in Bucks County, PA, I believe. Beyond that, I have no idea. (It wasn't a story though -- it was just a pazz & jop comment.)

haha--OK.

I did just find this in the file cabinet in my hall closet, though! This is me in the Voice, March 24, 1987. Photo is Jim Thirlwell; headline is Slime Is Money (Bastard)

PIGFUCKER, n, 1. Pejorative used to label participants in any of several strains of obstinately uncommerical, abstract yet noncerebral post-hardcore art-rock, characterized by peculiarly structured intentional dissonance (typically loud, often unconventionally tuned electric guitars), mechanical and/or funkless rhythms, subtle textural shifts, violent lyrics addressing taboo subjects, and a general quest for assumed "extremes." 2. Fan or apologist of this subgenre. [coined as a music term by Robert Christgau in the Village Voice, 3 March 1987; from 'pig' and 'fucker,' compounded in 1967 by Hunter S. Thompson to describe Hubert H. Humphrey.)

article starts out like this:

Pigfuckersymp that I am, I spend an inordinate amount of time listening to music that's ugly for no apparently cogent reason...

Also apparently somewhat proto-pigfuck, judging from this particular article: the Meatmen. And of course Scraping Foetus Off The Wheel.

Yeah and Blight would be an appropriate footnote as well

Did the Flaming Lips really count? Fritz Wollner seemed to think so on the other Pigfuck thread.

Pigfuckersymp that I am, I spend an inordinate amount of time listening to music that's ugly for no apparently cogent reason...

That's hilarious--and seemingly so un-xhuxk like. We demand more!

The correct answer is ... Cows

It warms my heart to see so many Amrep bands talked about in 2007.
They shall not be forgotten.

Re: Flaming Lips - Maybe, for the first album or two. But I didn't want any indie bullshit apologists for their later records stinking up the poll results with their bullshit, so fuck 'em.

Sorry, I said bullshit twice. I meant (insert snarky yank insult I don't know cos I'm British).

I definitely associated Flaming Lips with Scratch Acid etc. when their debut EP (and best record ever) came out on LSD Records in '84, and I'm guessing they had a fairly similar audience (also, Oklahoma is not all that far from Austin, right?), so maybe, yeah. (I interviewed both bands for Spin, pretty much based on their first EPs, though probably actually pegged to their followup albums. Don't think they got national press before then.)

The day this music died: the day Pulp Fiction went into wide release, bringing buggery in a pawnshop basement to the multiplex.

In American Hardcore, the book, Steven Blush talks about seeing the Lips play w/ No Trend and their set being a cover of Dark Side Of The Moon, from start to finish. I could see how that would qualify as a pigfuck moment

I also think a lot of the early, pre-grunge Seattle Sasquatch-rock bands (U-Men, Malfunkshun, Green River, Skin Yard) belong here as much as those Amphetamine Reptile groups (who I pretty much stopped paying attention to after those first couple Halo of Flies EPs and that Thrown Ups 7-inch, all of which I sometimes wish I still owned.)

Also definitely belong here: Big Stick.

And maybe (though some of these are probably a stretch)?: Feedtime. Phantom Tollbooth. Amor Fati. Head of David. Young Gods. Einsturzende Neubauten (proto-pigfuck). Prong. The Accused. The Scientists. Couch Flambeau. Rancid Vat. Antiseen. (Though actually, I have no idea what Phantom Tollbooth sounded like.)

Big Stick - yes
Feedtime - maybe
Phantom Tollbooth - too arty
Amor Fati - can't remember, maybe never heard 'em
Head of David - guess so
Young Gods - didn't want to be American (unlike Nick Cave, Silverfish and Foetus
Einsturzende Neubauten (proto-pigfuck) (ditto)
Prong - too metal
The Accused - too hardcore (not that I remember them)
The Scientists - too garage
Couch Flambeau - maybe
Rancid Vat - maybe
Antiseen - too hardcore?

Not sure why I decided being or wanting to be American is a prerequisite for this non-existent genre. We need Michael "Killdozer" Gerald on this thread to explain it all to us. He's a lawyer now y'know.

I'm also thinking a bunch of the mid-to-late '80s bands on this thread could be considered a sort of British equivalent of pigfuck, not that anybody would have necessarily said so at the time:

Bogshed - kings of swing: discuss

http://www.touchandgorecords.com/images/bands/full/50-1.jpg
http://wldimages.findlaw.com/images/2347155/3293594_1.jpeg

I think October File the band are named after the DK album. Everything I've heard by them bored the tits off me but eh

They strenuously claim otherwise, but they're deathly dull regardless, so honestly who could care?

October File album is the best Killing Joke album I've heard in years (if not decades), actually.

Also maybe proto: Drunk Injuns (though maybe they're more proto-Slipknot instead, who knows? And maybe there's no difference.)

Also: Hose (feat. Rick Rubin) (who I haven't heard since the mid '80s, but I owned both a 12-inch EP and a 7-inch by them once upon a time, and I'm pretty sure people compared them to Flipper at least as much as to the Big Boys.)

October File album is the best Killing Joke album I've heard in years (if not decades), actually.

Any final words, Chuckles, before I dip you into a vat of sulfuric acid and force-feed your charred, deep fried remains to your relatives at gun point?

Hey, that took longer than it ordinarily should have.

That Bogshed thread is great - I think most of the bands on it were too weedy to be pigfuck (unless that was yr point re: "British equivalent", which would make sense I guess)

Membranes maybe, I dunno.

The Accused & Prong are pretty much straight up crossover/metalcore really?

The correct answer is ... Cows

Ditto. I still laugh every time I think of Shannon's hangman arm tattoo, with F_CK lettered underneath. (And he lost the game!) Saw them three times with highlights being Michigan Student Union in '93-94 (cavernous ballroom with the sound echoing all round until it was a big ball of reverberent sludge) and CBGB's in '97 or so.

By number of times I still listen to them, my runner ups would be The Jesus Lizard, Butthole Surfers, Laughing Hyenas, but ultimately find them too prog, too psych-edeli-otic, too strung out (in that order). The one time I saw the Hyenas live, they must have been sweating heroin as three of their biggest "fans" nodded off at the bar in the middle of the set. Rock and Roll!!!

Actually the Stretchheads would be a pretty good British equivalent - they had an EP called Barbed Anal Exciter for a start.

CHUCK JESUS LIZARD WERE AWESOME AND GREAT AND MAYBE YOU NEED MORE JESUS LIZARD RECORDS AND THE FIRST SCRATCH ACID EP IS NOT THE BEST THING SCRATCH ACID DID BESERKER IS THE BEST THING SCRATCH ACID DID.

I think of Stretchheads as more of a precursor to bands like The Locust and Holy Molar and Ex Models and stuff like that, but I'm down with all of it

The Accused & Prong are pretty much straight up crossover/metalcore really?

They both seemed pretty jagged to me, at least early on, though it's been forever since I listened to the Accused. Prong, though, started out as a noisy lower east side art band, right? Just like White Zombie -- it wasn't til later on that the metal fans (or maybe even the hardcorps kids) caught on.

Band who released their debut album in 1987 and who, thanks mainly to their lyrics, I remember having a conversation with somebody in Ann Arbor (probably Barry Hennsler of the Necros, who loved them, and whose own band existed somewhere on the pigfuck periphery) that they were a major label equivalent of pigfuck: Guns N Roses.

The first Prong album is pretty much standard hardcore.

Although they were on The End Of Music As We Know It comp

There wouldn't have been a huge gap between GnR and the Necros at that point, either

Prong's debut EP (and an earlier demo I heard, and I'm pretty sure I wrote about in Creem Metal) didn't sound like standard hardcore to me -- it was artier and weirder, like the first Die Kreuzen album or something. (Though maybe some people consider that standard hardcore, in the Void sense.)

VOID should've really been mentioned already now you say it

Band who released their debut album in 1987 and who, thanks mainly to their lyrics, I remember having a conversation with somebody in Ann Arbor (probably Barry Hennsler of the Necros, who loved them, and whose own band existed somewhere on the pigfuck periphery) that they were a major label equivalent of pigfuck: Guns N Roses.

HA! Yes, it was a certainly confusing time all around when GnR first started getting noticed. I knew about the Spin Magazine cover/New York Dolls comparisons, but this comment is way more far out.

The genre-ization ghetto that hadn't yet developed in the pre-Pixies/Nirvana major label era, when the future of the rock scene was pretty much seen as the major label glam metal on one side and true indie bands on the other, made GnR a square peg in a round hole.

Well if we're expanding this to include obnoxious/violent/noisy hardcore there's probably a thousand bands we could add!

xpost

Duff was a product of "pre-grunge Seattle" musically speaking, altho I don't think any of his bands were hugely relevant to what's being talked about here

With Void I'm thinking of the fact that they could play a fair bit and didn't feel the need to hide the fact they were into their metal. Touch And Go were gonna put out their second album but they decided it was "too metal" and it never got released

I dunno the Fartz weren't a million miles from Void.

xpost re Duff

xp: He was in the Fartz, who were on Let Them Eat Jellybeans, which also included Flipper! (Though I don't know if he was in that version of the Fartz.)

The Fartz were not on Let Them Eat Jellybeans!

Oh shit, you're right -- I was thinking of the Feederz! My bad.

(Actually I don't think I ever actually heard the Fartz. Though I have heard farts.)

They were on Alternative Tentacles though, close enough :)

Amor Fati - can't remember, maybe never heard 'em

rectify this. great lost band. probably not "pigfuck", however, (too arty and atmospheric) but kudos to chuck for bringing them up. s: against nature.

a more aggressive amor fati side project was the will to live ep. it is freaking awesome, lost classic.

I remember hearing the term "pigfuck" thrown around while listening to this stuff back in the 80s. I always thought it was a stupid term, a name that people who didn't like the stuff would call it. maybe it was a byproduct of a dumb joke of the early 80s...

what's the difference between a pig and a punk rocker?
a pig won't have sex with a punk rocker.

agree with bendy that the more common term was "noise rock". pussy galore and the first couple of white zombie records were pigfuck, but that's when the original scene was dying out, replaced with a second wave of ironic, self-aware practicioners of the sport (pg, wz, dig dat hole, unsane, cop shoot cop, etc).

I'd say the first wave was done by '86/'87. scratch acid / big black break up, buttholes release their last t&g lp, sy's sister and swans' children of god indicate "maturity" and "development", die kreuzen start sucking, etc.

Anyone know another long lost post-Flipper band called Artacus Eaght? They were OK.

Big Stick - big wigs will never be pigfuck
Feedtime - borderline, too much rock, not enough scuzz
Phantom Tollbooth - too indie
Amor Fati - see above
Head of David - yes yes yes
Young Gods - respected but not accepted
Einsturzende Neubauten - kissing cousin
Prong - too many riffs, not enough scuzz, if ted parsons wasn't their drummer they wouldn't even be on this list
The Accused - hardcore
The Scientists - early stuff no, but once kim salmon decided he was going to out cave nick cave circa human jukebox, yes
Couch Flambeau - you can't be pigfuck with a french word in your band name
Rancid Vat - harcore
Antiseen - hardcore

and y'all forgot blacksnakes, king snake roost, of cabbages & kings, dig dat hole, and probably a couple of others I can post once I flip through my record collection...

also, pigfuck is alive and living in providence:

www.myspace.com/tinselteethy

King Snake Roost are a great one. Their album on AmRep has many qualities

Freedom Fighters were the most underrated Am Rep band ever.

See all y'all pigfuckers next week (one hopes!).

and y'all forgot blacksnakes, king snake roost, of cabbages & kings, dig dat hole, and probably a couple of others I can post once I flip through my record collection...

Now we're talkin'.

Shithaus

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/shithauszz3.jpg

What, if any, influence did this stuff have on death metal?

goin' way back to the early days of '85 and the black snakes

(to the tune of just-ice's "going way back")

What, if any, influence did this stuff have on death metal?

0.0

although rick rubin was in hose and he produced reign in blood, so....

Really? Is that even possible? I mean, even bluegrass must've had some miniscule influence on d-m.

xp

What, if any, influence did this stuff have on death metal?

None, as far as I can tell.

yeah, I'm just fucking with you JN$OT. define influence and define death metal? and if noise rock influenced death metal as much as bluegrass, why is that interesting? hardcore had more of an influence on both noise rock and death metal in different ways. when I was listening to morbid angel and unsane I never heard any commonality of influence, aside from some black flag/negative approach somewhere back in the gene pool...

I knew some death metal musicians back in the day who listened to cop shoot cop and big black, but I don't know that that "influenced" them any more than their listening to nwa and public enemy did.

to be continued...

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

<i>"I think of Stretchheads as more of a precursor to bands like The Locust and Holy Molar and Ex Models and stuff like that, but I'm down with all of it"</i>

I have never heard the Stretchheads but Alan (singer of Khanate and O.L.D.) says that my old band Point Line Plane (Skin Graft) sounded like a "new wave Stretch Heads". He was pretty excited when he said it so I assume it's a good thing.

But then there's the Chuck Eddy VV one-liner review "(Skin Graft post-industrial prog-drone indie-rock goth-punk techno-metal album)"

Thanks Chuck!

As for "most-underrated AmRep band ever", I would give that to Servotron.

Amor Fati - can't remember, maybe never heard 'em

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJcAI3m9XWA

This here copy of Microsoft Works autochanges 'pigfuck' to 'pigfish' so I guess all this talk has been for nothing :(

This was discovered while writing a review of the pretty good new PW Long album, in the unlikely event that anyone was wondering

also, pigfuck is alive and living in providence:

www.myspace.com/tinselteethy

― Edward III, Friday, 30 November 2007 16:59 (2 years ago)

still true btw

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/IMG_0525-1.jpg

Pigfuck moment #1 : David Yow telling a child abuse joke from the stage, Jesus Lizard, London, 1993-ish.

Oh god, I was at that show and I had totally forgotten about that. Punchline was something like 'Presumptuous? Isn't that an awfully big word for a ten year old?' amirite? Also he got his balls out that night. Mind you, this might describe any Jesus Lizard show for all that I know.

I don't know who that is in (e_3)'s foto, but gosh-darn it, I like them!