BIG BLACK: I tell myself I will not poll, even as I drive there

Surprised this has not been done before.

Atomizer will win this one, but I have a soft spot for Songs... as it was the first of their albums I heard. The EPs are all very fine indeed, but have a few weak spots.

Atomizer has a monumental quality, like having a 50ft block of concrete dropped on your house.

Yeah, Atomizer, but only because I can't vote for all the answers.

atomizer, but not an easy an answer. love the racer-x ep, which was my intro to the band. the title track holds its own with kerosene & fists of love - sleep! & shotgun are at least as good as the best "punk" stuff on songs about fucking. unfortunately marred by crap james brown cover (if they could handle the mary jane girls, why not jb?)

and bulldozer is better. cables, texas, seth, i'm a mess, pigeon kill - all among their best shit ever. "aaaaooooooooooooooooooow mama"

but yeah, atomizer

i suppose this is where i embarrass myself by confessing i have heard basically little to no big black

ha! just noticed that amg review guy makes exactly the same point about "the big payback" and "in my house"

and now i wanna change my vote to bulldozer

assorted download suggestions for the curious:

dead billy
pigeon kill
i'm a mess
texas
seth
racer x
sleep!
shotgun
passing complexion
kerosene
big money
bad houses
fists of love
bazooka joe
cables (live version)
heartbeat (wire cover)
bad penny
l dopa
columbian necktie
kitty empire
fish fry
pavement saw
the model (kraftwerk cover)
he's a whore (cheap trick cover)
in my house (mary jane girls cover)
newmangenerator

i.e. Get the hammer party, the rich man's eight track tape and songs about fucking CDs.

yes, but see i aim for the portability and convenience the modern housewife demands. if you ditch the apocryphal "newmangenerator" and "in my house" - and sub "ready men" for "big money" (which you should do anyway because the latter is as bad as the former is not) - that whole list only adds up to 77 minutes and change.

POX:

dead billy
texas
racer x
passing complexion (because people like it)
kerosene
bad houses
fists of love
kitty empire
columbian necktie
heartbeat

^^ POX list sort of = the deep dark goth big black w drippy mascara & cet

I want to do a best Big Black cartoon album art poll

Agree that Heartbeat is a cool single. And that their cover of He's A Whore is great.

Slight diversion into live material: I wish I still had my cassette copy of Sound Of Impact for its version of Pigeon Kill, which I remember as great. Must try to track that down somewhere.

All of you people will know this already, but in case not seen, this Big Black portal has all the necessary info on the band:

http://www.dementlieu.com/users/obik/bigblack/main.html

as the author of that website rightly notes, "Luckily for us fanboys Touch and Go reissued everything in 1992, along with a new live album/video, called Pig Pile".

Those 1992 re-issues were a godsend at the time, as they made it possible for me to buy the earlier singles and EPs

Atomizer will probably win, yes, but it's Songs for me.

For those times when a half-hour blur of noise punk is what is required, this hits (bludgeons) the spot like no other.

It's a shame there appears to be no evidence of Colombian Necktie ever having been performed live.

And whenever I did "best of" cassette comps of BB back in the day (so 45 minutes), Steelworker and Deep Six were always included. And Crack Up. Gotta love Crack Up.

yeah, "crack up" is great, so is "every man for himself", also have a soft spot for "burning indian wife"

lungs/bulldozer (aka the hammer party) are underrepped, but the songs from that era are best appreciated when performed live in the band's endstage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bWQomPT6U4

lungs was recorded by albini on a borrowed 4 track in his college dorm during winter break iirc

1. "Steelworker" – 4:15
2. "Live in a Hole" – 3:01
3. "Dead Billy" – 3:28
4. "I Can Be Killed" – 4:28
5. "Crack" – 3:55
6. "RIP" - 2:21

bulldozer, in acid etched metal sleeve... albini always knew how to rope in the record collector scum

1. "Cables" - 2:40
2. "Pigeon Kill" - 1:47
3. "I'm a Mess" - 1:56
4. "Texas" - 4:02
5. "Seth" - 3:32
6. "Jump the Climb" - 2:59

in 1985 a friend gives me a 90 minute tape comp of mostly hardcore bands with two tracks that change my listening habits, and my life: scratch acid's "she said" and big black's "racer-x"

1. "Racer-X"
2. "Shotgun"
3. "The Ugly American"
4. "Deep Six"
5. "Sleep!"
6. "The Big Payback"

first track combined the precision of metal and the savagery of punk with a healthy dose of demented, and I could've sworn they were playing a steel drum on "passing complexion"

1. "Jordan, Minnesota"
2. "Passing Complexion"
3. "Big Money"
4. "Kerosene"
5. "Bad Houses"
6. "Fists of Love"
7. "Stinking Drunk"
8. "Bazooka Joe"
9. "Strange Things"
10. "Cables" (live)

Still agree with this:

Racer X EP > Atomizer > "Rema Rema" 45 > "The Model"/"He's a Whore" 45 > Songs About Fucking > Lungs EP > "Il Duce" 45 > "Heartbeat" 45 > Bulldozer EP > Headache EP (I suppose there was other stuff, but either I never heard it or who cares. I've never heard Big Black on CD. And no, I sadly don't own copies of any of those 45s anymore.)

― xhuxk, Thursday, June 29, 2006 6:21 PM

have any truer words ever appeared on a cover sticker? the record store clerk was reluctant ("I don't know... I should really check with my boss..."), but after I described what was inside the black vinyl bag he sold it to me rather quickly.

1. "My Disco" – 2:51
2. "Grinder" – 2:22
3. "Ready Men" – 3:50
4. "Pete, King of all Detectives" – 2:40

the band acquits themselves with an honor and dignity befitting of their station

1. "The Power of Independent Trucking" – 1:27
2. "The Model" – 2:34 (Karl Bartos, Ralf Hütter, Emil Schult)
3. "Bad Penny" – 2:33
4. "L Dopa" – 1:40
5. "Precious Thing" – 2:20
6. "Colombian Necktie" – 2:14
7. "Kitty Empire" – 4:01
8. "Ergot" – 2:27
9. "Kasimir S. Pulaski Day" – 2:28
10. "Fish Fry" – 2:06
11. "Pavement Saw" – 2:12
12. "Tiny, King of the Jews" – 2:31
13. "Bombastic Intro" – 0:35

atomizer is clearly the fan favorite, but the casual listener seems to prefer this ^

there may be a silent fucking majority

Voted Atomiser on instinct and would probably stick with it on reflection but I'm sad that some of the other stuff won't pull a lot of votes because of it.

contenderizer, I like your POX (out of context bait right there) and will playlist it when I get home.

in 1985 a friend gives me a 90 minute tape comp of mostly hardcore bands with two tracks that change my listening habits, and my life: scratch acid's "she said" and big black's "racer-x"

in 1986(? ish) a friend gave me a 90 minute tape comp of everything by Big Black he could lay his hands on (pretty much everything up to Atomizer iirc) that changed my listening habits, and my life.

mixtape friends, gotta love 'em

pox for me might look like this

"the power of independent trucking"
"racer-x"
"jordan, minnesota"
"passing complexion"
"bad houses"
"every man for himself"
"steelworker"
"bad penny"
"pavement saw"
"fists of love"

as intense and central big black were in the 80s, I don't listen to them much anymore

they're great, but what you see is what you get, if you know what I mean

^^^this is me, also.

But SO important for me when I was 16 and 17. Seeing them at First Avenue still might be the most viscerally intense concert experience of my life.

female audience member: 'Do it!!!'

Dave Riley (sotto voce): 'Blow me.'

Songs About Fucking but my favorite has always been the comp, the Rich Man's 8-Track Tape - the liner notes cracked up teenaged me

as intense and central big black were in the 80s, I don't listen to them much anymore

― 鬼の手 (Edward III), Wednesday, November 25, 2009 6:55 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

this is true though about almost everything i listened to obsessively during the late 80s and early 90s: pixies, sonic youth from evol thru goo, dino jr, flaming lips, violent femmes, butthole surfers, scratch acid, iron maiden, metallica, etc. not the fault of the music so much as that i've absorbed it all so deeply that i don't really need to hear it anymore.

true for me too and when I go back and listen mostly I realize I don't have the random, free-floating anger that seems key to finding this kind of noisy, abrasive stuff cathartic. well, I still enjoy Maiden but that's kinda different... but the tinny, ear-shredding punk/post-punk SST/Touch N Go/Dischord etc sorta stuff just doesn't resonate with me anymore.

I do still really enjoy the Buttholes tho, because they have JOEKS

i'd go along with that. i'm just not that pissed & wired anymore. youth...

and yeah, the buttholes endure not just for the jokes but for the spacey psych, which i get more into with each passing year. maybe it is how i anticipate the void.

listening to big black feels almost completely like an academic exercise to me now whereas I will still jam on evol or rembrandt pussyhorse or double nickels or whatever for sheer pleasure

plus I like bone awl and mayyors so I'm still down for some tinny earshredding cacophany

it's like big black is one of those books you shouldn't be caught reading after college like catcher in the rye or on the road

maybe i should jam evol and double nickels more often - been ages since i heard either. double nickels certainly stands out relative to stuff like big black in terms of warmth, musical variety, depth of feeling, good cheer, etc.

edward - ha! i like mayyors and bone awl too, though in small doses. both make big black look like a model of musical innovation and pop accessibility though (which perhaps they are, in weird sort of way)

eh, i still listen to big black a lot, but i always found them to be fun and actually really funny. still more likely to listen to them than shellac, for instance.

that "jordan minnesota" is a laugh riot

Live in '86 (maybe 87?) the 'SUCK. DADDY.' ending part went on so hellishly long...

it's like big black is one of those books you shouldn't be caught reading after college like catcher in the rye or on the road

― 鬼の手 (Edward III), Wednesday, November 25, 2009 7:14 PM (25 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^this is pretty lol and resonant w/ me as I guess I basically stopped having de facto favourite albums or books after university, so if someone forced me to say one of each I'd about as likely to go with Songs About Fucking and CITR as anything

Big Black has plenty of JOEKS. I don't think Jordan Minnesota is really one of them, but they're funny.

maybe it is actually

songs about fucking is def a funnier record than atomizer

even the bleakest parts of songs about fucking don't come near atomizer's depths

Big Black has plenty of JOEKS. I don't think Jordan Minnesota is really one of them...

― circa1916, Wednesday, November 25, 2009 11:44 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

i think it is, in the same sense that my disco, fish fry and the bagged headache cover are jokes. punchline is always "the horror". jordan is a joke that goes so deep into itself that it becomes indistinguishable from the horror. not to say i find it funny...

i'm with xhuxk on this, Racer-X wins for the title track in particular and the rest in general, maybe also cuz it was my intro to the band.

bulldozer still seriously underrated tho

jeff pezzati on bass, never equalled. nothing against dave riley, but...

The Talk About Fucking interview disc was a laugh-riot too.

^true

shoulda put it in the poll

"what song of yours is it which reminds me of wooly booly?"

"wooly fascist dictator? wooly smalltown massacre?"

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

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

I wouldn't rate Headache over Lungs, but otherwise agree with the results.

And better Nate than Lever, here's my POXI (chronologically):

steelworker
dead billy
racer x
heartbeat
kerosene
bad houses
fists of love
the model
precious thing
columbian necktie
kitty empire

RIP David Michael Riley

Throat cancer. Aged 59.

had no idea he did engineering for later Parliament! makes sense in retrospect. RIP.

I'd read that somewhere years ago and was thinking about it when reading about bad James Brown covers. Cos I like their take anyway and that might be the reason they covered it. Riley's funk connection like.

The drum machine programming always knocked me out since it seemed to be about as good as other drummers from the time. Was that by Albini though.

Does Riley funk engineer thing turn up on Forcedexposure interview or This Band Could Be Your Life or something

xp can't find anything else than Albini being the one who bought and programmed Roland during his Stations days, so I assume it was him the whole time

xp it's in his Discogs bio

RIP, a monster bass sound

He has engineering credits on Parliament’s 1980 LP Trombipulation and Funkadelic’s 1981 record, The Electric Spanking of War Babies (which featured Stone as a guest).