Big Black
Encyclopedia
Big Black was an American punk rock
band from Evanston, Illinois
, active from 1981 to 1987. Founded by singer and guitarist Steve Albini
, the band's initial lineup also included guitarist Santiago Durango
and bassist Jeff Pezzati
, both of Naked Raygun
. In 1985 Pezzati was replaced by Dave Riley, who played on Big Black's two full-length studio album
s, Atomizer
(1986) and Songs About Fucking
(1987).
Big Black's aggressive and abrasive music was characterized by distinctively clanky guitars and the use of a drum machine
rather than a drum kit
, elements which precursored industrial rock
. The band acknowledged no taboo
s, and Albini's lyrics openly dealt with loaded topics including murder
, rape
, child sexual abuse
, arson
, racism
, and misogyny
. They also held staunch principles, shunning the mainstream music industry and insisting on complete control over all aspects of their career. Big Black booked their own tours, paid for their own recordings, and refused to sign contracts, eschewing many of the traditional corporate trappings of rock bands. In doing so they had a significant impact on the aesthetic development of independent and underground
rock music.
In addition to two studio albums, Big Black released two live album
s, two compilation album
s, four EPs
, and five singles
, all through independent record label
s. Most of the band's catalog was kept in print through Touch and Go Records
for years following their breakup.
in 1981 during his second year of college at Northwestern University
. Albini had become a fan of punk rock
during his high school years in Missoula, Montana
, and taught himself to play bass guitar
in the fall of 1979, his senior year, while recuperating from a badly broken leg resulting from being struck by a car while riding his motorcycle. Moving to Evanston, Illinois
the following year to pursue a journalism
degree and fine art
minor
at Northwestern, Albini immersed himself in the fledgling Chicago
punk scene and became a devoted fan of the post-punk
band Naked Raygun
. He also DJ
'd for the campus radio station, from which he was repeatedly fired for playing loud and abrasive music during the morning time slot, and wrote a controversial column
titled "Tired of Ugly Fat?" for the Chicago zine
Matter, publishing confrontational rants about the local music scene which polarized readers into either respecting or hating him.
Albini began playing in college bands, including a short-lived "arty new wave
" act called Stations that featured a drum machine
. Seeing the advantage in a machine that could play incredibly fast without tiring, always kept a steady beat, and would follow commands exactly, he purchased a Roland TR-606
drum machine and began writing beats
on it that would become the first Big Black songs. However, he was unable to find other musicians who could play the songs to his satisfaction, later stating in Forced Exposure
that "I couldn't find anybody who didn't blow out of a pig's asshole." Instead, in the spring of 1981 he bought a guitar
, borrowed a four-track multitrack recorder
from a friend in exchange for a case of beer, and spent his spring break
week recording the Lungs
EP
in his living room, handling the guitar, bass, and vocals by himself and programming the Roland TR-606 to provide the drum sound. Influenced by bands like Cabaret Voltaire
, Killing Joke
, and The Cure
, the EP is described by Our Band Could Be Your Life
author Michael Azerrad
as "cold, dark, and resolutely unlistenable", with the lyrics describing crack
addicts and child abuse
rs, and Albini later regarded the effort as one of his few artistic regrets.
Albini named his new musical project Big Black, calling the moniker "just sort of a reduction of the concept of a large, scary, ominous figure. All the historical images of fear and all the things that kids are afraid of are all big and black, basically." He used the Lungs tape to try to enlist other musicians to the project, briefly recruiting Minor Threat
guitarist Lyle Preslar
who was attending Northwestern, but the two proved incompatible as musicians. Albini passed Lungs on to John Babbin of the small local label Ruthless Records
, who released 1,500 copies of the EP in December 1982 with random objects such as dollar bills, used condom
s, photographs of Bruce Lee
, and bloody pieces of paper thrown into the insert.
through mutual friends and convinced him to play bass guitar with Big Black. Pezzati recalled that Albini "knew a heck of a lot about, right from the start, how to release a record and get the word out that you have a record", and that "He jumped at the chance to have a band play his stuff." The two practiced in Pezzati's basement, and one day Naked Raygun guitarist Santiago Durango
came downstairs and asked to play along. The trio clicked as a unit, Durango's ability to rework arrangements and tweak sounds helping to refine Albini's song ideas. According to Albini, "He ended up being absolutely crucial to Big Black."
Albini "sorta conned" small local label Fever Records into financing the next Big Black EP, bringing in drummer Pat Byrne of Urge Overkill
to play on the sessions as accompaniment to the drum machine, which they dubbed "Roland" for album credits. Albini achieved a signature "clanky" sound with his guitar by using metal guitar pick
s notched with sheet metal clips, creating the effect of two guitar picks at once. The Bulldozer
EP was recorded with engineer Iain Burgess
and released in December 1983, with the first two hundred copies packaged in a galvanized
sheet metal
sleeve in homage
to Public Image Ltd.
's Metal Box
. Many of the EP's lyrics depicted scenarios drawn from Albini's midwest upbringing, such as "Cables", which described the slaughtering of cows at a Montana abattoir
, and "Pigeon Kill", about a rural Indiana
town that dealt with an overpopulation of pigeons by feeding them poisoned corn.
, Minneapolis, Detroit, and Muncie
, transporting themselves and their equipment in a cramped car and sleeping on people's floors. Albini handled much of the band's logistics himself, setting up rehearsals, booking studio time, and arranging tours. With their reputation growing through small tours, he was able to set up a run of East Coast dates including performances in Washington, D.C.
and Boston
and at New York City
's Danceteria
, followed by a European tour on which they won acclaim in the United Kingdom
's music press. Big Black simultaneously found themselves gaining popularity in their hometown, but felt embittered that the same locals who had snubbed them just months before were suddenly interested now that they had built a reputation outside the city, and the band actually refused to play in Chicago for some time.
Part of Big Black's local unpopularity stemmed from Albini and the vitriol he regularly directed at Chicago's rock scene: by 1985 the Metro Chicago
was the only club in the city that was booking punk rock shows and was also large enough to accommodate Big Black, but after performing there Albini badmouthed the club in an interview and found himself banned from it permanently. Compounding the problem were the band's aggressive, noise-driven sound and Albini's confrontational lyrics, which tested the tolerance of his white liberal audience by mercilessly satirizing racism
, sexism
, chauvinism
, and stereotypes of homosexuality
, sometimes using pejorative
s like "darkie" and "fag" to drive home the point; this led some listeners to consider him a bigot
.
Looking for better distribution of their records, Big Black negotiated a deal with Homestead Records
. Gerard Cosloy
, who had befriended Albini through writing for Matter and gone on to work at Homestead, negotiated an unorthodox deal for the band: Big Black merely licensed their recordings to Homestead for specific lengths of time, rather than the label retaining the rights to the recordings as was typical. Further, the band took no advance payment
s, paid for their own recordings, and signed no contracts. Durango later remarked that "We came from a punk perspective — we did not want to get sucked into a corporate culture where basically you're signing a contract because you don't trust the other person to live up to their word. We had ideals, and that was one of our ideals." The band members figured that if a record company were going to cheat them, they would be able to do so with or without a contract because the band couldn't afford to defend themselves.
Albini believed that Big Black had nothing to gain by adopting the usual corporate trappings of rock bands: "If you don't use contracts, you don't have any contracts to worry about. If you don't have a tour rider, you don't have a tour rider to argue about. If you don't have a booking agent, you don't have a booking agent to argue with." Handling the tour booking, equipment hauling, setup, and breakdown of shows themselves also meant that the band did not have to hire a booking agent or road crew
with whom they would have to share profits. The lack of a drummer also meant one less member to split profits with, and since there was no drum kit
the band did not have to rent a tour van to fit all of their equipment. Thus Big Black was able to profit from most of their tours. They embarked on a 1984 national tour of the United States in preparation for their forthcoming Homestead EP, utilizing the close-knit network of independent rock bands to learn of cities and venues to play.
EP, Pezzati amicably left the band due to his increasingly demanding job, the need to devote time to his fiancée, and the increasing popularity and busy schedule of Naked Raygun, of which he was still a member. Durango, meanwhile, opted to leave Naked Raygun to commit full-time to Big Black. Pezzati was replaced by Dave Riley, who joined Big Black the week of Racer-X' s release in April 1985. Albini claimed to be aiming for a "big, massive, slick rock sound" with Racer-X, which was less frantic than Bulldozer, but ultimately felt that the EP was "too samey and monolithic." The band had already begun writing songs for their first full-length album by the time Racer-X was released, stating in the last sentence of the EP's liner notes
that "The next one's gonna make you shit your pants."
Big Black's first LP
, 1986's Atomizer
, found the band at their most musically developed and aggressive level yet. Riley's funk
background brought a slightly greater sense of melody
and danceability to the band, while Albini and Durango's guitar work was more violent than ever before. Michael Azerrad
comments that "by this time Big Black had both refined the ideas first suggested on Lungs and exploded them into something much huger than anyone but Albini had ever imagined", while Mark Deming of Allmusic states that the album "upped the ante on the musical and lyrical ferocity of Big Black's previous body of work, an unrelenting assault of guitar sounds and imagined violence of all sorts." Albini later remarked that "we just had a higher-than-average percentage of really good songs." The lyrics on Atomizer presented sociopaths
committing evil acts that most people only sometimes contemplate: "Big Money" deals with a corrupt police officer, "Bazooka Joe" profiles a shell-shocked
veteran
who becomes a contract killer
, "Stinking Drunk" describes a violent alcoholic
, and "Fists of Love" presents a sadist
. One of the album's most controversial songs was "Jordan, Minnesota", about the 1983 scandal in Jordan, Minnesota
that saw a large number of the rural town's adults indicted on charges of involvement in a huge child sex ring.
"Kerosene", one of Atomizer' s standout tracks, is viewed by both Azerrad and Allmusic's Andy Kellman as the band's peak performance. Azerrad remarks on its "powerful rhythm ripped straight from Gang of Four
and guitars that sound like shattering glass", while Kellman calls it "undeniably Big Black's brightest/bleakest moment, an epically roaming track that features an instantly memorable guitar intro, completely incapable of being accurately described by vocal imitation or physical gesture [...] It's Big Black's 'Light My Fire
,' literally." Riley explained that the song was about the effects of boredom in rural America: "There's only two things to do. Go blow up a whole load of stuff for fun. Or have a lot of sex with the one girl in town who'll have sex with anyone. 'Kerosene' is about a guy who tries to combine the two pleasures."
Atomizer was a polarizing record that was praised in the national press and became an underground success, surpassing the band's expectations by selling three thousand copies soon after its release. Big Black secured a European distribution deal for their records through Blast First
, a label recommended to Albini by Sonic Youth
, and met enthusiastic responses to their shows on a 1986 European tour.
The compilation album
The Hammer Party
, combining Lungs and Bulldozer, was also released through Homestead Records in 1986, but later that year Big Black had a falling out with the label and its distributor, Dutch East India Trading
. According to Albini, Dutch East India's accounting practices were "always fucked. They would do every sleazy, cheap trick to avoid paying you, like send you a check that wan't signed or send you a check that had a different numeral and literal amount." Homestead then asked to make five hundred copies of a 12-inch single
of "Il Duce" for free distribution to radio stations. The band agreed on the condition that the single was not to be offered for sale, since the song had already been released as a 7-inch single
in 1985 and, according to Albini, "We didn't want our audience milked for extra money to buy an alternate format." A few weeks after the single's release, Albini began seeing copies for sale in record stores outside of Chicago. He soon found out that the 12-inch single was being sold both in the United States and abroad as a high-priced "collector's item". Though Homestead claimed not to be selling copies, Albini telephoned one of the label's salespeople posing as a record buyer and was told that they would sell him copies, but not in Chicago. As a result of the deception, Albini and Big Black severed ties with Homestead and Dutch East India. Though the band was receiving lucrative offers from major labels, they chose to remain independent and signed to Touch and Go Records
, Albini being good friends with label head Corey Rusk.
EP in spring 1987. The cover artwork for the limited original edition of the EP was a pair of forensic photos of an accident victim whose head had been split down the middle, and the record was packaged in a black plastic "body bag" to conceal the artwork from sensitive consumers. A sticker on the EP's cover read "Not as good as Atomizer, so don't get your hopes up, cheese!" According to Durango, "We didn't want to sit there and screw people. If we felt it wasn't as good, then we should just be honest about it." Indeed, Headache recycled many of the same sounds and themes found on Atomizer, showing signs that the band was lagging creatively. Durango later remarked that "I was feeling tapped out ideawise. At that point I think we had tried everything that we wanted to try, musically and in the studio."
Tensions were also mounting within the band. Albini did not drink alcohol, so Riley and Durango became drinking buddies on the road while Albini was doing interviews and handling the band's logistics. Riley, however, was drinking to excess, and his behavior ruined several of the band's performances. During a key show at CBGB
, he drunkenly smashed the drum machine. Albini also accused Riley of a number of other shortcomings including lateness to rehearsals, always needing rides, and "flashes of brilliance offset by flashes of belligerence." However, though he made a number of threats, Albini never fired Riley. Another problem facing the band was that Riley was now in college and both Albini and Durango had to keep day jobs, which limited Big Black's ability to tour. When Durango announced that he intended to enter law school
beginning in the fall semester of 1987, the band decided to keep going until he began school and then call it quits. Despite enjoying increased press, radio airplay, record sales, and concert fees, the band did not regret their decision and eschewed the idea of commercial success. According to Riley, "Big Black was never about that. For Big Black to make any money, it wouldn't have been Big Black anymore." Being a lame duck
band was also liberating, as the members no longer had to be concerned with the group's future. Albini wrote that he was happy to be breaking up the band before it grew too big:
With their breakup announced well in advance, Big Black recorded their final album, Songs About Fucking
, half in London and half at Albini's home studio. Their final tours began in June 1987, taking them to Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia, and across the United States. They performed at the Pukkelpop
festival in Belgium
with Sonic Youth on July 22, Albini's 25th birthday. At a sold-out show in London for 1,300 people, Bruce Gilbert
and Graham Lewis
of Wire
joined Big Black onstage to play an encore
of Wire's "Heartbeat" (Big Black had released a cover version
of the song as a single in conjunction with Headache). Albini wrote of the experience that "If I die right now it will all have been worth it." In the United States the band played in San Francisco, Providence
, Boston
, and New York City
, concluding with their final performance on August 11, 1987 at the Georgetown Steam Plant
in Seattle. At the end of this show the band smashed their instruments onstage.
Songs About Fucking was released shortly after the band's breakup and went on to become their most successful record, with an initial pressing of eight thousand copies. Mark Deming of Allmusic calls it "a scabrous masterpiece", while his colleague Andy Kellman states that "each [song] is incisive enough to render a razor as effective as a butter knife. In sum: yowl, ching, thump-thump-screech. Ugly characters line up in the songs like early arrivals at a monster truck rally." Critic Robert Christgau
commented that "Anybody who thinks rock and roll is alive and well in the infinite variety of its garage-boy permutations had better figure out how these Hitler Youth rejects could crush the competition and quit simultaneously. No matter what well-meaning rockers think of Steve Albini's supremacist lies, they lie themselves if they dismiss what he does with electric guitars--that killdozer sound culminates if not finishes off whole generations of punk and metal." Albini himself later considered the album's first side as Big Black's best output.
Following Big Black's breakup, Albini formed and fronted Rapeman
from 1987 to 1989 and Shellac
from 1992 onward. He also began work as a recording engineer, working with artists such as Slint
, the Pixies, The Breeders
, Pegboy
, Urge Overkill
, The Jesus Lizard
, The Wedding Present
, Superchunk
, PJ Harvey
, Nirvana
, Bush
, and Page and Plant
. Some of his most well-known recordings include the Pixies' Surfer Rosa
(1988), Nirvana's In Utero
(1993), Bush's Razorblade Suitcase
(1996), and Page and Plant's Walking into Clarksdale
(1998). In 1997 he opened his own recording studio
, Electrical Audio
, in Chicago. Albini's recording style is characterized by the use of vintage microphone
s placed strategically around the performance room, keeping vocals very low in the mix
, and using few special effects. He is also known for recording almost any artist who requests his services (usually at very low rates but deliberately charging high amounts to artists on major record labels), disliking being credited on the albums he works on (insisting on being credited as a recording engineer rather than a producer
, if at all), and refusing to take royalties
for his work (calling them "an insult to the band").
Durango, meanwhile, continued to play music during his law school years, releasing two EPs on Touch and Go as Arsenal
and recording with Boss Hog
. He then became a practicing lawyer
, with clients including Touch and Go Records and Cynthia Plaster Caster
. Riley was briefly a member of Bull but was incapacitated by a stroke
in 1995, which was initially erroneously reported as a suicide attempt. Having lost the ability to walk, he maintains a blog
about his experiences titled "Worthless Goddamn Cripple". In 2004 he participated in a musical project called Miasma of Funk, releasing the album Groove on the Mania! He has also published a book titled Blurry and Disconnected: Tales of Sink-or-Swim Nihilism.
In 1992 Big Black's catalog reverted to Touch and Go Records, who re-released their entire discography and kept their records in print long after the band's breakup. That October the label released the live album and video Pigpile
, recorded in London
during the band's final tours, as well as the compilation album The Rich Man's Eight Track Tape
, which combined tracks from Atomizer, Headache, and the "Heartbeat" single in compact disc
format. The re-released version of The Hammer Party was expanded to include the tracks from Racer-X.
On September 9, 2006, Albini and Durango reunited with original bassist Jeff Pezzati for a Big Black reunion performance at Touch and Go's 25th Anniversary festival. Albini's touring schedule with Shellac did not allow time for the band to rehearse a full set, so they instead played a short set of four songs: "Cables", "Dead Billy", "Pigeon Kill", and "Racer-X". Albini explained that the performance was "not about Big Black wanting to get back together or even an audience wanting to see Big Black, it's that ... to not honor Touch and Go would be an insult by way of damning with faint praise", describing the label as "[not] just a benchmark for how a record label should behave, but how people should behave." During the performance he stated that "You can tell [this is] not something we had a burning desire to do, but we did it because we love Touch and Go [and] we love Corey Rusk [...] When history talks about rock music it has a tendency to skip from the Sex Pistols
to Nirvana, [but] something started in the 1980s and you're seeing the evidence of it all around you", remarking that the label was "the best thing to happen to music in my lifetime, and we did this to say thanks". Though the band has been approached by promoters about doing other reunion shows, Albini has stated flatly "that is definitely not going to happen."
. Albini explained that the band strove for intensity, stating that their goal was to make "something that felt intense when we went through it, rather than something that had little coded indicators of intensity. Heavy metal
and stuff like that didn't really seem intense to me, it seemed comical to me. Hardcore punk
didn't really seem intense most of the time — most of the time it just seemed childish. I guess that's how I would differentiate what we were doing from what other people were doing." Both Albini and Riley have described Big Black as a punk rock band in the liner notes of Pigpile
and in the book Our Band Could Be Your Life
, respectively. Other sources have classified the band as post-punk
, indie rock
, noise rock
, alternative rock
, and post-hardcore
.
A major component of Big Black's music was the drum machine
. Rather than attempt to make it emulate the sound of a normal drum kit
, the band chose to exploit the idiosyncracies of its synthetic sounds. On many songs Albini programmed it to accent the first and third beats
of the bar
, rather than the second and fourth beats typically accented in rock music. "The effect was a monolithic pummeling, an attack", says Michael Azerrad
, "their groove, normally the most human aspect of a rock band, became its most inhuman; it only made them sound more insidious, its relentlessness downright tyrannical." On tour, the sound engineers at many rock clubs were befuddled by the drum machine, afraid that it wouldn't work with their sound system or would blow out their speakers, and the band would have to coerce the club owner or threaten to cancel the show in order to get them to put the drum machine through the monitors
.
The band's guitar sound was also unconventional. Albini was determined to avoid the "standard rock stud guitar sound", and achieved a signature "clanky" sound by using metal guitar pick
s notched with sheet metal clips; the notch causing the pick to hit each string twice, creating the effect of two simultaneous guitar picks. Durango remarked: "I always thought that our guitar playing was not so much playing guitars, but assembling noises created by guitars." He and Albini respectively billed their guitars as "vroom" and "skinng" in the liner notes for Atomizer. Mark Deming of Allmusic remarks that "The group's guitars alternately sliced like a machete and ground like a dentist's drill, creating a groundbreaking and monolithic dissonance in the process."
Big Black's music was influenced by a number of genres and artists. Albini was a fan of punk rock bands including Suicide
, the Ramones
, The Stooges
, and Naked Raygun
. When Riley joined the band in 1985 he brought with him a funk
background, having worked at a Detroit studio where George Clinton
and Sly Stone
had recorded. During their career Big Black recorded cover version
s of songs from a number of styles including post-punk
, New Wave
, funk, hard rock
, synthpop
, and R&B; these included Rema-Rema
's "Rema-Rema", James Brown
's "The Payback
", Wire
's "Heartbeat", Cheap Trick
's "He's a Whore", Kraftwerk
's "The Model
", and the Mary Jane Girls
' "In My House". The sound that Big Black forged for themselves, however, was wholly original: Azerrad remarks that "the band's music — jagged, brutal, loud, and nasty — was original to a downright confrontational degree. Big Black distilled years of post-punk and hardcore down to a sound resembling a singing saw blade mercillesly tearing through sheet metal. No one had made records that sounded so harsh."
s. Albini's lyrics openly dealt with such topics as mutilation
, murder
, rape
, child molestation
, arson
, immolation, racism
, and misogyny
. "That's just what was interesting to me as a postcollegiate bohemian", he later remarked. "We didn't have a manifesto. Nothing was off-limits; it's just that that's what came up most of the time." Many of his songs told miniature short stories of sociopaths
doing evil things that the average person might merely contemplate. Some, such as "Cables", "Pigeon Kill", and "Jordan, Minnesota", were based on real events, or things that Albini had witnessed during his midwest upbringing. He compared the stories to Ripley's Believe It or Not!
, saying that "If you stumble across something like this, you think 'This can't be!' But it turns out to be true, and that makes it even wilder."
Albini's lyrics drew criticism for apparent racism and homophobia
. Racism was a frequent theme in Big Black songs, influenced partly by the sharp racial divisions present in Chicago at the time. The word "darkie" appeared in the first line of the Lungs EP, but Albini defended its use as a comical term, saying "in a way that's a play on the concept of a hateful word. Can a word that's so inherently hilarious be hateful? I don't know." He similarly defended his use of gay jokes and the word "fag": "Given how intermingled the gay and punk subcultures were, it was assumed by anyone involved that open-mindedness, if not free-form experimentation, was the norm. With that assumption under your belt, joke all you like. The word 'fag' isn't just a gay term, it's funny on its own — phonetically
— like the words 'hockey puck
,' 'mukluk
s,' 'gefilte fish
,' and 'Canada. Some critics viewed these defenses as mere justifications for actual deep-seated racism, homophobia, and misogyny on Albini's part, given his level of familiarity with the subject matter, but he insisted that he was not a prejudiced person and was merely satirizing those impulses that rational, civilized persons normally suppress in the course of social interaction: "So once that's given, once you know what you think, there's no reason to be ginger about what you say. A lot of people, they're very careful not to say things that might offend certain people or do anything that might be misinterpreted. But what they don't realize is that the point of all this is to change the way you live your life, not the way you speak."
Albini also emphasized that the songs' lyrics were not the focal point of Big Black, and that the vocals were only there out of necessity: "It seemed like, as instrumental music, it didn't have enough emotional intensity at times, so there would be vocals. But the vocals were not intended to be the center of attention — the interaction within the band and the chaotic nature of the music, that was the important part." However, he did enjoy testing the tolerance of the white liberal hipsters in his audience and provoking reactions out of listeners, stating that one of the band's goals was "to have pointedly offensive records". Terri Sutton of Puncture magazine wrote that the band's stark presentation of evil, deep-seated human impulses bolstered their work against criticism: "The topics are so deliberately loaded that you can't criticize their 'art' without looking like some fucking puritan
."
s onstage before the band played, a tradition he carried on from their earliest performances through their dissolution and revived for their 2006 reunion set, and would count in most songs by yelling "One, two, fuck you!" While playing, the band members would slam their hands against their steel guitar strings
so hard that they would draw blood, often needing to put adhesive bandage
s on their fingers. Albini used a specially-made hip-slung guitar strap worn around his waist like a belt, and would "prowl the stage like a spindly gunslinger", according to Azerrad. Gerard Cosloy
recalls that "It looked like someone had plugged Steve into the amp [...] he was pretty scary to watch onstage."
During performances of "Jordan, Minnesota", the band would reach a point where they would prolong a discordant, creepy noise while Albini would perform an intense pantomime
as though he were one of the children from the song's lyrics being rape
d. "It was actually very disturbing to watch", says Durango, "It would really get people unsettled." The band would respond to heckler
s with acidic comebacks or deliberately offensive jokes. Describing the intensity of a January 1987 Big Black performance in Forced Exposure, Lydia Lunch
remarked that "I was pulverized into near oblivion as wall after wall of frustration, heartache, hatred, death, disease, dis-use, disgust, mistrust, & maelstrom stormed the stage waging war with military precision insistently invading every open orifice with the strength of ten thousand bulls".
. Aesthetically, the band's firmly-held ideals, staunch independence, insistence on creative control, and stark lyrical topics had a significant impact on the developing independent rock community. "Big Black was a band that went where few bands dared to go (and where many felt bands shouldn't go)," writes Mark Deming, "and for good or ill their pervasive influence had a seismic impact on indie rock." Albini summed up several of the band's core ideals in his notes to the Pigpile
album:
I The band's drum machine is credited as "Roland" on their releases.
of Big Black consists of two studio album
s, two live album
s, two compilation album
s, four EPs
, five singles
, and one video album.
}
|-
|1992
|Pigpile
|}
I Sound of Impact is an authorized bootleg
released through a subsidiary imprint of Blast First
.
}
|-
|"Il Duce"
|-
|rowspan="2"|1987
|"Heartbeat"
|-
|"He's a Whore" / "The Model"
|-
|1992
|"In My House"
|}
I "Rema-Rema" is a Rema-Rema
cover
included as a one-sided single with issue #9 of Forced Exposure, and limited to 500 copies.
II "In My House" is a Mary Jane Girls
cover that was included with copies of the Pigpile video.
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
band from Evanston, Illinois
Evanston, Illinois
Evanston is a suburban municipality in Cook County, Illinois 12 miles north of downtown Chicago, bordering Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, and Wilmette to the north, with an estimated population of 74,360 as of 2003. It is one of the North Shore communities that adjoin Lake Michigan...
, active from 1981 to 1987. Founded by singer and guitarist Steve Albini
Steve Albini
Steven Frank Albini is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, audio engineer and music journalist. He was a member of Big Black, Rapeman, and Flour, and is currently a member of Shellac...
, the band's initial lineup also included guitarist Santiago Durango
Santiago Durango
Santiago Durango is an American guitarist remembered for his work with the 1980s punk rock groups Naked Raygun and Big Black. Mostly retired from music as of the early 2000s, he works as an attorney.- Biography :...
and bassist Jeff Pezzati
Jeff Pezzati
Jeff Pezzati is the lead singer for a popular Chicago punk band, Naked Raygun. From 1983 to 1985, he was also the bass player for the internationally known band Big Black. In 1980, Jeff Pezzati was a member of a suburban cover band, Condor, when he was asked to audition for Naked Raygun by the...
, both of Naked Raygun
Naked Raygun
Naked Raygun is a Chicago-based punk rock group. Initially active from 1980 to about 1992, Naked Raygun had several short-lived reunions afterwards and a full-time reformation in 2006....
. In 1985 Pezzati was replaced by Dave Riley, who played on Big Black's two full-length studio album
Studio album
A studio album is an album made up of tracks recorded in the controlled environment of a recording studio. A studio album contains newly written and recorded or previously unreleased or remixed material, distinguishing itself from a compilation or reissue album of previously recorded material, or...
s, Atomizer
Atomizer (album)
Atomizer is a 1986 album by the American noise rock group Big Black. It is their debut album as all previous releases are EPs. The LP is accompanied by liner notes that explain the stories behind many of the songs...
(1986) and Songs About Fucking
Songs About Fucking
Songs About Fucking is the second and final album by the noise rock band Big Black. It placed 54th on Pitchfork Media's 'Top 100 Albums of the 1980s'. Included are covers of Kraftwerk's "The Model" and Cheap Trick's "He's a Whore".-Production:...
(1987).
Big Black's aggressive and abrasive music was characterized by distinctively clanky guitars and the use of a drum machine
Drum machine
A drum machine is an electronic musical instrument designed to imitate the sound of drums or other percussion instruments. They are used in a variety of musical genres, not just purely electronic music...
rather than a drum kit
Drum kit
A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
, elements which precursored industrial rock
Industrial rock
Industrial rock is a musical genre that fuses industrial music and specific rock subgenres. Industrial rock spawned industrial metal, with which it is often confused...
. The band acknowledged no taboo
Taboo
A taboo is a strong social prohibition relating to any area of human activity or social custom that is sacred and or forbidden based on moral judgment, religious beliefs and or scientific consensus. Breaking the taboo is usually considered objectionable or abhorrent by society...
s, and Albini's lyrics openly dealt with loaded topics including murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
, rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
, child sexual abuse
Child sexual abuse
Child sexual abuse is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include asking or pressuring a child to engage in sexual activities , indecent exposure with intent to gratify their own sexual desires or to...
, arson
Arson
Arson is the crime of intentionally or maliciously setting fire to structures or wildland areas. It may be distinguished from other causes such as spontaneous combustion and natural wildfires...
, racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
, and misogyny
Misogyny
Misogyny is the hatred or dislike of women or girls. Philogyny, meaning fondness, love or admiration towards women, is the antonym of misogyny. The term misandry is the term for men that is parallel to misogyny...
. They also held staunch principles, shunning the mainstream music industry and insisting on complete control over all aspects of their career. Big Black booked their own tours, paid for their own recordings, and refused to sign contracts, eschewing many of the traditional corporate trappings of rock bands. In doing so they had a significant impact on the aesthetic development of independent and underground
Underground music
Underground music comprises a range of different musical genres that operate outside of mainstream culture. Such music can typically share common values, such as the valuing of sincerity and intimacy; an emphasis on freedom of creative expression; an appreciation of artistic creativity...
rock music.
In addition to two studio albums, Big Black released two live album
Live album
A live album is a recording consisting of material recorded during stage performances using remote recording techniques, commonly contrasted with a studio album...
s, two compilation album
Compilation album
A compilation album is an album featuring tracks from one or more performers, often culled from a variety of sources The tracks are usually collected according to a common characteristic, such as popularity, genre, source or subject matter...
s, four EPs
Extended play
An EP is a musical recording which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full album or LP. The term EP originally referred only to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play records and LP records, but it is now applied to mid-length Compact...
, and five singles
Single (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...
, all through independent record label
Independent record label
An independent record label is a record label operating without the funding of or outside the organizations of the major record labels. A great number of bands and musical acts begin on independent labels.-Overview:...
s. Most of the band's catalog was kept in print through Touch and Go Records
Touch and Go Records
Touch and Go Records is an independent record label based in Chicago, Illinois, USA.After its genesis as a hand-made fanzine in 1979, it grew into one of the key record labels in the American 1980s alternative and underground rock scenes, Touch & Go carved out a reputation for releasing adventurous...
for years following their breakup.
1981–1982: Formation and Lungs
Big Black was founded by Steve AlbiniSteve Albini
Steven Frank Albini is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, audio engineer and music journalist. He was a member of Big Black, Rapeman, and Flour, and is currently a member of Shellac...
in 1981 during his second year of college at Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
. Albini had become a fan of punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
during his high school years in Missoula, Montana
Missoula, Montana
Missoula is a city located in western Montana and is the county seat of Missoula County. The 2010 Census put the population of Missoula at 66,788 and the population of Missoula County at 109,299. Missoula is the principal city of the Missoula Metropolitan Area...
, and taught himself to play bass guitar
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
in the fall of 1979, his senior year, while recuperating from a badly broken leg resulting from being struck by a car while riding his motorcycle. Moving to Evanston, Illinois
Evanston, Illinois
Evanston is a suburban municipality in Cook County, Illinois 12 miles north of downtown Chicago, bordering Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, and Wilmette to the north, with an estimated population of 74,360 as of 2003. It is one of the North Shore communities that adjoin Lake Michigan...
the following year to pursue a journalism
Journalism
Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...
degree and fine art
Fine art
Fine art or the fine arts encompass art forms developed primarily for aesthetics and/or concept rather than practical application. Art is often a synonym for fine art, as employed in the term "art gallery"....
minor
Academic minor
An academic minor is a college or university student's declared secondary field of study or specialization during his or her undergraduate studies. As with an academic major, the college or university in question lays out a framework of required classes or class types a student must complete to...
at Northwestern, Albini immersed himself in the fledgling Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
punk scene and became a devoted fan of the post-punk
Post-punk
Post-punk is a rock music movement with its roots in the late 1970s, following on the heels of the initial punk rock explosion of the mid-1970s. The genre retains its roots in the punk movement but is more introverted, complex and experimental...
band Naked Raygun
Naked Raygun
Naked Raygun is a Chicago-based punk rock group. Initially active from 1980 to about 1992, Naked Raygun had several short-lived reunions afterwards and a full-time reformation in 2006....
. He also DJ
Disc jockey
A disc jockey, also known as DJ, is a person who selects and plays recorded music for an audience. Originally, "disc" referred to phonograph records, not the later Compact Discs. Today, the term includes all forms of music playback, no matter the medium.There are several types of disc jockeys...
'd for the campus radio station, from which he was repeatedly fired for playing loud and abrasive music during the morning time slot, and wrote a controversial column
Column (newspaper)
A column is a recurring piece or article in a newspaper, magazine or other publication. Columns are written by columnists.What differentiates a column from other forms of journalism is that it meets each of the following criteria:...
titled "Tired of Ugly Fat?" for the Chicago zine
Zine
A zine is most commonly a small circulation publication of original or appropriated texts and images. More broadly, the term encompasses any self-published work of minority interest usually reproduced via photocopier....
Matter, publishing confrontational rants about the local music scene which polarized readers into either respecting or hating him.
New Wave music
New Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...
" act called Stations that featured a drum machine
Drum machine
A drum machine is an electronic musical instrument designed to imitate the sound of drums or other percussion instruments. They are used in a variety of musical genres, not just purely electronic music...
. Seeing the advantage in a machine that could play incredibly fast without tiring, always kept a steady beat, and would follow commands exactly, he purchased a Roland TR-606
Roland TR-606
The Roland TR-606 Drumatix is a programmable analog synthesis drum machine built by the Roland Corporation from 1981 to 1984. It was originally designed to be used with the Roland TB-303, a monophonic analog bass synthesizer, to provide a simple drum and bass accompaniment to guitarists without...
drum machine and began writing beats
Beat (music)
The beat is the basic unit of time in music, the pulse of the mensural level . In popular use, the beat can refer to a variety of related concepts including: tempo, meter, rhythm and groove...
on it that would become the first Big Black songs. However, he was unable to find other musicians who could play the songs to his satisfaction, later stating in Forced Exposure
Forced Exposure
Forced Exposure was an independent music magazine published sporadically out of Massachusetts from the early-'80s to 1993, edited by Jimmy Johnson and Byron Coley. It was printed on cheap newsprint with plain design and filled with corrosive yet humorous writing...
that "I couldn't find anybody who didn't blow out of a pig's asshole." Instead, in the spring of 1981 he bought a guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
, borrowed a four-track multitrack recorder
Multitrack recording
Multitrack recording is a method of sound recording that allows for the separate recording of multiple sound sources to create a cohesive whole...
from a friend in exchange for a case of beer, and spent his spring break
Spring break
Spring break – also known as March break, Study week or Reading week in the United Kingdom and some parts of Canada – is a recess in early spring at universities and schools in the United States, Canada, mainland China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, the United...
week recording the Lungs
Lungs (EP)
Lungs is the first EP by American Post-hardcore band Big Black. It was released in December 1982 on Ruthless Records, and was reissued in 1992 on Touch & Go Records...
EP
Extended play
An EP is a musical recording which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full album or LP. The term EP originally referred only to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play records and LP records, but it is now applied to mid-length Compact...
in his living room, handling the guitar, bass, and vocals by himself and programming the Roland TR-606 to provide the drum sound. Influenced by bands like Cabaret Voltaire
Cabaret Voltaire (band)
Cabaret Voltaire were a British music group from Sheffield, England.Initially composed of Stephen Mallinder, Richard H. Kirk and Chris Watson, the group was named after the Cabaret Voltaire, a nightclub in Zürich, Switzerland that was a centre for the early Dada movement.Their earliest performances...
, Killing Joke
Killing Joke
Killing Joke are an English post-punk band formed in October 1978 in Notting Hill, London, England; other sources report the band formed in early 1979.Related news articles: Founding members Jaz Coleman and Geordie Walker have been the only constant members.A key influence on industrial rock,...
, and The Cure
The Cure
The Cure are an English rock band formed in Crawley, West Sussex in 1976. The band has experienced several line-up changes, with frontman, vocalist, guitarist and principal songwriter Robert Smith being the only constant member...
, the EP is described by Our Band Could Be Your Life
Our Band Could Be Your Life
Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991 is a book by Michael Azerrad. It chronicles the careers of several underground rock bands who, while finding little or no mainstream success, were hugely influential in establishing American alternative and indie...
author Michael Azerrad
Michael Azerrad
Michael Azerrad is an American author, journalist and musician. He grew up in the New York City area and received his BA degree from Columbia College in 1983...
as "cold, dark, and resolutely unlistenable", with the lyrics describing crack
Crack cocaine
Crack cocaine is the freebase form of cocaine that can be smoked. It may also be termed rock, hard, iron, cavvy, base, or just crack; it is the most addictive form of cocaine. Crack rocks offer a short but intense high to smokers...
addicts and child abuse
Child abuse
Child abuse is the physical, sexual, emotional mistreatment, or neglect of a child. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Children And Families define child maltreatment as any act or series of acts of commission or omission by a parent or...
rs, and Albini later regarded the effort as one of his few artistic regrets.
Albini named his new musical project Big Black, calling the moniker "just sort of a reduction of the concept of a large, scary, ominous figure. All the historical images of fear and all the things that kids are afraid of are all big and black, basically." He used the Lungs tape to try to enlist other musicians to the project, briefly recruiting Minor Threat
Minor Threat
Minor Threat was an American hardcore punk band formed in Washington, D.C. in 1980 and disbanded in 1983. The band was relatively short-lived, but had a strong influence on the hardcore punk music scene, both stylistically and in establishing a "do it yourself" ethic for music distribution and...
guitarist Lyle Preslar
Lyle Preslar
Lyle Preslar is an American musician best known for being a guitar player and song writer for the hardcore punk band Minor Threat. Before that, he was the vocalist for The Extorts....
who was attending Northwestern, but the two proved incompatible as musicians. Albini passed Lungs on to John Babbin of the small local label Ruthless Records
Ruthless Records (Chicago)
Ruthless Records was the name of a Chicago punk record label. Founded in 1981 by the Effigies, it was not a real business, but a name used by Chicago and Minneapolis punk bands from 1981 to 1990: Big Black, the Effigies, End Result, Naked Raygun, Rifle Sport and Urge Overkill...
, who released 1,500 copies of the EP in December 1982 with random objects such as dollar bills, used condom
Condom
A condom is a barrier device most commonly used during sexual intercourse to reduce the probability of pregnancy and spreading sexually transmitted diseases . It is put on a man's erect penis and physically blocks ejaculated semen from entering the body of a sexual partner...
s, photographs of Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee was a Chinese American, Hong Kong actor, martial arts instructor, philosopher, film director, film producer, screenwriter, and founder of the Jeet Kune Do martial arts movement...
, and bloody pieces of paper thrown into the insert.
1983: Full lineup and Bulldozer
In early 1983 Albini met Naked Raygun singer Jeff PezzatiJeff Pezzati
Jeff Pezzati is the lead singer for a popular Chicago punk band, Naked Raygun. From 1983 to 1985, he was also the bass player for the internationally known band Big Black. In 1980, Jeff Pezzati was a member of a suburban cover band, Condor, when he was asked to audition for Naked Raygun by the...
through mutual friends and convinced him to play bass guitar with Big Black. Pezzati recalled that Albini "knew a heck of a lot about, right from the start, how to release a record and get the word out that you have a record", and that "He jumped at the chance to have a band play his stuff." The two practiced in Pezzati's basement, and one day Naked Raygun guitarist Santiago Durango
Santiago Durango
Santiago Durango is an American guitarist remembered for his work with the 1980s punk rock groups Naked Raygun and Big Black. Mostly retired from music as of the early 2000s, he works as an attorney.- Biography :...
came downstairs and asked to play along. The trio clicked as a unit, Durango's ability to rework arrangements and tweak sounds helping to refine Albini's song ideas. According to Albini, "He ended up being absolutely crucial to Big Black."
Albini "sorta conned" small local label Fever Records into financing the next Big Black EP, bringing in drummer Pat Byrne of Urge Overkill
Urge Overkill
Urge Overkill is an alternative rock band, formed in Chicago, United States, consisting of Nash Kato , and Eddie "King" Roeser . Their cover of Neil Diamond's song "Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon" appeared prominently in the movie Pulp Fiction, and became a hit in 1994...
to play on the sessions as accompaniment to the drum machine, which they dubbed "Roland" for album credits. Albini achieved a signature "clanky" sound with his guitar by using metal guitar pick
Guitar pick
A guitar pick is a plectrum used for guitars. A pick is generally made of one uniform material; examples include plastic, nylon, rubber, felt, tortoiseshell, wood, metal, glass, and stone...
s notched with sheet metal clips, creating the effect of two guitar picks at once. The Bulldozer
Bulldozer (EP)
Bulldozer is the second EP by Chicago Post-Hardcore band Big Black, released in 1983. It was their first release to feature an actual band performing, including Pat Byrne from Urge Overkill playing drums on some of the songs...
EP was recorded with engineer Iain Burgess
Iain Burgess
Iain Burgess was a British record producer and audio engineer. He helped define the sound of the Chicago post-punk music scene in the 1980s and early '90s, working with a number of key underground bands, including Big Black, Naked Raygun, The Effigies, Get Smart!, Ministry, Bloodsport, Pegboy,...
and released in December 1983, with the first two hundred copies packaged in a galvanized
Hot-dip galvanizing
Hot-dip galvanizing is a form of galvanization. It is the process of coating iron, steel, or aluminum with a thin zinc layer, by passing the metal through a molten bath of zinc at a temperature of around 860 °F...
sheet metal
Sheet metal
Sheet metal is simply metal formed into thin and flat pieces. It is one of the fundamental forms used in metalworking, and can be cut and bent into a variety of different shapes. Countless everyday objects are constructed of the material...
sleeve in homage
Homage
Homage is a show or demonstration of respect or dedication to someone or something, sometimes by simple declaration but often by some more oblique reference, artistic or poetic....
to Public Image Ltd.
Public Image Ltd.
Public Image Ltd are an English post-punk band formed by vocalist John Lydon , guitarist Keith Levene and bassist Jah Wobble, with frequent subsequent personnel changes. Lydon is the sole constant member of the band....
's Metal Box
Metal Box
Metal Box is the second album by Public Image Ltd, released in 1979 by Virgin Records.The title refers to the album's original packaging, which consists of a metal 16mm film canister embossed with the band's logo and containing three 12" 45rpm records...
. Many of the EP's lyrics depicted scenarios drawn from Albini's midwest upbringing, such as "Cables", which described the slaughtering of cows at a Montana abattoir
Slaughterhouse
A slaughterhouse or abattoir is a facility where animals are killed for consumption as food products.Approximately 45-50% of the animal can be turned into edible products...
, and "Pigeon Kill", about a rural Indiana
Indiana
Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...
town that dealt with an overpopulation of pigeons by feeding them poisoned corn.
1984: Touring and label signing
Even with Bulldozer released, Big Black drew very small crowds in their native Chicago. They began venturing outside of Illinois to play shows in MadisonMadison, Wisconsin
Madison is the capital of the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Dane County. It is also home to the University of Wisconsin–Madison....
, Minneapolis, Detroit, and Muncie
Muncie, Indiana
Muncie is a city in Center Township, Delaware County in east central Indiana, best known as the home of Ball State University and the birthplace of the Ball Corporation. It is the principal city of the Muncie, Indiana, Metropolitan Statistical Area, which has a population of 118,769...
, transporting themselves and their equipment in a cramped car and sleeping on people's floors. Albini handled much of the band's logistics himself, setting up rehearsals, booking studio time, and arranging tours. With their reputation growing through small tours, he was able to set up a run of East Coast dates including performances in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
and Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
and at New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
's Danceteria
Danceteria
Danceteria was a well-known four-floor nightclub located in New York City which operated from 1980 until 1986 and in the Hamptons until 1995. Throughout its history, the club had seven different locations, three in NYC and four in the Hamptons...
, followed by a European tour on which they won acclaim in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
's music press. Big Black simultaneously found themselves gaining popularity in their hometown, but felt embittered that the same locals who had snubbed them just months before were suddenly interested now that they had built a reputation outside the city, and the band actually refused to play in Chicago for some time.
Part of Big Black's local unpopularity stemmed from Albini and the vitriol he regularly directed at Chicago's rock scene: by 1985 the Metro Chicago
Metro Chicago
This page is about the concert hall; for the metro region surrounding Chicago, see Chicago metropolitan area.Metro is a concert hall at 3730 N. Clark Street in Chicago, Illinois that plays host to a variety of local, regional and national emerging bands and musicians. The Metro was first opened in...
was the only club in the city that was booking punk rock shows and was also large enough to accommodate Big Black, but after performing there Albini badmouthed the club in an interview and found himself banned from it permanently. Compounding the problem were the band's aggressive, noise-driven sound and Albini's confrontational lyrics, which tested the tolerance of his white liberal audience by mercilessly satirizing racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
, sexism
Sexism
Sexism, also known as gender discrimination or sex discrimination, is the application of the belief or attitude that there are characteristics implicit to one's gender that indirectly affect one's abilities in unrelated areas...
, chauvinism
Chauvinism
Chauvinism, in its original and primary meaning, is an exaggerated, bellicose patriotism and a belief in national superiority and glory. It is an eponym of a possibly fictional French soldier Nicolas Chauvin who was credited with many superhuman feats in the Napoleonic wars.By extension it has come...
, and stereotypes of homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
, sometimes using pejorative
Pejorative
Pejoratives , including name slurs, are words or grammatical forms that connote negativity and express contempt or distaste. A term can be regarded as pejorative in some social groups but not in others, e.g., hacker is a term used for computer criminals as well as quick and clever computer experts...
s like "darkie" and "fag" to drive home the point; this led some listeners to consider him a bigot
Bigotry
A bigot is a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices, especially one exhibiting intolerance, and animosity toward those of differing beliefs...
.
Looking for better distribution of their records, Big Black negotiated a deal with Homestead Records
Homestead Records
Homestead Records was a Long Island, NY based sublabel of music distributor Dutch East India Trading. It was founded in 1984 by Sam Berger, who was the American Independent buyer for Dutch East India Trading. Berger was finding that many bands who had perhaps released their own first 45 were...
. Gerard Cosloy
Gerard Cosloy
Gerard Cosloy is an American music industry executive.-Biography:Cosloy was raised in Wayland, Massachusetts, a western suburb of Boston. While he was in high school, he became involved in the local hardcore punk scene, put together many punk shows, and started Conflict, a mimeographed fanzine of...
, who had befriended Albini through writing for Matter and gone on to work at Homestead, negotiated an unorthodox deal for the band: Big Black merely licensed their recordings to Homestead for specific lengths of time, rather than the label retaining the rights to the recordings as was typical. Further, the band took no advance payment
Advance payment
An advance payment, or simply an advance, is the part of a contractually due sum that is paid in advance for goods or services, while the balance included in the invoice will only follow the delivery. It is called a prepaid expense in accrual accounting.-See also:*Advance against royalties*Pay or...
s, paid for their own recordings, and signed no contracts. Durango later remarked that "We came from a punk perspective — we did not want to get sucked into a corporate culture where basically you're signing a contract because you don't trust the other person to live up to their word. We had ideals, and that was one of our ideals." The band members figured that if a record company were going to cheat them, they would be able to do so with or without a contract because the band couldn't afford to defend themselves.
Albini believed that Big Black had nothing to gain by adopting the usual corporate trappings of rock bands: "If you don't use contracts, you don't have any contracts to worry about. If you don't have a tour rider, you don't have a tour rider to argue about. If you don't have a booking agent, you don't have a booking agent to argue with." Handling the tour booking, equipment hauling, setup, and breakdown of shows themselves also meant that the band did not have to hire a booking agent or road crew
Road crew
The road crew are the technicians or support personnel who travel with a band on tour, usually in sleeper buses, and handle every part of the concert productions except actually performing the music with the musicians...
with whom they would have to share profits. The lack of a drummer also meant one less member to split profits with, and since there was no drum kit
Drum kit
A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
the band did not have to rent a tour van to fit all of their equipment. Thus Big Black was able to profit from most of their tours. They embarked on a 1984 national tour of the United States in preparation for their forthcoming Homestead EP, utilizing the close-knit network of independent rock bands to learn of cities and venues to play.
1985–1986: Racer-X and Atomizer
In late 1984, following the recording of the Racer-XRacer-X
Racer-X is the third EP by American Post-Hardcore band Big Black. It was released by Homestead Records in 1984 and reissued by Touch & Go Records in 1992.-Track listing:#"Racer-X"#"Shotgun"#"The Ugly American"#"Deep Six"#"Sleep!"...
EP, Pezzati amicably left the band due to his increasingly demanding job, the need to devote time to his fiancée, and the increasing popularity and busy schedule of Naked Raygun, of which he was still a member. Durango, meanwhile, opted to leave Naked Raygun to commit full-time to Big Black. Pezzati was replaced by Dave Riley, who joined Big Black the week of Racer-X
Liner notes
Liner notes are the writings found in booklets which come inserted into the compact disc jewel case or the equivalent packaging for vinyl records and cassettes.-Origin:...
that "The next one's gonna make you shit your pants."
Big Black's first LP
LP album
The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...
, 1986's Atomizer
Atomizer (album)
Atomizer is a 1986 album by the American noise rock group Big Black. It is their debut album as all previous releases are EPs. The LP is accompanied by liner notes that explain the stories behind many of the songs...
, found the band at their most musically developed and aggressive level yet. Riley's funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
background brought a slightly greater sense of melody
Melody
A melody , also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones which is perceived as a single entity...
and danceability to the band, while Albini and Durango's guitar work was more violent than ever before. Michael Azerrad
Michael Azerrad
Michael Azerrad is an American author, journalist and musician. He grew up in the New York City area and received his BA degree from Columbia College in 1983...
comments that "by this time Big Black had both refined the ideas first suggested on Lungs and exploded them into something much huger than anyone but Albini had ever imagined", while Mark Deming of Allmusic states that the album "upped the ante on the musical and lyrical ferocity of Big Black's previous body of work, an unrelenting assault of guitar sounds and imagined violence of all sorts." Albini later remarked that "we just had a higher-than-average percentage of really good songs." The lyrics on Atomizer presented sociopaths
Psychopathy
Psychopathy is a mental disorder characterized primarily by a lack of empathy and remorse, shallow emotions, egocentricity, and deceptiveness. Psychopaths are highly prone to antisocial behavior and abusive treatment of others, and are very disproportionately responsible for violent crime...
committing evil acts that most people only sometimes contemplate: "Big Money" deals with a corrupt police officer, "Bazooka Joe" profiles a shell-shocked
Combat stress reaction
Combat stress reaction , in the past commonly known as shell shock or battle fatigue, is a range of behaviours resulting from the stress of battle which decrease the combatant's fighting efficiency. The most common symptoms are fatigue, slower reaction times, indecision, disconnection from one's...
veteran
Veteran
A veteran is a person who has had long service or experience in a particular occupation or field; " A veteran of ..."...
who becomes a contract killer
Contract killing
Contract killing is a form of murder, in which one party hires another party to kill a target individual or group of people. It involves an illegal agreement between two parties in which one party agrees to kill the target in exchange for consideration, monetary, or otherwise. The hiring party may...
, "Stinking Drunk" describes a violent alcoholic
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
, and "Fists of Love" presents a sadist
Sadistic personality disorder
Sadistic personality disorder is a diagnosis which appeared only in an appendix of the revised third edition of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders . The current version of the DSM does not include it, so it is no longer considered a valid...
. One of the album's most controversial songs was "Jordan, Minnesota", about the 1983 scandal in Jordan, Minnesota
Jordan, Minnesota
Jordan is a city in Scott County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 5,470 at the 2010 census.-Geography:According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which, of it is land and of it is water. U.S. Highway 169; and State Highways 21 and 282 are three...
that saw a large number of the rural town's adults indicted on charges of involvement in a huge child sex ring.
"Kerosene", one of Atomizer
Gang of Four (band)
Gang of Four are an English post-punk group from Leeds. Original personnel were singer Jon King, guitarist Andy Gill, bass guitarist Dave Allen and drummer Hugo Burnham. They were fully active from 1977 to 1984, and then re-emerged twice in the 1990s with King and Gill...
and guitars that sound like shattering glass", while Kellman calls it "undeniably Big Black's brightest/bleakest moment, an epically roaming track that features an instantly memorable guitar intro, completely incapable of being accurately described by vocal imitation or physical gesture [...] It's Big Black's 'Light My Fire
Light My Fire
"Light My Fire" is a song by The Doors which was recorded in August 1966 and released the first week of January 1967 on the Doors' debut album. Released as a single in April, it spent three weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and one week on the Cash Box Top 100, nearly a year after...
,' literally." Riley explained that the song was about the effects of boredom in rural America: "There's only two things to do. Go blow up a whole load of stuff for fun. Or have a lot of sex with the one girl in town who'll have sex with anyone. 'Kerosene' is about a guy who tries to combine the two pleasures."
Atomizer was a polarizing record that was praised in the national press and became an underground success, surpassing the band's expectations by selling three thousand copies soon after its release. Big Black secured a European distribution deal for their records through Blast First
Blast First
Blast First is a sub label of one-time independent record label, Mute Records, founded in approximately 1985. It was named after a phrase taken from the first number of the radical Vorticist journal Blast, published by Wyndham Lewis in 1914...
, a label recommended to Albini by Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth is an American alternative rock band from New York City, formed in 1981. The current lineup consists of Thurston Moore , Kim Gordon , Lee Ranaldo , Steve Shelley , and Mark Ibold .In their early career, Sonic Youth was associated with the No Wave art and music scene in New York City...
, and met enthusiastic responses to their shows on a 1986 European tour.
The compilation album
Compilation album
A compilation album is an album featuring tracks from one or more performers, often culled from a variety of sources The tracks are usually collected according to a common characteristic, such as popularity, genre, source or subject matter...
The Hammer Party
The Hammer Party
-Track listing:#"Steelworker" 1#"Live in a Hole" 1#"Dead Billy" 1#"I Can Be Killed" 1#"Crack" 1#"RIP" 1#"Cables" 2#"Pigeon Kill" 2#"I'm a Mess" 2#"Texas" 2#"Seth" 2#"Jump the Climb" 2#"Racer X" 3#"Shotgun" 3#"The Ugly American" 3#"Deep Six" 3...
, combining Lungs and Bulldozer, was also released through Homestead Records in 1986, but later that year Big Black had a falling out with the label and its distributor, Dutch East India Trading
Dutch East India Trading
Dutch East India Trading is an independent record label based in Rockville Centre, New York. It has released music by such artists as Sun Dial, The Orb, The Smiths, Soul-Junk, Die Monster Die, Prong, The Cure, Robert Wyatt, A Guy Called Gerald, Bongwater, Opium Den, Indian Bingo, Meat Beat...
. According to Albini, Dutch East India's accounting practices were "always fucked. They would do every sleazy, cheap trick to avoid paying you, like send you a check that wan't signed or send you a check that had a different numeral and literal amount." Homestead then asked to make five hundred copies of a 12-inch single
12-inch single
The 12-inch single is a type of gramophone record that has wider groove spacing compared to other types of records. This allows for louder levels to be cut on the disc by the cutting engineer, which in turn gives a wider dynamic range, and thus better sound quality...
of "Il Duce" for free distribution to radio stations. The band agreed on the condition that the single was not to be offered for sale, since the song had already been released as a 7-inch single
Single (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...
in 1985 and, according to Albini, "We didn't want our audience milked for extra money to buy an alternate format." A few weeks after the single's release, Albini began seeing copies for sale in record stores outside of Chicago. He soon found out that the 12-inch single was being sold both in the United States and abroad as a high-priced "collector's item". Though Homestead claimed not to be selling copies, Albini telephoned one of the label's salespeople posing as a record buyer and was told that they would sell him copies, but not in Chicago. As a result of the deception, Albini and Big Black severed ties with Homestead and Dutch East India. Though the band was receiving lucrative offers from major labels, they chose to remain independent and signed to Touch and Go Records
Touch and Go Records
Touch and Go Records is an independent record label based in Chicago, Illinois, USA.After its genesis as a hand-made fanzine in 1979, it grew into one of the key record labels in the American 1980s alternative and underground rock scenes, Touch & Go carved out a reputation for releasing adventurous...
, Albini being good friends with label head Corey Rusk.
1987: Headache, Songs About Fucking, and breakup
Big Black's first release for Touch and Go was the HeadacheHeadache (EP)
Headache is a 1987 EP by Chicago post-hardcore band Big Black. The record generated some controversy due to a cover photograph of a shotgun suicide victim whose head was split in half; it only appeared on a very limited edition of the record and was later replaced with a drawing by Savage Pencil...
EP in spring 1987. The cover artwork for the limited original edition of the EP was a pair of forensic photos of an accident victim whose head had been split down the middle, and the record was packaged in a black plastic "body bag" to conceal the artwork from sensitive consumers. A sticker on the EP's cover read "Not as good as Atomizer, so don't get your hopes up, cheese!" According to Durango, "We didn't want to sit there and screw people. If we felt it wasn't as good, then we should just be honest about it." Indeed, Headache recycled many of the same sounds and themes found on Atomizer, showing signs that the band was lagging creatively. Durango later remarked that "I was feeling tapped out ideawise. At that point I think we had tried everything that we wanted to try, musically and in the studio."
Tensions were also mounting within the band. Albini did not drink alcohol, so Riley and Durango became drinking buddies on the road while Albini was doing interviews and handling the band's logistics. Riley, however, was drinking to excess, and his behavior ruined several of the band's performances. During a key show at CBGB
CBGB
CBGB was a music club at 315 Bowery at Bleecker Street in the borough of Manhattan in New York City.Founded by Hilly Kristal in 1973, it was originally intended to feature its namesake musical styles, but became a forum for American punk and New Wave bands like Ramones, Misfits, Television, the...
, he drunkenly smashed the drum machine. Albini also accused Riley of a number of other shortcomings including lateness to rehearsals, always needing rides, and "flashes of brilliance offset by flashes of belligerence." However, though he made a number of threats, Albini never fired Riley. Another problem facing the band was that Riley was now in college and both Albini and Durango had to keep day jobs, which limited Big Black's ability to tour. When Durango announced that he intended to enter law school
Law school
A law school is an institution specializing in legal education.- Law degrees :- Canada :...
beginning in the fall semester of 1987, the band decided to keep going until he began school and then call it quits. Despite enjoying increased press, radio airplay, record sales, and concert fees, the band did not regret their decision and eschewed the idea of commercial success. According to Riley, "Big Black was never about that. For Big Black to make any money, it wouldn't have been Big Black anymore." Being a lame duck
Lame duck (politics)
A lame duck is an elected official who is approaching the end of his or her tenure, and especially an official whose successor has already been elected.-Description:The status can be due to*having lost a re-election bid...
band was also liberating, as the members no longer had to be concerned with the group's future. Albini wrote that he was happy to be breaking up the band before it grew too big:
I am now quite happy to be breaking up. Things getting much too big and uncontrollable. All along we've wanted to keep our hands on everything, so nothing happened that we didn't want to. With international and multi-format/multi-territorial shit, that's proving elusive. I prefer to cut it off rather than have it turn into another Gross Rock Spectacle.
With their breakup announced well in advance, Big Black recorded their final album, Songs About Fucking
Songs About Fucking
Songs About Fucking is the second and final album by the noise rock band Big Black. It placed 54th on Pitchfork Media's 'Top 100 Albums of the 1980s'. Included are covers of Kraftwerk's "The Model" and Cheap Trick's "He's a Whore".-Production:...
, half in London and half at Albini's home studio. Their final tours began in June 1987, taking them to Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia, and across the United States. They performed at the Pukkelpop
Pukkelpop
Pukkelpop is an annual music festival which takes place near the city of Hasselt, Belgium in mid-to-late August. It is held within a large enclosure of fields and woodland—between a dual carriageway called Kempische Steenweg—in the village of Kiewit, approximately 7 km north of Hasselt...
festival in Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
with Sonic Youth on July 22, Albini's 25th birthday. At a sold-out show in London for 1,300 people, Bruce Gilbert
Bruce Gilbert
Bruce Gilbert is an English musician. One of the founding members of the influential and experimental art-punk band Wire, Gilbert branched out into electronic music, performance art, music production, and DJing during the band's extended periods of inactivity...
and Graham Lewis
Graham Lewis
Graham Lewis is an English musician.Lewis is the bassist with punk rock/post-punk band Wire, a band formed in 1976...
of Wire
Wire (band)
Wire are an English rock band, formed in London in October 1976 by Colin Newman , Graham Lewis , Bruce Gilbert , and Robert Gotobed...
joined Big Black onstage to play an encore
Encore (concert)
An encore is an additional performance added to the end of a concert, from the French "encore", which means "again", "some more"; multiple encores are not uncommon. Encores originated spontaneously, when audiences would continue to applaud and demand additional performance from the artist after the...
of Wire's "Heartbeat" (Big Black had released a cover version
Cover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...
of the song as a single in conjunction with Headache). Albini wrote of the experience that "If I die right now it will all have been worth it." In the United States the band played in San Francisco, Providence
Providence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of Rhode Island and was one of the first cities established in the United States. Located in Providence County, it is the third largest city in the New England region...
, Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, and New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, concluding with their final performance on August 11, 1987 at the Georgetown Steam Plant
Georgetown Steam Plant
The Georgetown Steam Plant, now the Georgetown PowerPlant Museum, located in the Georgetown neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, constructed in 1906 for the Seattle Electric Company, provided power for Seattle, notably for streetcars.-History:...
in Seattle. At the end of this show the band smashed their instruments onstage.
Songs About Fucking was released shortly after the band's breakup and went on to become their most successful record, with an initial pressing of eight thousand copies. Mark Deming of Allmusic calls it "a scabrous masterpiece", while his colleague Andy Kellman states that "each [song] is incisive enough to render a razor as effective as a butter knife. In sum: yowl, ching, thump-thump-screech. Ugly characters line up in the songs like early arrivals at a monster truck rally." Critic Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau is an American essayist, music journalist, and self-proclaimed "Dean of American Rock Critics".One of the earliest professional rock critics, Christgau is known for his terse capsule reviews, published since 1969 in his Consumer Guide columns...
commented that "Anybody who thinks rock and roll is alive and well in the infinite variety of its garage-boy permutations had better figure out how these Hitler Youth rejects could crush the competition and quit simultaneously. No matter what well-meaning rockers think of Steve Albini's supremacist lies, they lie themselves if they dismiss what he does with electric guitars--that killdozer sound culminates if not finishes off whole generations of punk and metal." Albini himself later considered the album's first side as Big Black's best output.
Post-Big Black
Rapeman
Rapeman was an American post-hardcore/noise rock group founded in 1987 and disbanded in 1989. It consisted of Steve Albini on guitar and vocals, David Wm. Sims on bass, and Rey Washam on drums.-History:In an interview, Albini reported that "'Rapeman' is .....
from 1987 to 1989 and Shellac
Shellac (band)
Shellac is an American group composed of Steve Albini , Bob Weston and Todd Trainer...
from 1992 onward. He also began work as a recording engineer, working with artists such as Slint
Slint
Slint was an American rock band consisting of Brian McMahan , David Pajo , Britt Walford , Todd Brashear and Ethan Buckler...
, the Pixies, The Breeders
The Breeders
The Breeders are an American alternative rock band formed in 1988 by Kim Deal of the Pixies and Tanya Donelly of Throwing Muses. The band has experienced a number of line-up changes; the current line-up consists of Kim Deal , her twin sister Kelley Deal , Jose Medeles , Mando Lopez Todd the Fox...
, Pegboy
Pegboy
Pegboy is an American punk band from Chicago, Illinois with a relatively large cult following. They were founded in 1990 by John Haggerty , along with his brother Joe Haggerty , Larry Damore , and Steve Saylors...
, Urge Overkill
Urge Overkill
Urge Overkill is an alternative rock band, formed in Chicago, United States, consisting of Nash Kato , and Eddie "King" Roeser . Their cover of Neil Diamond's song "Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon" appeared prominently in the movie Pulp Fiction, and became a hit in 1994...
, The Jesus Lizard
The Jesus Lizard
The Jesus Lizard was an American alternative rock and noise rock band formed in 1987 in Austin, Texas. They were "a leading noise rock band in the American independent underground…[who] turned out a series of independent records filled with scathing, disembowelling, guitar-driven pseudo-industrial...
, The Wedding Present
The Wedding Present
The Wedding Present are a British indie rock group based in Leeds, England, formed in 1985 from the ashes of the Lost Pandas. The band's music has evolved from fast-paced indie rock in the vein of their most obvious influences The Fall, Buzzcocks and Gang of Four to more varied forms...
, Superchunk
Superchunk
Superchunk is an American indie rock band from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, consisting of singer/guitarist Mac McCaughan, guitarist Jim Wilbur, bassist Laura Ballance, and drummer Jon Wurster. Formed in 1989, they were one of the bands that helped define the Chapel Hill music scene of the 1990s...
, PJ Harvey
PJ Harvey
Polly Jean Harvey is an English musician, singer-songwriter, composer and occasional artist. Primarily known as a vocalist and guitarist, she is also proficient with a wide range of instruments including piano, organ, bass, saxophone, and most recently, the autoharp.Harvey began her career in...
, Nirvana
Nirvana (band)
Nirvana was an American rock band that was formed by singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic in Aberdeen, Washington in 1987...
, Bush
Bush (band)
Bush are an alternative rock band formed in London in 1992 shortly after vocalist/guitarist Gavin Rossdale and guitarist Nigel Pulsford met in a London nightclub. Realising they shared a love for such diverse artists as the Pixies, Bob Marley, The Jesus Lizard, MC5, Nirvana, Hüsker Dü, and Big...
, and Page and Plant
Page and Plant
Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, both formerly of English hard rock band Led Zeppelin, recorded and toured in the mid-1990s under the title Page and Plant. The pair re-united in 1994 and, after recording a highly successful first album, they embarked on a world tour. They then recorded a second album,...
. Some of his most well-known recordings include the Pixies' Surfer Rosa
Surfer Rosa
Like Come On Pilgrim, Surfer Rosa displays a mix of musical styles; pop guitar songs such as "Broken Face", "Break My Body", and "Brick Is Red" are featured alongside slower, more melodic tracks exemplified by "Where Is My Mind?". The album includes heavier material, and prominently features the...
(1988), Nirvana's In Utero
In Utero
In Utero is the third and final studio album by the American grunge band Nirvana, released on September 13, 1993, on DGC Records. Nirvana intended the record to diverge significantly from the polished production of its previous album, Nevermind...
(1993), Bush's Razorblade Suitcase
Razorblade Suitcase
Razorblade Suitcase is the second album by the British grunge band Bush, released in November 1996 by Trauma Records. The album is widely believed to have signaled the demise of the "grunge" genre, as it was one of the last widely-known albums released bearing a grunge-sound.-Album title:The...
(1996), and Page and Plant's Walking into Clarksdale
Walking into Clarksdale
Walking into Clarksdale is a studio album by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, both formerly of English rock band Led Zeppelin. It was released by Atlantic Records on 21 April 1998. The follow-up album to No Quarter: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant Unledded, Walking into Clarksdale took 35 days to record....
(1998). In 1997 he opened his own recording studio
Recording studio
A recording studio is a facility for sound recording and mixing. Ideally both the recording and monitoring spaces are specially designed by an acoustician to achieve optimum acoustic properties...
, Electrical Audio
Electrical Audio
Electrical Audio is a recording facility founded in Chicago, Illinois by musician and recording engineer Steve Albini in 1997. Hundreds of independent music projects have been recorded there....
, in Chicago. Albini's recording style is characterized by the use of vintage microphone
Microphone
A microphone is an acoustic-to-electric transducer or sensor that converts sound into an electrical signal. In 1877, Emile Berliner invented the first microphone used as a telephone voice transmitter...
s placed strategically around the performance room, keeping vocals very low in the mix
Audio mixing (recorded music)
In audio recording, audio mixing is the process by which multiple recorded sounds are combined into one or more channels, most commonly two-channel stereo. In the process, the source signals' level, frequency content, dynamics, and panoramic position are manipulated and effects such as reverb may...
, and using few special effects. He is also known for recording almost any artist who requests his services (usually at very low rates but deliberately charging high amounts to artists on major record labels), disliking being credited on the albums he works on (insisting on being credited as a recording engineer rather than a producer
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
, if at all), and refusing to take royalties
Royalties
Royalties are usage-based payments made by one party to another for the right to ongoing use of an asset, sometimes an intellectual property...
for his work (calling them "an insult to the band").
Durango, meanwhile, continued to play music during his law school years, releasing two EPs on Touch and Go as Arsenal
Arsenal (Chicago band)
Arsenal was an American band, formed by the former Big Black guitarist Santiago Durango, after Big Black broke up. Durango was in law school at the time...
and recording with Boss Hog
Boss Hog
Boss Hog is an American punk blues band including the husband and wife duo of Jon Spencer and Cristina Martinez along with Jens Jurgensen , Hollis Queens and Mark Boyce...
. He then became a practicing lawyer
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
, with clients including Touch and Go Records and Cynthia Plaster Caster
Cynthia Plaster Caster
Cynthia Plaster Caster , whose real name is Cynthia Albritton, is an artist and self-described "recovering groupie" who creates plaster casts of famous persons' penises and breasts. She began her career in 1968 by casting penises of rock musicians. She later expanded her subjects to include...
. Riley was briefly a member of Bull but was incapacitated by a stroke
Stroke
A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...
in 1995, which was initially erroneously reported as a suicide attempt. Having lost the ability to walk, he maintains a blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
about his experiences titled "Worthless Goddamn Cripple". In 2004 he participated in a musical project called Miasma of Funk, releasing the album Groove on the Mania! He has also published a book titled Blurry and Disconnected: Tales of Sink-or-Swim Nihilism.
In 1992 Big Black's catalog reverted to Touch and Go Records, who re-released their entire discography and kept their records in print long after the band's breakup. That October the label released the live album and video Pigpile
Pigpile
-Track listing:# "Fists of Love" – 4:14# "L Dopa" – 1:49# "Passing Complexion" – 3:06# "Dead Billy" – 5:12# "Cables" – 3:18# "Bad Penny" – 3:03# "Pavement Saw" – 2:56# "Kerosene" – 6:38# "Steelworker" – 4:52# "Pigeon Kill" – 2:24...
, recorded in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
during the band's final tours, as well as the compilation album The Rich Man's Eight Track Tape
The Rich Man's Eight Track Tape
- Track listing :#"Jordan, Minnesota" - 3:20#"Passing Complexion" - 3:04#"Big Money" - 2:29#"Kerosene" - 6:05#"Bad Houses" - 3:09#"Fists of Love" - 4:21#"Stinking Drunk" - 3:27...
, which combined tracks from Atomizer, Headache, and the "Heartbeat" single in compact disc
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
format. The re-released version of The Hammer Party was expanded to include the tracks from Racer-X.
Sex Pistols
The Sex Pistols were an English punk rock band that formed in London in 1975. They were responsible for initiating the punk movement in the United Kingdom and inspiring many later punk and alternative rock musicians...
to Nirvana, [but] something started in the 1980s and you're seeing the evidence of it all around you", remarking that the label was "the best thing to happen to music in my lifetime, and we did this to say thanks". Though the band has been approached by promoters about doing other reunion shows, Albini has stated flatly "that is definitely not going to happen."
Music
Big Black's music challenged convention, pursuing an abrasive sound that was more aggressive than contemporary punk rockPunk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
. Albini explained that the band strove for intensity, stating that their goal was to make "something that felt intense when we went through it, rather than something that had little coded indicators of intensity. Heavy metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
and stuff like that didn't really seem intense to me, it seemed comical to me. Hardcore punk
Hardcore punk
Hardcore punk is an underground music genre that originated in the late 1970s, following the mainstream success of punk rock. Hardcore is generally faster, thicker, and heavier than earlier punk rock. The origin of the term "hardcore punk" is uncertain. The Vancouver-based band D.O.A...
didn't really seem intense most of the time — most of the time it just seemed childish. I guess that's how I would differentiate what we were doing from what other people were doing." Both Albini and Riley have described Big Black as a punk rock band in the liner notes of Pigpile
Pigpile
-Track listing:# "Fists of Love" – 4:14# "L Dopa" – 1:49# "Passing Complexion" – 3:06# "Dead Billy" – 5:12# "Cables" – 3:18# "Bad Penny" – 3:03# "Pavement Saw" – 2:56# "Kerosene" – 6:38# "Steelworker" – 4:52# "Pigeon Kill" – 2:24...
and in the book Our Band Could Be Your Life
Our Band Could Be Your Life
Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991 is a book by Michael Azerrad. It chronicles the careers of several underground rock bands who, while finding little or no mainstream success, were hugely influential in establishing American alternative and indie...
, respectively. Other sources have classified the band as post-punk
Post-punk
Post-punk is a rock music movement with its roots in the late 1970s, following on the heels of the initial punk rock explosion of the mid-1970s. The genre retains its roots in the punk movement but is more introverted, complex and experimental...
, indie rock
Indie rock
Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include lo-fi, post-rock, math rock, indie pop, dream pop, noise rock, space rock, sadcore, riot grrrl and emo, among others...
, noise rock
Noise rock
Noise rock describes a style of post-punk rock music that became prominent in the 1980s. Noise rock makes use of the traditional instrumentation and iconography of rock, but incorporates atonality and especially dissonance, and also frequently discards usual songwriting conventions.-Style:Noise...
, alternative rock
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
, and post-hardcore
Post-hardcore
Post-hardcore is a genre of music that developed from hardcore punk, itself an offshoot of the broader punk rock movement. Like post-punk, post-hardcore is a term for a broad constellation of groups...
.
A major component of Big Black's music was the drum machine
Drum machine
A drum machine is an electronic musical instrument designed to imitate the sound of drums or other percussion instruments. They are used in a variety of musical genres, not just purely electronic music...
. Rather than attempt to make it emulate the sound of a normal drum kit
Drum kit
A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
, the band chose to exploit the idiosyncracies of its synthetic sounds. On many songs Albini programmed it to accent the first and third beats
Beat (music)
The beat is the basic unit of time in music, the pulse of the mensural level . In popular use, the beat can refer to a variety of related concepts including: tempo, meter, rhythm and groove...
of the bar
Bar (music)
In musical notation, a bar is a segment of time defined by a given number of beats of a given duration. Typically, a piece consists of several bars of the same length, and in modern musical notation the number of beats in each bar is specified at the beginning of the score by the top number of a...
, rather than the second and fourth beats typically accented in rock music. "The effect was a monolithic pummeling, an attack", says Michael Azerrad
Michael Azerrad
Michael Azerrad is an American author, journalist and musician. He grew up in the New York City area and received his BA degree from Columbia College in 1983...
, "their groove, normally the most human aspect of a rock band, became its most inhuman; it only made them sound more insidious, its relentlessness downright tyrannical." On tour, the sound engineers at many rock clubs were befuddled by the drum machine, afraid that it wouldn't work with their sound system or would blow out their speakers, and the band would have to coerce the club owner or threaten to cancel the show in order to get them to put the drum machine through the monitors
Foldback (sound engineering)
Foldback is the use of rear-facing heavy-duty loudspeakers known as monitor speaker cabinets on stage during live music performances. The sound is amplified with power amplifiers or a public address system and the speakers are aimed at the on-stage performers rather than the audience...
.
The band's guitar sound was also unconventional. Albini was determined to avoid the "standard rock stud guitar sound", and achieved a signature "clanky" sound by using metal guitar pick
Guitar pick
A guitar pick is a plectrum used for guitars. A pick is generally made of one uniform material; examples include plastic, nylon, rubber, felt, tortoiseshell, wood, metal, glass, and stone...
s notched with sheet metal clips; the notch causing the pick to hit each string twice, creating the effect of two simultaneous guitar picks. Durango remarked: "I always thought that our guitar playing was not so much playing guitars, but assembling noises created by guitars." He and Albini respectively billed their guitars as "vroom" and "skinng" in the liner notes for Atomizer. Mark Deming of Allmusic remarks that "The group's guitars alternately sliced like a machete and ground like a dentist's drill, creating a groundbreaking and monolithic dissonance in the process."
Big Black's music was influenced by a number of genres and artists. Albini was a fan of punk rock bands including Suicide
Suicide (band)
Suicide is an American electronic protopunk musical duo, intermittently active since 1970 and composed of vocalist Alan Vega and Martin Rev on synthesizers and drum machines. They are an early synthesizer/vocal musical duo....
, the Ramones
Ramones
The Ramones were an American rock band that formed in the New York City neighborhood of Forest Hills, Queens, in 1974. They are often cited as the first punk rock group...
, The Stooges
The Stooges
The Stooges are an American rock band from Ann Arbor, Michigan first active from 1967 to 1974, and later reformed in 2003...
, and Naked Raygun
Naked Raygun
Naked Raygun is a Chicago-based punk rock group. Initially active from 1980 to about 1992, Naked Raygun had several short-lived reunions afterwards and a full-time reformation in 2006....
. When Riley joined the band in 1985 he brought with him a funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
background, having worked at a Detroit studio where George Clinton
George Clinton (musician)
George Clinton is an American singer, songwriter, bandleader, and music producer and the principal architect of P-Funk. He was the mastermind of the bands Parliament and Funkadelic during the 1970s and early 1980s, and launched a solo career in 1981. He has been cited as one of the foremost...
and Sly Stone
Sly Stone
Sly Stone is an American musician, songwriter, and record producer, most famous for his role as frontman for Sly & the Family Stone, a band which played a critical role in the development of soul, funk and psychedelia in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1993, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of...
had recorded. During their career Big Black recorded cover version
Cover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...
s of songs from a number of styles including post-punk
Post-punk
Post-punk is a rock music movement with its roots in the late 1970s, following on the heels of the initial punk rock explosion of the mid-1970s. The genre retains its roots in the punk movement but is more introverted, complex and experimental...
, New Wave
New Wave music
New Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...
, funk, hard rock
Hard rock
Hard rock is a loosely defined genre of rock music which has its earliest roots in mid-1960s garage rock, blues rock and psychedelic rock...
, synthpop
Synthpop
Synthpop is a genre of popular music that first became prominent in the 1980s, in which the synthesizer is the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s and early 1970s by the use of synthesizers in progressive rock, electronic art rock, disco and particularly the "Kraut rock" of...
, and R&B; these included Rema-Rema
Rema-Rema
Rema-Rema was a short-lived English music group, consisting of Gary Asquith , Marco Pirroni , Mick Allen , Mark Cox and Max ....
's "Rema-Rema", James Brown
James Brown
James Joseph Brown was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and recording artist. He is the originator of Funk and is recognized as a major figure in the 20th century popular music for both his vocals and dancing. He has been referred to as "The Godfather of Soul," "Mr...
's "The Payback
The Payback
The Payback is a 1973 double album by James Brown. It was originally scheduled to become the soundtrack for the blaxploitation film Hell Up in Harlem, but was rejected by director Larry Cohen for "not being funky enough." It went to #1 on the Soul Albums chart for two weeks and cracked the Pop...
", Wire
Wire (band)
Wire are an English rock band, formed in London in October 1976 by Colin Newman , Graham Lewis , Bruce Gilbert , and Robert Gotobed...
's "Heartbeat", Cheap Trick
Cheap Trick
Cheap Trick is an American rock band from Rockford, Illinois, formed in 1973. The band consists of members Robin Zander , Rick Nielsen , Tom Petersson , and Bun E...
's "He's a Whore", Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk is an influential electronic music band from Düsseldorf, Germany. The group was formed by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider in 1970, and was fronted by them until Schneider's departure in 2008...
's "The Model
Das Model
"Das Model" is a song recorded by the electro-pop group Kraftwerk in 1978; written by musicians Ralf Hütter and Karl Bartos, with artist Emil Schult collaborating on the lyrics. It is featured on the album, Die Mensch-Maschine; English version title: The Man-Machine...
", and the Mary Jane Girls
Mary Jane Girls
The Mary Jane Girls were an American R&B, soul, funk and disco group in the 1980s. They were protégées of singer Rick James. They are known for their hit songs "All Night Long", "Candyman" and "In My House".-Formation:...
' "In My House". The sound that Big Black forged for themselves, however, was wholly original: Azerrad remarks that "the band's music — jagged, brutal, loud, and nasty — was original to a downright confrontational degree. Big Black distilled years of post-punk and hardcore down to a sound resembling a singing saw blade mercillesly tearing through sheet metal. No one had made records that sounded so harsh."
Lyrics
Big Black's songs explored the dark side of American culture in unforgiving detail, acknowledging no tabooTaboo
A taboo is a strong social prohibition relating to any area of human activity or social custom that is sacred and or forbidden based on moral judgment, religious beliefs and or scientific consensus. Breaking the taboo is usually considered objectionable or abhorrent by society...
s. Albini's lyrics openly dealt with such topics as mutilation
Mutilation
Mutilation or maiming is an act of physical injury that degrades the appearance or function of any living body, usually without causing death.- Usage :...
, murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
, rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
, child molestation
Child sexual abuse
Child sexual abuse is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include asking or pressuring a child to engage in sexual activities , indecent exposure with intent to gratify their own sexual desires or to...
, arson
Arson
Arson is the crime of intentionally or maliciously setting fire to structures or wildland areas. It may be distinguished from other causes such as spontaneous combustion and natural wildfires...
, immolation, racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
, and misogyny
Misogyny
Misogyny is the hatred or dislike of women or girls. Philogyny, meaning fondness, love or admiration towards women, is the antonym of misogyny. The term misandry is the term for men that is parallel to misogyny...
. "That's just what was interesting to me as a postcollegiate bohemian", he later remarked. "We didn't have a manifesto. Nothing was off-limits; it's just that that's what came up most of the time." Many of his songs told miniature short stories of sociopaths
Psychopathy
Psychopathy is a mental disorder characterized primarily by a lack of empathy and remorse, shallow emotions, egocentricity, and deceptiveness. Psychopaths are highly prone to antisocial behavior and abusive treatment of others, and are very disproportionately responsible for violent crime...
doing evil things that the average person might merely contemplate. Some, such as "Cables", "Pigeon Kill", and "Jordan, Minnesota", were based on real events, or things that Albini had witnessed during his midwest upbringing. He compared the stories to Ripley's Believe It or Not!
Ripley's Believe It or Not!
Ripley's Believe It or Not! is a franchise, founded by Robert Ripley, which deals in bizarre events and items so strange and unusual that readers might question the claims...
, saying that "If you stumble across something like this, you think 'This can't be!' But it turns out to be true, and that makes it even wilder."
Albini's lyrics drew criticism for apparent racism and homophobia
Homophobia
Homophobia is a term used to refer to a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards lesbian, gay and in some cases bisexual, transgender people and behavior, although these are usually covered under other terms such as biphobia and transphobia. Definitions refer to irrational fear, with the...
. Racism was a frequent theme in Big Black songs, influenced partly by the sharp racial divisions present in Chicago at the time. The word "darkie" appeared in the first line of the Lungs EP, but Albini defended its use as a comical term, saying "in a way that's a play on the concept of a hateful word. Can a word that's so inherently hilarious be hateful? I don't know." He similarly defended his use of gay jokes and the word "fag": "Given how intermingled the gay and punk subcultures were, it was assumed by anyone involved that open-mindedness, if not free-form experimentation, was the norm. With that assumption under your belt, joke all you like. The word 'fag' isn't just a gay term, it's funny on its own — phonetically
Phonetics
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech, or—in the case of sign languages—the equivalent aspects of sign. It is concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds or signs : their physiological production, acoustic properties, auditory...
— like the words 'hockey puck
Puck (sports)
A puck is a disk used in various games serving the same functions as a ball does in ball games. The best-known use of pucks is in ice hockey, a major international sport.- Etymology :The origin of the word "puck" is obscure...
,' 'mukluk
Mukluk
Mukluks or Kamik are a soft boot traditionally made of reindeer skin or sealskin and were originally worn by Arctic aboriginal people, including the Inuit and Yupik. The term mukluk is often used for any soft boot designed for cold weather and modern designs are often similar to high-top athletic...
s,' 'gefilte fish
Gefilte fish
Gefilte fish is a poached fish mince stuffed into the fish skin.More common since the Second World War are the Polish patties similar to quenelles or fish balls made from a mixture of ground deboned fish, mostly carp or pike...
,' and 'Canada. Some critics viewed these defenses as mere justifications for actual deep-seated racism, homophobia, and misogyny on Albini's part, given his level of familiarity with the subject matter, but he insisted that he was not a prejudiced person and was merely satirizing those impulses that rational, civilized persons normally suppress in the course of social interaction: "So once that's given, once you know what you think, there's no reason to be ginger about what you say. A lot of people, they're very careful not to say things that might offend certain people or do anything that might be misinterpreted. But what they don't realize is that the point of all this is to change the way you live your life, not the way you speak."
Albini also emphasized that the songs' lyrics were not the focal point of Big Black, and that the vocals were only there out of necessity: "It seemed like, as instrumental music, it didn't have enough emotional intensity at times, so there would be vocals. But the vocals were not intended to be the center of attention — the interaction within the band and the chaotic nature of the music, that was the important part." However, he did enjoy testing the tolerance of the white liberal hipsters in his audience and provoking reactions out of listeners, stating that one of the band's goals was "to have pointedly offensive records". Terri Sutton of Puncture magazine wrote that the band's stark presentation of evil, deep-seated human impulses bolstered their work against criticism: "The topics are so deliberately loaded that you can't criticize their 'art' without looking like some fucking puritan
Puritan
The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...
."
Live performances
Onstage, Big Black presented an intense spectacle to match their music. Albini would set off a brick of firecrackerFirecracker
A firecracker is a small explosive device primarily designed to produce a large amount of noise, especially in the form of a loud bang; any visual effect is incidental to this goal. They have fuses, and are wrapped in a heavy paper casing to contain the explosive compound...
s onstage before the band played, a tradition he carried on from their earliest performances through their dissolution and revived for their 2006 reunion set, and would count in most songs by yelling "One, two, fuck you!" While playing, the band members would slam their hands against their steel guitar strings
Strings (music)
A string is the vibrating element that produces sound in string instruments, such as the guitar, harp, piano, and members of the violin family. Strings are lengths of a flexible material kept under tension so that they may vibrate freely, but controllably. Strings may be "plain"...
so hard that they would draw blood, often needing to put adhesive bandage
Adhesive bandage
An adhesive bandage, also called a sticking plaster is a small dressing used for injuries not serious enough to require a full-size bandage. "Band-Aid" is the common American English term, while "plaster" is the term in British English usage.- Function :The adhesive bandage protects the cut, e.g...
s on their fingers. Albini used a specially-made hip-slung guitar strap worn around his waist like a belt, and would "prowl the stage like a spindly gunslinger", according to Azerrad. Gerard Cosloy
Gerard Cosloy
Gerard Cosloy is an American music industry executive.-Biography:Cosloy was raised in Wayland, Massachusetts, a western suburb of Boston. While he was in high school, he became involved in the local hardcore punk scene, put together many punk shows, and started Conflict, a mimeographed fanzine of...
recalls that "It looked like someone had plugged Steve into the amp [...] he was pretty scary to watch onstage."
During performances of "Jordan, Minnesota", the band would reach a point where they would prolong a discordant, creepy noise while Albini would perform an intense pantomime
Pantomime
Pantomime — not to be confused with a mime artist, a theatrical performer of mime—is a musical-comedy theatrical production traditionally found in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, South Africa, India, Ireland, Gibraltar and Malta, and is mostly performed during the...
as though he were one of the children from the song's lyrics being rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
d. "It was actually very disturbing to watch", says Durango, "It would really get people unsettled." The band would respond to heckler
Heckler
A heckler is a person who harass and try to disconcert others with questions, challenges, or gibes.Hecklers are often known to shout disparaging comments at a performance or event, or interrupts set-piece speeches, for example at a political meeting, with intent to disturb its performers or...
s with acidic comebacks or deliberately offensive jokes. Describing the intensity of a January 1987 Big Black performance in Forced Exposure, Lydia Lunch
Lydia Lunch
Lydia Lunch is an American singer, poet, writer, and actress whose career was spawned by the New York No Wave scene...
remarked that "I was pulverized into near oblivion as wall after wall of frustration, heartache, hatred, death, disease, dis-use, disgust, mistrust, & maelstrom stormed the stage waging war with military precision insistently invading every open orifice with the strength of ten thousand bulls".
Influence
Through their aggressive guitar playing and use of a drum machine, Big Black's music served as a precursor to industrial rockIndustrial rock
Industrial rock is a musical genre that fuses industrial music and specific rock subgenres. Industrial rock spawned industrial metal, with which it is often confused...
. Aesthetically, the band's firmly-held ideals, staunch independence, insistence on creative control, and stark lyrical topics had a significant impact on the developing independent rock community. "Big Black was a band that went where few bands dared to go (and where many felt bands shouldn't go)," writes Mark Deming, "and for good or ill their pervasive influence had a seismic impact on indie rock." Albini summed up several of the band's core ideals in his notes to the Pigpile
Pigpile
-Track listing:# "Fists of Love" – 4:14# "L Dopa" – 1:49# "Passing Complexion" – 3:06# "Dead Billy" – 5:12# "Cables" – 3:18# "Bad Penny" – 3:03# "Pavement Saw" – 2:56# "Kerosene" – 6:38# "Steelworker" – 4:52# "Pigeon Kill" – 2:24...
album:
Organizationally, we were committed to to a few basic principles: Treat everyone with as much respect as he deserves (and no more), Avoid people who appeal to our vanity or ambition (they always have an angle), Operate as much as possible apart from the "music scene" (which was never our stomping ground), and Take no shit from anyone in the process.
Band members
- Steve AlbiniSteve AlbiniSteven Frank Albini is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, audio engineer and music journalist. He was a member of Big Black, Rapeman, and Flour, and is currently a member of Shellac...
– lead vocalsSingingSinging is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
, guitarGuitarThe guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
, drum machineDrum machineA drum machine is an electronic musical instrument designed to imitate the sound of drums or other percussion instruments. They are used in a variety of musical genres, not just purely electronic music...
programming (1981–1987, 2006 reunion performance) - Jeff PezzatiJeff PezzatiJeff Pezzati is the lead singer for a popular Chicago punk band, Naked Raygun. From 1983 to 1985, he was also the bass player for the internationally known band Big Black. In 1980, Jeff Pezzati was a member of a suburban cover band, Condor, when he was asked to audition for Naked Raygun by the...
– bass guitarBass guitarThe bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
, backing vocals (1983–1984, 2006 reunion performance) - Santiago DurangoSantiago DurangoSantiago Durango is an American guitarist remembered for his work with the 1980s punk rock groups Naked Raygun and Big Black. Mostly retired from music as of the early 2000s, he works as an attorney.- Biography :...
– guitar, backing vocals (1983–1987, 2006 reunion performance) - Dave Riley – bass guitar, backing vocals (1985–1987)
I The band's drum machine is credited as "Roland" on their releases.
Discography
The discographyDiscography
Discography is the study and listing of the details concerning sound recordings, often by specified artists or within identified musical genres...
of Big Black consists of two studio album
Studio album
A studio album is an album made up of tracks recorded in the controlled environment of a recording studio. A studio album contains newly written and recorded or previously unreleased or remixed material, distinguishing itself from a compilation or reissue album of previously recorded material, or...
s, two live album
Live album
A live album is a recording consisting of material recorded during stage performances using remote recording techniques, commonly contrasted with a studio album...
s, two compilation album
Compilation album
A compilation album is an album featuring tracks from one or more performers, often culled from a variety of sources The tracks are usually collected according to a common characteristic, such as popularity, genre, source or subject matter...
s, four EPs
Extended play
An EP is a musical recording which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full album or LP. The term EP originally referred only to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play records and LP records, but it is now applied to mid-length Compact...
, five singles
Single (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...
, and one video album.
Studio albums
| Year | Album details |
|---|---|
| 1986 | Atomizer Atomizer (album) Atomizer is a 1986 album by the American noise rock group Big Black. It is their debut album as all previous releases are EPs. The LP is accompanied by liner notes that explain the stories behind many of the songs...
|
| 1987 | Songs About Fucking Songs About Fucking Songs About Fucking is the second and final album by the noise rock band Big Black. It placed 54th on Pitchfork Media's 'Top 100 Albums of the 1980s'. Included are covers of Kraftwerk's "The Model" and Cheap Trick's "He's a Whore".-Production:... Touch and Go Records Touch and Go Records is an independent record label based in Chicago, Illinois, USA.After its genesis as a hand-made fanzine in 1979, it grew into one of the key record labels in the American 1980s alternative and underground rock scenes, Touch & Go carved out a reputation for releasing adventurous... Compact Disc The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,... |
Live albums
| Year | Album details |
|---|---|
| 1987 |
- Released: 1987
- Label: Walls Have Ears
- Format: LPLP albumThe LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...
|-
|1992
|Pigpile
Pigpile
-Track listing:# "Fists of Love" – 4:14# "L Dopa" – 1:49# "Passing Complexion" – 3:06# "Dead Billy" – 5:12# "Cables" – 3:18# "Bad Penny" – 3:03# "Pavement Saw" – 2:56# "Kerosene" – 6:38# "Steelworker" – 4:52# "Pigeon Kill" – 2:24...
- Released: October 5, 1992
- Label: Touch and GoTouch and Go RecordsTouch and Go Records is an independent record label based in Chicago, Illinois, USA.After its genesis as a hand-made fanzine in 1979, it grew into one of the key record labels in the American 1980s alternative and underground rock scenes, Touch & Go carved out a reputation for releasing adventurous...
- Format: LP, CDCompact DiscThe Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
|}
I Sound of Impact is an authorized bootleg
Bootleg recording
A bootleg recording is an audio or video recording of a performance that was not officially released by the artist or under other legal authority. The process of making and distributing such recordings is known as bootlegging...
released through a subsidiary imprint of Blast First
Blast First
Blast First is a sub label of one-time independent record label, Mute Records, founded in approximately 1985. It was named after a phrase taken from the first number of the radical Vorticist journal Blast, published by Wyndham Lewis in 1914...
.
Compilation albums
| Year | Album details |
|---|---|
| 1986 | The Hammer Party The Hammer Party -Track listing:#"Steelworker" 1#"Live in a Hole" 1#"Dead Billy" 1#"I Can Be Killed" 1#"Crack" 1#"RIP" 1#"Cables" 2#"Pigeon Kill" 2#"I'm a Mess" 2#"Texas" 2#"Seth" 2#"Jump the Climb" 2#"Racer X" 3#"Shotgun" 3#"The Ugly American" 3#"Deep Six" 3...
|
| 1992 | The Rich Man's Eight Track Tape The Rich Man's Eight Track Tape - Track listing :#"Jordan, Minnesota" - 3:20#"Passing Complexion" - 3:04#"Big Money" - 2:29#"Kerosene" - 6:05#"Bad Houses" - 3:09#"Fists of Love" - 4:21#"Stinking Drunk" - 3:27... Touch and Go Records Touch and Go Records is an independent record label based in Chicago, Illinois, USA.After its genesis as a hand-made fanzine in 1979, it grew into one of the key record labels in the American 1980s alternative and underground rock scenes, Touch & Go carved out a reputation for releasing adventurous... |
Extended plays
| Year | Release details |
|---|---|
| 1982 | Lungs Lungs (EP) Lungs is the first EP by American Post-hardcore band Big Black. It was released in December 1982 on Ruthless Records, and was reissued in 1992 on Touch & Go Records...
|
| 1983 | Bulldozer Bulldozer (EP) Bulldozer is the second EP by Chicago Post-Hardcore band Big Black, released in 1983. It was their first release to feature an actual band performing, including Pat Byrne from Urge Overkill playing drums on some of the songs... |
| 1984 | Racer-X Racer-X Racer-X is the third EP by American Post-Hardcore band Big Black. It was released by Homestead Records in 1984 and reissued by Touch & Go Records in 1992.-Track listing:#"Racer-X"#"Shotgun"#"The Ugly American"#"Deep Six"#"Sleep!"... Homestead Records Homestead Records was a Long Island, NY based sublabel of music distributor Dutch East India Trading. It was founded in 1984 by Sam Berger, who was the American Independent buyer for Dutch East India Trading. Berger was finding that many bands who had perhaps released their own first 45 were... |
| 1987 | Headache Headache (EP) Headache is a 1987 EP by Chicago post-hardcore band Big Black. The record generated some controversy due to a cover photograph of a shotgun suicide victim whose head was split in half; it only appeared on a very limited edition of the record and was later replaced with a drawing by Savage Pencil... Touch and Go Records Touch and Go Records is an independent record label based in Chicago, Illinois, USA.After its genesis as a hand-made fanzine in 1979, it grew into one of the key record labels in the American 1980s alternative and underground rock scenes, Touch & Go carved out a reputation for releasing adventurous... |
Singles
| Year | Release details |
|---|---|
| 1985 |
- Released: 1985
- Label: Forced ExposureForced ExposureForced Exposure was an independent music magazine published sporadically out of Massachusetts from the early-'80s to 1993, edited by Jimmy Johnson and Byron Coley. It was printed on cheap newsprint with plain design and filled with corrosive yet humorous writing...
- Format: 7"
|-
|"Il Duce"
- Released: 1985
- Label: HomesteadHomestead RecordsHomestead Records was a Long Island, NY based sublabel of music distributor Dutch East India Trading. It was founded in 1984 by Sam Berger, who was the American Independent buyer for Dutch East India Trading. Berger was finding that many bands who had perhaps released their own first 45 were...
- Format: 7", 12"12-inch singleThe 12-inch single is a type of gramophone record that has wider groove spacing compared to other types of records. This allows for louder levels to be cut on the disc by the cutting engineer, which in turn gives a wider dynamic range, and thus better sound quality...
|-
|rowspan="2"|1987
|"Heartbeat"
- Released: July 13, 1987
- Label: Touch and GoTouch and Go RecordsTouch and Go Records is an independent record label based in Chicago, Illinois, USA.After its genesis as a hand-made fanzine in 1979, it grew into one of the key record labels in the American 1980s alternative and underground rock scenes, Touch & Go carved out a reputation for releasing adventurous...
- Format: 7"
|-
|"He's a Whore" / "The Model"
- Released: July 13, 1987
- Label: Touch and Go
- Format: 7"
|-
|1992
|"In My House"
- Released: October 5, 1992
- Label: Touch and Go
- Format: 5"Unusual types of gramophone recordsThe overwhelming majority of records manufactured have been of certain sizes , playback speeds , and appearance...
|}
I "Rema-Rema" is a Rema-Rema
Rema-Rema
Rema-Rema was a short-lived English music group, consisting of Gary Asquith , Marco Pirroni , Mick Allen , Mark Cox and Max ....
cover
Cover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...
included as a one-sided single with issue #9 of Forced Exposure, and limited to 500 copies.
II "In My House" is a Mary Jane Girls
Mary Jane Girls
The Mary Jane Girls were an American R&B, soul, funk and disco group in the 1980s. They were protégées of singer Rick James. They are known for their hit songs "All Night Long", "Candyman" and "In My House".-Formation:...
cover that was included with copies of the Pigpile video.
Video albums
| Year | Album details |
|---|---|
| 1992 | Pigpile Pigpile -Track listing:# "Fists of Love" – 4:14# "L Dopa" – 1:49# "Passing Complexion" – 3:06# "Dead Billy" – 5:12# "Cables" – 3:18# "Bad Penny" – 3:03# "Pavement Saw" – 2:56# "Kerosene" – 6:38# "Steelworker" – 4:52# "Pigeon Kill" – 2:24...
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Other appearances
The following Big Black songs were released on compilation albums. This is not an exhaustive list; songs that were first released on the band's albums, EPs, and singles are not included.| Year | Release details | Track(s) |
|---|---|---|
| 1984 | The Middle of America Compilation
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The Payback (song) "The Payback" is a funk song by James Brown, the title track from his 1973 album of the same name. The song's lyrics, originally written by trombonist and bandleader Fred Wesley but heavily revised by Brown himself soon before it was recorded, concern the revenge he plans to take against the man... " (premix) |
| 1986 | God's Favorite Dog
Touch and Go Records Touch and Go Records is an independent record label based in Chicago, Illinois, USA.After its genesis as a hand-made fanzine in 1979, it grew into one of the key record labels in the American 1980s alternative and underground rock scenes, Touch & Go carved out a reputation for releasing adventurous... |
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| 1987 | Happiness Is Dry Pants
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