Joseph's Picks Of The Week 5/6/11 - Panda Bear and The Trashmen

Of all the putdowns of Panda Bear’s music I’ve heard, and I haven’t heard a lot mind you, the funniest came courtesy of WFMU’s Tom Sharpeling when he commented that the music sounded like a warped Beach Boys record. What’s interesting is that his statement addresses pure form instead of getting into the thornier territory of personality or motives. If being somehow pressed for time (like, maybe I’ve got a plane to catch, y’know?) and asked by some curious character to describe exactly what it is that Panda Bear does, I might just resort to saying it’s indeed like a Beach Boys slab that’s suffered some minor yet transformative effects from an encounter with the rays of the sun. I might elect to instead mention the connection to Animal Collective, Mr. Bear’s main and long running musical concern, but without knowledge of those activities where would that leave the needs of my hypothetical inquisitor? But of course surf-sonic warpage only really scratches the surface. There is obviously much similarity between TOMBOY, Panda Bear’s excellent brand spanking and sparkling new one and the brilliant recordings of the Mothership Collective, but there are also distinctions. For one thing, where AC is very much the work of a unit all stretched and strung out like day-glo taffy, Panda’s expressiveness is very often distinctive as being the just as malformed but less layered intentions of one hyperactive, beautiful mind. Also, the Collective’s group achievement is generally more identifiable as being in the tradition of hard psychedelia, but the solo stuff, while still as psyche as a sheet of deeply soaked blotter tabs still registers as lighter, roomier, and more in line with a broken and distended pop aesthetic. It’s not a major difference, but it is notable. TOMBOY largely picks up where PERSON PITCH left off, with the crafting of a batch of finely tuned pieces that connect into one long, powerful soundscape. The structure of these individual pieces seems to lie in the creation of solid, accessible, often quite pretty sound nuggets that are then methodically compromised via chopping and repetition, with the relentless cyclical focus then returning to a masterfully tweaked semblance of the music’s initial form. The vocal qualities are certainly remindful of later Animal Collective stuff, but in AC the voice most often works in tandem with the music, becoming a part of the weave, one sound among many. With Panda Bear the singing feels separate, riding above the music, a euphoric gush that on TOMBOY possesses a very tropical feel, at times even nodding to South African vocal roots style. This element is significant enough that it might cultivate a unique fan set for PB’s material, inspiring a group that while knowledgeable and comfortable with the work of Animal Collective is simply far more in tune with the personal aspects of Panda Bear’s creations. Naturally, this is just surmising on my part. No polls, no knocking door-to-door, and in fact I haven’t even asked a single soul. It’s just that after queuing up MERRIWEATHER POST PAVILLION and TOMBOY for back to back listens and being struck by the obvious similarities (PAVILLION being AC at their most pop friendly), I can also hear where the two stand apart. It’s by no means a long distance, but it is tangible, if at this early point more than a bit resistant to explication. So, on to something more easily detailed. It’s quite plain that the whole AC/PB whatsis his kick-started a tight batch of like-minded work, Ducktails and Sun Araw in particular. It’s an extremely fertile playground in which to absorb influence and introduce new wrinkles, for one instance Jamaican dub, and that TOMBOY’s title cut luxuriates in some grand dubbiness seems to imply an openness, an acceptance and even desire for give-and-take between (for example) the island riddum-goosing of a new jack like Sun Araw’s Cameron Stallones and the older, obviously influential work of the Panda. I’d bet ducats to danishes that AC and the Bear had long ago wrapped themselves around the indefatigable seductiveness of Lee Scratch Perry and internalized it into their music, but to my ears it’s never announced itself in such an overt fashion before. The one thing that The Parasails, Animal Collective, Ducktails, Predator Vision, Panda Bear and Sun Araw all share, from the more pop-inclined, plush studio recorded moments of TOMBOY to the spacey, addictive marginalia of limited edition EP cuts that sound like they could’ve been taped in some grumpy uncle’s tool shed, is a predilection for Pulse. From there the experimental tampering with the (re)directions of rhythm and melody are motives more individually realized. TOMBOY takes a big step in pointing this sound from the lavish eccentricity of a few vital bands toward the possibility of a full-fledged movement. At least that’s what I’m hoping.



I’ll always hold a special place in my heart for The Trashmen. Famous for “Surfin’ Bird”, one of the most ludicrously infectious slices of full-tilt insanity ever waxed, they were primarily a surf band, though one that curiously hailed from the Midwest region, specifically the land-locked burg of Minneapolis, Minnesota. But they had a bunch of other distinguishing qualities as well, foremost among them their ability to release a substantial amount of material on the back of their biggest hit. THE GREAT LOST ALBUM, first released in the early ‘90s and currently available on vinyl from Sundazed, is a fine example of the factors that contributed to their staying power. First off, The Trashmen were a very fine exponent of instrumental surf style, not only conjuring up the cool, relaxed atmosphere most often associated with The Ventures or Chanteys (of “Pipeline” fame), but also occasionally sliding into the more aggressive pasture defined by the great Dick Dale. That they could knock out a instro-car jam like “Stick Shift” shows how in touch they were with the culture of their peers, since rods and boards were very much a part of the same youth lifestyle, but also adapting such pre-existing material as “Ghost Riders in the Sky” “Greensleeves” and “Hava Nagila” into the equation showed they possessed distinctive scope as well. Beyond instrumental dynamics however, The Trashmen were also a vocal band, and this fact shot into some interesting areas. For instance, they were known to tackle R&B covers, this LP holding a nice one of Little Richard in fact, but instead of trying (and failing) to approximate that crazed wildman’s origins, the approach here is decidedly casual, much more appropriate for the laid back humidity of a mid-summer outdoor bash. For some this adjustment and restatement of “Hear You Knocking” will represent a betrayal of what makes the original so great, but I think the change serves as testament not only to the strength of the song (the source) but to the quality of The Trashmen’s conception (the interpretation). There is also some mild and appealing garage gestures on display, whether it’s the goofus Dylan-lite of “Mind Your Own Business” or the slightly Doug Sahm-ish Beatles-ism of “Talk About Love”. And Buddy Holly’s “Heartbeat” moves far outside the band’s dominant mode, sounding close to the smooth pleasantries of The Association or The Tremeloes; unusual, but not at all a bad thing. While the majority of this disc was recorded in ’64, both “Talk About Love” and the Holly cover are from a ’66 session, showing the band grasping new ideas as trad surf reached the end of its commercial run. Much closer to the band’s standard operational zone is their solid take of the Beach Boys’ “Be True to Your School”, a tune that shows the level of accepted idea sharing that once transpired between the advancements of groundbreakers and the quick-study ingenuity of those they inspired back in the days before the problematic concept of originality spread over rock music’s development. It's just this sort of no-big-deal stylistic grasping that is actually The Trashmen’s biggest connection to the punk music that was to come in the following decade. While the elevated mindlessness of “Surfin’ Bird” is justly celebrated as one of the earliest and most suave of proto-punk blasts, the reality is that very little of the band’s stuff ever returned to that level of sonic disruption. Yes, THE GREAT LOST ALBUM’s instrumental “Bad News” does touch slightly upon “Bird”’s zonked essence, and “Bird Diddley Beat” wholeheartedly embraces Sir Bo’s majestic inventions in demented rhythm, emerging as the sort of crazed throwaway that undoubtedly got The Cramps’ Lux and Ivy hard and moist inside the tightness of their leopard-skin pants, but with these exceptions aside, The Trashmen’s true gift to punk was essentially operational and not of aural texture. Bands like The Ramones, The Dickies, The Rezillos, Agent Orange and especially those Cramps were all to varying extents inspired by the small-scale rapid-fire gusto that The Trashmen traded in so well, the sort of activity that with apologies to the great film critic and painter Manny Farber was quite Termite-like in practice, very much different from the parade of White Elephants that were just around the corner. It was music that seemed on the surface to have very little to say, but in reality held a significance that spoke in minor, coded terms to legions. The difference between THE GREAT LOST ALBUM and the assortment of punks with chips on shoulders, scores to settle and playing fields to level is that The Trashmen’s only agenda was to keep the party moving, make some bucks and impress a few gals until the ride was over. Pure surf was one of the leanest, least alienated musical impulses ever documented, and it can be contextualized historically as riding the tail-end of the largely well-adjusted surface placidity of post-World War II American life before all sorts of excrement hit the fan blades and the ‘60s became The Sixties. What The Trashmen were doing was as deeply rooted in this environment as The Mississippi Sheiks’ jug-band style and The Sugarhill Gang’s proto-rap was to theirs, and as such it’s more than just a fun diversion, it’s a vital cultural document.

Joseph's Picks Of The Week 4/29/11 - Mogwai and N.W.A.

The biggest impulse behind my budding interest in jazz was simply an unquenchable curiosity for new sounds. But a smaller additional factor did relate to my growing impatience with the supremacy of vocal music. Singing was quite simply every freaking place I cocked an ear, and it was very often the weakest element in the overall equation. The dominance of music with vocalists delivering lyrics is very much a phenomenon of the last century, but it seems to me that it really didn’t assert itself into borderline tyranny until the 1960s, when jazz and classical lost their status as viable commercial forms and slowly became the passion of dedicated specialists. Early rock had a fine tradition of instrumental bands, many of them scoring memorable chart hits, Booker T & the MGs and the Surfaris among them, but as the form gained widespread acceptance this reality largely subsided, with bands mostly celebrated for their instrumental prowess utilizing vocals as an integral part of their attack, The Jimi Hendrix Experience and especially The Grateful Dead being just two examples. Instrumental rock became the playground for serious heads, an often experimental zone that hung out on the fringes of the genre. Brian Eno, maybe the most celebrated instrumental musician to grow from rock’s fertile soil, essentially divorced himself from the style and entered a neighborhood that was roughly equal to if stylistically distinct from the avant-classical work of Phillip Glass and Steve Reich. But there never ceased to be strong pockets of instrumental activity taking place, and the emergence of post-rock in the ‘90s saw a real uptick in well-conceived non-vocal action, much of it informed by the precedent of Krautrock or modal jazz. The work of Mogwai falls somewhat to the Germanic side of the post-rock spectrum, though that’s by no means the appropriate way to describe the way in which they excel. And it should be noted that the band do occasionally employ the human voice into their creative landscape, often from found or pre-recorded sources but also sometimes via guest vocalists or even from the band members themselves. Rather than taking a hard-line stance against the voice, they were instead just refusing to be hamstringed into reshaping their collective ideas around this one aspect, electing for the freedom to choose how to build each individual piece instead of forcing each tune to fit the same template, an avenue that I frankly wish more bands would employ. Early on Mogwai were a bit saddled with their similarity to the legendary Lexington KY band Slint, and while this comparison wasn’t off the mark it often ignored the fact that other influences did rise out of the mix; a bit of Godspeed You! Black Emperor or Sonic Youth here, some My Bloody Valentine or Fugazi there, and as the albums and EPs stacked up there was an increasing frequency of instances that couldn’t really be tagged as anything other than Mogwai. And while I was once perfectly comfortable describing them as a guitar band, as they’ve grown it’s getting much harder to accurately make that claim. Keyboards and synthesizers were always there, but they gradually became far more central to the scheme of things, a progression that really started to become overt to my ears with their 2003 release HAPPY SONGS FOR HAPPY PEOPLE. It’s not that the guitar playing slackened or lost importance, it’s just that the weapons in the group’s quiver were more consistently interweaved. This mode of operation is still very much in evidence on their excellent new one, the nicely titled HARDCORE WILL NEVER DIE, BUT YOU WILL, the band’s first for the Sub Pop label. While Mogwai are predominantly about the architecture of soundscapes and the shifting of dynamics, they can at times also be quite crafty at mixing in bits of concise, almost traditional melodic songwriting. One of the first things that really grabbed me on HARDCORE was “Death Rays”, an extremely pretty six minute tune that alternates between solid contemplative keyboard work and waves of bombastic release. It flies by quite quickly, feeling like half its actual time and it’s hard to not imagine it edited down and adjusted into an environment more in touch with mainstream sensibilities. This hypothetical disinterest in sweetening the stew for a potential wider audience says much about Mogwai’s attitude regarding their established musical goals. Elsewhere they wade into less travelled waters. “Mexican Grand Prix” engages with Krautrock tradition and ends up in the ballpark of a more aggressive Stereolab. “San Pedro” is a very direct mid-tempo rocker, very unusual for them, so unlike their other material that if tested in a game of Guess The Band by a catty associate I’d certainly have been stumped. “George Square Thatcher Death Party”’s aggressive bass feels like late-‘80s indie rock, the keyboards and effect-laden vocals unabashedly recall the new wave, and the grouchy guitar holds these opposing sides together like wallpaper glue.  “How To Be a Werewolf” hits all sorts of unlikely spots, percolating a bit like long-and-sadly-gone fellow Brits Ganger before a cascade of guitars heads into almost Wedding Present (!) territory and from there launches into a flurry of very atypical, nearly Mascis-like soloing. Holy smokes. The other cuts simply radiate like Mogwai, a band that’s running up on fifteen years of existence with nary a trace of fatigue. I didn’t really start getting into their stuff in earnest until roughly two years ago, so I’m still too fresh to really pick a favorite. But I don’t know if the concept of personal faves is really conducive to their discography. Their development has been spread so well across the LPs and the general quality realized on such an even keel that it almost feels like each album is a natural extension of those before or after, one long sequence with an equality of rewards across the whole span (this shouldn’t be read as the records sounding the same. This album and 2008’s THE HAWK IS HOWLING are markedly different). So for a person curious about Mogwai’s achievement, HARDCORE WILL NEVER DIE, BUT YOU WILL is as fine an entry point as any and it comes with the satisfaction that there is much more from whence it originates. How bonus.



By the time I first heard N.W.A.’s STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON, I was already a hip-hop convert. That didn’t really prepare me for the unbridled onslaught of the record, though. While there was already precedent for the gangsta rap style, notably Schoolly D and Boogie Down Productions’ essential CRIMINAL MINDED, it was COMPTON that really put the form on the map, taking obscenity drenched street anger to the well-scrubbed suburbs where masses of young minds were positively starved for something raw, unstable and ideologically dangerous. It was 1988. The end of the horrid beast that was the Reagan-era, but it sadly looked like nothing new was under the sun. Up to that point, I was severely under the sway of much of the Def Jam roster, Public Enemy in particular, in addition to the smooth science of Eric B and Rakim, Biz Markie’s inspired pranksterism, and assorted cuts from such worthies as Rob Base and DJ Easy Roc and Tone-Loc (I maintain that “Wild Thing” is one of the ’80s best singles). Rap was past its embryonic stage and had spread nationwide due in large part to Run DMC and LL Cool J, but it was still very much about studied, casual braggadocio and the intricate science of rocking the party. Public Enemy’s masterful second album erupted with anger and introduced a new wrinkle into the hip-hop spectrum, but it was cloaked in righteousness and an intellectual sensibility, and Rick Rubin’s comment that it was like black punk rock was very much on the money. N.W.A. differed wildly in their approach, documenting and exalting the grim circumstance of ghetto life with no apologies. They also differed musically from PE’s shrill, razor sharp, siren laden atmosphere, which while hard as nails was also very dexterous and complex. Instead, STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON’s driving, sample-heavy tactic eschewed subtlety in favor of a blunt attack that was like being hit with a rhythmic barrage of fists. The cumulative effect resulted in an explosion that’s still being felt to this day. Extremely controversial, particularly with alarmist types, N.W.A helped usher in a shift in the mainstream miscomprehension of hip-hop, which for many was disdained but tolerated as a lingering fad. Folks generally confused or annoyed by the music could now act scared. Parents disliked The Beastie Boys because they paraded around like ill-behaved cretins. N.W.A made them afraid they’d come home to find Ice Cube with an Uzi forcing their daughter to smoke a bag full of crack. And this points to one of COMPTON’s deepest, most effective elements. It exposed and exploited the unease of a large segment of the populace, taking a big hunk of urban reality and then turning it on its head to produce a caustic theatre of those people’s worst fears/fantasies. They sell drugs. They rob and kill people. They mistreat women. Actually, they’re a group of musicians, and they survived the harsh environment of their city to create an album that shed much light not only on the circumstances of their difficult background but also on the divide of class and race in the late ‘80s and the repugnant nature of many people’s misconceptions. Of course, this mingling of reality and perception is curiously in the largely cinematic tradition of Americans rooting for the bad guy: Bonnie & Clyde, the Corleone Family, pick yr favorite Scarface (mine’s Paul Muni). And it also just happens to sound great when bumping from overtaxed speakers while driving around on an aimless Saturday night. Just don’t let the fuzz pull you over while blasting “Fuck the Police”. If vulgarities directed at law enforcement worries you, well don’t let it. This sort of thing happens a lot. Hell, if I had a buck for every time someone spit a blue streak of expletives over the cops handing them a ticket, I’d go buy my own country. N.W.A. just got it down on tape, adding another song to the long list of anti-authoritarian classics. The double-LP 20th Anniversary Edition of STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON is a fine thing to hear, featuring a whole slab of bonus tracks and remixes, and any serious hip-hop collection basically requires it. Right from the massive opening title track the course is set, Dr. Dre and DJ Yella scientifically crafting the sound and Ice Cube, MC Ren and Easy E talking vast mouthfuls of smack like the stuff was going extinct. It stands as a scathing, vital document of its period, and while its relevance has shifted, its quality remains solidly intact.

Joseph's Picks Of The Week 4/22/11 - Glenn Jones/The Black Twig Pickers with Charlie Parr and Big Black

One of the happiest surprises to manifest itself in vinyl form on this recently passed Record Store Day is the split LP featuring the guitar talents of Glenn Jones and the grand Old Time shadings of Virginia’s own Black Twig Pickers in collaboration with Piedmont-style country blues specialist Charlie Parr. This lovingly crafted disc sheds a wealth of illumination upon the deep allure of various North American root forms that continue to provide valuable insight and inspiration for all sorts of contemporary players, essentially the spark that’s spurred an inexhaustible fire, and the only reason I can formulate as to why the Jones/Twig LP survived the consumer plunder of Record Store Day is simply lack of name recognition. So let me get right down to rectifying that situation. Glenn Jones burst onto the underground music scene way back in 1989 as a member of the amazing New England avant-garage group Cul de Sac. That band majestically weaved an assortment of disparate out-rock influences (Pere Ubu, Can, Neu!, Girls, Tim Buckley) into a discerning and uncompromising blend that stretched out over the landscape of nine albums, including two that were collabs with such formidable figures as the late John Fahey and Can’s Damo Suzuki. This bit of background is especially noteworthy in the case of Fahey, for his groundbreaking and frequently dazzling American Primitive guitar work is a huge influence on Jones’ own exceptional guitar style, and the vast yawp of Fahey’s Takoma Records roster (Leo Kottke, Robbie Basho. Peter Lang, Max Ochs, Harry Taussig) has been the center of affairs for Jones’ upstart solo work. While there are numerous worthy disciples to the American Primitive tradition picking and plundering all over the globe, Steffen Basho-Junghans, James Blackshaw and Sir Richard Bishop among them, the loss of Jack Rose to a heart attack in 2009 sort of left this micro movement without a clear leader. By the evidence on Jones’ side of this split, it’s looking like he’s stepping up to the head of the class. Titled EVEN TO WIN IS TO FAIL, its mixture of guitar and banjo instrumentals finds him simultaneously deep in the throes of American Primitive science and at the forefront of the style’s endless possibilities, extending them well beyond the present. The opener “Anchor Chain Blues” is so indebted to the gorgeous luminosity of Fahey’s early work that it would easily be mistaken for the maestro himself in a blindfold test. If this was the full extent of Jones’ exploration here, he’d be valued as a particularly inspired and adept copyist but not much more. Thankfully, this powerful channeling of Fahey’s exquisite gifts is instead a launching pad/ground base for some rich and multifaceted string construction. “The Great Pacific Northwest” begins as a continuation of the more contemplative side of Fahey’s youngish mode, a gesture that seems far less frequent in the new generation of American Primitive players, but by the end of the tune Jones has asserted himself into the full on post-John Hurt zone that makes all those Vanguard-era Fahey recordings so eternally rewarding. It’s on track three that the proceedings take an unlikely turn, landing smack dab in the wide open territory of a beautifully nude banjo. My first thought upon hearing this sly twist spanned all the way back to BANJO, Billy Faier’s sweet and neglected 1973 Takoma solo joint, but upon reflection this connection is only accurate in spirit. Faier’s crisp, ramshackle, rollicking style was very much about dexterity and Jones’ ruminations on the instrument are far more about mood. In this case one of sadness and melancholy. The track’s title, “On the Massachusetts Virginia Border” is I think indicative of Jones’ relationship with the Richmond-born Jack Rose and possibly serves as a tribute to that departed titans’ legacy. If I’m correct on these counts the tune’s contemplative air is an unmitigated success. And if I’m wrong, well, Jones’ artistry is strong enough to withstand the misinterpretation. Track four provides Jones’ side of the disc with its title, and it takes another fine detour, this time into realm of the steel string guitar. It’s here where Jones shines at his most original, still clearly American Primitive in outlook but reaching into largely uncharted waters. He does conjure up thoughts of Ry Cooder at his least commercially minded, but this is undoubtedly an associative leap on my part. Where many steel string new jacks are very much under the spell of the gigantic power of Son House’s stuff (the ‘60s-era work, to put a fine point on it), Jones instead utilizes the instrument for far more foreboding and personal ends. Side one’s final track “Tinka Marie” finds the banjo back in his sturdy hands, and once again it’s very much about texture. Easily the most relaxed and pretty tune of the bunch, it’s a fabulous denouement and summation of all that came before and points to the vast number of cards Jones has up his sleeve. He has a record set for release soon on Thrill Jockey and a joint DVD on deck from Strange Attractors Audio House, and my interest is seriously peaked. EASTMONT SYRUP, the Black Twig Pickers side of the disc finds us squarely in the middle of string band sensibilities, and while their seven tracks unwind that’s a fine place to be. Opener “Forky Deer” is loaded with much welcome fiddle action, but it’s the following cut, “Warming By the Devil’s Fire” that finds them really loosening up and melding with guest Parr, the whole crew throwing down a shithot batch of wound-up hunch that’s worthy of the ghost of Blind Willie McTell. The fiddle returns for the excellent if brief “Falls of Richmond” and that’s the mode that continues through the more upbeat “Horseshoe”. “Barnswallow” switches to an excellent solo turn for banjo, and “Wednesday Night Waltz” is an achy, forlorn lament, with loads of keening bow scraping to spare. Only on the final track “Death of Jerry Damron” do we get vocals courtesy of Parr, and his singing is in fine, mournful form. If it appears that I’m giving short shrift to the Twigs and Parr in comparison to Jones’ side of the disc, well that’s not at all the case. It’s just that the rich Old Time tradition of the Pickers is in far less need of deep description than the vast solo complexity of Jones. And when it comes to string band style, I’ll admit that my love of the genre finds me desiring my mustard uncut. With the exception of The New Lost City Ramblers and especially The Unholy Modal Rounders (one of my all time favorite bands of any stripe), I must fess up that any attempts at stylistic hybridization leave me chilly to downright cold. So the rough, raw textures of The Black Twig Pickers are right up my personal alley. Call me a purist if you must, but the front porch wrangling and wiggling of EASTMONT SYRUP is in no need of updating or sophistication. Just grab a jar, take a deep snort and huff. Then huff again. For it’s all right here.

In regards to the ‘80s rock underground, by this late date, only the stodgiest of moldy figs still obstinately refuse to acknowledge the importance and greatness of such bands as Black Flag, Sonic Youth, Mission of Burma and Minutemen. When it comes to the thornier presence of Big Black however, many minds are still deeply opposed to their entry in the hallowed halls of historical rock esteem. Frankly, I find this to be a very deep drag, but it’s hard to deny that the root of the unfortunate circumstance comes directly from the prickly personality of the band’s main honcho Steve Albini. Out of all the folks that populated indie rock Mk 1, Albini was easily the most confrontational, and his acerbic, abrasive attitude was matched with music that possessed an uncompromising, blunt causticity. It’s debatable just how well most of his youthful nihilism has dated, but that’s the risk of growing up in public. Albini eschewed politics and penned lyrics that were alternately obsessed with tabloid violence, lurid sexual themes, misogyny and general misanthropy, all while sauntering over the scene with the demeanor of a contemptuous, bookish smart aleck. Many people hated it (him), while others ate the whole thing up like it was a gourmet dessert. Now many urbane observers from the aboveground music press took a detached stance toward the guy’s persona, instead faulting him for crafting music of inferior quality, but in my mind that’s largely just a bunch of phony baloney, a tactic masking their disdain for his hard-line stance. For while I’ve never really had any guff with Albini’s attitude/beliefs, and in fact agree with certain aspects (particularly regarding commerce and art), it was still relatively easy to identify much of his swagger as shtick back when Big Black was a thriving entity. And if there is one thing that skinny bespectacled dude knows inside and out and top to bottom, it’s music. Complaining that his stuff is one dimensional or lacks subtlety simply makes no sense to me. Is a jackhammer one dimensional? Sure, but it gets the job done. Is a pile driver subtle? No, and by design. Long after most of the world had turned their back on the form, Big Black grabbed the dripping vitriol that was punk rock at its best, combined it with the icy alienation of post-punk before it went all soft at the center and then crossed it with that severe outlook that throbbed like the sordid contents of an extremely pulpy true crime magazine on bad blotter and rotgut liquor. It certainly did take a while for Albini to perfect the project (by his own admittance), his early EPs (LUNGS, BULLDOZER) being largely solo affairs that while aggressive and worthy were less heavy than gnawingly post-punk. The classic Big Black lineup was the trio of Dave Riley on bass, Santiago Durango on guitar and Albini on guitar and vocals enlisting the trusty thump and thwack of a stressed out Roland drum machine, and while many consider 1986’s ATOMIZER album to be their definitive statement (it does include their two best tunes), I feel their overall strongest disc was the last one, 1988’s SONGS ABOUT FUCKING. For starters, SONGS was the first Big Black full length to spread the songic quality more equitably over both sides of the vinyl. ATOMIZER’s first side is an absolute doozy; the second not so much. While it’s certainly arguable, I’m tempted to credit SONGS’ overall best cut as the second side’s acidic sex murder chronicle “Fish Fry”. The deck is still slightly stacked in Side One’s favor, but that’s to be expected with music of this style, pounding fast and hard right out of the gate. Another reason I value SONGS so highly is how unlikely roots start to peak through; for one example the scorching cover of Kraftwerk’s “The Model”, for another the stylistic similarity to The Ramones on “L Dopa”, and for one more “Columbian Necktie”, which underneath its caterwauling thunder and distortion is ultimately a surf tune. A further example of SONGS superiority for me exists in the cut “Precious Thing”. If ATOMIZER’s “Kerosene” personified the stultifying atmosphere of ‘80s small town boredom, standing as a blistering update on Eddie Cochran’s “Summertime Blues”, then “Precious Thing” details emotional obsession with the explicit desperation that feels like the bastard child of the Delta Blues at its most lyrically extreme. In addition; “Bad Penny” is a first person tale of a passively sadistic life ruining lout, “Kasimir S. Pulaski Day” contains much of the band’s occasional abrasive funkiness and “Pavement Saw” holds some of Albini’s most direct and least affected vocals. Overall, SONGS ABOUT FUCKING is a smashing success, and if it’s not as great as DAMAGED, DAYDREAM NATION, VS., or DOUBLE NICKLES ON THE DIME, well it’s not behind by much. Is it dated? Yeah, somewhat. But I don’t really think that’s a fault. I do think Albini’s current band Shellac, along with his vast credits as engineer will ultimately vindicate his legacy.  But what Big Black lacked in maturity it more than made up for with youthful vigor. They were a thrilling, highly influential band, and it’s high time they got their due.