Pig Pile

LP/CD/VHS released 1992 on Touch and Go (TG81) and AuGoGo (ANDA158, CD only)

Whooooeee! Man this fucker'll kick your ass and steal your lunch money. GREAT live album, especially Steelworker, which sounded like shit on Lungs. Heartbeat features Bruce Gilbert and Graeme Lewis of Wire. Steve Albini ends the show with "and tonight we walked with giants..."

Recorded live at the Hammersmith Clarendon, July 24, 1987. You can read Steve's review of this show in the Final Tour Diary. I also have two reviews up in the words section.

I'm fairly certain that some copies of the video also included the In My House 5".

reviews:

We made a splash immediately before we broke up; now a band starts shopping its demos to majors after its third rehearsal. By the end, I think we improved; on the live record and video we were probably as good as we were ever gonna be. That gig was exciting--there was this giant belch and everyone involved in this giant belch felt immensely relieved afterwards.
--Steve Albini, NME 1992/11/07

liner notes:

Big Black: Steve Albini, Satniago Durango, Dave Riley, Roland.

This record and its accompanying video footage were recorded at the Hammersmith Clarendon, during Big Black's final tour in the summer of 1987. The members of Big Black have often been asked why we chose to break up (the end of the band having been announced well in advance) just when we were becoming quite popular. The best answer then and now is: To prevent us from overstaying our welcome.

It was often assumed that Big Black had a dictator (and that he was me), but having actually been in the band, I can assure anyone who gives a shit that this was not the case. We would get together a few times a month and weed-out each other's ideas until only the good ones were left. Nobody ever said, "I've written this song fellas, and it goes like this..."

It seems preposterous now, but at the time, people seemed overly concerned about the literal meaning of our lyrics. I know we never discussed it among ourselves. Lyrics seemed a neccessity, so we had them, but the subject matter was an extension of our interests--not part of a political or aesthetic battle plan. They lyrics were subject to change at whim once the subject had been decided on anyway. Anybody who thinks we oeverstepped the playground perimeter of lyrical decency (or that the public has any right to demand "social responsibility" from a goddamn punk rock band) is a pure natural dolt, and should step forward and put his tongue up my ass. What we sing about is none of your business anyway.

Organizationally we were commited to a few basic principles: Treat everyone with as much respect as he deserves (and no more), Avoid people who appeal to our vanity (they always have an angle), Operate as much as possible apart from the "music scene" (which was never our stonping ground), and Take no shit from anyone in the process.

It meant nothing to us if we were popular or not, or if we sold a million or no records, so we were invulnerable to ploys by music scene weasels to get us to make mistakes int eh name of success. To us, every moment we remained unfettered and in control was a success. We never had a manager. We never had a booking agent. We never had a lawyer. We never took an advance from a record company. We booked our own tours, paid our own bills, made our own mistakes and never had anybody shield us from either the truth or the consequences.

The results of that methodology speak for themselves: Nobody ever told us what to do and nobody took any of our money.

We had a fucking blast, and blasted a few ourselves.

Fists of Love: Captain Riley's lever retitling of this song should be read as a measure of our frustration with the British "cuisine", architecture and work ethic. Please note the "now clap 'em" quote from a popular vulgar joke toward the end of the song.

L Dopa: That Oliver Sachs has been portrayed by Robin Williams in a saccharine mass-market tearjerker movie in no way invalidates his life work: documenting the entertaining behavior of people of people will sever brain anomolies.

Passing Complexion: Nowadays we can see talk show panels comprised of people who have to tell people they're black because they're pale, don't look like the "black" archetype, and therefore miss out on all the racism they're entitled too. If someone can be "black" by proclaimation, then the term is as meaningless now as it was in the 1920's.

Dead Billy: When we started playing this song, we had no idea the antics of the armed forces would become the crass pop-culture fodder to the extent that they have. For the ex-posto-facto banality. The video footage documents the very rare "drinking bird dance".

Cables: The silly guitar noises at the beginning go on entirely too long, yeah, yeah. You try restraining yourself when you've got 30,000 watts of PA blowing your genius into a half-million cubic feet of ballroom. Be thankful we didn't break into "House of the Rising Sun" or "Supernaut".

Bad Penny: This song appeared as "Bad Pfennig" on German setlists, "Bad Pence" on British ones and "All This Money is Bad" in Belgium. The irony of incorporating this song into this record has not been lost on the band.

Pavement Saw: The male-female relationship, as a subject for song, is thoroughly bankrupt. This attempt is noteworthy mainly for the preposterously drawn-out introduction and Santiago's hummingbird-like solo at the end.

Kerosene: While the band was active, much ado was made about the "pork roast" nature of the subject of the song. They lyrics were an afterthought, actually, and were originally about either race car driving or frog gigging, I forget which.

Steelworker: Man, can we get a lot of mileage out of two notes.

Pigeon Kill: I haven't been to Huntington, Indiana, since 1983, so I don't know if the folks there still kill off scores of pigeons with poisoned corn every year. Perhaps they have opted for a more permanent solution.

Fish Fry: The decline in popularity of drive-in movies is doing tremendous damage to the sexual developments of adolescents. When the drive-ins are all gone, there will be no place where teenagers can practice and observe sexual technique in large numbers with ready access to popcorn, fresh air, and Coca-Cola douche.

Jordan, Minnesota: Look it up numbskull. None of the parents got locked up, only the guy who finked on them.

We also played "heartbeat," and quite happy I was that I was able to incorporate quotes from both the Defranco and Partridge families in this number. Otherwise it was a mess.

Special thousand-dollar cover art by LM Owen. Insert painting by Cheryl Graham. Video directed and edited by Peter "Pinko" Fowler. Crew: Jo "Gorgeous" Higson, Carl "Lungfish" Simpson and the Naylors. Fireworks, flaming band members, rocket attack and "Windy City Studs" sequences filmed by Corey Rusk at the Graystone, Detroit, during the Era of Hospitality, and the Very Loud House, Chicago, 1984-1988. Playing fire sequences filmed at the Cow house, Palatine, at a series of bonfire parties staged by Pile of Cows during the Epoch of Lawlessness 1985-87.

These people ruled our world:
Corey and Lisa Rusk, Pinko and Jo, John Loder, Jochen "Jake" Schwartz, Theo Van "rocktje" Eenburgen, Carlos Van Hijfte, Bruce and Greta, "Cellblock Liz" and Pat Naylor, Noel and Jane, Iain Burgess, Rifle Sport, Killdozer, Sonic Youth, Bruce and Graham, Fluss, Byron, Jimmy and many beautiful women.

Also Paul Smith, and for a while there Gerard.

Goodnight, I'm Steve Albini.

No one at the Venue may look Danzig in the eye.