Songs About Fucking

LP/CD released 1987 on Touch and Go (TGLP24), Blast First (BFFP19), AuGoGo (ANDA064), reissued by AuGoGo in 1992 on CD (AuGoGo158)

Lotsa people figger that this is the best Big Black album. Not me. Atomizer has this thing whipped 8 ways from Sunday. This is just fast and furious punk with a drum machine. There are very few of the horrifying observations that were present in Kerosene, or the resigned melancholy of Bad Houses. That said, there are still plenty of good tracks, including Bad Penny, probably the second best thing they ever recorded, and L Dopa, a heartwarming song about people with brain disorders.

Australian versions of the LP (on AuGoGo records) came with a sticker saying "PLEASE REMOVE" over the word "FUCKING" in the album's title. Dunno about the CD.

reviews:

Shit, almost wet my fucking pants when I heard this one. Thought I was gonna fuckin' die. Fuckin' great shit. Nothin' gets to me like big black, ya know. Nothing. Drove goddam nearly 400 fucking miles to see these crab-crawling assholes fuckall if I didn't get a harden, stiff as a crowbar, and I'm a girl. Fucking shit. Man. Nothin' gets to me like Big Black.
--Joy, Flipside 55

BIG BLACK
Songs About F**king

Blast First BFFP 19 RT C **1/2 Steve Albini's gnarled sawn-off thrust and adrenalin guitar rush makes for throb-time In the body zone. Big Black cock the mechanism, cast a cheeky grin on a cover of Kraftwerk's The Model, then turn the Intensity control to full. It's a napalm attack that sticks to your skin like burning party-jell, spiced with hundreds and thousands, a prickly sensation that's as all-consuming as It Is repellent. Big Black have a pent up angst that occasionally explodes on this brazen alcohol-soaked album.

Awarded the tag of being "trendily alternative" by more alternative underground workers Stateside, the Big Black hard hitters still manage, through their aggression and obstlnence, to come on as convincing.

Dave Henderson

I actually found myself getting sick of hearing about Big Black. They're currently one of my favorite bands, but then one can only take so much. I mean, we drove all the way up to fucking FRISCO to see them because they were too GOOD to play LA. Then I spent hours transcribing the interview, which was basically 45 minutes worth of bitching.

"Headache" would have been a big disappointment if it weren't for all the extra junk that came with the plastic bag edition. I'd had just about enough. Then THIS rascal comes along. It is anything but a disappointment. It actually seems to have more "Fuck You" energy than their previous records, which is saying a lot. Consult "The Power of Independent Trucking", "Bad Penny" or "L Dopa" (probably their fastest song) for proof of this. Just get your hands on it and indulge.
--Brian, Ink Disease 13

OPENING WITH the insanely drilling 'Power Of Independent Trucking', 'Songs About F**king' actually closes the Big Black chapter.

However you choose to look at a band like Big Black-an anathema againstthecurseof current pop, harsh realism in a world of holocaustic nuclear madness-they can only exist so long as that which they directly confront exists. They are a cure which desperately seeks an illness, a doctor, in the words of Quentin Crisp, more sick than the patient.

There is only so much hi-vottage hard-core that any man can be expected to take and therefore you'll have to take it for granted that Big Black sing about what they say they sing about ie 'Colombian Necktie'--sartorial references aside--is about South American death practices, the process of "having your throat slit from ear to ear, so your tongue can flop on your neck". Even slowed down to 33rpm and with the volume down to as low as 9, it's hard to tell.

No, Big Black are all about sound and they speed up and, er, speed up their songs in an extremely tuneful way. You wouldn't get as much tune out of a barrel-load of pretty pop bands as you do on one Big Black album, and 'Songs About Asterisking' throws up the sort of chainsaw sounds that have decided to rip your throat out, to say nothing of your Colombian necktie. It's an insatiable Bluebird acceleration that suggests its own self-destruction. After all, how could anyone own all of Big Black's hammering recordings without discovering that their life had suddenly become the hammer and no longer the hand?

Of the specific songs here very little needs to be or can be said. The idea of Big Black is far better than the torturous guitars or shattering drums that make up a 'Kitty Empire' or a 'Precious Thing'. And the idea of 'The Model' only works because it is an idea relying on the idea of Big Black.

So no-one should mourn the passing of Big Black since there'll always be another Big Black, bands like Duran Duran will make sure of that. Big Black have to split up because no matter how big their sound the reference points that define them are narrow. In any case all the really daring pop terrorism is taking place in mainstream chartdom. In short, F**king songs ain't what they used to be.

Neil Taylor

liner notes:

oh, you think that was a nice piece there, eh? i'll tell you something, i got an exit book here, shows the best steak on any mile of interstate in the whole pig-friggin' country, shows every decent motel and a few indecent ones. shows where to get a new axle at four in the morning, fucking bible. well, i got another little book i wrote up myself, sort of an exit and entrance book, if you get me. shows me where every piece of ass i ever picked up is. i can get laid inside ten minutes just about anywhere in the fucking world, it's all in the book. this one chick though, i'll never forget it. moved her ass like a blender, bitch simply could not get enough, buck and scream like a wild animal, every time i go through jersey i stop in for a taste. the one thing i can't stand is when they get emotional about it. want you to call 'em and write 'em. when i'm gone, i'm gone. i'll take 'em with me for a while, we ride, then fuck, then ride. i've burned out three mattresses in the cab-over up there. that one, though, she was wild.

boy. don't we all look smashing in red

what's really impressive is that some of these guys last so long, you'd think more of them would get killed, since all they do is burn their bridges.

daisy went to sleep at 15 and woke up many years later. she, being perfectly sensible, decided she ought to die, since she had literally slept away her entire productive life. the medical profession had, in her absence, decided that all life must be preserved, regardless of worth to its owner, and prevented her from performing the only noble act she was capable of.

in general, someone is a thing of value if and only if he or she is willing to submit to whatever degradation and abuse is required to preserve that position. anything less betrays a lack of commitment.

ever since that fellow there moved in. there's been some mighty strange goings on over there, he's up until all hours, he's got that crazy music, noisy all the time. there's some sort of cat army there, too. they live under that porch, someone saw him out there jaybird naked one time hopping like an indian out in the weeds. the smell is just ferocious sometimes, like he does his own number twos out there in the yard. i swear.

psychedelic fungus infestation of european grain, not divine inspiration, as responsible for many of the "visions" so lovingly portrayed in the christian paintings of antiquity. how many people were pressed under stones or drowned or burned for satanism while those of faith were quietly tripping their brains out on bad bread?

the mafia still knows how to throw a good killing when it needs to. the more colorful ones get the most attention. a bomb, for instance, doesn't need to be in the victim's car. it can be in a stalled vehicle on the roadway, waiting to go bang until the victim happens to be driving by other people may be driving by as well. life's rough.

it went like this, as near as anybody can tell. he went to her family's fish fry, took her to the drive-in, porked her, then beat her to death with his boot. it is speculated that he was upset about the ease with which he got into her pants, when she had resisted his brother's attempts earlier. he threw the body into frenchtown pond, if memory serves, and went home. when the police found him the following afternoon, he was nonchalantly scrubbing out the cab of his truck with the aid of a garden hose.

the things people do when they have nothing to do can be pretty silly. those same people can become all-important in each others lives, the things they do increase in importance in proportion, soon a lot of people who do nothing individually scrutinize the miniscule doings of the others. this, in short, is "falling in love."

sometimes, even killing yourself wouldn't be enough. like when you realize that your entire life has been lived under a presumption of free will, but all you've been able to make of it is a sad parody of everything you used to hate. slowly, without trying, everyone becomes what he despises most.

every good vegas act has an opening theme, some appropriately triumphant fanfare to welcome the delight of the audience. it helps convince them the show was worth their thirty bucks or soft

hey. breaking up is an idea that has occurred to far too lew groups, sometimes to the wrong ones.

t'anks fer da laffs: corey, lisa, justin, paul, pat, nate, the pals we made, the pals we didn't, jochen, carlos, byron, jimmy, bands who don't write love songs. joel, get your shit together

if you're ever in chicago, don't stop in, it's a small place we've got.

big black:
david michael riley: bass (david uses and endorses alembic basses and trace-elliot amplifiers)
melvin belli: guitar grrr (melvin follows and endorses the fibrelife meatloaf diet plan)
steve albini: guitar skinng (steve uses and endorses heroin)

BIG BLACK
SONGS ABOUT FUCKING

disc:

this compact disc is made from analog masters recorded without noise reduction. half the tracks, in fact, were recorded in a dismal, cheap basement eight-track studio with puddles of water on the floor. digital technology will now faithfully reproduce those noisy, lo-fi masters for you at great expense. feel stupid yet?