Big Black - Heartbeat

Happy Valentine's Day, bitches. What better way than a bisected heart on a hook to say "your love don't mean shit to me" to that special somebody?



'No Lovey-Dovey Shit!' is what we got here; a taut and visceral version of Wire's mantra-like 'Heartbeat'.



As I've previously stated, Big Black covers are right up my street; they invariably assault new wave/post-punk stuff, which usually sounds great when given the scathing guitar and brutal pounding treatment of Albini & co. 'Heartbeat' retains the groove, but comes off dark and cranky and pissy. The subtlety of the original goes out the window - for better or for worse - in place of a chugging and muscular in-your-face interpretation that culminates in screamed vocals and a thuggish repeated group chant.

The B-side features two Big Black non-album originals. 'Things to Do Today' is the typically noisy and angular sound that the band purveyed, but seems more memorable to me than a lot of Big Black's material. This era was pretty much the group's peak, so it should be no surprise that these B-sides are well worth a listen. This track in particular is especially unpleasant (always to be appreciated in Big Black's repertoire) with the lyrics seemingly concerning a home invasion or hit; "shoot him once; remember gloves; scan apartment" followed by the unecessary and cruel "kill the dog" moaned over and over as the chorus.

'I Can't Believe' is a speedy little instrumental, clocking in at just over one minute. It's mostly all tinny drum machine but with a memorable, almost jaunty guitar hook. Ladies and Gents, it's the danceable Big Black!

Anyway, you probably need to get going for that romantic dinner date. We hope your heart turns black and poisons your liver.

Big Black - The Model/He's a Whore

I bought a huge batch of Big Black vinyl a few months ago and I've been looking forward to writing about one of the 45s in there, and since I did Krafwerk's 'The Model' last week this seems as good a time as any...

I hate those people who dismiss a band by saying, "all their stuff sounds the same to me," so it's with some trepidation that I say of Big Black that a lot of their stuff sounds the same to me. Big Black for me are less about the songs and more about the sound; that pummelling, scratchy, aggressive, mean, cruel sound. In a lesser band's hands it could come across as a pantomime, but there's a sincerity to Big Black: Albini is really pissed off.

When twinned with a memorable song the Big Black experience really takes off, so it should come as no surprise that some of my favourite Big Black tracks are covers of songs that have more than a modicum of melody in them that the majority of Big Black originals eschew. So, this record sits pretty well with me, being as it is a tribute to both Cheap Trick and Kraftwerk.

'The Model' appears on Big Black's 1987 swansong Songs About Fucking and 'He's a Whore', although originally only intended for this release, was also included on the compact disc and cassette editions of the album. Although both tracks are freely available on the CD this record is a still a desirable item as it's such a cool, fun package, which is what this blog is all about really.

This is a double A-side and so you get two different covers! Awesome. Both covers playfully ape classic artwork by each band.



The Cheap Trick side, the first time I saw it, had me exclaiming "Holy shit! Is that Steve Albini?" When Albini is the looker in the band, well - you've got a band that could make onions cry. But that's what Big Black was about: brutal songs about ugly subjects. It's a great photo though, perfectly mimicking Cheap Trick's 1977 debut album cover.



Even the record label continues the theme with the Big Black logo, which is a really nice touch.



The song itself is a poppy new-wave number. This is about as poppy as Big Black get, with those drum machine beats sounding more danceable than punishing. It is surprisingly faithful to the original, except for the dead-panned vocals, and it seems like Big Black are having fun with it, even having stab at some - shock! - harmonies! Sounds to me like Santiago Durango on lead vocals growling, "Ahh'm a whwwooar."



The Kraftwerk side brilliantly replicates the artwork of their 1978 album The Man-Machine. That album's photography by Gunther Frohling has become quite iconic and whoever did this Big Black record has done an excellent job of recapturing it. I wonder who that mystery man was?



Again, this side gets its very own Big Black 'Kraftwerkesque' logo which repeats on the record label:



As for the song, it's an aggressive and heavier take on the original, with the drum machine and grimy bass very prominent. Steve Albini turns in some wonderfully noisy guitar squall in place of the synths. Overall the tone is nastier and this is a more menacing version than the original with Steve Albini sneering the vocals atonally. Lines like "I'd like to take her home with me that's understood" take on new meaning in this version: whereas in Kraftwerk's they sound sad and wistful, in Big Black's version it seems like a taunt; lurid and goading. Kraftwerk's 'Model' is unattainable; on a pedestal. Big Black's 'Model' is in the gutter getting spat on. You don't want to know what they have in mind for her if they get her home. It's a great cover as the band really find a different angle and feeling in it, while retaining most of the elements that make the original such a great song. Steve Albini must have had a soft spot for this as he continued to cover it with Rapeman and in his collaboration with Zeni Geva.

Absolutely classic 7" and well worth getting even if you own the CD. And remember, CDs make Mr. Albini sad.

The Jesus Lizard - Inch

Well, I saw The Jesus Lizard playing last night at the Kentish Town Forum and it was awesome. Great setlist; 'Blockbuster,' 'Gladiator,' 'Boilermaker,' 'Then Comes Dudley,' 'One Evening,' 'Wheelchair Epidemic,' 'Puss,' 'Thumbscrews' and 'Fly On the Wall' were all played. David Yow did most of his crowd-pleasing tricks without it ever feeling forced or insincere, dove into the crowd about half a dozen times and rained down vitriol and manic terror upon London for 90-odd minutes against a backdrop of some of the tightest playing I've ever seen. Vocalist David Yow often takes most of the focus but the rest of the band are all excellent musicians and performers.

Duane Denison's taut and tense guitar is the perfect partner for Yow's vocals, adding anxiety and a heightening sense of alarm. David Sims' commanding stance on stage was a focal point, with the bassist hammering the neck of his guitar forward to deliver some bruising bass lines. Mac wore headphones and his precise, jazz-influenced drumming at times evoked the math rock that has become so prevalent in the intervening years since the band's split.

Not that you didn't already know all of that if you've ever heard a Jesus Lizard record.

Grails and Harvey Milk were the support, which was okay, but a bit disappointing since in an interview with Mark Prindle, David Yow suggested that if there were ever to be a Jesus Lizard reunion then Puss (all-girl Jesus Lizard covers group) and Jazzus Lizard (you can guess) would be the perfect support acts. For shame.

So, I thought it was about time I had a look at this Record Store 7" pack that came out for one day only a few weeks ago. The good news is that Touch and Go have included a download code, so I don't actually have to put these things on a turntable (not that I have a huge issue with that, but I honestly can't break these records out of their robust packaging). The pack is very cool - you can keep it all bundled up with its rubber band on a shelf or you can unfold it all and get a nice display of all the 7" covers to hang on your wall - either way it's a beauty.



So what have we got in here? Well, every 7" that the group released on Touch and Go, remastered by Bob Weston (of Shellac, who was an engineer on the original recordings) and repressed in an edition of 2,000. So, it's pretty much the Bang compilation without the bonus tracks. I think a lot, if not all, of these tracks will end up on the CD album reissues later this year. There's a couple of singles missing that were licensed by Touch and Go for release by other labels, but they're another story.

First up is 'Chrome' from 1989. The track is a medley of two Chrome songs: 'TV as Eyes' and 'Abstract Nympho', both from the 1979 LP Half Machine Lip Moves, which has to be one of the weirdest album titles ever and possibly an influence on Melvins' song titles? (e.g. 'Heater Moves and Eyes'; 'In the Freaktose the Bugs Are Dying'). I actually got to see the Melvins covering 'Chrome' as an encore with David Yow as surprise guest singer. Yow ate a pack of cigarettes. Anyway, The Jesus Lizard make the song their own with a rambunctious and upbeat track that would fit nicely alongside anything on Head or Goat. The B-side is '7 vs. 8' from the Head album. It starts with mid-tempo tom work before kicking into some classic Denison escalating guitar playing that dizzies you before kicking into a noise assault, eventually dying back down into the laborious lurch of the verse. It's quite a nauseating track in the vein of 'Then Comes Dudley' and I mean that in the best possible way.

The second disc is 'Mouth Breather' which originally came out in 1990 just before Goat, from which it is taken. It has the iconic Mickey Mouse bomb cover that went on to become one of the best alternative rock T-shirt designs of the '90s.



This track isn't a favourite of mine as it zips by too fast without having done too much and there are far better tracks on the rests of Goat. However, it’s considered a bit of a classic for the band, so who am I to talk? The B-side is somewhat of an anomaly in the tJL back-catalogue; a cover of song by German Neue Deutshche Welle group Trio. I had a German friend who nearly kicked me out of his car for saying I didn't mind the NDW compilation that was playing on the stereo, such was his loathing of Trio. The song chugs along kind of uneventfully with a seriously understated vocal (a la 'Blockbuster'). It is pretty catchy, but it barely sounds like The Jesus Lizard at all. It’s a piece of new-wave fluff rendered strangely flat and ominous. Curiously enough a further Trio cover was put out on the Bang compilation. Sadly it wasn't 'Da Da Da'.

Next up is 'Puss' which was originally issued as a split single with Nirvana. So, instead of 'Oh, the Guilt' we get a nice B-side of silence. Did I mention this reached no. 12 in the UK charts in 1993? Wow. 'Puss' pretty much seems to be a song about domestic violence, but with no pretence to morality; in fact it's just a catalogue of brutal acts with some amazing double-tracked vocals that trade off each other, making it sound like you walked into a bar where two equally vile and drunken David Yows are jawing at each other, slurring and hurling broken bottles. Scary, compulsive and cool. This was the first song of theirs I heard so it holds a special place in my heart. If you listen to it on your Walkman as I did back in the day the two vocals come through separate headphones just to add to the chaos and terror. Nice touch, Steve Albini. Also, this disc has beautiful artwork courtesy of painter Malcolm Bucknall who also provided equally impressive artwork for Liar and Down.



Next is 'Wheelchair Epidemic', the original issue of which I already wrote about here.

The fifth record is the 'Gladiator' single, originally issued as a one-off giveaway to punters at a gig in London in September 1992 and was never commercially available as far as I'm aware. The photo on the cover is now in colour as opposed to black and white. Finally after all these years we can see what colour shirts the guys were wearing. Glad I didn't die before I got to see that.



'Gladiator' could be the ultimate tJL song; muscular, grinding, tense, demented, complex but with a catchy underlying groove. The finale is intense to say the least. It also has the line "You run the risk of conceiving a bastard." Bliss! If you don't know it you should get yourself a copy of the album Liar. The B-side of this single is a live version of 'Seasick' from the Brixton Academy show on 9th May 1992. The song really lives up to the title as it chugs and lurches away in lurid fashion, hitting you right in the stomach. The band is on top form in this live recording, but it's pretty faithful to the album version.

Discs 6, 7 and 8 cover the Lash EP which was originally released on CD and as a triple 7" pack as a stop-gap between the Liar and Down albums. The first 7" is fantastic as it has two proper non-album songs; 'Glamorous' and 'Deaf as a Bat,' both of which got an airing at last night's show. I always thought it would have faired better as a stand-alone single, so it's nice to have to have it here as a separate disc. Although 'Glamorous' has its moments, it's fairly pedestrian by tJL’s standards and something of a precursor for some of the more unspectacular moments on Down. 'Deaf as a Bat' is a short and fast little ditty, reminiscent of 'Tight 'n' Shiny' from their debut album, but with some garbled vocals on top. It has a nasty attitude, but is lacking teeth, so it doesn't really do it for me.

Discs 7 & 8 I have to say have disappointing artwork. Touch and Go have just taken the panels from the original gatefold sleeve and used them as the covers. Seriously, a few scratches in black paint does not constitute a good cover! The back covers are nicer with photos incorporated into the paintings. Shame there weren't any old Malcolm Bucknall cast-offs hanging around that could have been used!


(Front cover of the 'Bloody Mary' 7" and back cover of 'Lady Shoes' 7")

Anyway, the first of these has two tracks recorded live at a show in Boston in November 1990 (or December depending on which sleeve notes you believe). 'Lady Shoes' has to be one of the sickest songs I ever did hear and this was the version I knew way before I got around to listening to the album version. This totally blew my mind when I heard it. The music, managing to be both foreboding and rollicking plays second fiddle to a jaw-dropping performance by David Yow in which he presents a series of seemingly unrelated and deeply unpleasant and bizarre scenarios populated by a constantly revolving list of perverse characters ("There's a little girl playing a big piano while her mother gives her an enema...and then the Daddy comes in..."). This is littered with examples of David Yow's random shrieks, bellows and other unworldly noises that erupt at random to elicit genuine disgust, horror and morbid fascination. Never has a front man sounded more convincingly terrifying and insane.

Nothing could ever really follow that, but 'Killer McHann' makes a good stab of it (see what I did there. Pretty poor, wasn't it?) This kind of whizzes by in a torrent of reckless abandon and raging vocals, displaying a lot more energy and feeling than the studio version.

7" #8 has two live tracks from the same Brixton show as 'Seasick'. I always thought of 'Bloody Mary' as one of the most Scratch Acid-y songs that The Jesus Lizard did, with Yow adopting a harrowed and pleading vocal delivery on the melancholic verses, before the song explodes into a Big Black-esque pounding chorus. I guess the fact this was written when the group had a drum machine instead of a drummer influenced that. It’s nice to hear it performed by the whole band. The B-side is 'Monkey Trick' which features a seriously indecent bass line. It lumbers along leaving a bad taste in the mouth until the climactic ending with some truly feverish guitar work and Yow sounding like he's trying to cough up a ballcock.

The final record is '(Fly) On (the Wall)' and you've got to love those parentheses! Check out my thoughts on the original issue of this 7” here.

As is the way with many obsessive collectors, I’m not really a big audiophile, so the remastering is lost on me, but I’m loving the packaging! Maybe a few more repeat plays on something better than my mp3 player will shed some light on exactly what tweaking has gone on.

Pure, Head and Goat are all out in September, reissued with bonus tracks. Until then you can keep updated at The Jesus Lizard’s (Official!) Myspace or by checking out David Sims’ blog which has all kind of cool gubbins on it.

The Jesus Lizard - (Fly) On (the Wall)

I’m listening to a lot of The Jesus Lizard in the run up to their London show on Monday, so I thought I’d find time to say a little about this single; ‘(Fly) On (the Wall)’. If we discredit the words set in parentheses then we are to believe this song is merely titled ‘On’. Brilliant.

The track is an earlier alternative version of ‘Fly on the Wall’ from the Down LP. According to the Touch and Go website it was released on 17th January 1994, although it appears there was an earlier green vinyl pressing limited to 1000 released in 1993.

The cover artwork juxtaposes a bizarre upside-down photograph of a bound man impaled on a stake with pictures of fireworks. If I had to hazard a guess then I’d say it was pretty likely that this issued forth from the mind of Mr. David Yow



Side A is a fine example of a mid-tempo Jesus Lizard song. The rhythm section lurches along with dizzying guitar from Duane Denison, leading to a jazzy breakdown. David Yow is a picture of paranoia, drinking to block out the sound of insects in his room (“It’s that fly that’s making me drink so I’ll pass out and sleep through his screaming.”) I can’t hear that huge a difference between this version and the album version. The album version is a little slower. The single version also has double tracked vocals on the choruses that don’t really work that well, cluttering the intensity of the chorus. The Albini treatment on the album version really focuses on that sick groove, emphasising the punch of the bass and kick drum.

Down is generally a very bass-heavy album and has a grimy vibe to it. The songs don’t really grab you at first. It seems to be considered somewhat of a disappointment in many quarters, but I used to consider it my favourite as it was their first album I bought. At the time, as a fourteen-year old Nirvana fan, I found it completely impenetrable, but after putting it away for a few years and discovering Liar something clicked and its full brilliance revealed itself to me. Down is the tar-pit of The Jesus Lizard’s back catalogue: black, bubbling, dense and dangerous. It amazes me to hear even the band speak about it disparagingly. David Yow has hinted at being dissatisfied with the way it was recorded, but in a recent interview with Rock-A-Rolla, Duane Denison defended the record saying “there’s parts of it where the jazz and blues kind of thing comes through a little more, it’s more of a slow-burning intensity.”

The B side of the single is ‘White Hole’ which represents a very much overlooked and under-explored aspect of The Jesus Lizard’s music. Following on from ‘Breaking Up is Hard to Do’ on their debut EP this track goes into the leftfield of more cold and clinical ambient/experimental rock. The track could be said to be a deconstruction of their work, as if the band were playing one of their usual numbers, but it was being distorted and skewed … by having travelled millions of light years through an intergalactic wormhole? Yeah, something like that. It shimmers and chimes while an undistinguishable sound whirls away in the background. A drum beat comes in that is sporadic and jerky, while someone mumbles at a barely detectable level. A searing scream melds into a harsh guitar sound (I think) and then it’s all over. This is evidently what The Jesus Lizard gets up to when there’s no pressure to produce a killer album as they produced a couple of similar tracks on their 1998 stop-gap EP for Jetset Records that were produced by John Cale and Jim O’Rourke. Although it’s pretty quirky and interesting it’s hard to get too excited about a track like this and it’s certainly more of a curiosity than a necessity.

All-in-all, this is a nice disc representing two extremes of The Jesus Lizard’s output. Both tracks were included on the 2000 singles compilation Bang, so go buy yourself a copy!

Roll on, Monday!

The Jesus Lizard - Wheelchair Epidemic

Amidst claims that I only own records by artists beginning with ‘D’ I have dropped my planned discussions of Dio, D:Ream, Dollar and Daniel O’Donnell and will instead be taking a look at The Jesus Lizard in anticipation of their new release on Record Store Day.

2009 is the year of The Jesus Lizard! To celebrate the reissuing of their remastered back catalogue the band have reformed for the first time in 10 years to play a string of dates this summer across the U.S. and Europe.

The first batch of reissues (Pure, Head and Goat: all remastered by original ‘producer’ Steve Albini and Bob Weston of Shellac fame) are due on 22nd September on Touch and Go Records. But, to tide us over until then and to commemorate Record Store Day 2009 Touch and Go are releasing something of a wet dream for this TJL-and-7”-single-loving fan: Inch. Inch is a collection of nine 7” singles, which have all been out of print for years now, all remastered by Bob Weston and presented in a clear vinyl display pack that allows the whole thing to be hung on a wall and frottaged (or just folded up and put away in a box). Here is an artist’s impression:

The downside is there’s only going to be 2000 copies. God knows how many of those will be distributed outside of the U.S. But if there’s a copy to be had, I’ll do my damnedest to get my hands on it. Check out some of the cool stuff in there: the super-rare ‘Gladiator’ single! The overly-long Lash EP! Love The Jesus Lizard, but balk at the idea of owning a Nirvana record? Then you’ll love the split single they released with Nirvana…now with the Nirvana side mysteriously removed! Hurrah! I still can’t believe that The Jesus Lizard scored a #12 hit single with this in the UK charts. I would LOVE to have a copy of Bruno Brooks or Dr. Fox or whoever running down the top 40 and having to introduce/apologise for that one! Also in there is possibly my favourite single that I own; ‘Wheelchair Epidemic.’

One of my favourite bands + truly unpleasant yet catchy song + truly unpleasant yet beautifully rendered artwork = one hot slab of plastic.

The A-side is a cover of a pretty nasty, cruel and completely un-PC song by Texan punk band The Dicks, sung in goading fashion by the irrepressible Mr. David Yow, most convincingly deranged front man on the planet? To justify getting a kick out this, I must say that it goes beyond offensive, tipping into the tastelessly cartoonish and then into comical. I suppose that were it not for the music chugging away in such rocking fashion it would be teetering on the brink of ‘novelty’ and that is not a good place to be!

The artwork is similarly crude and offensive, as if to emphasise the cartoonish, over-the-top nature of the track. So, the cover may not be much to look at, but check out the back:

What warped mind could be responsible for such lurid imagery? Surely not the same man who penned the lines, “there’s a girl playing the piano while her mother gives her an enema,” and “the dead princess lay silent and her cunt’s ripped?”

The B-side is a little tamer lyrically; just some stuff about being fucked up the arse by the personification of misery and illness. The track is ‘Dancing Naked Ladies,’ presented here in an even slower, queasier and more churning form than its album version.

Well, I almost wore this thing out before the singles CD compilation Bang came out and saved my record from a fate similar to Nirvana’s side of the ‘Puss’ single. Get yourself a copy of Bang or grab one of these on eBay but do not, do NOT buy a copy of Inch. At least not until I’ve got one in the bag.

This Saturday is RECORD STORE DAY!

Sorry, Mum, but I'm cancelling your birthday...



Woah, I'm incredibly late with this one. I heard about this a while back, but I didn’t realise how big a deal it was or that it would be making its way out of America. Basically, this is a celebration of independent record stores and a lot of great record labels and artists are getting involved.

There are something like 100(!) records being especially released in very limited editions and it is mostly vinyl. These are to be sold exclusively through participating stores on Record Store Day and once they're gone, they're gone...onto eBay. Wouldn't it be a tragedy if you missed picking up the Flight of the Conchords 7” in the record shop and had to shell out twice as much on eBay for it and missed out on the lovely experience of browsing the aisles and flipping through all those beautiful records!? I'm going to be kicking myself on Saturday if I miss anything on my extensive-and-growing-by-the-minute shopping list! As if that isn’t enough of an impetus to get out there, there are going to be a slew of in-store signings and appearances. Graham Coxon, Partick Wolf and more will be appearing at Pure Groove in London and I expect there’ll be stuff going on at Rough Trade. I won’t go into the range of acts appearing across the U.S. as it’s just too large, but you can check it out on the Record Store Day website.

Some of the labels lining up special releases include Matador, Touch and Go, Sub Pop, Epitaph, Nonesuch and majors such as Sony, Warner Brothers, Capitol and a lot of reissues on Rhino.

Just a taste of some of the stuff being released:

Pavement – Live in Germany LP (2500 copies)
Jay Reatard/Sonic Youth split 7” (2500 copies)
Sonic Youth/Beck split 7” (2500 copies)
The Smiths – Headmaster Ritual (reissue of rare Dutch 7”)
The Decemberists – The Rake Song 7” (2000 copies)
Talking Heads – 77 (Remastered LP on 180gm)
Radiohead – vinyl EP reissues (everything from Drill to 2+2=5)
Flaming Lips/Black Keys split 7”
Depeche Mode – Wrong 7” (2000 copies)
Sony’s Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Leonard Cohen 7”s in custom sleeves…
And…the Holy Grail of releases…The Jesus Lizard – Inch (but more about that next time!)

Anyway – go HERE for the complete list of releases and HERE to find out which shops are taking part and then get down to a record shop and buy records! Easy, really.