20,000 vinyl LPs 333: Big Black ~ Songs About Fucking

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Big Black ~ Songs About Fucking

vinyl LP front cover 

photo of album cover by Styrous®

Last month was the birthday of musician & record producer (link below), Steve Albini of the group Big Black. Albini was born on July 22, 1962, in Pasadena, California.     

 

Big Black ~ Songs About Fucking

vinyl LP back cover 

photo of album cover by Styrous®

 

 

Albini was introduced to the Ramones (link below) by a schoolmate when he was 14 or 15. He said it was the best music he had ever heard, bought every Ramones recording available, and credits his music career to hearing their first album.        

 

The group Sonic Youth described Albini as "a beacon of noise blaring from Chicago’s red-hot music scene — a cult-legend rocker and record producer who assaults with a deafening weapon."

 

 

 

Big Black ~ Songs About Fucking

vinyl LP record sleeve

photo by Styrous®

 

 

Melvin Belli (Santiago Durango) of the group Naked Raygun, one of Chicago's early punk rock bands, played guitar. AllMusic critic Mark Deming describes Santiago and Albini as a good pairing musically; "Durango's muscular guitar sound was the ideal match of Albini's jagged, metallic tone."         

 

 

 

 

Big Black ~ Songs About Fucking

vinyl LP record sleeve details below

photos by Styrous®

 

 

 

 

Phoebe Mogharei of Chicago Magazine wrote a great article about Albini, Steve Albini and the Life of the Iconoclast (link below), in April of 2019.      

 

 

Big Black ~ Songs About Fucking tracklist 

vinyl LP back cover detail

detail photo by Styrous®

 

 

Track two is a cover of The Model, by the German New Wave group, Kraftwerk. It is a raucous interpretation by Kraftwerk standards and lots of fun!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Big Black ~ Songs About Fucking 

vinyl LP side 1

photos by Styrous®

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Big Black ~ Songs About Fucking 

vinyl LP side 2

photos by Styrous®

 

 

 
   

Tracklist:
       
Side 1:

        

    Happy Otter
A1     The Power Of Independent Trucking    
A2     The Model    
A3     Bad Penny    
A4     L Dopa    
A5     Precious Thing    
A6     Colombian Necktie

       
Side 2:
       
    Sad Otter
B1     Kitty Empire    
B2     Ergot    
B3     Kasimir S. Pulaski Day    
B4     Fish Fry    
B5     Pavement Saw    
B6     Tiny, King Of The Jews    
B7     Bombastic Intro
       
Companies, etc.
       
    Copyright (c) – Big Black
    Copyright (c) – Kling Klang Music
    Phonographic Copyright (p) – Touch And Go Records (2)
    Recorded At – Southern Studios
    Pressed By – Europadisk
       
Credits:
       
    Bass – David Michael Riley*
    Guitar [Grrr] – Melvin Belli (Santiago Durango)
    Guitar [Skinng] – Steve Albini
    Recorded By – John Loder (tracks: A1 to A6)
       
Notes:
       
Cat# on labels: T&G LP #24
Cat# on spine: T&G #24

Released with a 7.5"x7.5" insert with lyric excerpts, liner notes and credits.

Track A2 is a cover version of the Kraftwerk song.

Happy Otter side recorded at Southern Studios, Wood Green with the dapper John Loder. Sad Otter side recorded in Chicago, no shit.

David uses and endorses Alembic basses and Trace-Elliot amplifiers.
Melvin follows and endorses the Fibrelife meatloaf diet plan.
Steve uses and endorses heroin.

© 1987 Big Black. Track A2 © Kling Klang Music.
℗ 1987 Touch And Go Records. Jacket made in Canada.

       
Barcode and Other Identifiers
       
    Matrix / Runout (Side A label): T&G LP #24-A
    Matrix / Runout (Side B label): T&G LP #24-B
    Matrix / Runout (Side A runouts): MISFI SM7 T&G LP#24-A Europadisk DMM
    Matrix / Runout (Side B runouts): MISFI SM6 T&G LP#24-B Europadisk DMM
    Matrix / Runout (Side A runouts (Variant #1)): MISFI SM 3̶ 7 T&G-LP#24-A Europadisk DMM
    Matrix / Runout (Side B runouts (Variant #1)): T&G-LP#24 B Europadisk DMM

 

Big Black ‎– Songs About Fucking
Label: Touch And Go ‎– T&G LP #24, Touch And Go ‎– T&G #24
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album
Country: US
Released: 1987
Genre: Rock
Style: Post-Punk, Indie Rock

         

Viewfinder links:        

        

Steve Albini         

Big Black

Bulldozer         

Santiago Durango          

Kraftwerk         

Naked Ray Gun           

The Ramones        

        

Net links:        

         

Chicago Magazine ~ Albini and the Life of the Iconoclast       

NPR ~ Albini built Chicago studio brick by brick        

Pitchfork ~ Albums, Songs & News         

NME ~ “It's weird when somebody says I had a massive influence” 

          
        

        

        

        

         

        

        

YouTube links:         

 

Big Black ~     

      Bad Penny         

      Colombian Necktie         

      Kasimir S. Pulaski Day         

      L Dopa       

      The Model               

      The Power of Independent Trucking         

           

Kraftwerk ~ Das Model      

Kraftwerk ~ The Model            

     

      

     

     

     

     

"The ways by which [musicians] go about what they do 

and the reasons they have for doing it 

are every bit as important as what notes they play 

or what syllables come out of their mouths," 

                     ~ Steve Albini

     

     

     

     

Styrous® ~ Friday, August 25, 2023       
       

 

 

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20,000 Vinyl LPs Archive
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Naked Ray Gun articles/mentions

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Naked Ray Gun

 (from left) Eric Spicer, Jeff Pezzati, 

Bill Stephens and Pierre Kezdy

Photo: Sun-Times file

date & photographer unknown

 

Big Black ~  

    Bulldozer 12" 45      

    Songs About Fucking          

     

mentions:      

PIL (Public Image Ltd.) ~ Metal Box             

     

      

     

           

     

     

 

 

 

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Music People

MAIN MENU - Blog Articles 
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Santiago Durango articles/mentions

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Big Black ~  

    Bulldozer 12" 45      

    Songs About Fucking          

     

mentions:      

PIL (Public Image Ltd.) ~ Metal Box             

     

      

     

     

     

     

     

Santiago Durango     

date & photographer unknown    

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

 

 

 

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Music People

MAIN MENU - Blog Articles 
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Public Image Ltd (PiL) articles/mentions

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PiL (Public Image Ltd) ~ Metal Box          

mentions:     
Big Black ~ Bulldozer  
Crossroads ~ Robert Johnson     
Extrabreit ~ Welch Ein Land!      
Sonic Youth ~ Sonic Youth EP  
Tchaikovsky ~ Swan Lake     
    
  
Public Image Ltd.     
Metal Box
photo by Styrous®      
  

     

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Music Notes Articles
MAIN MENU - Blog Articles
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Mike Oldfield articles/mentions

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mentions:        
PIL (Public Image Ltd.) ~ Metal Box  
Terry Riley - A Rainbow In Curved Air

Mick Ronson ~ Slaughter on 10th Ave.   

     
      

     
     
     
Mike Oldfield - 1999             
photo by David Scheinmann
  
  
       
   
  
  
     

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Music Notes Articles
MAIN MENU - Blog Articles

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Big Black articles/mentions

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Bulldozer    

Songs About Fucking     

 

mentions:      

"Like Picasso at the Lapin Agile"   

PIL (Public Image Ltd.) ~ Metal Box   

 

 

      

Big Black
Promotional photo  

 

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 Music Notes 

MAIN MENU - Blog Articles
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45 RPMs 8: PIL (Public Image Ltd.) ~ Metal Box

photos by Styrous® 

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I've started the Vinyl series because I have a collection of over 20,000 vinyl record albums I am selling; each blog entry is about an album from my collection. Inquire for information here.   

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There were two Decembers in particular that were good to me in regards to Punk/New Wave music, 1979 and 1983.    

Sometime in December of 1979, I came across one of the many exciting and innovative albums produced in the late Punk era. It had just been released the month before but a copy of it was marked down because the cover was slightly "abused." Although I was familiar with the lead singer, I had never heard of the group. I bought it simply because I was intrigued by the packaging (always been a sucker for unique packaging).   

The album consists of three untitled 45-rpm 12-inch (30-cm) records . . .  

 

. . . all packaged in a metal box resembling a film canister with an embossed PIL logo on the lid.

 

Public Image Ltd. ~ Metal Box front
design by Dennis Morris

Public Image Ltd. ~ Metal Box back

From Wikipedia . . .

'Public Image Ltd (also known as PiL) is an English post-punk band formed by ex-Sex Pistols singer John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten), guitarist Keith Levene, bassist Jah Wobble, and drummer Jim Walker. Personnel has changed frequently over the ensuing years. Lydon is the sole constant member of the band.

Lydon emerged after the break-up of the Sex Pistols with PiL's Public Image: First Issue (1978). The new band had a more experimental sound: a "droning, slow-tempo, bass-heavy noise rock, overlaid by Lydon's distinctive, vituperative rant". Their early work is often regarded as some of the most challenging and innovative music of the post-punk era. Their 1979 album Metal Box was ranked number 469 on Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. The NME described PiL as "arguably the first post-rock group".'  

Public Image Ltd. ~ Metal Box w/liner notes

Metal Box was the second album by PIL. It was originally released in the metal box in an edition of 50,000 copies (plus an extra 10,000 for export). The design for Metal Box was the brainchild of Dennis Morris, photographer and designer. It was later reissued in more conventional packaging as a double LP set, Second Edition.   

Big Black produced an EP, Bulldozer, released in December of 1983, with the first two hundred copies packaged in a galvanized sheet metal sleeve in homage to Metal Box by Public Image Ltd. (see link below).  

Packaged in a 12" film can-style metal box. Sides are labelled Metal 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6 on the info sheet and Metal 1-A, Metal 1-B, Metal 1-C, Metal 1-D, Metal 1-E and Metal 1-F on the record labels. Includes an A5 size sheet with tracklist and line-up.

 

PIL (Public Image Ltd. ~ Metal Box 

track list

Side B ends with a locked groove which repeats the last few seconds of "Swan Lake" endlessly until the needle is lifted from the record. The Runout for 1.B has three lines for the letters "B", the middle of which is superimposed over an "A". 

PIL (Public Image Ltd.) - circa 1978
 left to right:

Jim Walker, Jah Wobble, Keith Levene, John Lydon

photographer unknown

When I got it home I was completely blown away by what I heard. Metal Box features the band's dub reggae bass lines, glassy, arpeggio guitar work, and bleak, paranoid, stream of consciousness vocals. But Metal Box is starker than their first album, Public Image: First Issue, and it is scattered with bits of Eno-like ambient synthesiser.      

The songs

(Click on title to hear song)

Record 1, side A - Albatross - 10:32

Albatross is early Michael Jackson, Billie Jean (I've wondered if Michael had heard Albatross), with a hard but subtle steel-sounding guitar/synth? It sounds like it's recorded in a silent, echoey machine shop. It has an edge that bites, nicely but it does bite. The John Lydon vocal is sparse, distant and echoey. The guitar does some great stuff during some of the breaks.

Record 1, side B
B1 - Memories - 5:05
B2 - Swan Lake - 4:19

Memories starts with a fast bass guitar and bass drum beat that doesn't waste time in gettin' on with it. The tinny, echoey, guitar-sounding synthesizer does some great work in this piece. The vocal by Lydon is typically wacky, off-key and a lot of fun (imagine a mosh pit on steroids).

Swan Lake, the following cut, is a way cool interpretation of the Tchaikovsky work, Swan Lake. The bass guitar hesitantly peeps from around the curtain then leads the gang on to a determined march. Some fantastic instrumentals supporting the incomprehensible vocal of Lydon stroll around and eventually but sporadically bring in the motif. It is very nicely done. 

Record 2, side C
C1 - Poptones - 7:45
C2 - Careering - 4:32

Poptones is a kind of aimless song but not my favorite in the set. There is some great bass guitar work in it though.  

Record 2, side D
D1 - No Birds (Do Sing) - 4:43
D2 - Graveyard - 3:07 

No Birds (Do Sing) has a dissonant, disjointed and eerie edge to it that is disturbing, which is what punk was all about.     

Graveyard is slow, determined and methodical. It is dark and mysterious. It is a brilliant instrumental; a taste of New Wave at its finest.  

Record 3, side E
E1 - The Suit -3:29
E2 - Bad Baby - 4:30

The Suit is a weird, more spoken than sung song with Lydon doing some bizarre things but that also is the job of punk.        

Bad Baby has a strange double beat with a strange synth in the background and a very strange vocal by Lydon. I guess it's just a strange song.    

Record 3, side F - Socialist/Chant/Radio 4   - 12:31

Socialist is FAST! No foolin' around with this one. At 3:10 I couldn't wait for it to be over. Not good.

Chant is another determined guy. It moves on with a jerky insistent pace that makes me want to march right on out and do something; what, I don't know.  5:01.

Radio 4 starts almost reverently with an organ/synth joined by the bass guitar. It has a subtle waltz tempo and it also is an instrumental. It logs in at 4:24.  
 

Palladium Geneve, Switzerland. 26.10.1986

There is an interview with drummer David Humphrey that was first published on Fodderstompf, in April of 2004 (see link below).  

The album was recorded by Virgin Records, Ltd., a British record label founded by English entrepreneur Richard Branson, Simon Draper, Nik Powell and Tom Newman in 1972. The company grew to be a worldwide music phenomenon, with platinum performers such as Roy Orbison, Devo, Genesis, Keith Richards, Janet Jackson, the Human League, Culture Club, Simple Minds, Lenny Kravitz, dc Talk, the Smashing Pumpkins, Mike Oldfield, Spice Girls and many other artists. It was later sold to Thorn EMI in 1992.      

Wholly owned by Universal Music Group after its purchase of EMI in 2012, UMG absorbed its British operations to create Virgin EMI Records in March 2013, which absorbed Mercury Records UK.



Track listing:
    
Record 1
Side 1:
          A     Albatross - 10:32
Side 2:  
          B1     Memories - 5:05
          B2     Swan Lake - 4:19

Record 2
Side 1:  
          C1     Poptones - 7:45
          C2     Careering - 4:32
Side 2: 
          D1     No Birds - 4:43
          D2     Graveyard - 3:07

Record 3
Side 1:
          E1     The Suit -3:29
          E2     Bad Baby - 4:30
Side 2:
          F     Socialist/Chant/Radio 4    - 12:31                   

Personnel:

• John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten)– vocals, piano (9)
• Keith Levene – guitar, synthesizers, drums (4, 12), bass guitar (12)
• Jah Wobble – bass guitar (except 12), drums (5, 8), piano
• David Humphrey – drums (1, 3)
• Richard Dudanski – drums (2, 6, 7, 10, 11)
• Martin Atkins – drums (9)

Note: Levene played all instruments on "Radio 4".

• Nick Cook, Hugh Padgham, George Chambers - engineers
• PiL, Dennis Morris - sleeve design and concept
• The Metal Box Company - packaging 

Producer: Public Image, Ltd.  

Recorded March to October, 1979
Released November 23, 1979

Studios:

• The Manor Studio, Shipton-on-Cherwell
• Townhouse Studios, Advision Studios, Gooseberry Sound Studios & Rollerball Rehearsal Studios, London, England

 Length: 60:29

Label: Virgin


Viewfinder link:
      
John Lydon      

       
Net links:
      
Big Black ~ Bulldozer           
David Humphrey ~ Fodderstompf interview  
     

PIL (Public Image Ltd.) ~ Metal Box on YouTube:
  

Albatross        
Memories           
Swan Lake          
Poptones         
Careering          
No Birds         
Graveyard            
The Suit            
Bad Baby           
Socialist         
Chant         
Radio 4       

There was even more innovative work to follow!

Styrous® ~ Sunday, December 6, 2015

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