Big Black's The Rich Man's Eight Track Tape
(November 26, 2021)
(November 26, 2021)
It's funny, really, the life and times of the CD. Much maligned in the 80's thanks to first-generation digital being, well, first-generation, and still in the week old newspaper category of technology today, the CD was once dominant and, frankly, never got replaced, even though people pretend it's now old hat. For some reason, lossless downloads are still not dominant anywhere besides Bandcamp, cassettes are a novelty, and modern vinyl has all the inconveniences of old vinyl, plus a few extra, and none of the benefits.
I cherish this lull between the CD's passing from the mainstream and its eventual rediscovering (no pun intended) by the "I'm so nostalgic for 2013" crowd--means I can get four at a time for $10! No wonder there's a pile. But this isn't about CDs! Steve Albini doesn't like them, and this compilation is both a way to make fun of you for buying one and also a fantastic deal. I'll explain more later on.
I should warn you before we begin that this is the single bleakest, most uncompromising Rediscovering we're going to do. I've got some heavy-sounding records still in the pile. I've got some punk stuff still in the pile. This one makes them sound like a VH1 countdown. Some of the topics on here are uncomfortable, some of the imagery is miserable, and the sound of this thing is--and this doesn't really cut it--intense, even by the standards of the band in question. Be forewarned.
Let's discuss the second Big Black compilation, You Pussies Can All Suck Our Cocks--or as it says on the front, The Rich Man's Eight Track Tape.
I've loved Big Black since I was in high school. I had a torrented copy of The Hammer Party, which compiled their first three EPs, and played the hell out of it (and I still don't have it in the collection, boo). If you've never heard a Big Black song, here's a summary: big thump-sharp thump-white noise guitar-kiddy rape. Or casual murder. Or very very violent sex. Or racial animus.
The folklore threatens to dramatize the story of Steve Albini (twinkle guitar), Santiago Durango (car guitar), and Dave Riley (bass), these three pencil-neck midwestern punks writing songs from the perspective of humanity's most depraved, but the work holds up. Fuck, it holds up. Rarely does music get this harsh without succumbing to sounding goofy, but Big Black has nearly always managed to pull it off, and always on their own terms. Out of all the albums in the pile, this one probably deserved it the least, but such is life.
After a string of underrated EPs (that I actually prefer to their proper albums), Big Black made their first LP with Atomizer, generally considered the band's high point and an 80's underground punk landmark. Eight Track Tape rounds up Atomizer, the follow-up Headache EP (thankfully no shotgun victim autopsy photos in sight), and the subsequent Heartbeat single onto a single CD that berates you from cover to disc and even goads you into eating McMuffins off it. Truth be told, the part of the packaging that interests me the most is that Atomizer 8-track--Steve, can you get Touch and Go to actually make some of those?
Because this album is quite literally three different releases combined onto one disc, there's not really much use listening to it straight through or reviewing it as a single, cohesive package. I'll give some thoughts on the overall package before breaking Rediscovering format to cover the three components separately.
"Compact discs are quite durable, this being their only advantage over real music media. You should take every opportunity to scratch them, fingerprint them, and eat egg and bacon sandwiches off them. Don't worry about their longevity, as Philips will pronounce them obsolete when the next phase of the market-squeezing technology bonanza begins."
I happen to have the remastered copy of Eight Track Tape, overseen by Steve himself, and unlike the more usual remaster fare where it's mostly a way to compress the hell out of the music, this one sounds clear, vibrant, and actually pretty damn good as far as the dynamics go. Steve's most recent work with Shellac also avoids the loudness war, and damn, do I appreciate that. Even better, unlike most editions of this album where Atomizer is slightly abridged, this includes "Strange Things"! The artwork hasn't been updated for it, so you'd never know, but it's definitely on mine and it threw me for a very good loop indeed.
If you're looking for this one, definitely seek out the 2013 Touch and Go reissue. It's Steve quietly admitting that the CD was not quite the five-year flash in the pan he pegged it for way back when.
Musically, this one's just as hectic and, dare I say, acerbically fun as Big Black ever got. Unfortunately, things are lined up best to worst: Atomizer is essential and the perfect length, Heartbeat is a cool cover and two song halves, and Headache is, well, weaker. It cements itself as last place in the EP lineup behind Lungs, Racer-X, and Bulldozer (and the order of those depends on the day for me), a clear sign the band only had a year or two of life left in it. I can't respect them enough for quitting while they were ahead.
I don't think there's a Big Black song more emblematic of the group's MO than the very first track, and to date, the only Big Black song Steve has gone on record to apologize for. "Jordan, Minnesota" concerns the infamous child sex abuse ring that hung over that town in the 80's...from the perspective of one of the participating parents. Repetitive to the point of hypnotic, inhumanly fast (thanks to Roland, their drum machine, natch), and filled with the imitated shrieks of the poor kids, it's a harrowing listen.
Consider the coda: the same blasts of speedy, simulated drumming and sheet metal guitars on and off that started the track off continuing as Steve wails, out of breath and frenzied, as one of the victims, "suck daddy" over and over and over again. Live, it was even worse: Steve reportedly got rather into the playacting, screaming into his guitar pickups and miming the abuse, which was apparently enough to turn Big Black's often-acidic crowds off, impressively.
If it makes you feel any better, thankfully, the child sex ring depicted doesn't seem to have actually happened. Only one guy was actually charged for anything, and by all accounts, the kids were coerced into giving the testimony they gave of what occurred by the prosecutor. (And that's why Steve apologized--not that it deflects from the power and meaning of the song any, but that it perpetuated the idea that the people in that town were kiddy fuckers. Bless him for correcting the record.)
And this one track really does set the tone for the rest of the album. Every song sets up some kind of taboo, some kind of freakish, ugly taboo, and bowls it down in a flurry of repetitive, bludgeoning beats and guitars that resemble electrical noise more than they do guitars. And it's awesome, in the most intentionally off-putting way.
"Kerosene" is largely considered the album's brightest (again, no pun intended) moment, and it's one of the most sonically-engulfing (I did intend that one) tracks as well. Steve's clinky guitar leads with this twinkly blue flame of a riff before the grooving bass and Santiago's industrial-strength rhythm guitar slam you against the walls as one industrial-strength unit.
As someone once before me said: it's not often a song describes lighting yourself on fire during sex as "something to do", but a Big Black does not come around often.
"Bazooka Joe" stands out as another highlight. Rather than print lyrics for their songs (usually, Lungs has 'em), Big Black would include commentary in their liner notes. I don't think I can describe the lyrical content any better than they did.
joe comes back from the great war very different. he has done nothing but kill and watch death for many long months. he has trouble adjusting until a friend suggests a new line of work, compatible with joe's new skills.
It's an effective practice! Incessantly, Steve does his best to convince the titular Joe, the struggling war vet Joe, that there are people who need his abilities. Don't have to be alone, Joe. Hang with me, Joe. Just the way it was, Joe. Welcome back, Joe. It's not pretty, but it sure is memorable.
Atomizer doesn't outstay its welcome and feels just the right length for what it is. About my only concern is how it ends. As said, the aforementioned "Strange Things" is featured on my copy (not a great track, but as much of a breather as you're going to get in Big Black's big, black world), and a live version of Bulldozer opener "Cables" is the true closer--and to be honest, neither of them quite seem to sum up the experience.
But that's the thing. How do you sum up just under 40 minutes of this kind of brutality? When you start out that pummeling, that overly strong, where do you go from there? It's not that far off from the real thing, but I like "Cables", so I'm happy with it playing us out.
Gotta have some Wire in there, yeah? Big Black loved their covers: "The Model" being a single and also showing up on the A-side of Songs About Fucking, "He's a Whore" being the other half of said single, Racer-X‘s "The Big Payback" injecting some funk into their heartless, plodding grooves--and of course, Wire's "Heartbeat", which also got a single release.
This one lays off the overt aggression for more menace. Of course there's a "heartbeat" in the instrumental, Roland's chirpy hi-hats and bright, thudding kicks marching in lockstep with the basses and guitars, but it'll be Steve's increasingly-desperate shrieks of "like a heartbeat" that'll stick with you. It's a really good cover, and I don't know how it didn't make it onto one of their real albums. It outright inspired the real Wire to come join the band on stage at one of their final shows, so consider that the official stamp of quality.
The other two songs on the single are neat, but also kind of unfinished. "Things to Do Today" is a veritable to-do list of questionably legal-turned-very illegal acts (bring gloves), and it's amusing in its bluntness, but it doesn't really go anywhere. Meanwhile, "I Can't Believe" doesn't even have words. It's a minute long riff on a kinda-surfy punk riff, basically. They're pure B-side material, amusing sketches, but nothing to distract you from how good the A-side is.
And so we come to Headache. One good song, and three that feel like retreads or maybe that Big Black's heart wasn't quite in it after the last single. As I hinted at, this one originally came in a "body bag" concealing the album's true artwork of a gunshot victim whose head was split clean in half. Later versions of the EP thankfully came instead with cover art of a Butthole Surfers-esque conked out sketchy dude with a stretchy head, and this is the one you (usually) find floating around online.
"My Disco" is the good song and reminds me a lot of prime Atomizer. Like all good Big Black songs, there's no way to bring up what it's about without feeling slightly embarrassed. It's the apparently true story of a doctor who violently murdered his newborn after it came out deformed, the stomping motion involved apparently resembling disco dancing. Sonically, it's very much a disco in a trash compactor, grooving upfront and becoming dizzying and relentless in the choruses. If you can ignore the subject matter, it's a good time.
Nothing else is that good, though. "Grinder" is frankly pretty limp as far as Big Black goes, both in terms of songwriting and in subject matter, the lament of a guy who can't keep people from using his power tools without his permission. Even the threat of murder from the insert can't inject much menace into it. "Ready Men" is mostly just "Shotgun" from Racer-X, though with less fury and noise to back up Steve's repeated assertions of being a gun thug for hire, and "Pete, King of the Detectives" is just a long-winded "Big Money" from Atomizer. It's by far the weakest recording I've ever heard from these guys, and I go to bat for Lungs!
Here's Headache‘s saving grace: Big Black was such an interesting sounding, aggressive group that they can skate less-than-stellar material by on sound alone. Nothing on Eight Track Tape is outright bad or offensive (okay, offensive in terms of quality, not subject matter). They're simply middling. Middling lows and very very soaring highs is very good for a Rediscovering album, and for a compilation like this where you're getting three separate releases on one snarky disc, it's hard to say no.
And that's where this differs from, say, Mania, which we covered a while back. Mania plays like a greatest hits or a sampler platter of Ramones tunes. Nothing on there is complete, and thus, it's best used as a way to find what you like from them and then go buy the original albums instead. Eight Track Tape is a complete compilation of three different releases and the only way to get them in a digital format. To that end, to the collector who already really likes the group or the casual masochist who wants to bring Atomizer with them, Eight Track Tape serves a very, very good niche.
And hey, if you want something to take the very sickly mixture of taste of the subject matter we've explored in this post out of your mouth, consider this. On Songs About Fucking, Steve Albini wrote a song called "Kitty Empire". Which is quite literally him imagining his cat as being the emperor of his domain--Steve's house. This cat, named Fluss, was also regularly credited on albums that Steve himself didn't want to take credit for, but was being forced to for one reason or another.
Even the most perverse punks like fluffy animals.
It'll get me put on a watchlist, but absolutely.
"Jordan, Minnesota" is nasty, "Big Money" kicks ass, "Kerosene" is vile (that riff before the vocals come in??? Perfection), "Bad Houses" is creepy--do seek out Atomizer at least. "Heartbeat" is usually the song I seek out if I want a quick dose of Big Black at this point. Nice of the boys from Evanston, Illinois to show everyone how a cover is done. And how punk is done. And how to make something sonically offensive evergreen. This one will still make your head spin, almost forty years later. (Glad to have since gotten a copy of The Hammer Party in the collection as well--reviews of Bulldozer and Racer-X for this site forthcoming.)