This review is part of a series looking back at significant albums on their anniversaries. Through the benefit of hindsight we will be viewing the album not just as it was released, but how it stands the test of time, as well as its place in the band’s discography and the genre in general.
Touch and Go – 10 Sep 1987
Big Black’s swan song takes you on a guided tour through the Chicago muck
What did we do before Google? I bet 90% of the people reading this article don’t remember a time before Google, or how we lived without it. Pretty scary and sad. The future marches on, I’m no Luddite, and I don’t deny that technology has profoundly impacted the world in the last twenty years, for good and bad. As for now, let’s take a trip back in time. Before Google. Before Cell Phones. Before Mark Zuckerberg was born. Let’s go back to 1987. I know Zuckerberg was born in 1984…I googled it.
So this is a review, or memory, or some such commentary on Songs about Fucking by Big Black. When I look back on certain bands and certain records, I have distinct memories associated with them. Like the time I saw Alkaline Trio open for Blink 182. I remember after the Trio played I went to the merch table and bought every Trio CD they had. Probably not a shocker, but on many occasions I discovered great bands listening to the background music at independent record stores. While visiting a friend in California I happened to pop into one such establishment. As I perused the “Grunge” section, looking for the next juicy nugget, they started playing More Songs about Anger Fear Sex and Death. I bought the comp and was introduced to not only Bad Religion, but NOFX, Coffin Break, and many others.
I don’t want to get too far off topic here. We are talking about Big Black. My recollection is a little fuzzy, but I had made a winter trip to South Bend, Indiana, to visit my brother at Notre Dame. At that time he was living off campus in a “house.” I use the term house loosely because I don’t believe the doors locked and the heat there apparently “never worked.” In order to survive, the denizens of said “house” set up a kerosene heater in the main room, and when you left the main room, you needed to bundle up. I do recall one morning where I went into the bathroom wrapped in a blanket and had to pierce the layer of ice in the toilet. During this visit, being at a ripe old age of 16, I couldn’t follow the group out to the bar. So I did what any teenager would do (back then), I watched TV. Sitting on the couch, wrapped in multiple blankets, I flipped from channel to channel. At this time, I prided myself on my knowledge of underground music, bands like Violent Femmes, The Smiths, REM. and U2. Whenever I stumbled on a station playing random underground videos, I stopped. As I flipped that night, I just so happened to land on such a channel. I wish I could remember some of the other bands that piqued my interest, at least for context. I know there were others, but I’ll never forget that one of the bands was Big Black. The song was “Fish Fry” off of Songs about Fucking. I don’t know if it was the harsh clanging of the guitars, the synthetic drums, or that voice… kind of like a pissed-off, methed-out, version of Stan Ridgway (Wall of Voodoo). Something about that song, and that band, etched itself into my skin.
It was 1987 (88?), I didn’t have google. I couldn’t just order the CD from Amazon. I had to file the band into my memory banks and just bide my time. That’s how you did it back then. You might have a buddy that could tape you a copy of a record or CD; otherwise, you just had to be on the hunt. And I was. I’m not sure how long it took to find it. No joke, I want to say it was a couple of years. I know I found it on tape and pounced on it like a hawk. I didn’t know what the band was about or whether I’d dig the other songs, but I had to find out.
Since “Fish Fry” had become seared into my brain, it naturally became a fixture of my mixtape stable during that period. Eventually I got into Nine Inch Nails, Ministry… but “Fish Fry” took that industrial sound and made it more visceral. Not only “Fish Fry”, but all of Songs about Fucking. If you ask me, that record is loaded, all killer, no filler. “Columbian Necktie”, “L Dopa”, “The Model” (a Kraftwerk Cover). That tape poked out of my car’s tape deck more than any other from 1987 to 1994. Clanging guitars, edgy subject matter, basement production, all of requisite elements to slake the thirst of an angsty teen. “Fish Fry”, once you fought your way through the scuzz to decipher the lyrics, told the story of a first date gone horrifyingly wrong. “Bad Penny” expresses singer/guitarist Steve Albini’s self-loathing, with a snarl that flips the bird right back in the listener’s face. “Precious Thing” flips the script on Blondie’s “One way or another”, it jettisons the happy go lucky for dark and go dreary. Big Black’s ability to grab you by the collar, rip open a sewer cover, and drag you down into the muck of underground Chicago had no parallel. The raw aggression put forth on Songs about Fucking resonates as powerfully today as it did flickering on that television in 1987. Big Black reveled in the act of tearing down the façade and portraying with brutal honesty the dark, ugly, terrifying nature of our world. Kids today don’t need Songs about Fucking to learn about these things. They can just google it.
