Pigpile

Performer: Big Black
Distributor: Alternative Dis. Alliance

Notes: Big Black: Steve Albini, Santiago Durango, Dave Riley, Roland. Recorded at the Hammersmith Clarendon, London, England in Summer 1987. Includes liner notes by Steve Albini. Recorded live at the Hammersmith Clarendon, London, England during the band's final tour in the summer of 1987. Recorded live in London in 1987, during the last Big Black tour, PIG PILE opens in the band's typically charming manner with bassist Dave Riley announcing "This song is called 'Dingy Little Back Alley Of A Country'," before the band launches into a punishing 46-minute set. The concert includes material from the band's first EP, LUNGS, all the way up through 1987s SONGS ABOUT FUCKING. The band's confrontational live sound emphasizes crackling, extremely harsh guitar and very brittle drums. In true punk rock style, the treble has been turned up as far as possible. "Cables"-about slaughterhouses-and "Jordan, Minnesota"-about a pedophilia scandal-both appear in radically sped-up versions. "Kerosene" is introduced as "a song Jerry Lee Lewis wrote before he killed one of his wives," and Steve Albini's vocals are nearly buried beneath heaped shards of guitar shrapnel in "Steelworker." While there is no substitute for actually living through the Big Black live experience, PIG PILE-both on record and in its video form-documents one of the relatively few instances in history when music was actually dangerous.

Option (9-10/93, p.93) - "...if [PIGPILE] doesn't go double platinum, then the least you can do with your copy is play it extra-loud--share it with the neighbors!..." NME (Magazine) (11/28/92, p.30) - 7 - Good Plus - "...A necessary purchase for fans...revel once more in Mr. Albini's deadly witty repartee..."

Led by famed engineer/producer Steve Albini, Big Black was one of the premier bands of the Chicago underground scene of the 1980s, creating a neo-industrial sound comprised of drum machine-generated beats and screaming, metallic guitars. Big Black's abrasive brand of noise rock was made all the more so by lyrics that dealt frankly with race, sex, and violence. Since the band's break-up in 1987, Steve Albini has gone on to form Rapeman and Shellac, and produce bands such as Nirvana, Bush, the Pixies, and Led Zeppelin.

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