Atomzier


Track Listing:

Jordan, Minnesota
Passing Complexion
Big Money
Kerosene
Bad Houses
Fists of Love
Stinking Drunk
Bazooka Joe
Strange Things
Cables (Live in Minneapolis, Minnesota 1986)

Liner Notes:

JORDAN, MINNESOTA
you can't think about it, really, because if you do then you go crazy, stark gibbering spitting and pissing in your pants crazy. so you don't think about it. but once in a while you do think about it, and there's all this weird shit going on and you can't believe it can all really be like this. you think of all the bad, bad things you do to yourself out of some weird need. you go places, bad places, to fulfill some gnawing need, and you do ugly things to yourself and other people not because of the ugliness -- well, sometimes because of the ugliness, i guess -- but usually because there's something else there and you'd do it no matter what. they fuck their children, for shit's sake. a whole town. bus drivers, school teachers, cops, storekeepers, housewives. little boys, little girls. very little. they play games with it, like very special hide-and-seek, and very special spin the bottle and very special poker. and every day the little boys to get up and walk to the bus stop with the daddy who mouth raped them the night before, and they have to get on the bus with the bus driver who rubbed his shit in their hair, and say "yes ma'am" to the lady who made them lick her the night before, and then they have to go home, you know, where daddy and mommy have been making martinis for the little get together later on, and go hide under the covers where they know they'll be found anyway and day in and day out for the rest of their motherfucking lives and then they grow up and they have babies and like i said, you don't think about it because you go crazy.

PASSING COMPLEXION
in certain circumstances, a man could prefer to lose his entire heritage, when another more comfortable one presents itself. especially if he plays piano. especially if it's 1926.

durango said,"i'd really like to be playing this two octaves higher," and burgess said, "no problem."

BIG MONEY
greed that manifests itself in laziness. a cop who sleeps in his car. a cop who goes into "bad" neighborhoods for recreation. a cop who uses his position as a bludgeon.

the digital screams are our first moves into the lucrative disco/beatbox genre, where we plan to concentrate our future efforts once we quit our jobs.

KEROSENE
in small towns there are few forms of amusement. two prominant ones are easy sex and arson. when the more simple exercises lose their bang, new combinations develop.

any similarity between the rhythm patterns used and led zeppelin is entirely appropriate.

BAD HOUSES
we do things, bad things, and go places, bad places, even when the thrill is seldom worth the degradation. maybe we associate it with the thrill, and after a while, they become inseparable. then the thrill becomes secondary.

a toy organ the size of a paperback book through a guitar stack the size of a walk-in freezer. god, how excessive we get sometimes. we like seventeen seconds, all of us.

FISTS OF LOVE
take expression of emotion to its physical end. until the expressions take on meanings of their own. they become almost rituals in their gravity. fist fucking, wife beating, whatever.

you can hear the change drop out of his pants pockets as he drops them in the toilet stall. microphone feedback is pretty fucking loud if you're standing in front of the speaker for five minutes.

STINKING DRUNK
if you haven't been for a while (a long while), then the reasons you quit lose focus. you forget the sensations that used to be all-important. then curiosity overcomes you.

something was wrong with one of the guitar mics, but we didn't know it until we tried to mix it a month later. the miracles of modern technology saved our balls.

BAZOOKA JOE
joe comes back from the 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.

part of the drum track is an M1 carbine being fired in a field exercise. by a guy named joe.

STRANGE THINGS
Strange things i have seen, strange things i have done.

can a good mix save a bad song? we'll find out, i guess.

our interests in death, force and domination can change the way we think. make us seek out new forms of "entertainment." ever been in a slaughterhouse?

recorded october 5, 1985, by brian paulson at the seventh street entry, minneapolis, minnesota. the only benefit gig i've ever heard of where the club owner insisted on taking his standard cut from the door.

BIG BLACK
dave riley: bass, flyswatters
santiago durango: train guitar, vocals, stranglers impersonation
steve albini: rocket guitar, vocals
roland: roland
iain burgess: burgessness

produced and engineered by big black and iain burgess in chicago. does anybody care which studios we used? thought not. thanks to sam fishkin too.

all music and other shit c 1986 big black, infringement subject to mutillation or murder.

hellos to: sonic fucking youth, squirrelbait youth, byron y jimmy, terry and chris, corey and lisa, minneapolis, butthole surfers, jack rabid, sfb, appliances-sfb, killdozer, and anybody who likes the bishops

our address is p.o. box 442 evanston, il, 60204