Songs:
1. Cables
2. Pigeon Kill
3. I’m a Mess
4. Texas
5. Seth
6. Jump the Climb
Band members:
Steve Albini – guitar, vocals
Jeff Pezzati – bass
Santiago Durango – guitar
Pat Byrne – drums
Hey – Albini got himself a band. Not only that but it includes two members of Naked Raygun and one member of Urge Overkill. Granted those bands weren’t overly popular at the time but it shows that Albini has a good sense of taste and talent. The Roland drum machine is on some of the songs but it sounds like Byrne does most of the real hitting. In fact, you can only hear the drum programming in various small parts so I don’t know if Byrne played along with it much or if it was just used very sparingly. Some of the songs don’t have any of it.
The reason any of that is important is because it means that Big Black no longer sounds like an industrial band or a synth band at all on
Bulldozer. If I had only heard the first song, ‘Cables’, and was told that Big Black was a hardcore band – I would have believed it. But that’s only because ‘Cables’ is fast; really fast compared to anything on
Lungs. ‘Texas’ also goes at a high speed but the rest is pretty mid-tempo.
Another feature of ‘Cables’ is that Albini has a more powerful growl than previously displayed. It even roars a little bit. Not only that but he changes up his vocal style throughout the song, and the whole album really. Angry yells trail off into whines and then get mad again. He’s not always screaming or moaning, though. He also explores the middle path of spat / spoken vocals that he eventually perfected.
Bulldozer is nowhere near the height that Big Black will reach. Albini and his new band are like a baby bird who can spread his wings but does not know how to fly yet. Actually, I like
Lungs a lot more. Rather than a good piece of art, this EP is simply a recording with some good songs. That’s not to say that it’s anywhere near bad, especially compared to most other music from 1983, underground or not. Don’t overlook this one; this is Albini fronting Big Black as a full band for the first time and it’s a damn fine effort.
Trivia:
The original EP sleeve was made of metal with the band name etched on with acid
Pigeon Kill
If you listen to Bulldozer and wonder about the meanings behind the words (and I don’t blame you if you do) you should know that Albini writes from a first-person point of view and he can’t possibly be as horrible as all of his characters. For more info – here are the liner notes from the EP..
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Bulldozer liner notes
side one
these guys in montana would go to the slaughterhouse after school and watch the cattle die for entertainment. they used to describe the prods, hammers, cables and hooks with a kind of hobbyist's fascination. sometimes they helped out.
in huntington, indiana, there is an annual event, the pigeon kill, during which the townspeople feed strychnine-laced corn to the town's pigeons. sometimes the children are given the responsibility of feeding the pigeons. they think of it as play.
people who live in trailer parks, mostly rednecks and truckers, get drunk and ramble, semi-coherently about their problems, moaning, "I'm a mess" and such self-pitying bullshit. sometimes they erupt in fits of violent aggression.
side two
i hate texas.
this guy trained his dog seth to attack black people. he was an asshole beyond that, but that's the sort of thing he'd do. he has a cornflakes box with his photo on the front. he's big in the democratic machine. he tried to beat up a girl tenant in an apartment building he had equipped with illegally-tapped gas and electricity. he bets on sports. the introductory message is from the america first committee telephone hotline.
this song is called jump the climb, which is a title it got before it had any words, so the title doesn't really mean much. this is the first recording made as big black, and the first song written with that intent.
the bulk of this record was recorded in september 1983 at an enormously-expensive 24-track studio in the doglands west of chicago. hedden west studio doesn't deserve a plug here, so don't consider this one. the gear sucked, the house engineer was a bozo and the monitors sounded like tin megaphones.
five hundred dollars please, thank you very much.
some ridiculous engineering by iain burgess (who does deserve a plug here) saved the tapes from steely dan.
thank you iain.
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