Pigfuck

IIRC, one of Chuck Eddy's main arguments about the album in the Swellsvilles I sent Tom was that if Killdozer weren't so full of shit, so stupidly knee-jerk and contra the mainstream, they'd sound like Def Leppard. Knowing that Butch Vig produced LBB, this now kinda makes sense to me.

will try and get hold of some killdozer.

forgotten midwest pigfuck...the iowa beef experience

http://www.last.fm/music/Iowa+Beef+Experience

Thread will die another quiet death, but I want to talk about this weird record I just bought:

http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/ce3c86c18974a5e6a467d88d86cfeefb/79323.jpg

PSYCHOPLASMA - RADIO FLIES

Finnish noise rock from '88 on the unfortunately named "Gaga Goodies" label. Hews close to the garage formalist end of the pigfuck spectrum, which isn't a problem, cuz that's how I tend to like it. Eleven tracks of careening psychedelic metalpunk, graced with catchy riffs and unconvincing crazyman vocals. Psychoplasma aren't wildly ambitious or original within their sound, but they've got pop smarts and a sound like chewing fresh sandpaper. Thin, shrill guitar static mixed way up over groovy basslines and basic kit abuse, occasionally sliding into an anguished pound that recalls early Helmet and Unsane, but more often splitting the difference between, I dunno, Tar and The Cosmic Psychos? With, uh, some Sisters of Mercy thrown in here and there? I say that cuz it's gothy throughout and sometimes even quasi-danceable (see "Psycho Bells"). Bombastic, well-muscled chug that anticipates retro mustache rock like Turbonegro and The Hellacopters more than anything we'd now call noize, but again, that works just fine for me.

Album & band seem not to exist in the states, as I can't find much mention of them anywhere, aside from a brief nod from Byron Coley in Spin, circa 1990 (rubbing shoulders with the likes of the Boredoms and Hanatarash). He says they sound like Death of Samantha with Jello vocals, which makes almost no sense to me, but there you go. Recommended to fans of noisy, rocked out punk of almost any kind, provided you can handle high levels of macho grungeness and goofy ESL jibber-jabber. This whole write-up seems to damn with faint praise, but I like Radio Flies quite a bit. It might not be deeply serious, but it's a hell of a lot more enjoyable than a most of what was coming out on AmRep in the early 90s.

Very interesting. I was never aware of the whole Pigfuck anti-scene/WTF non-movement, and I find the whole thing quite fascinating. A lot of bands I like have been namechecked here, and the have a few things in common I suppose. Like, they tend to be sorta ugly & have a lot of hair as if to say we can play loud & fast without having a buzzcut. Plus we can add generous doses of just plain WIERD into the cauldron. Killdozer seems to be regarded as the axis pigfuck spins on [I'm partial to Burl myself], and it seems that a lot of the bands on AmRep, Touch & Go, SST and Trance Syndicate might fit the bill. I don't think anyone has mentioned Mule or Cows yet, but they seem to belong, right down to the livestock theme. Janitor Joe, maybe? Cherubs...

cherubs & cows are pigfuck canon, dunno about the other two cuz i was never a fan. and can i say i hate the fucking term? i understand it as it applies to bands like the butthole surfers, killdozer, scratch acid and the cows - gnarly noise, ugly lyrical themes, sleaze & sludge, doomy plod - but that's such a tiny niche w/in the 80s noise rock thing. and it's just my take on it anyway. fritz describes a different set of genre parameters way upthread, based more around the druggy l.e.s. art-punk culture of the 80s: foetus, early sonic youth, pussy galore and all her friends. i prefer noiserock, as it better describes the broad spectrum of antisocial & antipop weirdness that grew out of american post-punk/hc experimentation.

A lot of bands I like have been namechecked here, and the have a few things in common I suppose. Like, they tend to be sorta ugly & have a lot of hair as if to say we can play loud & fast without having a buzzcut. Plus we can add generous doses of just plain WIERD into the cauldron.

note that the band i mentioned above, psychoplasma, belong nowhere near the pigfuck thread. sorry about that. they're just plain old gothy noiserock.

Way more here, fwiw (including the origin of the genre name):

Best Pigfuck Band

thanks for the tip, xhk. and the leadoff post squares with my mental image of the genre. pigfuck = that which trickled down the legs of, like, flipper and the birthday party. splattery, dirgey, filth-encrusted gnarl with a perverse sense of humor. has to be some kind of reeking, lurching, zombie-porn quality in order to qualify. swirling oceans of psychedelic pus, breadcrumb trails of decaying organ meats. so pussy galore, yeah, but on the border and only in their early days ("constant pain", "kill yourself", "dead meat") -- buttholes, killdozer & scratch acid definitely. also the sonic youth that gave us "death valley 69", lurch-era steel pole bath tub, foetus circa wiseblood, running out of steam maybe with the melvins' lysol?

but yeah, that's much narrower in scope than the term's (apparent) original definition and common use at the time. remember back in the 80s, pop critics threw it at any kind of nasty, american post-punk/hc noise. i mean fucking husker du, die kreuzen and naked raygun? those were basically just hc bands, to start with anyway. and big black always seemed too clinical to deserve such a description. same goes for the jesus lizard, yow notwithstanding. he fucked pigs with the best of em.

Does the Amphetamine Reptile scene fit into this at all? E.G. Cows, Halo Of Flies, Lubricated Goat, Chokebore, etc.

lubricated goat and the cows definitely fit, no matter whose definition you're using. halo of flies and chokebore seem to exist on the borderline - halo tending more toward 70s fixated grunge, chokebore toward whatever you call unwound. dunno why i bother trying to police this boundary...

drunks w/ guns never get enough love in these threads

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DF-R9CB6pDY

dunno why i bother trying to police this boundary

because without standards we'd let anybody fuck a pig

back in the 80s, pop critics threw it at any kind of nasty, american post-punk/hc noise. i mean fucking husker du, die kreuzen and naked raygun? those were basically just hc bands

Except I'm pretty sure nobody in the '80s threw it at Naked Raygun or Husker Du -- the latter of whom sounded really watered down by the time the term was invented. Die Kreuzen, conceivably, but then again they came from Wisconsin and were on Touch & Go, just like Killdozer (and they really weren't a hardcore band by the time "pigfuck" got coined; Husker Du, by then, hadn't been a hardcore band for several years.)

best all-time answer to the big question:

"What kind of music do you like?"

"Pigfuck."

I like Big Black & all, but their motorik buzz really doesn't sound much like the rest of these groops, so I agree w/ contenderizer's question re. their Pigfuck orthodoxy. Also - no long hair & homeless appearance. And thanks for bringing up Steel Pole Bath Tub. Great stuff, that! Let us not forget Ed Hall.

I didn't know it at the time, but Atlanta had a pretty sweet pigfuck scene. I'm not sure how the bands I was going to see would've reacted to a "pigfuck!" chant during shows, but that seems to be what they unwittingly were. The best know was probably Dirt, which grew out of the Opal Foxx Quartet [if I remember correctly] & later had members in Mt. Shasta, among others. There was also Magic Bone, Bad Egg Salad, Freak Magnet, Go-Devils, Pineal Ventana & a few others that flew by without releasing any vinyl or CDs. Pineal Ventana, an offshoot of King/Kill 33, may be particularly appropriate, as their stage show was known to include bestiality vids, flour and urine. Ya needed to be there.

I agree w/ contenderizer's question re. their Pigfuck orthodoxy

But Big Black, along with Sonic Youth (and maybe Das Damen, oddly enough), were the first bands to actually be called pigfuck. So it's not like the genre was orthodox to begin with. (Incidentally, in the essay where Christgau invented the term, he said pigfuckers considered Husker Du "Julio Iglesias in disguise." I'm not sure where the idea came from that anybody actually considered Husker Du a pigfuck band.)

I like the Pineal Ventana CDs I've heard; still have Axes To Ice from 2000 on my shelf. Had no idea before about their live show, though.

Das Damen???

I always thought totally UNGLAM - Killdozer,Big Black, Bastards, even Didjits.

I have got this wholly wrong. I have PF in a semi rural / anti urban setting. Anti indie but with a total insider knowledge. Patronising farmers and mechanics from your fucking artschool

Ironic Gas Station/ Car modding/ Farming Insurance t shirts et al

What's this important genre I am seeking? Not pigfuck?

Das Damen was a stretch, I think -- though Xgau's point was probably just that they had a lot of the same fans as pigfuck bands, which was probably true. And I think, as the genre name got slightly popularized among rock critics (doubt anybody else cared) for a couple years in the late '80s, bands like Scratch Acid (Texas college town), Butthole Surfers (Texas college town), Killdozer (Wisconsin collge town), and Big Black (Illinois big city even if the singer moved there from Montana) are the kind of bands it would have referred to, along with lots of bands from the Lower East Side (Sonic Youth, Swans, Pussy Galore, White Zombie, Live Skull, Big Stick, Rat At Rat R.) So, no, not really rural, either. Like most genre names, though, pigfuck's meaning probably changed and evolved over time. (When was it revived? Just a few years ago, right? Basically, around the time this thread was first started? Seems like over a decade went by when nobody used it at all.)

pigfuck is a feeling

I don't remember anyone using it in the first place, it was called post-hardcore in the UK if it was called anything. Or "Arsequake" (no-one apart from a couple of MM journos ever actually used that one though tbh).

xpost

The mention of Lubricated Goat brought a couple of other bands to mind that may or may not rise to pigfuck level. I speak of King Snake Roost & Feedtime, who's 'Shovel' LP was one of my faves of the '80s. Perhaps one could even stretch the pigfuck [a phrase I'd never have guessed I would type] definition to fit Thug.

(e_3) speaks with great wisdom. It really IS a feeling. (e_3) is Pigfuck Buddha.

speaking of georgia bands, one unsung pigfuck mover & shaker was laura carter of the bar-b-q killers and jack*o*nuts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVV9P-MWNZA

there's even a pig in this video!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjQRmRF8a2w

o thanks improvspirit... here's a zenlike post I made on that other thread

Big Stick - big wigs will never be pigfuck
Feedtime - borderline, too much rock, not enough scuzz
Phantom Tollbooth - too indie
Amor Fati - see above
Head of David - yes yes yes
Young Gods - respected but not accepted
Einsturzende Neubauten - kissing cousin
Prong - too many riffs, not enough scuzz, if ted parsons wasn't their drummer they wouldn't even be on this list
The Accused - hardcore
The Scientists - early stuff no, but once kim salmon decided he was going to out cave nick cave circa human jukebox, yes
Couch Flambeau - you can't be pigfuck with a french word in your band name
Rancid Vat - harcore
Antiseen - hardcore

and y'all forgot blacksnakes, king snake roost, of cabbages & kings, dig dat hole

Or "Arsequake" (no-one apart from a couple of MM journos ever actually used that one though tbh).

And it's possible no one apart from a couple Village Voice journos ever actually used "pigfuck". (I'd be curious if anybody knows any instances of it showing up in other publications in the late '80s. Though maybe a couple bands may've complained about being called that, in interviews.)

"When was it revived? Just a few years ago, right? Basically, around the time this thread was first started? Seems like over a decade went by when nobody used it at all.)"

i started noticing all the revival bands around 2005/6 (and there was a decibel review in 2006 that brought up the old stuff in a review of new stuff)

the nu-pigfuck

I like the distinction somebody made on the other best pigfuck thread about how euro-noise groups like einsturzende couldn't be considered pigfuck because they didn't want to be american (which is why b party is considered pigfuck)

other second tier players that haven't been mentioned maybe

the honeymoon killers (pg side project)
drunktank
blue (they were from philly, awesome + totally unsung, I think ian digs them too)
the bastards

Touch&Go's 1986 comp God's Favorite Dog is like the pigfuck Old Testament: Butthole Surfers, Big Black, Scratch Acid, Killdozer, Happy Flowers & Hose (lol Hose).

we ended up calling all this stuff 'grunge' before Grunge came along. didn't hear 'pigfuck' until the Spin Alt Record Guide or somewhere in the 90s

i thought pigfuck was perfect way back when cuz killdozer always reminded me of the hicks in deliverance. that whole jordan, minnesota/crazy dan/nick cave sothern gothic thing. even killdozer's song about flannery o'connor! faux redneck stuff.

I just did a Google Books search for the word in Spin, and I don't know how conclusive these results are, but the earliest issue showing up with it in it are both from 1996, a Girls Against Boys review by Eric Weisbard: "...signing to Chicago's Touch and Go (bastion of artcore guitars and post-Big Black 'pigfuck impurism)...," and a Jeff Salamon review of Frank Blank that ends with the word, though I'm not sure that one even has anything to do with the genre at all.

http://books.google.com/books?id=JheoECFjDqMC&pg=PA106&dq=pigfuck&rview=1&cd=15#v=onepage&q=pigfuck&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=td2yO_T3DPEC&pg=PA89&dq=pigfuck&rview=1&cd=26#v=onepage&q=pigfuck&f=false

pigfuck is like poetry, I know it when I see it.

and I'd argue that big black were pigfuck because they possessed the ugly american spirit. although they were sonically influenced by precision tech-mech stuff like gang of four and killing joke, their lyrical content, image, and general stance was verrry pigfuckian. midwestern, hog killer to the world attitude. fascinated with the dark side of macho, with blood + seediness, a tabloid journalist eye. and if you don't think albini appreciated boogie then you never heard rapeman's cover of zz top's "just got paid".

grunge, sludge, yeah all those terms were in play too

and as usual scott otm

xxxp

xp And yeah, the word gets a mention in Spin Alternative Guide too, from 1995, Ivan Kreilkamp writing about Big Black: "Racer X...was one of the records that inspired Robert Christgau to coin a new genre term, 'pigfuck,' to describe the luridly transgressive stance of a group of like-minded independent guitar bands including Big Black, early Sonic Youth, the Butthole Surfers, and Pussy Galore."

Early use of the word grunge to describe what we are basically calling pigfuck :

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_t6Gs_TbZqnY/Rj3QITuD4oI/AAAAAAAAALk/_A3IptEQRc8/s320/gods+of+grunge+cover.jpg

"Grunge" had been in use to describe loud dirty rock all the way back to the '70s, though.

That Google book search is showing "pigfuck" once in The Wire in 2001, too, referring to the Butthole Surfers. But after those couple '95/'96 usages, it pretty much disappears in all the publications that are being searched (not just Spin but CMJ, etc.) until 2005 or so.

you can call them noiserock, but everyone who doesn't have it still needs to pick up that awesome grong grong reissue

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0D2nzNrFNv4

Wow! I was considering mentioning Art Phag! I have that hand-painted record they did & it STILL smells like paint...

Thanks for the BBQ Killers mention! They were amazing. Laura was an excellent, WAY over-the-top frontperson.

I have PF in a semi rural / anti urban setting. Anti indie but with a total insider knowledge. Patronising farmers and mechanics from your fucking artschool

― Fer Jessie the Drunk Dutch Mountain Ark (Mobbed Up Ping Pong Psychos)

i thought pigfuck was perfect way back when cuz killdozer always reminded me of the hicks in deliverance. that whole jordan, minnesota/crazy dan/nick cave sothern gothic thing. even killdozer's song about flannery o'connor! faux redneck stuff.

― scott seward

big black were pigfuck because they possessed the ugly american spirit. although they were sonically influenced by precision tech-mech stuff like gang of four and killing joke, their lyrical content, image, and general stance was verrry pigfuckian. midwestern, hog killer to the world attitude. fascinated with the dark side of macho, with blood + seediness, a tabloid journalist eye.

― (e_3) (Edward III)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVKW3pjcI_g

Where is the love for Bastard Kestrel?

UK pigfuck was a whole different ballgame, if it even existed. Head Of David seemed to take most of their lyrical inspiration from the US (second hand refractions of Big Black et al really), who else was there? Silverfish?

Fifty Tons Of Black Terror (if they weren't too late in the game)?

Or maybe some of the bands mentioned on this thread?:

Bogshed - kings of swing: discuss

Yeah Silverfish for sure. Also maybe some of the other Wiija/lurch stuff eg Terminal Cheesecake, Headcleaner...

The Janitors, Meat Whiplash, Slaughter Joe? (Not sure about those last two, who at least have pigfuckish names, but the Janitors were definitely doing the yokels getting murdered the backwoods schtick.)

Headbutt, Pitchfork Skyscraper, Sun Carriage...these bands always used to support far superior American bands in London in the early 90s.

i was fond of the first couple silverfish things. still feel like i need to dig deeper into australia's 80's noiserock stuff. been listening to grong grong and x and feedtime so much this year.

this is kinda interesting, even if it isn't all pigfuck/noiserock stuff:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhfYab0VvcA

"OzObscurist — September 01, 2009 — 80s Australia had a very active scuzzy guitar proto-grunge-thing, but due to cultural cringe and general apathy, has mostly been given away, and in need of restoration. Many who were there consider grunge (both the word's application to music and the sound itself) an Australian invention. This has currency for several reasons. Legendary Oz bands like Box of Fish and Beasts of Bourbon used "grunge" as early as 83, and Mark Arm-founder of Mudhoney and oft credited as the first to (self-)describe music as grunge-, acknowledged bands like "King Snake Roost, The Scientists, Salamander Jim, and Beasts of Bourbon" as using it first, or atleast loosely part of a scene in which the word was used. These Oz groups, among others, are also touted as major influences by the Seattle grungers, and were supported by labels like AmRep and Sub Pop in the face of the wider Oz music industry's neglect."

Also Jacob's Mouse iirc? xp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4q65koj0fnA

^ Scott, do you know these guys?

yeah, love blue. I've got two of the demo tapes they released in the early 90s. I should dig 'em out and upload, here's a track from one for the curious.

http://www.mediafire.com/?122dygmyqg0

fungus brains getting reissued on load records is what I heard

That is a fine act of human kindness