Ruined tricolor background and Mussolini in prime minister’s uniform: who knows what the reaction was of those who, in 1985, found themselves in the hands of the single The Dux of the Big Black, an American punk rock band that laid the foundations for the birth of industrial rock. Listening to the lyrics one is even more perplexed: “I am Benito and I like my job, They gave me this house and gave me this car, they gave me the cities and streets when they gave me this job”.
All over a dark storm of guitars, basses and drum machines. A kind of Bela Lugosi is Dead in an abridged and apologetic version. The back cover doesn’t help: “This record is dedicated to the memory of the Bambino, Il Duce Benito Mussolini, whose life has been an inspiration to us all”. In reality, Big Black’s is not nostalgia for the twenty years – not to mention that we can clearly grasp the underlying ridicule towards Mussolini -, but it is the most chaotic and destructive soul of punk. Provocation taken to the extreme. This taboo-breaking attitude will become one of Big Black’s characteristic traits, with lyrics that call for racism, homophobia, pedophilia, murder, rape and so on. To test the right-thinking American public, throwing in their faces the worst that that same society had created and which it hid under the carpet of political correctness to avoid having to deal with it.
Everything is easier to understand if you know what lies behind the unruly spirit of Big Black Steve Albinicult figure for global alternative rock that he is died suddenly today at the age of 61 from a heart attack. Someone whose loss is still to be metabolised, because he was an immense character, someone who marked the sound of a couple of generations and whose hand is in many records that have made history and which, above all, made us fall in love .
Big Black, it was said, was his first band, founded in 1982 in Chicago and soon became among the most influential bands of a very noise decade. Albini is of Italian origins, as is his former bandmate Jeff Pezzati, while guitarist Santiago Durango – now a lawyer – is Colombian. It is difficult to believe that the children of immigrants have any sympathy towards the fascist regime, as more than one might have thought. Steve Albini, after Big Black, quickly became a point of reference for the hardcore scene, as well as for the American noise scene. But he’s not one to stay in his own niche, at all. And above all he is one of a thousand projects, all with the same matrix.
First musician with Rapeman – another provocative name – e Shellacthen a sensational career as a producer: Pixies, Fugazi, Nirvana (it is said that the sound of In the Uterus much credit to him), Low, PJ Harvey are just a few names of an infinite list of more or less well-known artists who have entrusted themselves to him. And then Mogwai, Godspeed You! Black Emperor and many others, all of them basically cool. There are also Italians like Uzeda and Zucoincidentally two of the bands that have played best in the history of alternative rock (and surroundings) in Italy.
Albini had never stopped, only a few years ago he worked with the PaduansPack leader, flown to his studio in Chicago, where whoever it was said they found a punk genius. It is theElectrical Audio Recording, also famous for never exaggerating with prices despite his worldwide fame. He was supposed to go back on tour with Shellac, but instead he left. Legendary.
—
The article Steve Albini, alternative legend between Nirvana and… Mussolini, has died by Vittorio Comand appeared on Rockit.it on 2024-05-08 19:45:00
