In 1984, the band returned to BOSS Studios to record enough material for two full-length albums. Both were originally offered to Alternative Tentacles, with the first being Psychic… Powerless… Another Man’s Sac . Before either album could be released, though, Alternative Tentacles had to acquire the master tapes from Bob…
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With some members working as dishwashers, the group was unhappy about the album being released on Ward 9. Terry Tolkin , a friend and their East Coast booking agent, signed the band to Corey Rusk’s then-nascent Touch and Go Records in Detroit. Psychic…Powerless…Another Man’s Sac was released in 1984. Building…
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A follow-up 1984 Subterranean studio album, Gone Fishin’ , featured the opening track “The Lights, the Sound, the Rhythm, the Noise”, as well as “Survivors of the Plague” and “Sacrifice”. The colorful van on the cover, along with figures representing the band and their equipment, could be cut out and…
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Also in 1984, the ROIR cassette label released Blow’n Chunks , a live document of a Flipper performance at CBGB . It included material from all phases of the band’s existence to that date. It was reissued on CD in 1990. A 2001 reissue included four outtakes from the live…
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Albini believed that Big Black had nothing to gain by adopting the usual corporate trappings of rock bands: “If you don’t use contracts, you don’t have any contracts to worry about. If you don’t have a tour rider, you don’t have a tour rider to argue about. If you don’t…
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Albini “sorta conned” small local label Fever Records into financing the next Big Black EP, bringing in drummer Pat Byrne of Urge Overkill to play on the sessions as accompaniment to the drum machine, which they dubbed “Roland” for album credits. Albini achieved a signature “clanky” sound with his guitar…
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Picciotto, Canty, and Fellows had previously played together in the short-lived hardcore band Insurrection. The trio was joined by guitarist Eddie Janney—formerly of the Faith , Skewbald , and the Untouchables—and began writing music together in December 1983. The band finished several songs during this early period, like “All There…
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Released on Alternative Tentacles in July 1983, the resulting EP, Butthole Surfers (also known as Brown Reason to Live and Pee Pee the Sailor ), offered songs with provocatively absurd titles like “The Shah Sleeps in Lee Harvey’s Grave” and “Bar-B-Q Pope”, alternately sung by Haynes and Leary. (Haynes would…
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By 1983, the members of Hüsker Dü wanted to create music outside of the confines and restrictions of hardcore. In an interview with Matter in 1983, Mould told interviewer Steve Albini , “We’re going to try to do something bigger than anything like rock & roll and the whole puny…
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In 1983, Flipper appeared in Rick Schmidt’s independent film, Emerald Cities . Footage of a live performance was interspersed throughout the film, showcasing three songs: “One By One”, “Get Away” and “Love Canal”.