Jack White “Help Me Stranger (demo)” 2019. Third Man Records. Split single with fellow Raconteur Brendan Benson. Part of the Third Man Vault package #40 Help Us Stranger LP. Both songs are early demo recordings of two songs from the 2019 LP – “Help Me Stranger” and “Somedays (I Don’t Feel Like Trying).” Neither seem to be available to listen to online so here’s my take. I adore the Racontuers’ single “Help Me Stranger” (Help Us Stranger one of my top LP’s from 2019) and White’s acoustic demo version is sparse – even a bit hollow, haunting and super-short. While completely different, it gave me MTV Unplugged Nirvana “Where Did You Sleep Last Night” vibes. Brendan Benson’s demo of “Somedays (I Don’t Feel Like Trying)” is fully electric with a bluesy, country twang – all bendy guitar, a waltz beat and a sad, sad voice. Here’s a sort-of similar version from 2020:

Big Black “Racer-X” 1985. Homestead Records. Just found out that Steve Albini died of a heart attack yesterday, May 7th, at age 61. I’ve had a fondness for Albini for a long time – not only do we share a birthday (July 22nd though he is/was 9 years older than me), but as he was from Chicago there were a lot of Wisconsin (Milwaukee/Madison) connections – like some of my friends were on call-him-directly levels of connection. And of course he produced/engineered a ton of some of my favorite albums/artists. We last saw Albini perform (as Shellac) literally as the world was shutting down in March 2020 at Turner Hall in Milwaukee where he gave a special shout-out to Milwaukee’s Couch Flambeau (CF’s Jay Tiller was in the audience) crediting the band for helping shape Albini’s sound.

Steve Albini (Shellac) Turner Hall March 2020

Racer-X was Big Black’s third EP, a tight collection of industrial noise-core tracks. Appearing on the EP with Albini were two members of Naked Raygun: Santiago Durango (guitar) and Jeff Pezzati (bass) – it would be Pezzati’s last time playing on a Big Black recording. Albini has both guitar and vocal credits. Drums performed by “Roland” (a Roland TR-606 drum machine). My top tracks are “The Ugly American” (featuring John Bonhen on saxophone) and the snarled funk of both “Deep Six” and the cover of James Brown’s “The Big Payback” but really all six tracks are killer.

Heaven 17 “Heaven 17” 1982. US-only release with tracks from the band’s first LP Penthouse And Pavement (1981) plus two singles that would appear on their second album The Luxury Gap (1983). New wave plink-plunk synthpop with a heavy dose of funk and r&b, Heaven 17 emerged from the dissolution/reformation of the more experimental 70’s variant of Human League – both bands ended up taking a significant pop detour from the earlier Human League sound. The singles from Penthouse And Pavement all appear on Heaven 17: their debut single “(We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang” which made barely a ripple on the charts due its banning by BBC 1 because of the concerns over libel from the lyric referencing Ronald Reagan as a “fascist god in motion.” The other singles were the funky “Play to Win,” the title track “Penthouse and Pavement” (I’m not sure either charted) and “The Height of Fighting” which only charted in New Zealand. Despite the lackluster singles’ success, Heaven 17’s debut actually did pretty well overall, hitting #14 on the UK album chart. The best tracks on Heaven 17 are the tracks that would appear on The Luxury Gap: the non-single “Who Will Stop the Rain” and “Let Me Go.” “Let Me Go” was the lead single from their second album and went to #41 in the UK (the subsequent singles did much better) and to #74 on the US singles chart but to #4 on the US dance chart.