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.