Friday, February 19, 2010

Pigbag - Dr. Heckle And Mr. Jive

Say! How about a/an hilarious anecdote from the ol' grind? Alright, so this one time - oh, by the Wayans Brothers, I'm a cashier/cart-pusher/merch-handler/tire-salesman at BJ's Wholesale Club ("Felatio's" for short). Anyhoo, there was this one time not so long ago where I came to a run-in with the law at my humble, paycheck-dealin' dojo. I was standing at register, thumbs a' twiddlin' and tongue a' tonguin' when this dude walks over to my station giggling and chattering with his standard, middle-class, nuclear family, presumably aiming to purchase a full boat of high-mass groceries at a low, low price. We exchange greetings, everything's going along fine, when I suddenly interject: "May I scan your member card?".
That was the first Domino brand domino to fall.
If you're unfamiliar with Blowjob's Wholesale Club, shoppers are required to purchase a membership card we scan at the beginning of each transaction and return at the conclusion of each fast and courteous checkout - sadly for the man and his family, such was not the case.
I glanced down at the man's extended hand and beads of sweat began to accumulate on my steadily furrowing brow. My stomach turned. My hands trembled. A darkness took hold as I studied the faint, well-worn lettering on the Sam's Club Wholesale Club card he extended to me.
"...you son of a bitch."
Needless to say, things got ugly from there, and perhaps more needlessly to say, I ended up beating the man into years of relearning to feed himself using the corpse of his victimized son as a bludgeon. A night or two of food court probation later and I've got myself a little story to share.

Anyway, Pigbag.
Pigbag comes from a relatively short lived scene I've been slowly re-familiarizing myself with over the course of the past 2 weeks. In tandem with both the post-no wave "mutant disco" scene and the funkier side of post-punk, these dudes ripped out a beautiful instrumental mix of smart, somewhat straight-faced brass-heavy disco pomposity, pronounced funk, hints of world music, and just the right amount of dissonance to fit snuggly into the "post" half of the "post-punk" equation.
Btw, if you're unfamiliar with the term "mutant disco", it's basically a post-mortem term for the bands that popped up after certain tangents of post-punk got rooted heavily in the funky, decidedly less Caucasian roots of rock music and typically performed a parodist form of disco (think James White And The Blacks' Off White or anything by Kid Creole And The Coconuts).

The barely-amusingly titled Dr. Heckle And Dr. Jive is the first full length and followup to the chart storming (really!) instrumental and shameless play on James Brown's "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag" (which is actually considered a classic single nowadays in England... apparently even making it's way into the stadiums at sports events!) and sounds as forward-thinking as it does ironically retro. Slap on a seal of credit via Simon Underwood of the Pop Group's presence and a deal with Y Records, and you've got a recommendation packed full of teeth-grinding hyperbole.
http://www.mediafire.com/?5trumhjui1j
Need a list of contemporaries? : probably somewhere in line with Lizzie Mercier Descloux, ESG, Liquid Liquid, and Simon Reynolds-appointed Pigbag imitators, Konk. All good, all worth checking out.

1 comment:

  1. One of my favorite bands. Thanks for letting folks hear this.

    ReplyDelete