Touch & Go: Turn 25, Hold Party, Reform Big Black!
By: Thomas Hannan
One of the most pioneering labels in recent times, Touch & Go, turned a quarter of a century old this year. You'll be able to find raves about a couple of their more recent releases on this very site (The Black Heart Procession, Calexico), but apart from these fresh successes, what makes this lot special is that their hugely eclectic output, ranging from alt-country through industrial noise to drawn out funk and then some, has been so consistently the stuff of legend.
This is cause for celebration. So from September 8th to the 10th, a block party is being held in Chicago, and with a line up including Killdozer, !!!, Girls Against Boys and The Shipping News amongst others, it sounds like a right proper shindig. Tickets for it are available here.
But, in the most exciting bit of news, Big Black (yeah, BIG BLACK) are reforming for a few songs 'specially for the show. See, this is how important Touch & Go is - renowned misery guts Steve Albini admires them to the extent that he, Santiago Durango and Jeff Pezzati will grace the stage along with Roland (their trusty drum machine) and reform the greatest nihilistic industrial punk band of all time. Seriously, 'Songs About F**king' is one of the finest records ever, plus, this means that the pipe dream of having them play at All Tomorrow's Parties when rockfeedback finally gets round to convincing those lads to let us curate one isn't that mad after all.
*Gets checking flights to Chicago...*