Big Country - s/d, c or d?

Adamson's best work were the three albums he did with Skids and the first two Big Country albums, IMO.

First three songs on The Seer are all pretty good - they're at their best on this record when they're rocking out. Second song has Kate Bush on it, so you've gotta hear that at least. A lot of the rest of the album has this emotional gooeyness to it that i'm much too old and mean to enjoy much now

For the smallest of sub subsets, here's some guy absolutely killing drum covers of Big Country songs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzPm5OXkbNY

Blowing my mind, because Brzezicki's drumming is some of my favorite of all time, but I never really knew for sure what he was doing, how much was overdubbed, how much was just gonzo syncopation, etc.. If these covers are accurate ... he's doing a hell of a lot!

fuccck Steeltown is so damn good.

that is all.

drums on Tall Ships Go! ooof.

flame of the west hell yeah

Thanks to this, I listened to The Crossing for the 1st time in ooooh 30+ years

And heard, also for 1st time, strange premonitions of Joey Santiago

I was out with a friend last night and "In a Big Country" came on. My friend has pretty good taste, and diverse tastes, too, and he lit up. "Dude! This song is so dope!" (That's just the way he talks, I'm used to it.) "And those aren't bagpipes, those are *guitars*, dude!" I couldn't tell if he was joking, but I told him, yeah, I know. Also, the whole first album is awesome. And his eyes go wide and he says "Wait, you're serious?!" It turns out that even nearing 50 and loving the hit with all his heart, it never occurred to him that the band had more to offer, and that its "one hit wonder" novelty status somehow hid the fact that the entire first album is a wonder. I'm waiting to hear back with his first-listen reaction.

imagine the shock when he discovers that steeltown is even better.

I don't think it's better, but I do think it's an awesome reward if you liked the first one. Like, wait, there's more, and that more is even *more*!?

agree. i was just being a foole.

The bass in "In a Big Country" is quite awesome.

very weird case where the song a “one hit wonder” is known for is like idk the 5th best track on (arguably obv) their second best record

lol my bagpipe-guitar radar lit up, I knew someone had revived the Big Country thread. I have listened to the first two albums at different points over the last 6-8 months, still love them. The grandiose mythologizing feels pretty adolescent and as such doesn't resonate with me like it did when I was one. But the music and tunes and that big Lillywhite sound do.

And Adamson could write more grown-up lyrics too. "Girl With Grey Eyes" is nice.

almost 20 years since stuart died :(

over lockdown i was kind of tinkering with the idea of making an ambient album out of big country samples - lots of weird atmospheric sounds in their music and also some of the lyrics would make the best ambient song titles. was going to call it 'a garden in a forest that the world will never see'

wld listen

same.

Heh reminds me of the Godspeed you black emperor ambient collage I pasted together years ago. no crescendos, all spooky glockenspiels and trains and guitar echoes

spooky glockenspiels a pretty ripe band name, i reckon.

I imagine that ambient album as described would be pretty awesome. It might also sound a bit like Frippertronics.

Speaking of ambience, the opening minute-plus of "Porrohman" could be sampled to endless purposes. This live clip may be one of the videos I posted above in this thread that have since disappeared. It's great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQRxbjyQceo

I've posted him before because he's awesome but:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBpXK5LMzXA

talking of ambient, it was fun to revisit some skids' deep cuts knowing what i know now about eno and fripp and cluster et al

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dAJxkfcehQ
Skids - Snakes & Ladders (Peel Session, 1980) - sounds like some sort of ambient guitar pedal demo from 2017 tbh, knobs eat yr heart out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_sY9ljUFac
Skids - A Man For All Seasons (The Absolute Game bonus disk, 1980) - lots of pitch-shifted guitar over some roedelius-esque bloopiness

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mznYLqLicxE
Skids - Peaceful Times (Days In Europa, 1979) - big dose of bill nelson backwards magic on this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avbvgbGBnCY
Skids - Surgical Triumph (The Absolute Game bonus disk, 1980) - another another green world

I haven't heard a Big Country album yet, but I listened to Days in Europa last year. Can't say that I loved the songs, but it sounded to me like the unexpected bridge between Devo and U2 that I'd never imagined existed.

i like that characterisation of them! they were actually an influence on u2 - i think that when staurt adamson died, the edge said something like stuart was the guitarist that the edge always wanted to be. also there was that horrendous u2/green day cover of 'the saints are coming'

the devo-ish nerd punk thing did carry over to some of the early big country songs. this one definitely springs to mind:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8G-VQom2kM

(there is an early demo version of that somewhere with synths instead of guitars)

Good long feature: https://www.loudersound.com/features/the-life-and-hard-times-of-big-country-and-stuart-adamson

thanks alfred, enoyed reading that

Really interesting to read that the bagpipe guitars were in some ways a happy accident by way of avoiding playing anything bluesy. Lots of melodic scales, harmonies, drones, etc.,

Yeah, that was a good read. Also confirms the huge role Lillywhite played in creating their sound.

Great set here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UlnVnQ06ZM

tough read tbh but a good one.

re the whole guitars/bagpipes thing, the comparison’s always struck me as a disservice. it was never a gimmick, and to the extent that any particular riff “sounds like bagpipes” what we’re hearing is less an effect than a melodic/harmonic sensibility.

show me a rock guitar genius suckled on highland folk music and I’ll show you a guitar that sounds like a bagpipe.

hot take: nothing in big country's music sounds like bagpipes.

sidebar: this revive has me jamming the skids for the first time in my life and i'd just like to say to the collective here that you guys are fucking awesome. thank you so much for letting me eavesdrop on your conversations and take notes.

Just watched the drummer video above, it's good. I liked in the article how Brzezicki talked about taking marching band inspiration from Steve Gadd, I wouldn't have made that connection but it makes sense.

hot take: nothing in big country's music sounds like bagpipes.

exactly. but something in big country's music made some people think of bagpipes. given the former, I'm curious about the latter.