BIG NURSE – who wants to kill the president / electrocute your cock
(7”, high density)v
The wordplay of big nurse with big noise should be
obvious, though I also like the connotation of noise being a bringer of
health and a cleaner of wounds as well, if not a lot more. Noise as a
cathartic experience, a cleanser of souls, something that burns the
listener and then leaves him a better man (or her a better women, for that
matter). I like that. I remember when The Lemonheads played in Vienna –
which was back in the early nineties when they were still half good and
Evan Dando was still a handsome posterboy – and asked the audience what
to play next. “Luka” somebody shouted, and Dando answered “now
c’mon, be fair”. And then somebody shouted “Cazzo di ferro”, which
only brought smiles. And so they decided to just let go with some free
noise, improvising and doing shit on stage for the last twenty minutes of
the show. In that time Dando tried each and every combination of his
effects pedals, the bass player unwound his strings completely and the
drummer decided to leave the stage after half of whatever that was. No
encore. Right on.
Big Nurse surprised me with their self released debut album
“american waste” done in wonderful DIY-fashion on their own
label, which also hosts this seven inch, which is also done in true DIY
fashion. Which also means that the cover is but a xeroxed sheet of paper
and the recordings have been done in 2004. What took you so long to
release this anyway? Aw, who cares, if it is being released at all.
More importantly, I am not sure if the seven inch
format really does give true value to their way of freaking out over a
distorted riff and diving into a loop of bass-noise and improvising in a
manner that is the complete opposite of what the best jazz-men do: by
ignoring all rules and fucking shit up. On a seven inch the effect is
definitely there, but it comes a little shorthanded. Over the length of an
album side the trance or tripping effect is much higher. Anyway, this is
wonderful noise of the kind that is filled with energy, fun and the great
ways that accidents play into art.
The track on side one plays around a simple bass riff,
while the track on side two plays around a highly distorted (and I don’t
use that easily) guitar riff. Imagine superhelicopter but without the
structure. Wow, I never would have thought I’d use Superhelicopter as a
reference with(!) structure once. Both tracks use some lines of vocals at
the beginning, before breaking off into chaos and mayhem after some time.
The instrument carrying the basic pattern usually holds out the longest,
while all the others fall down in exhaustion and despair and chaos and
immaturity and freedom and noise. The recording is poor, to say the least,
but who cares if the drums sound like shit when the documentation of a
culmination of energy and freakiness is in the centre of concern.
