In the summer I wear my tube-top and Eddy takes me to the drag-strip

If you ever wondered (probably not) if there was a missing link between Sigue Sigue Sputnik and the KLF, you should check out Big Stick!
They were probably the most obscure band that crawled out of the New York noise-scene of the mid-eighties, alongside bands such as Pussy Galore, Sonic Youth and Foetus.

Unlike these bands, John Gill and Yanna Trance were never wearing their art-school background on their sleeves. Being big drag-racing fans, Big Stick was wallowing in white-trash-exotica and they had their tongues surgically implanted in their cheeks.

Wearing totally ridicoulous masks, plastic jewellery and hair extensions made out of coloured strips it was hard to take them serious and their music was not particularly trying to counter those first impressions.

The Big Stick-sound was a cut and paste mixture of noise-rock, teen trash, electro and hip-hop. To add to this awkward mix, they seemed not to care about sound quality or any sort of proper mixing and rhythmic coherence.
Drum computers were not programmed, but played by hand (!), while edits and overdubs were done in the most amateurish way possible.

Needless to say, Big Stick are genious! Only Mark Stewart had a comparable way of sending his sound to hell, but he never had as much fun on the way.

Legendary DJ John Peel was one of the biggest Big Stick fans and thanks to him, "Drag Racing" became a top 10 chart hit in the UK! Not bad for a 1:40 song that sounds like they found the master-tape in a garbage dump for magnets.

Other famous Big Stick stompers are "Crack Attack", "Jesus was born (on an indian reservation)", "I´m gonna shoot the president" and their cracking ballad "Friends and Cars".

This is a dance-version of "Crack Attack", mixed by Mark Brydon (later of
Moloko) which came out on EMI


Big Stick are still around somewhere, visit them on MySpace. In between they are also active as Drag Racing Underground. Burn some rubber!