Search - Nig-Heist :: Nig-Heist

Devastatingly Insightful

06/29/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This album has affected me in ways too numerous to contemplate.I've often found myself with a woman, and, where I'd normally grow increasingly confused and frustrated, instead, asked myself the question: "What would Mugger do?" Turning myself over to Mugger has invariably led me down the correct path.Of course, this is only one example: the Nig Heist paint a philosophical landscape devoid of the ethical paradoxes and emotional dead-ends associated with most mainstream belief systems; this album is a veritable "Guide to Life".Please, do yourself and your loved ones a favor by bringing this poignant and profound contribution to the musical cosmos into your life."

The Greatest Rock and Roll Album of All Time

06/26/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"My life has never been the same since seeing the Nig Heist live in Boston in the early 80s when they opened for Black Flag.To say that they took command of the stage doesn't do justice to the unmitigated contempt with which they viewed their audience. Weathering a full-fledged gale of human spit, half-empty beer cups and threats on their lives, they proceeded to respond with an unrelenting fusillade of rock-and-roll pornography the likes of which hasn't been seen before or since.I was awestruck. Working at a time when giants walked the earth, this album is the only evidence of just how far ahead of their time they were. If you only buy one album this year, make it this one. You will not be disappointed."

What would Mugger do?

Bachelier | Ile de France | 10/11/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Nig-Heist's frontline appearance for Black Flag in Boston in 1983 is a classic instance of the opening act blowing away the headliner. Not since Jimmy Hendrix opened for Johnny Holliday on October 10th 1966 has rock and roll seen such an inversion, and this record gloriously approximates the circus.



Nig-Heist, for those not in the know, was a "mock rock" band made up of Black Flag roadies, perennially "Mugger" (Steve Corbin) and whoever else could stagger onstage and thrash through the "repertoire." The design was to be as offensive as possible. While the band always claimed there was never anything scarier than a TRUE Nig-Heist fan, I'd count myself one of them since even then you'd have to have been brain damaged not to get the joke. "With such memorable songs as "I beat my f*-ing c*ck last night and I got f*-ing cuts on it," you'd be hard pressed not to agree that it was "[spherical object] to the ground rock and roll" band, but also a pretty funny one at that.



Band members often performed in "costume" or naked, or occasionally with only tube socks on semi-erect members. This was long before the Red Hot Chili Peppers stole an approximation of the idea.



And what a repertoire, with a be-wigged and nearly naked Mugger ridiculing little boys who had just gotten their haircut for the show, and asking from the stage if the girls in the front row had a "tight little [diminutive for cat]" he would then reject overtures from rock sluts with a "no, she has a big fat mushy [diminutive for cat]." Outraged "straight-edge" posers proceeded to add another vector of indignation to their pantheon of moral superiority and pelted the band with anything handy, to which they would respond to by launching joyously into a blizzard of noise rock that woke even Cronos from wherever dead gods go to die. After their final song, they told the audience to grow their hair long.



With each passing day without his inspiration, it grows more difficult to say just "What would Mugger do?" yet the answer for this singular album in punk rock memory is to turn it up loud, at least to frighten the kids and perhaps to cover your laughter."