Author: Sandi Sadar Šoba
Artist: Big Foot Mama
Label: Nika Records
Released: 2004
Running time: 40:19
Rating: 4.2/5
author: Sandi Sadar Šoba
We all have our favorites, the ones who can make a band into stars in our eyes, but giving in to the beauty and spell of the music and lyrics doesn’t always line up with the clock. Some of us just have a slightly longer fuse, and I’ll admit I started getting to know the big-footed mama and her five lads damn late, and with my ears (not my eyes, since I’d rather listen to music with my own pair of ears and the brain hemispheres attached to them than watch it). The tabloids had a hand in that, raising my bile to the throat and beyond, and so did an autonomous prejudice that Big Foot Mama was music for “sissies” and “pussies” and not for “real men”. Everything needs time to ripen, and some of us need a bit more of it than the other »enlightened« disciples of the modern and hit-obsessed. Better late than never, I’d add, and what grew on my heart was precisely the record that some people, thanks to the provocative videos and the absence of the band’s main trump card, driving force Gušti, didn’t dare bet on the way I, unburdened by any knowledge of the past, bet on it myself!
There’s no real definition of rock ‘n’ roll without a proper dose of sex, drugs and trash, and no good sex without proper foreplay, so 5ing was my initiation into what I needed to finally slide down the BFM slide of pleasure. And this time the petting isn’t done just with hands but with big feet – ten of them, no less, the nitpickers would add. The fifth record has every ace of a hit-packed album you have to surrender to, whether you like it or not, if you’re a fan of quality hard-sounding fun, distorted guitars and lyrics that lodge in your subconscious so damn perfidiously that you mumble them at first, then sing them from morning till night. For all its catchiness and commercial potential, the record doesn’t sound the least bit sold out, made only to empty wallets; it carries that undertone that made us children of socialism fall for Perot’s Sokoli and Zmazek’s Don Mentoni opus, and smear our bread with all those dirty riffs of Serbian trash heroes in the manner of Partibrejkers or the slightly more northern Majke and the like.
BFM fell for certain predicates too, having started out, believe it or not, a whole 22 years ago as the support act and backing guard of the very first of all the Pankrti. The sex appeal of live music and the move away from electronics, samples and sugary confectionery pulled me in, after my former aversions, I admit, at first out of curiosity, because I had to answer the question of whether the guys were able to summon the musical Prometheus once again and revive the flames of a true rocker attitude that isn’t just a pose in the name of capital but has a real soulful essence.
And the answer is: 5ing has a little bit of everything. Being in opposition and pissing into the wind isn’t always healthy or hygienic, so 5ing is actually a hefty helping of hits for instant rockers and posers alike, as well as a dose of genuinely juicy, inventive music! It all starts with a guitar overture of almost surfy distortion in the track Eksplozija, which rolls into the first hit of the record, the song Še mal’ bolj dol. Daniel’s and Zoki’s guitars sound balanced and just eccentric and showy enough. Dirty yet so expected and partly predictable riffs and lovely phrases pile up in thick layers, Steržaj’s bass and Jože’s easygoing drums are the loom on which Skočir’s distinctive voice weaves its just-right raspy note, and underneath it all you can even hear a pinch of saxophone. The theme is a classic – a story of a summer romance, conquest and sexy teasing, and the fantasies of imminent pleasure are held back just enough that you can easily follow the red thread of in no way pretentious intellectualizing, and fall, Iggy Pop style, into the third act of the record, the song Jaz nisem stroj. A great track about the main foundation of rock – primalness, which opposes label games, calculators and the dictates of the masses, who at that time would have loved nothing more than a hit after hit from BFM, meekness and a mindless smile, which wears out even the most commercialized dolls on magazine covers. I believe BFM got sick of that back then too. Lajf has to be lived, even if money doesn’t stink for anyone, right? That’s exactly why the big-footed mamas have had enough of self-centered conventionalism, and they’ve got just the right measure of rebelliousness and vulgarity to infuriate the parents of dutiful pious Pharisees. Hedonism is wonderful material to work with, and Lajf is a kind of homage to the Britpop heroes Oasis; I don’t know why, but the jokers Supergrass sneak in there as well, and the party is complete. Of course I’m not claiming Big Foot Mama stole riffs or ideas, but even the artist most devoted to purism and “originality” can’t help picking up what he’s heard and seen in the past.
Neki sladkega is a story of its own. Skočir blows the desert storms of cataclysm away with his just-dreamy-enough voice, and the big-footed mama, with the help of the outstanding keyboardist Bruno Subiotto (unless my little self blew it at three hundred an hour and it isn’t a clone of Davor Klarič), spins one of the finer syntheses of guitars, piano, thunderous diction of gorgeous choruses and the complete playfulness of inspired rock. No, this isn’t a synthetic derivative of overthinking, but pure adrenaline and a lovely mix of being high and gravitationally bound to those few perfectly placed notes that will bring you to your knees. Gole sanje is another step up into faster, macho partying, and seen and heard directly through Skočir’s telling of a story about downing a moment of fame with a big spoon and burning out in the name of a perfect 24-hour party, it whets the appetite of everyone who only ever dreamed of it but never had the balls to really live life. A short intermezzo rolls into an Aerosmith-ish little song, letting you know that the band’s repertoire holds plenty of harder-hitting aces too. Z glavo skoz’ zid is written as if Perry had woven it, only Skočir can’t keep up the intensity and range of the indestructible Steven, but the track still has enough potency to immediately become one of my favorite moments of this truly intense 5ing.
Na koncu tunela, after Steržaj’s bass intro, turns into a gorgeous harmonica-laced bluesy rocker sentiment, with which Big Foot Mama lay yet another layer of sentimental patina on your ears, and the interplay of the two outstanding guitars brings your brain to complete resonance, while hidden organs and quiet Hammonds steer your thoughts toward total fusion with the film that is the BFM oratorio. Vrn’ se k’ men is then that little something that makes the whole thing so much more meaningful. Lost love and longing, the devil’s game and the mixing of moments that leaves the heart wounded – all of it results in the perfect verses of this full-length. »Come back to me / don’t be indifferent / ’cause I’d still put on your shirt / and be happy / Come back to me / don’t be indifferent / So I’ll look for the light with you again / Reborn anew / Come back to me!« … And right after that BFM tear down all borders and free the world of all shackles with the song Brez mej. The world would be a better place without borders and pigeonholes.
And after the rocker explosion comes one of the more sentimental songs of the past few years. The exceptional acoustics of Skrit v sencah shake and delight even the most nitpicking audiophile. Beautifully woven acoustic layers of guitar, piano and Grega’s gorgeously colored voice anoint you with the waters of Hell. Life is beautiful, and thanks to a few lovely moments anyone can get, at least for a second, closer to a state of perfect happiness, despite all the drops of wormwood that in the cup of this sweet honey sometimes dominate far too often. And some of that radiates from Skrit v sencah too, a lovely, piercing, honest moment of fusion at the point where darkness and light, bitterness and sweetness, happiness and suffering meet … And after this act, which could easily have been the closing one, since there was nothing left to add, BFM add their own homage to Perot and Pankrti with their own version of Bandiere Rosse, the red banner of revolt and revolution, and with a call to rise up, over Lovšin’s raspy vocals, 5ing ends in a kind of almost superfluous finale that, considering the band’s evolution, isn’t all that unexpected, only the previous sentiment gets swapped for a more rebellious spirit and a desire to tear down the temples of capital and the usurping depravity of our self-proclaimed shepherds of the flock of sheep that is the people. Though I doubt BFM were thinking back then about settling scores with the Slovenian version of Wall Street tie-wearers and crooks who robbed this lovely little corner of ours, a dreamy sub-Alpine chicken-coop paradise we call home.
Whatever the case – 5ing has enough of that oomph to make me call this record one of the more important moves by the Ljubljana quintet. Not that I don’t want follow-ups and upgrades, don’t get me wrong. But it’s true the guys only needed to prove empirically once that BFM have enough charge in their bosom for further evolution and a full life, not just survival, and that the time for goodbyes hasn’t come yet! Also because after Gušti’s departure, his spot was filled so well by the former member of the notorious Majke, guitar ace Zoran Čalić, now living in Brežice, from whom I expect even more original material and involvement in the big-footed mama, who will undoubtedly take even more gigantic steps on the road of her blossoming and maturing in the future. They’ve already proven they belong to the elite of the pioneers of Slovenian mainstream rock, and they’ve also proven they know how to conquer the airwaves and stay on them for eons. 5ing has the potential to become, decades from now, a record that future generations will reference and cite as one of the more important acts of Slovenian rock, though of course only the test of time will show that, and so far the patina of this fifth little record is holding up damn nicely against time. That’s also why falling in love, even after missing the first moments and the christening parties, is completely logical and expected …
Lineup
Grega Skočir – vocals
Daniel Gregorič – guitar
Zoran Čalić – guitar
Alen Steržaj – bass guitar
Jože Habula – drums
Guest musicians:
Bruno Subiotto – Hammond organ
Jani Baš – piano
Naža Buh – backing vocals
Gušti – backing vocals
Pero Lovšin – backing vocals on track # 12
Martin Janežič
Gašper Gradišek
Production
Dejan Radičevič
Tracklist
- Eksplozija
- Še mal’ bolj dol
- Jaz nisem stroj
- Lajf
- Neki sladkega
- Gole sanje
- Z glavo skoz’ zid
- Na koncu tunela
- Vrn’ se k’ men
- Brez meja
- Skrit v sencah
- Bandiera Rossa
