Fotocrime – “Crack Up” (Big Black Cover)

The great Louisville punk band Coliseum went on indefinite hiatus in 2015, and frontman Ryan Patterson started a new project called Fotocrime, which is sometimes a band and sometimes a solo thing. Over the past year, Patterson has been back with Coliseum. Almost exactly one year ago, they dropped a surprise reunion album under the name C.L.S.M. Earlier this year, they brought back the Coliseum name to release the new single “You Might Be Dead” and to play their first show in nine years. But Patterson is not done with Fotocrime, and he’s using that project to pay tribute to an old collaborator.

As you almost certainly already knew, the great Steve Albini died suddenly earlier this year. Fotocrime recorded the 2020 album South Of Heaven with Albini, and now Patterson has brought the project back and covered Albini’s legendary old band Big Black. Fotocrime’s latest track is a heavy, guttural, ultimately faithful take on a pretty obscure Big Black song: “Crack Up,” from the 1986 Touch & Go compilation Gods Favorite Dog.

Fotocrime are not a band with a steady lineup. On the “Crack Up” cover, Ryan Patterson is joined by Young Widows’ Evan Patterson on guitar, Rodan/June Of 44’s Jeff Mueller on bass, and Mono’s Dahm Majuri Cipolla on drums. (Big Black never had a drummer, but this song sounds good with actual drums rather than a primitive drum machine.) The “Crack Up” cover is the B-side of a new flexi 7″ that’ll be given out for free at Fotocrime’s upcoming 12/6 show in Louisville, which will also feature the new Fotocrime song “Cautious.” All of the Bandcamp sales are going straight to Albini’s Letters To Santa charity. Below, hear Fotocrime’s “Crack Up” cover and Big Black’s original.