Sunday, December 13, 2009



Big Louise - Angels
1991

Big Louise was less a band than a collision of various talents on their way to other projects. Naming themselves after a Scott Walker tune, the New York band formed in 1990 around the core of Spike Priggen and twin sisters Laura and Leslie Sink. Priggen soon brought in bassist Robert Vickers and drummer Doug Wygal to complete the lineup, but Lisa Jenio and Mark Mulcahy also had brief stints with the band.

Big Louise began building up a set of songs, most of which were written by the Sink sisters, with contributions from Vickers and Priggen. In 1991 they did a short north-east tour opening for Jack Frost and later recorded a live to air performance on the WFMU show "The Water Faucet".

In May of 1991, Big Louise went into the studio and cut two songs for a 7" single that they released on their own label, #1 Records. The A-side featured Leslie’s "Angels" and the B-side was Vickers’s "Morning Glory." The label, named for the Big Star album, also released singles by The Streams, The Caroline Know, The Hello Strangers and Deep Six. The Big Louise single was released that September.

In 1992 the band drifted apart to pursue other agendas, Robert Vickers and Spike Priggen to record with Malcolm Ross (ex-Orange Juice) and the Sinks to return to college. Vickers later formed The Mad Scene with Hamish Kilgour (The Clean), recording two albums for Merge Records.

In August 1993, Rough Trade Record store in London compiled an album of US 7” vinyl singles called Unnecessary Niceness, for release in the UK and included the track "Angels." It was however, too late for a band who had already moved on, leaving only the merest trace of vinyl behind.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Nice write up, Mark! Love your blog!
- Leslie, one of the Big Louise twins.

Spike Priggen said...

Yeah- really nice summary, stuff in there that I didn't remember until you mentioned it (opening for Jack Frost, Mulcahy being the original drummer). I met Leslie & Laura through Mark, originally.

The WFMU show was Nicholas Hills' "The MUSIC Faucet". I have a tape of it and several live gigs I'll probably end up posting on my blog at some point.

http://spikepriggen.blogs.com/stars_after_stars_after_s/

Spike Priggen said...

Yeah- really nice summary, stuff in there that I didn't remember until you mentioned it (opening for Jack Frost, Mulcahy being the original drummer). I met Leslie & Laura through Mark, originally.

The WFMU show was Nicholas Hills' "The MUSIC Faucet". I have a tape of it and several live gigs I'll probably end up posting on my blog at some point.

http://spikepriggen.blogs.com/stars_after_stars_after_s/