Evil Stig
Evil Stig (Warner Bros./Blackheart)
by Marc Hirsh
Evil Stig
Evil Stig (Warner Bros./Blackheart)
by Marc Hirsh
originally published in the Public News, November 29, 1995
Some albums achieve greatness by being so dependent on their context that the two can't be separated. Tonight's The Night is mired in Neil Young's agony over the overdose deaths of two friends, Plastic Ono Band catalogued John Lennon's feelings about and after the breakup of the Beatles and Evil Stig just plain couldn't have happened if not for the rape and murder of Gits lead singer Mia Zapata.
Zapata's murder still unsolved, Joan Jett joined the remaining Gits and performed Zapata's songs to raise money to hire a private investigator. Evil Stig is the result, a tribute album of the highest order, a still-open wound of raw and confusing emotions that puts other so-called tribute albums to shame.
Evil Stig, like Rust Never Sleeps, was recorded on stage with audience noises (mostly) edited out. This lets the power of the band's hard punk get through with none of the distractions of other live albums.
That very few of the songs are pleasant doesn't diminish their strength. Zapata's lyrics were as brutal as the music, focusing on hard drinking and often eerily presaging her own death in "Sign of the Crab" and "Spear & Magic Helmet." "Spear," in particular, might have been written specifically for Jett to sing in exactly these circumstances.
Two covers sum up the frustration of the project. Jett's "Activity Grrrl" is offered up as the portrait of Zapata that the band would like to remember. Unfortunately, most of us are closer to "Crimson & Clover" - "I don't hardly know her, but I think I could love her." Evil Stig is not just one of the best albums of the past year (maybe longer), it is the one that most needed to be made.