RIP Steve Albini

[Wibbles]

Another one's gone. 

https://www.theguardian.com/music/article/2024/may/08/steve-albini-us-alt-rock-musician-and-producer-dies-aged-61

[craigb]

Yikes, only 61! ?

[Bapu]

I enjoy his videos on studio techniques.

RIP Steve

[Old Joad]

?

[bitflipper]

Steve was an engineer's engineer. An accomplished musician who believed in a light hand on the console so that artists could do their thing without battling corporate suits who wanted everything to "sound like a beer commercial".

His Wikipedia page is surprisingly entertaining. A kindred spirit, I would have liked to have been friends with him.

Quote

He wrote that when he hears producers and engineers use "meaningless" words like "punchy" and "warm", he feels the need to "throttle somebody."

 

[Starship Krupa]

One of the voices of my generation, to be sure.

His famous article for Maximum Rock 'n' Roll was a game-changer and is still required reading for anyone hoping to have a career as a recording artist.

He wrote it in the immediate wake of Green Day getting signed while the major labels were hoovering up pop punk bands.

Edited May 9 by Starship Krupa

[PavlovsCat]

I'm a Chicagoan and my connection to Steve comes from having handled the printing of posters for Touch and Go Records and a bunch of other Chicago indie labels, I primarily was introduced to from Cory Rusk (he was a legend in the indie rock scene in the 80s and 90s -- Kurt Cobain dreamed of being signed to Touch and Go, but unfortunately for both parties, Cory only signed him to a single -- I handled the poster on it), to put myself through college (that and playing drums traveling the midwest with a somewhat popular Chicago area rock band that was a critics favorite) -- that included some posters for Steve's band Big Black. Nirvana shared a personal letter from the band that Steve wrote to them before recording their In Utero album and it's awesome, IMO. I think Steve, like Cory, was one of the good guys in the rock world.  If anyone wants a story of what a good guy Cory was (he's still around, but I haven't seen him in decades), just ask.

And then there's this. RIP BUB and Steve. 

 

 

Edited May 11 by PavlovsCat

[Starship Krupa]

I have plenty of respect for the man and his work, but I've surely disagreed with him on any number of things.

"Heart-Shaped Box" and "All Apologies" (mixed by Scott Litt) were my favorite songs from In Utero. I enjoyed with them and connected with them better than any of the other songs on the record. Sorry Steve. Having a good ear for rhetoric doesn't grant you a good ear for pop music.

There was a certain amount of elitism woven into his anti-elitism stance. I knew how we'd probably get on if we ever encountered each other. I tend to be kinda ?to people I think are full of themselves and his quotes kinda struck me that way. Peter, I would love to be disabused of that notion.

I used to have a bit of fun trolling the Albini-weenies back in the day, the ones who just worshiped the ground he walked on and couldn't get enough of the gospel according to Steve. You could tell who they were because you'd refer to him having produced some record or other and they'd get this kinda hurt/angry look and remind you loudly that he was an ENGINEER, not a PRODUCER. Ooh, yeah, let's fight about it.?I guess I was an iconoclastclast.

I also agreed with him on a lot of things that really fundamentally count to me in the end, and my first thoughts upon hearing of his passing were disappointment that he wasn't going to be around to comment/contribute anymore. The world seems lesser somehow, knowing that he's no longer out there. I wanted him to still be along on my generation's journey.

(Generation Jones, that is. 1955 to 1965. Too young for Boomer, too early for X. Brady Bunch, not Leave it to Beaver, and not Eight is Enough, either.?)

[PavlovsCat]

6 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

...There was a certain amount of elitism woven into his anti-elitism stance. I knew how we'd probably get on if we ever encountered each other. I tend to be kinda ?to people I think are full of themselves and his quotes kinda struck me that way. Peter, I would love to be disabused of that notion.

I used to have a bit of fun trolling the Albini-weenies back in the day, the ones who just worshiped the ground he walked on and couldn't get enough of the gospel according to Steve. You could tell who they were because you'd refer to him having produced some record or other and they'd get this kinda hurt/angry look and remind you loudly that he was an ENGINEER, not a PRODUCER. Ooh, yeah, let's fight about it.?I guess I was an iconoclastclast.

I also agreed with him on a lot of things that really fundamentally count to me in the end, and my first thoughts upon hearing of his passing were disappointment that he wasn't going to be around to comment/contribute anymore. The world seems lesser somehow, knowing that he's no longer out there. I wanted him to still be along on my generation's journey.

(Generation Jones, that is. 1955 to 1965. Too young for Boomer, too early for X. Brady Bunch, not Leave it to Beaver, and not Eight is Enough, either.?)

I could not disagree more strongly that there was elitism in Steve's anti elitism. I'll give you an example why and I'll share a private story from long ago why. Cory, the head of Touch and Go was great to me. I had done posters for Jesus Lizard (I have a related story, but it's more about Corey) and Steve produced them. Cory told me how Steve Albini and Butch Vig were his go to producers for Touch and Go Records. But when Vig produced Nirvana, his rates skyrocketed and Touch and Go could no longer afford him. Steve would work for whatever Cory would pay him, less than what Cory paid local,  unknown producers. Steve cared about the music,  not the money. I don't know of any other producer like him. 

Now for a related story about Cory. I was a devout Christian and told Cory that I couldn't do the Jesus Lizard posters (Steve produced and loved the band). Cory was incredibly understanding and told me he respected my decision and it wouldn't hurt our business relationship. Then he asked if he could share the story of the band's name and even showed me a Jesus Lizard Cory had in his office (he had snakes and a cat -- like his friend Steve, he loved cats). I ended up doing the poster. Guys like Cory and Steve were the real deal. They aren't their personality cults. Maybe what you didn't like is the kind of people that are in personality cults, not Steve himself. 

Steve was a funny, sweet guy. I can't think of anyone else who achieved his degree of notoriety and didn't change. Didn't charge more. But as a rock artist, he was also a different kind of guy. He didn't drink alcohol or do drugs because his father was an alcoholic and it profoundly impacted him. Now, for the record, while I knew Cory pretty well and spent dozens of hours with him, I only knew of Steve through Cory's eyes. But that impressed the heck out of me. Now, I have nothing against Butch Vig,  but his story is much more of the norm. Works with a super famous band, it completely changes him as he exploits it for everything he can get out of it. On one hand, you can't blame him. It takes incredible integrity to still go back to small, broke bands and record them for peanuts after you just recorded one of the hottest bands in the world. That to me is the antithesis of elitism. 

[PavlovsCat]

BTW, Steve refused to accept getting paid royalties on In Utero (or other albums). The reason was that the major labels take that money from what the band would have made, not what the record company would make (Touch and Go didn't work that way and Steve loved that). The record company estimated it would be $400,000 US. Steve said taking that much was unethical and he wouldn't do it and counter proposed that he'd take whatever the band decided. He would have ended up making $2 million. Nirvana decided to pay Steve $100,000 US. 

Edited May 11 by PavlovsCat

[Starship Krupa]

6 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

major labels take that money from what the band would have made, not what the record company would make

The contracts said that for every point a producer gets, the band loses a point, I guess.

Yeah, it's cool that he didn't change his artist-friendly policy just because of Nirvana's status.

8 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

I don't know of any other producer like him.

ENGINEER. ??

8 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

Maybe what you didn't like is the kind of people that are in personality cults, not Steve himself.

Perhaps so. Likely so. Would have loved to have met the guy to find out for myself.

The letter you posted contains the statement "Remixing is for talentless p---ies who don't know how to tune a drum or point a microphone." That's the kind of blowhard crap that I didn't care for coming out of his pen. "Recording engineer" and "mixing engineer" are, at least IMO, related skills that don't necessarily have to be present in the same person for that person's contribution to have value.

Hidden in there is the assumption that if an engineer doesn't know how to tune drums, they are a "talentless p---y" (and what's up with the use of a gender-loaded term to characterize someone with no talent? That was already being called out in 1992, especially in the punk world). You and I both know how many drummers can't even tune a drum properly. It's really hard to do.

I do get that the guy was WAY into irony, and if anyone is guilty of assuming that everyone will "get" that he's being ironic, it's me. It's one of the reasons I had to stop drinking: it exacerbated that tendency of mine to assume that everyone is on my wavelength and gets that I'm being ironic. And then as a result hurt their feelings and offend them.

I'm still stung by being accused of homophobia on Facebook by a former amp repair client, who when I asked him what kind of music he played, said "punk rock," to which I replied in an exaggerated "jock" voice "punk rock is for posers and f-gs!" After which I told him that my band had opened for MDC at 924 Gilman St., which is the pinnacle of my punk cred. I thought I was being flagrantly OBVIOUS that I was making fun of that attitude (which at that point wasn't even being espoused by jocks, hence the comedy-I also have nothing against athletes, BTW). And as for the "homophobic" part of the "witty" retort, when I told a friend I had been accused of being a homophobe, he said that if anything, I was the opposite of a homophobe. Writing all this out makes it blatantly obvious that I had no business assuming that someone I'd met 5 minutes earlier would get my meaning.

All this was 25 years after I quit drinking, so you see I have it BAD.

And I suspect that it may have been so with Albini, who expressed similar regrets long after being in bands that contained the words "r4pe" and of course infamously, the n-word. It's also a characteristic of our generation that we straddled time periods where using terms like that in order to disparage them was first okay and then not okay. And I agree about the not-okayness of using them around anyone but the very few people who are guaranteed to get where I'm coming from.

Albini once called Bob Mould "a cow with a guitar." Was he aware of just how offensive it was to use that term to insult a heavily built gay man?

I also know that Mr. I'm A True Engineer Because I Can Tune A Drum's most famous band used a drum machine instead of a human drummer.

So for all I know, he was assuming that the writer of "Polly Wants a Cracker" would be able to get whatever irony may have been present. But damn, even *I* can't tell if he was kidding about the drum tuning thing.

As I said, I would have loved to have been able to meet the guy and talk about this stuff, and I can count the number of famous people I would aspire to meet (other than to thank them) on one hand. And I am feeling sadder that I will never get that chance.

RIP Steve Albini, unless of course, you think that resting in peace is for posers and...um, anyone else you look unfavorably upon.?

Edited May 12 by Starship Krupa

[PavlovsCat]

It is funny that I called him a producer -- and he actually was an engineer and producer,  but he didn't like being called a producer because he felt the term was confusing and philosophically,  he saw a lot of producers are big record company tools. But I don't think it's completely accurate to merely classify even his work with In Utero as merely a record engineer. Just read the letter I included above and you'll see that Albini was already acting in a way that went beyond engineer (he recommended the studio the band ended up at, he was instrumental in directing the raw sound the band wanted -- until the record company later had some tracks remixed to be more commercial.  

Steve was, no doubt a#@l retentive. One could easily make the case that he was more than an engineer,  but philosophically had issues with the producer title and how many producers went too far in changing the sound of a band for the sake of commerce. I might consider that idealistic and principled, but you might find it heavy handed. But we all have our ways of seeing things and I dug how Steve was true to his vision. 

I didn't know of him saying anything homophobic. I certainly wouldn't support that if he did. But people can have blindspots. I just know that I respected what I knew of him, which was largely through Cory Rusk's eyes and I really respect Cory and found him to be a really good man of integrity. 

No doubt Steve was super opinionated and  I'm not out to be an apologist for the guy who I didn't know personally. But we're all full of imperfections.  I just know that I liked what I  knew of him and what I knew of him were mainly the stories of his integrity with regards to money and his commitment and passion for music and artists that was more important to him than money or fame. 

Edited May 12 by PavlovsCat

[Starship Krupa]

4 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

No doubt Steve was super opinionated and  I'm not out to be an apologist for the guy who I didn't know personally. But we're all full of imperfections.

Sometimes qualities that pi55 us off in someone else are ones that we also share and I'll fully cop to that in the case of Mr. A.?

If they put "basically okay guy with a mouth that got him into trouble" in my obituary I'd be fine with it.

I'm sure that if someone called him on the no-no in what he called Bob Mould, he would have been mortified. BTW, Bob's retort when asked about it was....entertaining.

The fact that you praise him elevates him even more in my esteem. I already thought he was A Force For Good In The World.

 

[Heath Row]

Thank God for . . . Oh wait up, I thought this was 'The End of Humanity' thread, it's sure felt like it ?

Edited May 12 by Heath Row

[PavlovsCat]

@Starship Krupa  I just remembered this after I suppose your force for good comment triggered the memory. 

Many years ago, I created and led a program at a historic Chicago church on the city's North side that brought together members of Chicago's homeless with church members every week for meals and friendship. Several blocks away at Chicago's Second City (one of my favorite places to go in my single days), Albini and his wife were responsible for a Christmas fundraiser for Chicago's poor; they also purchashed and delivered Christmas presents to needy families inspired by Steve's wife learning how the post office was getting letters from very desperate people at Christmas time that the USPO invited people to answer and help others (unfortunately, the USPO stopped that practice and Steve had been trying to persuade the postmaster general to change the policy back).  I suppose knowing about Steve's practices with bands via Cory Rusk (Touch and Go) and that we shared the same passion for helping those in need, I became very fond of him. 

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-i-havent-had-a-conventional-christmas-in-20-years_b_8614568
 

Edited May 14 by PavlovsCat

[Starship Krupa]

On 5/12/2024 at 2:24 AM, Heath Row said:

I thought this was 'The End of Humanity' thread, it's sure felt like it ?

Albini was a gold-plated jibber-jabberist, so it's appropriate. It's a loss to the long-winded, opinionated "everybody listen to me" community. Page after page of how we feel about it is what he would have wanted.?

[Heath Row]