Chomskyite wrote: Fri May 10, 2024 5:16 pm It's just abject fucking cowardice, as far as I'm concerned.

Now that Steve Albini is dead...

In other words, "Now that he's not around to speak for himself, I feel able to sling some mud without having to worry about the consequences!"

...

Clout-chasing and engagement-farming, that's all it is. Boils my piss.

That is precisely it, what gives me solace at least is just imagining how it wouldn't take an army of PRFers on his behalf, a deluge of fans in his defense, it would take a single Steve to tear the missive to shreds. And he knew it, and so.. here we are.

So, I've had more of a chance to collect my thoughts, and I am going to write some of them. They may be disorganized.

I haven't had much real-world contact with PRF folk, and I've only met Steve in person a couple of times, but I can't help but think about how Steve, and, by extension, the PRF, have had an outsize influence on my life in a bunch of different ways. I still remember listening to In Utero and wondering why it sounded so characteristically different from everything else I'd heard to that point. I was in my early 20s, and online reference materials circa 2006 or 2007 so were pretty primitive compared to what they are today, but I was able to read an article about how Steve's way of engineering a record had led to that sound, and how Nirvana had been heavily influenced by Surfer Rosa, and I guess I started down a rabbit hole of discovering bands and albums.

At that time, I had just barely gotten good enough on guitar that I was able to start writing my own songs, and, armed with some terrible drum samples, I set out recording them. And I think I'd been chasing that sort of sound since then. I spent a lot of time reading interviews, then later watching presentations Steve had done that ended up on YouTube, and I think I was just sort of awestruck at the simple, common-sense methods that Steve used, and I just absorbed as much of it as I could. I think it just made the idea of recording music seem so much more accessible. I remember the first time I recorded a "real" album with actual drums on it was when I recorded a project my brother and sister had made. I had the capability to use three microphones with the mic inputs on that computer, plus a USB microphone I was able to use as a room mic. I didn't have the capability to obsess about gear because I just didn't have money for gear, so I focused on the basics of sound recording principles, hit "record," and everything sounded good.

But it wasn't just the techniques that struck a chord with me. I had a huge control freak problem, and I think that I started on the path to being less Type A when I recorded that project. I provided some direction because my sister was new to recording and needed to find a process that was conducive to her, you know, remembering how the songs went, and part of that was making the decision that we'd use a click track and scratch guitar tracks so she wouldn't get lost, but, for the most part, I just did my best to stay out of the way and let things happen the way they needed to. I don't think I would have done things that way if I hadn't been exposed to Steve's philosophy on recording.

I dunno. I've only met Steve twice, at Shellac shows, and he always struck me as a warm, genuine person. I remember I was talking about him with a friend once, and all he could say was "Steve Albini is a cock." I can honestly say that my experience has been the opposite.

I remember, early on, getting into Big Black and reading some of the more provocative things Steve wrote, and I think that resonated with the angry, drunk ball of rage I was in my early 20s. I think, in my case, I fell into the kind of petty edgelord behaviour that a lot of young men use to cope with the world, especially those of us that never seemed to quite fit into it. Older, wiser me knows that this is the end result of living in a racist, sexist, patriarchal society that holds up a very narrow spectrum of white men as some kind of standard, but younger me was a dipshit and engaged in a lot of toxic behaviour.

And then Steve, the guy who wrote the cool, provocative shit I was reading, started talking about how maybe it wasn't so cool after all, and started holding himself accountable for his past behaviour in a really authentic way, and that kind of resonated with me. Around the same time, I was in the middle of my own coming to terms with the stupid crap I said. I guess it was kind of nice to see I wasn't the only one who had a lot to learn. I think a lot of people on here called me out for stupid crap I wrote, and I think Steve did a fair number of times, too. I also think that being here did a lot for my songwriting skills, mostly back when the songwriting challenge was still a thing. I sure got exposed to a lot of cool bands to check out.

So, yeah, my interactions with things Steve did and things adjacent to him and his studio has had a pretty profound effect on my life, not just in terms of how I make and record music, but also in terms of my own growth as a person into, I hope, slightly less of a dickhead.

A library burned to the ground this week. RIP Steve Albini.

This is my first comment here and I feel a bit like a trespasser, but I needed to express my sorrow and my condolences in a room where they would be heard - and understood.

Steve had a way of writing three-line eulogies about people you've never heard of that made you miss them from that moment on. I could blabber on about him for hours without ever doing him justice.

Because Steve was force & fulcrum of a whole culture, of an abundance of great art and great people, a world which, although far away, felt like a second home to me. Part of the reason why I'm writing this here is to extend my gratitude to the lot of you who have been active participants in this world, whether you were aware of it or not.

I hope he laughs with Norm MacDonald when I speak of his big heart.

I'll resist the urge to type down all the reasons why I loved and admired him, because you all already know. But I wanted to put it on record, to the people who understand who Steve was, that I did, and that I will miss him tremendously. My deepest condolences to his family and friends and to everybody reading this all the way to page 23.

Thanks, Sparky. It's nice to be back (although what I wouldn't give for the circumstances to be different).

And I totally agree with you - that awful nonsense doesn't deserve any attention. Will redact the troll's name from my previous post now.

Dammit.

Been sifting through my feelings during this stupid, shitty week and I keep coming back to this: I owe the man a profound debt of gratitude. For nearly four decades I’ve loved music he made or recorded, a lot of it bound up with people and places that are long gone. Nearly all of the friendships I’ve made since coming to Chicago in 2005 have had a direct or ricochet connection to this forum and the incredible community around it.

As a kid I was attracted to punk rock because it was direct, and because it contained the idea that music, art, and maybe life can be unshackled from exploitation or pretension. Steve put that ethos - and the struggle to see it through - into fierce words and generous deeds like no-one else.

Thanks man, for this and so much more. I owe you a lot, and will pay it forward as best I can.

Corey of Touch and Go posted this to Facebook

"Tuesday night, one of my dearest friends, Steve Albini, unexpectedly passed away.
He was supernaturally talented (in far more disciplines than you or I could ever hope to be), kindhearted, generous of spirit, and generous with his time. He had the warmest, most genuine smile and he always greeted you with it.
He was a member of more bands on Touch and Go than any other musician. He played on more Touch and Go releases than anyone else. He recorded more bands on Touch and Go than any other engineer. He was a cherished friend of mine and a champion of my record label for 40 years.
When I met him, in 1984, we immediately bonded over music, barbeque, and fireworks. I had booked a show for Big Black in Detroit. We stayed up most of the night barbequing, laughing, and talking about musical influences, small explosives, and food. By morning, I felt like we’d been friends all my life.
On many 4th of July’s, our shared inner pyromaniac tendencies emerged and we indulged our mutual love of fireworks. Surrounded by members of various bands, and other brave friends, we’d spend the day blowing up thrift store finds, fruits & vegetables, and gas-soaked bags of flour with small explosives. Once darkness fell, the bottle rocket wars would begin. An immaturely good time was had by all… especially Steve and I.
Our lives intertwined over the following decades. Steve made music, and we released it. We signed new bands, and Steve recorded some of them. Once Steve’s dream studio, Electrical, was completed, our bands started recording there.
For a few years, Steve (and Bob and Todd) deemed me Shellac’s soundman and took me all over the world with them (despite my obvious hearing loss which resulted in excessively loud concerts). The adventures we shared on the road will always be some of my fondest memories.
Shellac finished their new album last year. It’s incomprehensible that Steve will not be here when it is released next week.
My life, and the lives of everyone close to Steve, will be forever altered from this moment forward. There’s no replacing a big-hearted friend and kindred spirit like Steve. I love him and will miss him for the rest of my life.
-Corey Rusk"

Trying my best not to engage with the negative shit out there because I think it's bogus. Devastated by the news. Hope y'all are well.

i'd like to record the gratitude i feel for Steve's extraordinary talent, generosity, and commitment to sharing what he learned. for me, 'someone who helps music into the world' is a very high calling, and every part of the way that Steve went about this was a gift and a challenge to others. love and strength to all of you.

dfglv wrote: Sat May 11, 2024 4:16 am for me, 'someone who helps music into the world' is a very high calling, and every part of the way that Steve went about this was a gift and a challenge to others.

^ Yes.
I think about this listening to Farewell Transmission:

"Molina also claimed that Steve Albini opened and closed the door to the recording room as required, to help the recording achieve the desired volume."

From: https://soundanalysis.wordpress.com/20 ... nsmission/.

To create stubborn, idiosyncratic art with a deep vision and help bring other people's art into the world with such subtlety and sensitivity (hands-on, not just mentoring and moral support), both to such an extent, feels unprecedented.

I think Steve said that door thing was BS in another interview. That said: Molina's almost improvisational approach is captured in the Josephine documentary, and Steve and the studio was clearly equipped for the job.


I'll go ahead and tell the Lido Shuffle story for those not around at that time. In 2009 for the first PRFBBQ, I put together a live karaoke band accidentally named The Hype!, with little clue of how it would come together or be received. It ended up being a hit, talked about for weeks after. The next summer BBQ came around and of course we were gonna do it again, and Steve at one point on here posted "I'm doing Lido Shuffle!" He had expressed his liking of that song around that time due to the gambling lyrics. Haha, fun idea I thought, but it didn't seem serious. A few weeks before the BBQ he posted again: "you better make room for Lido Shuffle!" Hmmm, ok, so we learned the song just in case. Most people doing karaoke covers would email me, we would verify we were both learning the same version of the song and go over other details, so this request was loose to say the least.

That week comes along. There's a WSOP event in Vegas that Steve ends up doing pretty well at, extending his stay thru the week. "Things are going great but I might not make it back for Lido". Well, damn. We played our set Friday night: 2 hours of sweaty madness and it was great, but no Lido. We all show up throughout the next day, pretty exhausted, but still having a blast hanging out. There are rumblings throughout the day that Steve won a decent amount of money and is heading back that night. Cool he gets to make some of the BBQ, I thought, but the Lido window had passed in my mind. A few of my bandmates were like "we can still do it!" but I didn't take it too seriously. I watched some great sets by Bottomless Pit and Police Teeth, then kinda petered out into one of the backrooms to chill for a bit. Soon over the PA I hear my name, along with a dozen others calling for me to get to the stage NOW. "Steve is looking for you!" He had just gotten out of the cab from the airport and literally the first thing he was asking about was Lido Shuffle. So we talk about it briefly, I see Police Teeth is still breaking down their gear so I quickly ask them if we can borrow it instead. And then it actually fuckin' happened..



This is the only clip that still exists, unfortunately. That's ok: he wasn't particularly well-rehearsed, and the band was exhausted and playing on other peoples' gear. But it was amazing and the room went OFF. The best line gets cut off during that clip: when the keyboard/guitar harmony happens, Steve points to Liz and says "it's like there's two of her!" I think we stuck around and played another song or two with other audience members singing, "Surrender" I think, and if you've ever seen the picture of a pile of sweaty dudes being held up by FM kerble making the gun-in-mouth gesture, that's where it came from.

But anyway.. Steve only did this because he loved the DIY, industrious spirit of this place. Making shit happen outside even the more established Chicago underground channels and whatnot, simply because it was a cool thing to make happen. Beyond being in great bands and recording great records, I think that will ultimately be his legacy: getting involved, learning how to do things to a high standard, supporting the things around you, passing your knowledge on to someone still learning... just DOING THE THANGS for their own sake. Very few people, if anyone, embodied and manifested that attitude more, or better.

Oh. And there was a pretty good message exchange between him, Marsupialized, and me about the horniness of that BBQ: who was fuckin' who in what corner, but I'm keeping that one to myself.

EDIT: eliya reminded me that Steve dedicated this cover to Silkworm drummer Michael Dahlquist, who was known to have a carefree, live-for-the-moment spirit before he was tragically killed by a reckless driver in 2005. The last line in Lido Shuffle is "one more for the road", Steve ended the song with:

One more drink, one more fuck, one more hearty laugh.