The long read: Steve Albini was long synonymous with the indie underground, playing in revered bands and recording albums by the Pixies, PJ Harvey and Nirvana. He also often seemed determined to offend as many people as possible. What led him to reassess his past?
The musician Steve Albini and I had been chatting for about a half hour, going over the particulars of his daily routine, the financial viability of his business, and various other prosaic and uncontroversial subjects, when it suddenly seemed appropriate to ask about the decades-long stretch of time where he’d sort of seemed like a giant asshole.
Not because he plays music with distorted guitars or exudes contempt for pretentious establishment figures – though he has done plenty of that – but because throughout his career he, perhaps more than anyone else, has attempted to embody the righteous ideological tenets that once made punk rock feel like a true alternative to the tired mainstream.
Albini would attend concerts that today inspire envy in underground music fans: a double bill of Hüsker Dü and the Replacements for $3; single-digit crowds for the Wipers and Bauhaus; weekly gigs by formative Chicago punk bands the Effigies and Naked Raygun.
One weapon of choice was the writing he did for the 80s zine Matter, where he mercilessly critiqued his peers (“This is a sad, pathetic end to a long downhill slide,” he wrote of the Replacements’ now-classic album Let It Be) and feuded with local acts and venues he deemed ethically or artistically lacking.
“That guy doesn’t know anything about production.” But the list of celebrated artists Albini has worked with – the Stooges, Slint, Superchunk, Sunn O))), Jarvis Cocker, Jawbreaker, Dirty Three, The Wedding Present, Songs: Ohia, Low, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Godspeed You!
Shellac are like a more mature descendent of Big Black; they have released several sharp and well-regarded records, play shows every year and are basically a house band at the annual Primavera Sound festival in Spain – a testament to the commercial viability of sticking to your guns.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The musician Steve Albini and I had been chatting for about a half hour, going over the particulars of his daily routine, the financial viability of his business, and various other prosaic and uncontroversial subjects, when it suddenly seemed appropriate to ask about the decades-long stretch of time where he’d sort of seemed like a giant asshole.
Not because he plays music with distorted guitars or exudes contempt for pretentious establishment figures – though he has done plenty of that – but because throughout his career he, perhaps more than anyone else, has attempted to embody the righteous ideological tenets that once made punk rock feel like a true alternative to the tired mainstream.
Albini would attend concerts that today inspire envy in underground music fans: a double bill of Hüsker Dü and the Replacements for $3; single-digit crowds for the Wipers and Bauhaus; weekly gigs by formative Chicago punk bands the Effigies and Naked Raygun.
One weapon of choice was the writing he did for the 80s zine Matter, where he mercilessly critiqued his peers (“This is a sad, pathetic end to a long downhill slide,” he wrote of the Replacements’ now-classic album Let It Be) and feuded with local acts and venues he deemed ethically or artistically lacking.
“That guy doesn’t know anything about production.” But the list of celebrated artists Albini has worked with – the Stooges, Slint, Superchunk, Sunn O))), Jarvis Cocker, Jawbreaker, Dirty Three, The Wedding Present, Songs: Ohia, Low, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Godspeed You!
Shellac are like a more mature descendent of Big Black; they have released several sharp and well-regarded records, play shows every year and are basically a house band at the annual Primavera Sound festival in Spain – a testament to the commercial viability of sticking to your guns.
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