Social Items

TPQ
Christopher Owens  ⚑ "You gave me the best years of my life…The whirlpools get wider and wider…Nobody has ever called me sir in my entire life…The whirlpools cascade over the smoking tent.” - The Fall

Steve Albini, an icon of indie rock as both a producer and performer, has died of a heart attack, staff at his recording studio, Electrical Audio, confirm to Pitchfork.

In some ways, this was quite an apt way to find out. Managing to be both blunt and functional, it summed up Albini’s work ethic and lack of sentimentality.

But for those who saw him as a mensch, it was shocking.


For some, Steve Albini will always be “that guy who produced Nirvana and PJ Harvey.” Of course, that is to be expected. But there was much more to him than his recording credentials.

Someone who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to make it possible for any band to record in a state-of-the-art studio with an engineer who had worked with Pixies, Cheap Trick as well as Robert Plant and Jimmy Page. Always working for the band, never the record company, he never took royalties for records that he had engineered and was entirely flexible in the studio. He once remarked that a band had asked for a microphone to be placed at their drummer’s arse while he was performing, which supposedly led to a better sound.

With these in mind, it made sense why he recoiled from the “producer” label. A producer, he often noted, is the equivalent of a director: someone who oversees every aspect of the record (usually with the label in their ears) and often views the project as ‘his’ as opposed to ‘the band’.

To an outsider, this may not seem like much. But it’s crucial to understanding Albini’s worldview. Speaking in 2010, he laid out his pro-band philosophy to GQ in his usual barbed tone:

I’m not really interested in participating in mainstream culture. Participating in the mainstream music business is, to me, like getting involved in a racket. There’s no way you can get involved in a racket and not someway be filthied by it. You’re another catalog item, another name on the list of people who are collaborating with the enemy. But by the same token I don’t know what circumstances every other band is in and what they feel forces their hand at some point. I know some bands feel like they have the choice between working with someone at the independent level who they think is inept or working with someone in the mainstream — who may also be inept, but at the very least may give them some money. That’s the kind of choice I never want to have to make for myself. If I had been approached by a big record label when I was eighteen years old, after I had just made my first demo — that happens quite often now, bands get approached quite young — I have no doubt whatsoever I would have signed the first thing anybody waggled in front of my nose. I can’t fault someone who operates out of ignorance and gets involved with a corrupt industry. They literally don’t know any better. I can fault the people who put them in that position — agents, lawyers, music business professionals who put him in a position of signing away the next twenty years of his life. But the kid who’s in those circumstances, I can’t really cast any judgment.

So to have someone like this recording your music would have been a godsend for most bands.


At the same time, his music has also inspired four generations of musicians.

From helping to invent industrial rock with Big Black, through to antagonising everyone with Rapeman and then becoming an alternative stalwart with Shellac, the ever-present elements were Albini’s scratchy, abrasive and metallic guitar tone as well as his hectoring vocals which could either be singing about child molestation (‘Jordan, Minnesota’) or monkeys (‘Dude, Incredible’).

Much has been written about Albini and his bands over the years. And for good reason, as he was a true believer in the ability of punk rock and the counterculture to change lives. Seeing how the punk rock scene in Chicago evolved into a thriving network that operated outside of the mainstream led to him voicing his opinions in fanzines and taking to the stage to play music.

Because of his abrasive, iconoclastic attitude (further fuelled by the exuberance of youth), he wasn’t a popular man in Chicago. Blast First owner Paul Smith remembered the moment he discovered this fact:

I ended up in Chicago with Sonic Youth . . . They were playing at the Metro and there was a xerox poster of Steve in the box office saying, ‘Do not let this man in under any circumstance,’ and I remember thinking, that's funny I wonder why, and then an hour later walking a couple of blocks down to some Mexican restaurant with Steve and Sonic Youth and people on the other side of the street yelling, 'Fuck you, Albini, fuck you,' and screaming at him from the street and I was thinking, this is an interesting little man, what's his thing?

Years later, he would be accused by certain writers as being the very thing he accused others of being: a gatekeeper. Such accusations miss the point of his worldview as he was always adamant that the alternative milieu was much more supportive and welcoming due to its ‘art for art’s sake’ attitude, encouraged greater creativity due to the lack of commercial expectations and could be done on the artists’ terms as opposed to someone else’s. Ergo, you could create something and have fun with it, as opposed to it being your day job and having to compromise on a daily basis.

Hence why he wrote this rather famous article.


He certainly wasn’t perfect: his hatred of disco/dance music always made me roll my eyes and his recent disavowal of the more controversial aspects of his musical history, after years of refusing to do so, seemed to be more about avoiding being cancelled as opposed to an honest atonement. But he was someone who lived by a strict moral code, was an obstinate artist and a world class recording engineer who any band would have been honoured to work with.

The new Shellac album is out next week. It has been reported that the final song on the record is entitled ‘I Don’t Fear Hell.’

Blunt and lacking sentiment. He went out as he went in.


⏩ Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist.

Steve Albini

Christopher Owens  ⚑ "You gave me the best years of my life…The whirlpools get wider and wider…Nobody has ever called me sir in my entire life…The whirlpools cascade over the smoking tent.” - The Fall

Steve Albini, an icon of indie rock as both a producer and performer, has died of a heart attack, staff at his recording studio, Electrical Audio, confirm to Pitchfork.

In some ways, this was quite an apt way to find out. Managing to be both blunt and functional, it summed up Albini’s work ethic and lack of sentimentality.

But for those who saw him as a mensch, it was shocking.


For some, Steve Albini will always be “that guy who produced Nirvana and PJ Harvey.” Of course, that is to be expected. But there was much more to him than his recording credentials.

Someone who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to make it possible for any band to record in a state-of-the-art studio with an engineer who had worked with Pixies, Cheap Trick as well as Robert Plant and Jimmy Page. Always working for the band, never the record company, he never took royalties for records that he had engineered and was entirely flexible in the studio. He once remarked that a band had asked for a microphone to be placed at their drummer’s arse while he was performing, which supposedly led to a better sound.

With these in mind, it made sense why he recoiled from the “producer” label. A producer, he often noted, is the equivalent of a director: someone who oversees every aspect of the record (usually with the label in their ears) and often views the project as ‘his’ as opposed to ‘the band’.

To an outsider, this may not seem like much. But it’s crucial to understanding Albini’s worldview. Speaking in 2010, he laid out his pro-band philosophy to GQ in his usual barbed tone:

I’m not really interested in participating in mainstream culture. Participating in the mainstream music business is, to me, like getting involved in a racket. There’s no way you can get involved in a racket and not someway be filthied by it. You’re another catalog item, another name on the list of people who are collaborating with the enemy. But by the same token I don’t know what circumstances every other band is in and what they feel forces their hand at some point. I know some bands feel like they have the choice between working with someone at the independent level who they think is inept or working with someone in the mainstream — who may also be inept, but at the very least may give them some money. That’s the kind of choice I never want to have to make for myself. If I had been approached by a big record label when I was eighteen years old, after I had just made my first demo — that happens quite often now, bands get approached quite young — I have no doubt whatsoever I would have signed the first thing anybody waggled in front of my nose. I can’t fault someone who operates out of ignorance and gets involved with a corrupt industry. They literally don’t know any better. I can fault the people who put them in that position — agents, lawyers, music business professionals who put him in a position of signing away the next twenty years of his life. But the kid who’s in those circumstances, I can’t really cast any judgment.

So to have someone like this recording your music would have been a godsend for most bands.


At the same time, his music has also inspired four generations of musicians.

From helping to invent industrial rock with Big Black, through to antagonising everyone with Rapeman and then becoming an alternative stalwart with Shellac, the ever-present elements were Albini’s scratchy, abrasive and metallic guitar tone as well as his hectoring vocals which could either be singing about child molestation (‘Jordan, Minnesota’) or monkeys (‘Dude, Incredible’).

Much has been written about Albini and his bands over the years. And for good reason, as he was a true believer in the ability of punk rock and the counterculture to change lives. Seeing how the punk rock scene in Chicago evolved into a thriving network that operated outside of the mainstream led to him voicing his opinions in fanzines and taking to the stage to play music.

Because of his abrasive, iconoclastic attitude (further fuelled by the exuberance of youth), he wasn’t a popular man in Chicago. Blast First owner Paul Smith remembered the moment he discovered this fact:

I ended up in Chicago with Sonic Youth . . . They were playing at the Metro and there was a xerox poster of Steve in the box office saying, ‘Do not let this man in under any circumstance,’ and I remember thinking, that's funny I wonder why, and then an hour later walking a couple of blocks down to some Mexican restaurant with Steve and Sonic Youth and people on the other side of the street yelling, 'Fuck you, Albini, fuck you,' and screaming at him from the street and I was thinking, this is an interesting little man, what's his thing?

Years later, he would be accused by certain writers as being the very thing he accused others of being: a gatekeeper. Such accusations miss the point of his worldview as he was always adamant that the alternative milieu was much more supportive and welcoming due to its ‘art for art’s sake’ attitude, encouraged greater creativity due to the lack of commercial expectations and could be done on the artists’ terms as opposed to someone else’s. Ergo, you could create something and have fun with it, as opposed to it being your day job and having to compromise on a daily basis.

Hence why he wrote this rather famous article.


He certainly wasn’t perfect: his hatred of disco/dance music always made me roll my eyes and his recent disavowal of the more controversial aspects of his musical history, after years of refusing to do so, seemed to be more about avoiding being cancelled as opposed to an honest atonement. But he was someone who lived by a strict moral code, was an obstinate artist and a world class recording engineer who any band would have been honoured to work with.

The new Shellac album is out next week. It has been reported that the final song on the record is entitled ‘I Don’t Fear Hell.’

Blunt and lacking sentiment. He went out as he went in.


⏩ Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist.
Christopher Owens Obituary

No comments

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)