Steve Albini's death at the age of 61 from a heart attack while in his studio has caused shockwaves and an outpouring of tributes. Albini could be a polarising personality and in recent years he admitted saying and doing things in the past he regretted and apologised for them. Naming his early 90s band Rapeman was a clearly provocative/ idiotic decision and cost him a lot. His previous band, Big Black, were a huge part of the US post- punk/ hardcore scene, an abrasive and aggressive guitar band, clanky, metallic guitars and a drum machine. They courted controversy with their songs and lyrics but were by 1988 a big part of whatever constituted alternative culture- their name and sleeves were in the record racks, fly posted on walls, on gig listings and in the music press. Atomizer is a huge and dark record. Songs About Fucking was everywhere briefly.
My friend Ian (Meany) was and is a huge fan of US hardcore and was part of the scene in Liverpool in the mid- 80s, promoting gigs, photographing bands and interviewing them. He posted this on his social media yesterday by way of an obituary for Steve Albini and he says more and says it better than I can...
'I was just about to buy a ticket for Shellac in Brighton and get stuck into the interview in the latest Wire mag, hot off the press, and the bad news arrived. Fuck…. Proper legend obvs. No doubt the obits will focus on his engineering/production credits (his ‘cutlery scraping together’ production vibe, as I once heard it described (did round out as he went on) wasn’t always great - PJ Harvey wisely moved on I thought. In Utero (wasn’t that a bit shit?) but his guitar playing genius and his unique guitar sound are oft overlooked. Big Black were one of the pivotal bands of the post hardcore US underground halcyon days of my yoof and I forever regretted not seeing them on the Songs About Fucking tour before they split, tho I had the chance. ‘Kerosene’ would reverberate through indie discos (including Planet X, Liverpool) for years to come. The brilliance of his next outfit, a supergroup of sorts, Rapeman, got lost in the furore surrounding their admittedly very stupid name. Us members of the north west punk rock contingent have fond memories of their legendary Chester gig with (peak) Dinosaur Jr. The threepiece genius continued with Shellac, who I saw on several occasions, including at the Shellac curated ATP at Camber Sands (Cheap Trick, Wire, Low, Bonnie Prince Billy, Breeders, Rachels, Smog, Low, Mission of Burma, Melt Banana … need I go on). Famously cantankerous and opinionated, he was in fact, if you were on the right side of rock’n’roll history, quite affable in person. I had the good fortune to photograph him on a few occasions and hang out with him a couple of times: sitting on the floor in John Loder’s office (Crass, Big Black, Jesus and Marychain etc engineer) at Southern Studios chatting about the Scala cinema and films I remember, and I interviewed him at the legendary Newport TJs before a Shellac gig when he advocated for the greatness of ZZ Top (that’s all I can remember of that encounter!). Although he was fiercely indie, and railed against the the exploitation of the music industry, he also accepted the inevitability that streaming would deliver free listening, suck the profit out of recorded music but also would greatly increase listenership and push bands towards live performance. An antidote to the ideology of the privileged whiny whinging wealthy middle aged vinyl collecting cognoscenti. Gone too soon. Rest in power mate.'
Thank you Ian/ Meany
If you've never heard Big Black's cover of The Model by Kraftwerk (off 1987's Songs About Fucking), you should rectify that immediately by heading here. We were back at Meany's once after clubbing (at Cream in the mid 90s, no doubt a foray to see Mr Weatherall DJ) and Ian slipped The Model into the post club soundtrack and it blew us away all over again.
Steve Albino's production was legendary. Albini scoffed at it being called production- he said it was all about how many and which microphones you had and where you placed them. He called it recording rather than production, the no bullshit attitude on display. In the early 90s he made The Wedding Present move into a different musical landscape...
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