It’s so hard to believe that Steve Albini, incendiary performer of Big Black, Rapeman and Shellac (and a number of other bands) is gone. Our condolences to Steve’s wife, his friends and Shellac. This is such a loss.
We played with Big Black in August of 1987, at Adelaide Uni, with Fear And Loathing and King Snake Roost.
This was a life changing show for us. I still rate this one of the most intense and awe-inspiring shows I have ever seen. It provided a learning for performance standards, that they made it look so easy, but were so powerful, and left a profound impression upon my brother and I and many of the people who attended the show. It was also at that show that Kim saw how Albini wore his guitar strap around his waist, and after speaking with Steve, adopted the same method from that day forward.
An amp malfunction meant I had to loan my Vox amp to Santiago Durango. The bootleg of that show always makes me laugh when I hear Steve say “And now we’ll do our fab four set”, due the presence of the Vox.
The Uni Bar tried to pay the band by cheque, but Steve said “cash only or we start destroying furniture to the value of the amount you owe us”. The Uni Bar staff suddenly found the right amount of cash.
After the show Steve said anything he can do engineering/recording wise just let him know. This was a sincere statement made in thanks for the use of our amp keeping the show going.
After Big Black finished and Rapeman released Two Nuns and a Pack Mule, it blew my mind. It was like avante-garde hard core punk, I don’t know, all rolled into one. Stymied by what in hindsight was a poor choice of name, their records are my favourites still to this day.
Forward to June 1991, Kim was working in the US, I was in the Middle East and with some unfinished tracks thought let’s get Steve to produce/record/mix and finish them. Kim rang Steve and received a curt “I’m eating” and the phone was promptly hung up. Kim was trying to work out if he should wait 5 mins, 15 mins, half an hour and then call back? What is the etiquette here? Fortunately after waiting an hour he called back and Steve was ready to work out the details of us meeting in Chicago and working on the songs we had, two of which were recorded when we were using a drum machine whilst between drummers. Albini was the perfect choice to engineer these.
Steve’s instructions to get to his house was aided by his highlighting a landmark he identified as a “shabby bush” outside his house. We found it no worries. In the studio Steve was efficient, and was even cutting analogue tape the old way with a razor blade and sticking two edit point ends together. That is talent itself, matching edits. Protools does that stuff automatically – I felt I was watching Pure Genius!!
His interest in analogue as the best preservation tool for records versus the digital medium was well known. Quite a few analogue fanatics got their passion for analogue recording over digital through Albini’s strong beliefs surrounding that medium.
I was so intimidated having to play guitar in front of the guy, who along with Andy Gill from The Gang of Four, was such a huge influence on me. Steve caught a fly that was buzzing in the studio in his hand and released it into the room I was recording in, and said “here’s a friend”… It was pretty funny, and it settled my nerves and relaxed me to just play.
In 1994 Steve had a piece in Maximum Rock n Roll “The Problem with Music” [https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-problem-with-music] – one of the best pieces of advice/information I think has ever been written about bands and labels. And anyone who has read the letter he sent to Nirvana pre starting the work for them on what became In Utero, would have to walk away with yet another understanding of how dispassionate he was regards money and looked only at serving the songs and the record.
Once Shellac began touring, we found ourselves playing quite a few shows with them when they would come to Australia. It was always great to catch up. Steve also eyed off Kim’s Ripples, and all of Shellac bought some while in Australia. That became his main shoe of choice!
Albini’s poker skills were prodigious and reflected the aspect that also appealed greatly for me, and that was his keen intellect. And funny, kind, and no shrinking violet when it came to let people know his opinions on Twitter or Bluesky. That is something I will dearly miss.
It’s a sad day for music. Steve drove the idea he could be the biggest asshole in rock n roll ever – however he was the opposite, he was kind, caring, funny, fiercely intelligent and an amazing musician and song writer, plus engineer and poker player! . Damn, we will miss Steve Albini.