[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

Here is another lost gem recorded by Steve Albini. What is fantastic, is that the Geffen "people" involved with In Utero were right , Albini's mixes for bands are often "unreleasable" in the most popular, commercial sense, but in the raw, guttural, wrenching sense, they are priceless. Albums like In Utero, Shannon Wright's Over the Sun, Pussy Galore's Dial M For Motherfucker, Tad's God's Balls, Superchunk's No Pocket For Kitty, obviously the Jesus Lizard's Goat, Helmet's Meantime, P.J. Harvey's Rid of Me, Hubcap's Those Kids Are Weirder, Left Over Crack's Fuck World Trade, Godspead You Black Emperor's Yanqui UXO, F-Minus' "Wake Up Screaming", The Desert Fathers "The Spirtuality", The Ex's "Turn", Ferocious Fucking Teeth's Ferocious Fucking Teeth S/T, The Strain's Teeth...

these record are not commercially marketable, but they are epic records for that crisp, loud, guitar feedback, drum oriented sound which ONLY Steve can seem to properly capture.

I think Shannon Wright's Over the Sun, Nirvana's In Utero, P.J Harvey's Rid of Me, Jesus Lizard's Goat, and Pixies Surfer Rosa is a legendary enough discography by itself and are his best work, in fact some of the best albums of all time, let alone all the other great albums and bands he's worked with..

I posted this in the In Utero thread, but I think this discography or recordings, not even including his own music and bands, warrants its own thread to discuss the greatness or shit on it entirely as only SYG gossip can

 

Originally Posted by Steve Albini

I reject the term "piracy." It's people listening to music and sharing it with other people, and it's good for musicians because it widens the audience for music. The record industry doesn't like trading music because they see it as lost sales, but that's nonsense. Sales have declined because physical discs are no longer the distribution medium for mass-appeal pop music, and expecting people to treat files as physical objects to be inventoried and bought individually is absurd.
The downtrend in sales has hurt the recording business, obviously, but not us specifically because we never relied on the mainstream record industry for our clientele. Bands are always going to want to record themselves, and there will always be a market among serious music fans for well-made record albums. I'll point to the success of the Chicago label Numero Group as an example.
There won't ever be a mass-market record industry again, and that's fine with me because that industry didn't operate for the benefit of the musicians or the audience, the only classes of people I care about.
Free distribution of music has created a huge growth in the audience for live music performance, where most bands spend most of their time and energy anyway. Ticket prices have risen to the point that even club-level touring bands can earn a middle-class income if they keep their shit together, and every band now has access to a world-wide audience at no cost of acquisition. That's fantastic.
Additionally, places poorly-served by the old-school record business (small or isolate towns, third-world and non-english-speaking countries) now have access to everything instead of a small sampling of music controlled by a hidebound local industry. When my band toured Eastern Europe a couple of years ago we had full houses despite having sold literally no records in most of those countries. Thank you internets.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by Steve Albini

Dave Grohl is an underrated drummer. He's a good musician generally, but he's a monster drummer.

Seriously.

[Bytor Peltor]

 

[bebop210]

I love his attitude and real working man approach to music.. But seriously sometimes he can come across like a bully especially when women are concerned

[Nefeli]

i never sat down to read interviews of him, therefore i never formed an opinion about him as a person.
the letter to nirvana was great though.

23 yrs passed by and i still like 'songs about fucking'
this my fav of the record
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDDZgU4ZoH0

[blunderbuss]

I totally adore: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgNi8fnK6TY

[_tunic_]

one of my all-time favourite albums:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufdu8...68C35D2B365429

[Glice]

Oh good, here's a good place to unload some vitriol.

tl;dr: Fuck Steve Albini, again.

As ever of late, I'm gliding through, so this is the compressed version.

1) Recording is an artform. Performing is an artform. Steve Albini privileges the latter to the behest of the former in the context of the former. For which read: His idea of recording is that it should sound like a 'live band' in an era when most music is recording-first. His recording techniques are a perspective until he starts talking.

2) Bands who are good at being live bands often don't know about the nuances of recording, which is a very different thing. Albini has made deficient records for these people, frequently. An oversight if he's doing Ceilidh or be-bop; he's doing rock, which has the recording bang in the middle of its purpose.

3) 'I'm just an engineer' is a cop-out. The false modesty shit negates any responsibility he has for the recording. He doesn't just put mics in a room, he makes decisions and those decisions have an enormous influence upon the outcome of the record. Two false modesties, in fact: first that he just transcribes the 'live' sound, second that he has no responsibility for that transcription. There's modesty and there's damaging bands and washing his hands.

4) Many of his records sound like total shit. How do you fuck up the Stooges?

5) His idea of recording comes from a very specific era of 80s punk and punk-ethos. Even the people who operate in that narrow era are also aware of what happened afterwards.

6) It is 2013 and he's still analogue. Which is an exceptionally niche area. Which is also making a virtue of an authenticity that means precisely fuck all to punk rock.

7) Continual and unrelenting sexism that isn't 'ironic' and never has been. It belongs in the 1970s.

8) For every record that survives the various exchanges/ trade-offs between his atavistic techniques, convoluted understanding of what rock is and his false humility and still manages to be passable, there are 10 or 20 records which were shit.

9) Many of those shit records sunk smaller bands.

10) Acting like his reputation isn't something he's interested in does nothing about the fact he has a reputation; shit records are blamed on the bands, doubly so because he's at pains to deflect his responsibilities onto the bands.

11) He is a whiney motherfucker who has made precisely one good record in 30 years, and half a good one about 15 years ago.

12) For all his criticism of industry-capital he's never apparently done anything except operate in the manner of a contractor. That is, he'll cross the picket line but never believe himself to be 'part of' the industry.

12) When organising ATP, there were a pitiful minority of British bands involved, in spite of the festival being in the UK.

13) His records (to repeat) sound like shit.

[Glice]

Originally Posted by Steve fucking Albini

Additionally, places poorly-served by the old-school record business (small or isolate towns, third-world and non-english-speaking countries) now have access to everything instead of a small sampling of music controlled by a hidebound local industry. When my band toured Eastern Europe a couple of years ago we had full houses despite having sold literally no records in most of those countries. Thank you internets.

14) This notion ONLY APPLIES TO BANDS ESTABLISHED IN THE OBJECT-EXCHANGE ERA OF PLENTY. Smaller bands are fucked because, not only can they make no money out of records, they can't hope to perform overseas until they establish and audience. Establishing that audience is harder in an era of increased availability of a wider range of recorded music; measuring that audience is impossible when there's no standard by which to measure the appreciation of the music.

[EVOLghost]

This song is called 'We;re sonic youth and you're steve albini'

[dead_battery]

Originally Posted by Glice

Oh good, here's a good place to unload some vitriol.

tl;dr: Fuck Steve Albini, again.

As ever of late, I'm gliding through, so this is the compressed version.

1) Recording is an artform. Performing is an artform. Steve Albini privileges the latter to the behest of the former in the context of the former. For which read: His idea of recording is that it should sound like a 'live band' in an era when most music is recording-first. His recording techniques are a perspective until he starts talking.

2) Bands who are good at being live bands often don't know about the nuances of recording, which is a very different thing. Albini has made deficient records for these people, frequently. An oversight if he's doing Ceilidh or be-bop; he's doing rock, which has the recording bang in the middle of its purpose.

3) 'I'm just an engineer' is a cop-out. The false modesty shit negates any responsibility he has for the recording. He doesn't just put mics in a room, he makes decisions and those decisions have an enormous influence upon the outcome of the record. Two false modesties, in fact: first that he just transcribes the 'live' sound, second that he has no responsibility for that transcription. There's modesty and there's damaging bands and washing his hands.

4) Many of his records sound like total shit. How do you fuck up the Stooges?

5) His idea of recording comes from a very specific era of 80s punk and punk-ethos. Even the people who operate in that narrow era are also aware of what happened afterwards.

6) It is 2013 and he's still analogue. Which is an exceptionally niche area. Which is also making a virtue of an authenticity that means precisely fuck all to punk rock.

7) Continual and unrelenting sexism that isn't 'ironic' and never has been. It belongs in the 1970s.

8) For every record that survives the various exchanges/ trade-offs between his atavistic techniques, convoluted understanding of what rock is and his false humility and still manages to be passable, there are 10 or 20 records which were shit.

9) Many of those shit records sunk smaller bands.

10) Acting like his reputation isn't something he's interested in does nothing about the fact he has a reputation; shit records are blamed on the bands, doubly so because he's at pains to deflect his responsibilities onto the bands.

11) He is a whiney motherfucker who has made precisely one good record in 30 years, and half a good one about 15 years ago.

12) For all his criticism of industry-capital he's never apparently done anything except operate in the manner of a contractor. That is, he'll cross the picket line but never believe himself to be 'part of' the industry.

12) When organising ATP, there were a pitiful minority of British bands involved, in spite of the festival being in the UK.

13) His records (to repeat) sound like shit.

If we try and remove your bitching and whining and get to the actual points made here...

Your criticisms of his recording techniques and styles are subjective. Bands who work with Albini pay for a certain sound, they want his signature style, if you think this is necessarily shit, then that's up to you. However it's redundant to try and extend that personal vitriol into some sort of grand objective statement, which you pretend to do.

How the hell you can write this then call HIM a whiny motherfucker is beyond me.

He doesn't 'damage' bands. He is one of the most honest and fair people with a voice operating today. His love for his culture manifests in the ethos of quality and workmanship which has informed his entire career. Obviously luck and circumstance play a large role in enabling this, but those things would be nothing without his talent, technical know how and hard work.

So you are talking utter bollox.

He doesn't pretend to be able to deliver anything other than what he's known for. It's a signature style, and nobody forces a band to chose it.

[dead_battery]

Lisa Carver: There's a Rapeman song called "Kim Gordon's Panties."

Kim Gordon: Yeah, I guess there is. I never really listened to it. Big Black were playing in Amsterdam, it was their last tour, and we happened to be there. In the train stations they have machines where you can buy women's underwear. It was Steve's birthday, so I bought some to throw at him so he would feel like a rock god on his birthday.



Lisa Carver: You really never listened to the song? You aren't interested to know what he thinks of your panties?

Kim Gordon: He mixes the lyrics so low, what's the point?

Lisa Carver: Right around that time, in the late '80s, people who didn't know you suddenly decided to start contemplating sex with you. Do you think that song had anything to do with catapulting you into sex symbol status?

Kim Gordon: I don't know -- maybe it did. A few people have asked me in interviews after that, "Oh, how does it feel to be a sex symbol? Steve Albini wrote this song..."

Lisa Carver: People think a person is beautiful or sexy if it's "known" that that person is beautiful or sexy. If Steve Albini says you're sexy, then all of a sudden you are.

Kim Gordon: It's incredible how the media works like that. It's fascinating.

Glice, why dont you go ask Kim Gordon if she needs your help battling sexism. There's a true woman of punk rock explaining exactly how important it is to act like a witch hunting inquisitor over this shit. When will assholes like you who want to suck up the injustice and emotion of peoples identity politics to prove to the world how fucking important your petty little 'conscience' really is just admit that you are just as much of an asshole as everyone else, only a thousand times more pompous about it?

[dead_battery]

Your point about sexism is just pathetic. I really doubt anyone dealing with that is particularly helped by self righteous male moralists policing their petty standards on everyone, like they actually give a fuck about doing anything but venting their spleens and self aggrandizing at someone elses expense. You sound like the assholes who write for quietus, nice liberal english men who have taken it upon themselves to save the souls of all the minorities. Oh thank god you came along or else we'd all be lost!

I bet victims of sexism are so pleased they are being used to enforce a new orthodoxy, which is only about enshrining doctrines that (male) liberal white men get to impose on everyone else and punish them as heretics for trespassing. In short, you are the high strung, hysterical asshole using cheap and easy moralism to self aggrandize.

This is the most transparent cover for the viciousness of your own egos and your own petty authority which you use to police others. Maybe take a look at the source of that aggression (hint, its not everybody elses fault).

I really doubt Steve Albinis sexism did fuck all to actually affect the lives of women. I'd sincerely doubt that a Rapeman or Big Black show wasn't a safer place for women than many other venues.

If you wanted to, you could argue that all of this is about venting male aggression and undermining it for the stupidity it is. Of course, making this argument would totally demolish the platform that middle class and above white liberals from the anglosphere require to demand their new puritanism. One that genuinely believes everything savage and violent about human nature can be exorcised through censorship in art and entertainment. This in itself is the most blatant load of bullshit and is about reducing understanding and compassion to soundbites. Maybe there is no clear message and Albini doesn't give a fuck. Maybe the audience didn't give a fuck either and got that. Maybe noone needed redundant assholes to take over the corpse of punk and try and retrofit it into some post calvinist liberal puritan bullshit. The only person who looks stupid is you and every other white male asshole trying to do this, its certainly more stupid than any of Albinis crass lyrics, which were never so foolish as to take their subjects as seriously as you take your self.

In short, you give not a single fuck about any minority or oppressed group, only yourself. It is precisely peoples ability to deal with the violence of the world that you fucking despise since you can't use their suffering to self aggrandize if they don't believe your enforcement of liberal puritanism in the fucking entertainment industry is going to do fuck all to soothe it.

You would have absolutely no problem with a feminist band writing ironic songs about violence against men. Albini does it and of course it has to be taken po faced and seriously. You're shitty orthodoxy doesn't have the power to define peoples true intentions like you think it does.

Stack up Albinis greatest hits against anything YOU'VE done and its clear who the winner is. You might want to wipe your mouth before you go accusing everything of being so shit. I bet all those bands that recorded with him feel so self conscious now that you have called their work shit without clearly defining which bands you mean.

[dead_battery]

2 nuns and a pack mule

bad penny

kerosene

prayer to god


oh look! music that people actually like to listen to! that's not your particular niche is it glice?

[Glice]

Let me make this clear: I'm not interested in talking to you or responding to you because it continues to be a worthless pursuit. There's not even the promise of humour, it's just deeply, deeply boring.

I should probably say that your approach to sexism is conservative though.

[dead_battery]

Sure, boring, fine. What was certainly not boring was the hissy fit of a posturing little whiner playing at being the true punk which I responded to.

It's obvious why you don't like people like Albini that actually do things and make good music.

I'm sure you have a more liberal and correct approach to sexism, and its actively manifest in your own life. I'm sure your upholding of such principles make you a better man than me and redeems your soul. You'll have to spare me the humiliation of laying it all out on the table though, because it's hard for me to take it anymore seriously than a few posts ago when your histrionics were at full blast.

is the "promise of humour" a way to mask the fact that you are an egomaniacal loser trying to show off exactly how punk you truly are without having to provide any evidence, so we'll all think you're in on the cool shit just through the sheer force of your disgust? all those 'shits' surely had to indicate SOMETHING other than some asshole shitting on others because his own ego is too big to allow anyone else to have accomplished anything...

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by Glice

Oh good, here's a good place to unload some vitriol.

tl;dr: Fuck Steve Albini, again.

A lot of people agree with you, but I think Steve is such a contentious prick sometimes because he is part of the big music industry, and has recorded albums for many of the "leading" bands of the 80s, 90s, and even 2000s... The guy has seen the belly of the beast, if he spits a little fire and throws a lot of salt in its direction, how could we judge him harshly for it? The mainstream music industry NEEDS an insider who is slowly sabotaging it from the inside out, and that is Steve Albini. Further, look at the records I posted, they are some of the best records ever recorded, and it is Steve's recording style that contributed. As he said in his letter to Nirvana in 1992, the recording industry likes to invade the studio, fill it with industry sycophants, and have them steamroll all the credit while taking all the money. Steve on the other hand, is always interested in recording a serious album. That, and sometimes, simply put, and I speak from experience, bands in the recording studio can be a seriously immature pain in the ass. The engineer needs to be a dick sometimes, but not a pretentious or insidious kind of dick. Recording industry goons are dicks because they want to pimp the band and have the label make all the money. Steve is a dick sometimes because he just wants to help the band get their record recorded in a reasonable amount of time, and sometimes in the studio it takes tough love. Whenever I am in the studio recording with a band, I am always having the nudge everybody along, bands have a notoriously short attention span and recording a record takes a lot of concentrated effort. I have been ten times the dick Steve is in the studio, because sometimes you have to, to get the fucking job done. The studio isn't for partying excessively, its not some kind of jam space, its not a place to bring the chicks you're fucking, its a place to record a fucking record, sometimes bands and bandmates need a less than friendly reminder of this..

1) For which read: His idea of recording is that it should sound like a 'live band' in an era when most music is recording-first. His recording techniques are a perspective until he starts talking.

But I agree with him, so many albums are so utterly over-produced. People rely to much on technology. What makes some of the records of the 1960s so fucking epically great? The minimal use of technology, of overdubs, of studio magic, an instead, just set up the mics and press record.

2) Bands who are good at being live bands often don't know about the nuances of recording, which is a very different thing. Albini has made deficient records for these people, frequently.

You're going to have to give examples, because otherwise your are simply bellowing out of your ass.

3) 'I'm just an engineer' is a cop-out. There's modesty and there's damaging bands and washing his hands.

Bullshit, again, name names or get the fuck out.

4) Many of his records sound like total shit. How do you fuck up the Stooges?

I disagree completely, but these are matters of taste aren't they. Too me, that "live" sound of Steve Albini recods is so uniquely his own trademark, that no one else can pull it off, and no other records sound as crisp, sharp, or pure. As to The Weirdness, I couldn't disagree with you more, and if anybody fucked up that record, it was the Stooges themselves. Me, I LOVED the production on that record. Too many people complain about "low vocals", I just don't hear it, but maybe I love instrumentation so much that what I like about Steve Albini recorded records is that the instrumentation isn't hidden behind the vocals..

5) His idea of recording comes from a very specific era of 80s punk and punk-ethos. Even the people who operate in that narrow era are also aware of what happened afterwards.

Yet that style and ethos is not limited to the 80s, it is one worth aspiring for in any era.

6) It is 2013 and he's still analogue. Which is an exceptionally niche area. Which is also making a virtue of an authenticity that means precisely fuck all to punk rock.

AND GOD BLESS THE MAN. THERE IS NOTHING I CAN'T STAND WORSE THAN THE OVER DIGITALIZATION OF MUSIC. IT ALL SOUNDS LIKE SHIT. IT ALL SOUNDS LIKE A FUCKING BING CROSBY RECORD. FUCK DIGITAL. NOTHING BEATS TAPE. NOTHING. PERIOD. FUCK PRO TOOLS. FUCK COMPUTERS. KEEP IT ANALOG, AND GOD BLESS STEVE FOR DOING THIS.

Remember in the 1990s how bands were buying all kinds of bad as 1970s Gibsons and Fenders at the pawn shop for dirt cheep because all those terrible sounding, ugly as hell 1980s "techno" guitars were in the vogue? Hahahaha!! As if a 1970s Fender was trash!!!! Same thing with analog recording, it is the crown jewel. THE HUMAN EAR HEARS IN ANALOG, MUSIC SHOULD BE RECORDED THE SAME. True, modern digital technology is getting increasingly better and not "clipping" and computers are getting fast enough to catch up with analog recording, but still, nothing captures the raw sound in a room better then a magnetic tape. It picks up EVERYTHING as it exists, which is how the ear hears it in real time. Tape sounds like real life, digital sounds like it was fabricated using a synthesizer. Guitar feedback through a digital recording sounds like a fucked up CASIO KEYBOARD from the 1980s. Is that a band or some asshole playing the organ at the mall? Drums through digital recording don't sound like instruments, the sound like drum machines. FUCK DIGITAL RECORDING.

7) Continual and unrelenting sexism that isn't 'ironic' and never has been. It belongs in the 1970s.

You're talking out of your ass again. The guy as recorded albums for some of the most influential women playing music in the past 30 years, and probably recorded more women than any other single engineer or producer ever!! Only John Goodmanson has worked with as many or more women musicians...

8) For every record that survives the various exchanges/ trade-offs between his atavistic techniques, convoluted understanding of what rock is and his false humility and still manages to be passable,

The guy is who is he is, at least he is himself, instead of some kind of industry parasite.

9) Many of those shit records sunk smaller bands.

Bullshit. Name names or get the fuck out.

10) Acting like his reputation isn't something he's interested in does nothing about the fact he has a reputation; shit records are blamed on the bands, doubly so because he's at pains to deflect his responsibilities onto the bands.

I don't think he isn't interested in his reputation, I just think he isn't about living solely through it, saying to himself in mirror every day, "Fuck yeah I AM Steve Albini, I recorded with Nirvana, PJ Harvey, even the Stooges.." Instead he just is himself, sometimes he is a total curmudgeon, sometimes a sincerely nice guy, but who isn't?

11) He is a whiney motherfucker who has made precisely one good record in 30 years, and half a good one about 15 years ago.

He records at least 3-5 great records a decade, you're totally tripping. And as dead_battery already mentioned, the irony of you whining and bitching is hilarious as the way Robin Thicke looks.

12) For all his criticism of industry-capital he's never apparently done anything except operate in the manner of a contractor. That is, he'll cross the picket line but never believe himself to be 'part of' the industry.

Cross the picket line. You're cute. Really. How long did it take you to think of that analogy? The guy doesn't think of himself as some kind of crusading outsider, he knows he is part of the big music industry, but he clearly and consistently operates in an entirely different way and approach.

12) When organising ATP, there were a pitiful minority of British bands involved, in spite of the festival being in the UK.

True, but that never seemed to bother the MASSES of Brits showing up every year did it

13) His records (to repeat) sound like shit.

An opinion, which you're free to share, but its a matter of taste, and obviously like MILLIONS of fucking people disagree with you completely

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

I just listened to that Stooges record today, I though the production was fine, in fact, I don't think its a bad record at all..

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by foreverasskiss

^^tell you the truth, i've only heard two songs off that record. not interested in reunion albums.

.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQErUwjWjgw

You should check it out, there is the full album, its really not bad, its not like epic great, but really, if EVERY record a band put out was epic it would diminish the meaning of the word. Very few bands if any have ever put out nothing but phenomenal records every time. I agree with reunion bands, I'm more into the "super bands" which have been forming, because I've always been a fan of side-projects. I'm bumping this Isis-Crosses-Deftones side-project Palms right now, it is like, EPIC, its exactly what I've been looking for. Crosses sort of touched on it, deftones went there with White Pony but didn't find their way back, Team Sleep nailed it but only on their 2001 tour, after that they could never duplicate it, and Isis had it in pieces and parts, but never as a whole. I think the crooning that Chino brings to it finally helped bring the truer shoegaze to the surface of Isis and Crosses when they merged. Basically, sounds like if Isis fronted by Chino became War Paint tour 2009..

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by foreverasskiss

cool. i'll check those other projects out too.

Palms

Team Sleep circa 2001 pay close attention to the drum work after 5:18.. fuck! THAT is the sound I love most in guitar oriented music. A dronish, shoegazy, but more metal drum work, faster, edgier than shoe gaze. Shoe gaze is the more stoned version of the fiercest metal. I like shoegaze, but I love it heavier. Earth's first record just blows me away. Ambient distortion with good drum work is priceless. THAT is what this Palms project has. THAT is what White Pony was,.. Fuck. 2001 was one of my all time favorite years ever for music..

Crosses Is This A Trick


back to Steve Albini engineered records..

Personally, its my bias but I think Shannon Wright Over the Sun is his best recording ever, because it so perfectly captured the uniqueness that was Shannon Wright live between 2001-2003. ONLY Steve Albini could have pulled of this record in such a way, its a subtle, noisy, dynamic record. It begged for him, and I think its why they both were excited about. Around the time, Steve sounded almost flirty about it, I dare say he may have been smitten on the girl.. He also recorded part of her Dyed in the Wool record, which is entirely different kind of record, but is one of the finest records ever as well...