STEVE ALBINI

Throw The 'R' Away for me

Based on his taste and his no-no list, I bet Steve is the ultimate "Cabaret Voltaire personally betrayed me after Red Mecca" guy

lololol

I know he did criticize 80s Wire.

I'm with James Redd. I wouldn't call it a favorite, but after listening to it a few times, "500 Miles" sounds like a pretty good single to me.

I listened to that whole album for the first time the other day, it was pretty solid.

That album even has its own POLL

Do you know what their most recent album is called?

He seemed to have kicked up a fuss today amongst Jeff Rosenstock fans

I'd tread lightly that's a tough bunch

for anyone who came here to see why people are upset and didn't expect a bunch of posts about the Proclaimers

Not often admitted, but merch cuts are 100% negotiable, to the extent that my bands over 40+ years have never, not once, ever paid them. When agents make deals, they don't care about ticket surcharges, merch cut or other leaks; they don't affect their cut. The band has to insist. https://t.co/EoX5fHiz5J

— steve albini (@electricalWSOP) September 5, 2023

Albini and Rosenstock ended up saying nice things about one another, but people were posting that German tour diary

When it’s not “venue sells,” how does a venue audit / collect? They won’t let you fold up the table until you show them your books and write them a check for 10% of the cash you took in?

Rosenstock correctly pointing out that Shellac (with a band leader whose day job isn’t Shellac) doesn’t necessarily play by the same rules as most bands.

Somebody asked him on Bluesky about recording Sunn O))) and his responses were interesting, so I'm pasting them here.

>>Have you done an interview where you discuss the technical aspects of recording SunnO)))? Such a crazy thing to try to capture.

>>It was hard! Rendering subtleties of texture at 130 dB is no joke, and they were discerning about every small detail. Very satisfying to have the playback sound convincing but a lot of work to get there.

>>But what did you do differently than other loud (but not as loud) sessions to capture those subtle textures?

>>It seems like I'm ducking the question but there's no shortcut. I listened to each of the amps, found a mic that suited each one, maintained phase and polarity between them, listened and adjusted on a per-song basis, sometimes swapping out the whole arsenal, used ambient sound judiciously...

>>Some mics I might have used at lower volume simply couldn't cope, some were surprisingly okay with it. It was not just the loudest thing ever recorded in the studio, it was the loudest thing I've ever witnessed. The whole building was vibrating and it's a pretty sturdy building.

>>Any particular standouts in the representing-high-volume dept (asking for myself)? I assume it would be unhealthy for most ribbon mics...

>>Unless a note hits the resonant frequency of the ribbon (typically quite low, but not impossible) modern ribbons (AEA, Beyer, Royer) can handle pretty high spl, and some shorter old school ribbons (RCA 74, BK5) do just fine as well. I know I used some but without my notes I have no idea which atm.

>>Is it even possible to evaluate the live sound with actual human ears? Or was it mostly about test recordings and iterating mic choice and placement?

>>Oh, the sound in the room, the live sound was what we were shooting for. Steve and Greg would spend quite some time dialing in a precise sound for each piece, and that was that. Loud or quiet, first task of an engineer is to listen to something and make a recording to recreate that sense memory.

Gibby f'n hates Steve Albini!

https://instagram.com/underdoser?igshid=OGQ5ZDc2ODk2ZA==

Anyone know what Steve said about the Buttholes recently?

probably mad about the disrespect shown here:

Been thinking about this picture of Steve Albini playing guitar while wearing an upside down Butthole Surfers t shirt. pic.twitter.com/tn1kWwJMS4

— Father Sean Misty (@seanieviola) October 6, 2019

He looks like Martin Starr in Freaks & Geeks.

When a Butthole Surfers shirt is being worn upside down, that is a signal that there's distress in the butthole.

Gibby also hangs out with Michael Stipe

I mean Johnny Depp (I always get them confused)

Damn... I never heard of that tour diary excerpt.

that's a really disgusting passage

though...gibby seems like a dude who might not want his own history under a microscope

Huh, would have expected Albini to be a Surfers fan.

There's a Pitchfork interview from 2015 where Albini and Ian Mackaye enthuse about the Butthole Surfers. Not sure what's happened since then.

A lot of anti-Butthole lines were publicly drawn in the lawsuits between Buttholes and Touch & Go, with fellow bandmate Santiago Durango as T&G's lawyer(!)
I imagine the antipathy hasn't gotten any better since then. Even in the reminiscing interviews with Albini/MacKaye, there's always a disappointment expressed at what buttholes the Buttholes became.

The Butthole Surfers' '80s catalog is some of the most amazing music ever barfed out under the heading of "rock," and they were incredible live back then, but would I want to hang out in a room with any of them under other circumstances? I don't think so.

there was an extensive Kramer interview covering, in part, his tenure in the Surfers, but it appears to have been scrubbed from the internet, it was the defunct believermag dot com site

lots of harrowing Gibby madness documented

taking sides: chilling with peak insanity Gibby vs peak asshole Albini

there was an extensive Kramer interview covering, in part, his tenure in the Surfers, but it appears to have been scrubbed from the internet, it was the defunct believermag dot com site

lots of harrowing Gibby madness documented

― out-of-print LaserDisc edition (sleeve), Monday, November 6, 2023 12:36 PM (four minutes ago)

this one?
https://www.thebeliever.net/logger/three-questions-for-kramer/

thank you, yes! a great read

taking sides: chilling with peak insanity Gibby vs peak asshole Albini

This is no contest, I wouldn’t even want to hang with kinder gentler current Albini.

be careful with using the word "kinder" and "Albini" in the same sentence unless you want to end up on a list

Gibby is a great guy!

I've been lurking this thread for years and it suddenly occurred to me that I don't care about this guy or his music at all. Going to feel good to remove this bookmark!

Posted this in an Nirvana thread, but there was a pretty great interview last week on Conan Needs a Friend w/Albini, Grohl and Novoselik. Worth it to hear them recollect Albini impersonating Cobain and prank calling Gene Simmons, Eddie Vedder and Evan Dando during the In Utero sessions.

omg Whiney

That Kramer article was a good read.

Mike Judge should do a Butthole Surfers movie ala "Tales from the Tour Bus". It is a Texas story.

Albini's one of the few guys who I think actually figured out a way to atone for his past edgelordy behavior so I'm not sure what Gibby is getting at here. everyone knows he used to be like that

Kramer article was indeed awesome, thanks.

Kramer should write a book, preferably including a lengthy ranting chapter about the messy Bongwater break-up. Then another chapter devoted entirely to analysing the work of The Tinklers.

I'd love a chapter about The Tinklers!

Holy shit, I was going to just skim it but there is so much there! Someone should Kickstart a Kramer memoir.

haha glad everyone is enjoying that interview, it is indeed great

"I. Fucking. Quit. This. Stupid. Band"

the best thing i've read in a while

I love things where the person has visited several different musical worlds and is able to describe the feeling of being in each one. Fred Wesley’s Hit Me Fred: Recollections of a Sideman and Joe Boyd’s White Bicycles both come to mind.

the bit at the end about gibby et al being solid gold and not being afraid of death was righteous and made me choke up a little. also love how he is awestruck by paul's guitar solo at the oil kids concert. also he looks pretty blazed in that photo with caetano veloso lol.

xpost OTM, those books rule.

Wonder if Gibby has read page 281 of Miki Berenyi's book.

Why, what's on page 281 of Miki Berenyi's book?