STEVE ALBINI

somebody shoulda posted about isentity posturing upthread lol

identity

another way of describing the Chicago scene at that time is there were those who viewed it as a springboard to international fame & success, and those for whom the work, while sometimes happily profitable, is decidedly not that -- for whom the point is largely local.

To Left's point above, in my experience, class difference is often a factor here, too. Of course, Liz Phair disproves this theory somewhat

It’s hard to imagine having a coherent underground scene in as big a city as Chicago.

Billy Corgan came from a pretty working class family, iirc. Per the Bruce Adams passage, Corgan may be a dork but no one could say the dude didn't hustle for his success.

It makes me like a organ a bit more to know that noise scencesters were threatened by his music

Ha Corgan

ah time for the quarterly Albini debate

Within 2 years of that letter he flew to Abbey Road to record Bush, he's fairly pliable with his ethics/taste crossover.

Billy's apparently moved onto threatening the pro-wrestling community -- I wonder who else would have been involved in both besides Bob Mould?

Chris Jericho?

Oh I just remembered CM Punk finagled Albini into doing his horror movie soundtrack.

Rick Rubin is a huge wrestling guy.

he's not that big

Fuckers in school telling me, always in the barber shop
"Nash Kato ain't 'bout this, Kato ain't 'bout that"
My boy a BD on fucking Electtic Audio and them
He, he, they say that slut don't be putting in no work
Shut the fuck up, y'all ain't know shit
All y'all motherfuckers talkin' about
"Nash Kato ain't no hitter, Nash Kato ain't this, Nash Kato a fake"
Shut the fuck up, y'all don't deal with Touch & Go
Y'all know that he got caught with a ratchet
Shootin' at the police and shit
He been on probation since fuckin' I don't know when
Motherfucker, stop fuckin' playin' him like that
That band savages out there
If I catch another motherfucker talking sweet about Nash Kato
I'm fucking beatin' they ass, I'm not fucking playin' no more
Know them sluts roll with Liz Phair and them

https://www.horrorgeeklife.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Randy-Savage-Vinyl.jpg

Urge Overkill may suck, but "Sister Havana" is a jam imo

They do not suck.

scene fragility is always a thing. everyone likes it when people are skipping rocks across the water, people get upset when someone just chucks a big rock in and disrupts what they thought was a calm surface

Within 2 years of that letter he flew to Abbey Road to record Bush, he's fairly pliable with his ethics/taste crossover.

He has said that the huge fee for the Bush album helped him subsidize Electrical Audio and keep costs lower for Indie bands.

He’s not selling out.. he’s buying in!

The Smashing Pumpkins have been recording at Electrical Audio recently fwiw.

Sluts

“Recorded and produced at Electric Audio p/b Bush”

The rates are very reasonable!

Probably just repeating the points from the the good JCLC posts upthread, but the Wyman pieces linked here really are shot through with a subtext of "Isn't it cool these folks will be rich and famous soon!" that I find off-putting.

It's not hard to detect a "the local scene is the minor leagues, and I care about the major leagues" tone, which annoys me, but especially when the local scene in question is Chicago in the 90s

That's not even getting into the whole "Courtney Love tried to lure me into Nash Kato kicking my ass" stuff in the retrospective piece, or referring to Humboldt Park as "Urge Overkill Territory"

Who could forget the famous Urge Overkill/Latin Kings alliance?

ah time for the quarterly Albini debate

feels kind of like we're on an every 2-3 month cycle with this lately

I still think about that time somebody direct messagef me on America Online in like 1998 because I was in a chat room about the breeders

he said hi I'm Steve Albini, I was curious to see you in this chat room, I'm trying to find out more about what people think about this music

and I gave him my thoughts

I always wonder, it couldn't have really been him. but also, to what end would a person have lied about that. the '90s!

well there wasn't a whole lot more to do online in the 90s

Albini was on the chugchanga-l mailing list in ‘94-‘95 as I recall

90s abini usenet group, thems is stern vibes

"trying to find out more about what people think about this music"

Doesn't sound like Albini to me.

Albini--known for seeking out feedback on his productions from randos

to what end would a person have lied about that. the '90s!

I for one have never heard of an adult lying to a younger person on the internet about who they are and attempting to build rapport by asking them questions about their interests, in the ‘90s

this happened to me in 1995 but with Phil Rudd of AC/DC

When I was working in a record store in London during the 90s a chatty customer said that he was Jonathan Richman, and that he was shortly going to be doing a gig with Hawkwind.

That's interesting b/c someone was impersonating Richman more recently, even booking shows in his name I think (here in the US)... it made the news

Let Me Google That For Me: https://www.theolympian.com/news/local/article253810488.html

I just imagined Hawkwind opening for Richman and made me think of the notion of mega acts supporting JR. Missy Elliot, U2, Pink Floyd...

Pink Floyd opening for Jonathan Richman: stunning light show/psychedelic opener ends and house lights come on, JR walks onto stage with his acoustinc and explains to the manager why the air conditioner has to be turned off ("it's too noisy"). Launches into "I'm a Little Dinosaur." Lighters fill the air.

Maybe the closest JR and Hawkwind came to sharing a stage:

Sex Pistols played to one of the biggest crowds of the weekend at the second day of the Barcelona leg of the Summercase Festival last night (July 19).

The UK punk veterans played an extended, cover-packed set that climaxed with unique takes on Hawkwind‘s ‘Silver Machine’ and Jonathan Richman‘s ‘Roadrunner’.

lol

reading the SST records biography and had a quick chuckle at Albini's fairly OTM description on the Hüsker Dü crew:

Greg looks like he stepped out of GQ, with cropped hair, trimmed mustache and muscular build; Grant could replace anybody in Motorhead (maybe two people in Motorhead); and Bob looks like a St. Paul gas station attendant after a hard day's work.

In case anyone missed it back-when, here is a great story of a writer coming across an email address that turns out belongs to Eddie Van Halen, which sets in motion a long mostly epistolary friendship:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/eddie-van-halen-secret-friendship-emails-1367678/

Why was that guy emailing addresses he found on LexisNexis? Kinda weird…

Relatedly, I saw this on Threads today… don’t know who the guy is, but I guess it’s plausible enough.

wait eddie van halen is dead?!

Quick, nobody mention Prince or Bowie either.