STEVE ALBINI

I'm just wondering, I mean, I like some of Albini's stuff as a guitarist, and I certainly own no shortage of Albini-produced/recorded/engineered alb's, but I buy those to hear the band, not the Bean.

I mean, I wouldn't eat burnt fries just because they were made with PEI spuds.

Skronk!

sundar you are needed on those threads about Pop processes and performers.....
It looks like you'd be on the 'Pop Personalities! They're GrrrrrrrrATE!' side of things, since there's an implication from the above that the engineering/musician thing should be just be a backroom work-like function? Or have I just misinterpreted a joke?
(I'm not having a go here - I'm genuinely curious....)

you're kidding, right? his are the dryest drums i can think of.

oh no it's INDIE!

been reading the luke haines book where he speaks fondly about steve albini (and NO ONE ELSE at all ever), which got me thinking about that 2+2 thread where albini answered a bunch of questions about his career. i read all through it a few years back and im sure he spoke about luke haines/auteurs but i can't find it on there, any ilxors remember?

Albini and gf do a lot of work for charity, talk about it, are hampered by US postal service

that is so fucking inspiring

not the post office security crap, albini's secret santa thing

TO THE ONE TRUE SANTA ABOVE, THIS IS MY etc.

that is an awesome thing to do. Silly postal service.

The couple contacted U.S. Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill., who told them he would look into the post office's policy change. But after talking to postal officials, Davis decided he agreed with the policy change.

"Better to be safe than sorry, that what my momma used to tell us," Davis said. "You can't be too protective."

Well... Yes, you can.

That distinctive metallic chingety-ching guitar sound that Albini gets on 'Kerosene' etc... from now on I will only ever hear that as the sound of badly-mic'ed sleigh bells.

aw that's a real nice thing steve.

er, I thought Albini was a jerk. CONFUSING

i met him once when shellac played my friend's wedding and he was super nice and polite, even talked with their parents and everything.

Line-up for next week's Letters to Santa benefit in Chicago. Second City has about 200 seats, so it's a nice, intimate place to see bands. I saw Shellac there at 3 a.m. a few years ago, for an audience of about 50; saw Tweedy, Robbie Fulks, and Jason Molina as well. The Blisters is Tweedy's kid's band--maybe 12 years old, now.

Again. Again. Again.
24 hours of improvisation and music.
Second City ETC
1608 N Wells St Chicago, IL
All-ages
$15 for entire 24 hours
Tickets available at the door only.
Tuesday December 15 6pm through Wednesday December 16 6pm
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=146133034046&ref=ts
Auction items, raffle prizes, music and funny

Confirmed Special Guests
7pm Jeff Tweedy
10pm Robbie Fulks
Midnight Asssscat with Horatio Sanz & Matt Walsh with Chicago Guests
3am Flash Mob Marching Band
6am Bonnie Prince Billy
Noon Nina Nastasia
2pm The Mountain Goats
4:30pm The Blisters

haha, Shellac plays weddings? wow. but yeah, it seems like Albini likes (or liked) being provocative, but most people who work with him seem to love the guy.

yeah basically my friends are super fans and his wife to be just emailed bob weston i think and ended up chatting with them about it...they basically had to pay enough to cover the opening touring band's room & board (had a band from NZ on the shellac tour) but anyway it worked out with their schedule and it was really fun, my old band got to open...

they played most of "la grange" and about 30 second of "shout at the devil" wish i recorded that set

http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/9109/stevealbini02dx3.jpg

Steve Albini's cookery blog..

http://mariobatalivoice.blogspot.com/

"I have also successfully cooked for our cats."

classic!

I like how if you go back to the first few entries it reads like the blandest most uninspired cooking blog ever - think there might have been rather a lot of feet-finding here

his 'great mate' Luke Haines just started one as well, can't quite figure out how much his recipes are trolling (unless you're Paul Weller)

Now that is worth bookmarking!

lol yeah I subscribed to that one

he sure does make a lot of pasta

Love how all of Albini's hobbies - online poker! cooking blog! - reveal him to be the nice, normal guy his reputation doesn't always convey. Though I think he's mellowed a lot as he creeps toward 50.

Now, an Ian MacKaye cooking blog, that would be a surprise.

I remember when Fugazi did a recipe column for Maximum Rock'n'Roll and it was for fucking oatmeal, no joke.

The Haines food blog is fucking great.

Luke Haines?

x-post

Ian M.'s been a vegetarian for awhile and a parent for a few years so maybe he could do some interesting blog posts

in some recent henry rollins interview (on wtf i think) he was talking about how he basically hates the whole 'eating' thing and mostly eats oatmeal.

The only time I have ever followed a musician's recipe was when I made spicy bean burgers from Richard Youngs' vegan cookbook. They were horrible btw and my family hated them.

Please tell me that somewhere in the comments on the Albini blog, Michael Gerard has complained about the quality of his hamburgers.

Man, I get this all part of Albini's cranky old man persona, but I call bullshit on this (from his Gothamist interview):

I’m an exceptionally lucky man in that I’ve never heard a note of Lady Gaga’s music and you could sit her on my lap and I wouldn’t recognize her. I know that she’s a cultural force at the moment but I’m quite satisfied in having dodged that one. It’s like a truck drove by spraying shit from a nozzle over the entire neighborhood and I happened to be under an awning. You know?

I bet he has a Lady Gaga poster above his bed.

Did you know he was a poker ace?

Yeah; he can get dangerously close to "the guy at parties who loudly tells people 'I don't even OWN a TV'" at times.

His whole "You know what I can authoritatively declare sucks? This thing I've never heard/experienced!" schtick is getting old(er).

Someone needs to tell him that shouting this kind of thing hasn't earned anyone "cred" since at least 1995.

love this guy--he's prolly not worried about his cred either at this point. he's having a laugh you know?

Too bad it's not a funny laugh.

i'm going to drive by his house and play lady gaga really loud.

The fees are one thing but something that really gets me is when venues are directly partnered with third party ticket brokers through the app I am forced to download to access venues, I have def been looking for tickets to "sold out" shows where the venue app has helpfully linked me to these brokers for "somewhat" greater than face value tickets, where is the oversight that keeps the venues honest?

enjoying Steve's gear nerd Youtube career

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxZwaqVBo-k

I love it that he calls them 'amplifiers' instead of 'amps'.