STEVE ALBINI

um, he's not just a recording engineer sundar. shellac, rapeman and big black were/are good rock bands.

oh... don't forget the record buttons! and those level knobs! oh shit... and the pan knob!

(really tho... all respect due...)
m.

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.

Electrical Audio had a forum where Albini was a regular poster, would not be remotely surprising if he was frequenting music chat rooms or Usenet back in the day.

Advice from the font on mic'ing guitars
https://www.premierguitar.com/artists/guitarists/steve-albini-always-in-session

Interesting, thanks

Strings and Picks

-Ice picks with the points cut off
-D’Addario XLs (.012–.016–.020w–.028–.038–.048)

Electrical Audio had a forum where Albini was a regular poster

https://bsky.app/profile/electricalwsop.bsky.social/post/3kprvpyaqoh24

Finalizing Fall US tour dates and my frustration with with exorbitant ticket fees is at peak. It's like pulling teeth to have tickets available at face value, which we insist on. Being fair, some venues are fine and cooperative, but this whole practice should be illegal.

For the unfamiliar, venues typically contract a ticket agency to sell their tickets for them online, and sometimes these deals require all ticket sales to go through the agency. The agencies add ticket fees on top of the face value, and kick back a percentage of the fee to the venue.

In the best case, the fees are modest, a couple of bucks, and charging a premium for the convenience of online buying seems reasonable. In bigger markets the fees can amount to an extra 30% over face value, with the venue getting on the order of 1/3 of the fee kicked back.

This is preposterous on its face, tantamount to fraud and should not be tolerated by anybody. It persists because the fiction of "face value" allows negotiation of deals with bands that *look* fair, but contain a massive hidden payout to the venue or promoter. Booking agents are complicit in this...

Because the money doesn't come out of their end. Bands are often completely in the dark about these fees so as not to rile them up, and the "face value" of tickets is at an all-time high to begin with. It's a cozy one-hand-washes-the-other arrangement between them, a very close analog to merch fees.

In both cases, if you look at the deal on paper, the band may be receiving a reasonable percentage of the gig income and the agent gets their fee from that part, but there is a hidden cost born by the audience, unaccounted and ignored that is a naked money grab by the venue.

And in the most egregious cases, tickets bought at the box office are still padded with ticket surcharges and fees. They've taken to charging you for the privilege of buying a ticket. Exactly like charging you five bucks to unlock the pump before you buy gas.

Most bands are insulated from this situation by having booking agents as intermediaries. It's only bands that get into the granular detail of their shows that even know that there are ticket fees attached, much less that their "$25" ticket actually costs a fan $34.

Hey I know it's rough out there earning a living in the arts. I'm aware. I know venues are squeezed by agents for absurd guarantees and they're looking for a way to get over, trying to find an edge. I'm aware and that's bullshit too. But it's fraudulent and reprehensible and everybody should say so.

good post

John Fogerty and Bonnie Raitt tickets are currently over $200 for shows here that won't even happen for six months

Thread is currently pretty Albini-active. Someone asks:

what do you make of what the cure accomplished with ticketmaster? (www.vulture.com/2023/04/the-...) is this kind of pressure campaign even possible for indie acts that play midsize venues? does the fact that more big acts don't do what robert smith did just reflect negligence on their part?

Albini responds:

Like I said, it's an issue largely (intentionally) kept in the dark for the bands. Robert Smith took an interest and had influence because of his stature, but most bands don't know about the street price of their tickets, and by the time they find out it's too late to do anything.

It's plainly true that every line of every deal for every show is negotiable, but weeding through it all and getting venues to agree is a huge drag on time, energy and patience, and I totally get why most bands just abdicate/delegate it to their booking agencies. It sucks having to do it.

The major problem with booking agencies is they have no incentive to make deals efficient or transparent. They get a percentage of what the band gets paid, and cannot care about anything else on the page. If inefficient shadiness gets the band an extra grand, they get an extra $150 and that's great.

I’ve definitely ran into “the $25 ticket is really $34” this year at semi-indie venues (local promoters who book at multiple venues). After getting burned a few times, I just add it in now when considering going (which sucks).

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'.

Nice to see this from Steve.

I am shocked by how excited I am for a new Shellac album.