STEVE ALBINI

I appreciated this.

I don't think the Gen X thing I mentioned was supposed to be thought of as "intentionally being a dick" rather than a revolt against ingrained attitudes of which perhaps their parents were the last to defend. The whole slacker ethos was in part political: deliberately dropping out of society, turning one's back on the stuffy, clean-cut mores and values of the earlier part of the century: "Fuck you I won't do what you tell me" etc. Unfortunately that gets unpacked and interpreted a number of ways, so yes, it often did boil down to a lot of intentional dickishness, in the same way as "Fuck you I won't do what you tell me" eventually became batoned over the years into "Everything is fucked, everything is fucked/All I wanna do is break stuff" (although that's more of an early millennial anthem but I hope you get my train of thought)

Yeah I hear you. I guess I'm young enough (late Gen X / straddling the Millennial line) that I've never really understood or related to that older Gen X slacker/rebellion ethos.

yeah, i feel similarly, also near that age but a very early millennial, a pioneer for the new 1000 years. there was no one there to explain the gen x / slacker thing, so i basically understood it through pop culture - how the simpsons would portray sonic youth, stuff like that. the rebellion thing didn't really connect with me - i'm still not sure there's a direct connection between the "slacker" thing and "political rebellion" thing. the idea to drop out of society has been part of every generation since the boomers, at least, right? and slackers didn't even do that (it seems to me), they just kind of thought caring about stuff was inherently uncool

anyway, don't mean to go on a tangent about "slackers", i know that's not central to dog latin's point

I thought part of it was sort of a reaction against the excesses and materialism of the '80s – like, "We're just gonna hang around Austin" (literally, in the movie Slacker) "and do what's satisfying as a lifestyle, not strive for the conventional trappings of success"?

Which I guess in a way would be rebelling against their parents' path (for some)...

From the sounds of it I'm roughly the same age as you and apparently I'm on the absolute cusp of what is generally defined as Gen X/Millennial, and while I know it's wrong to out too much stock in these marketing concepts, I feel there's a marked distinction in attitudes between friends who were a few years older than me growing up and people younger. This might be a UK thing, but there didn't seem to be so much of a stigma about "dropping out" among those I knew who were in their late-teens/early-adulthoods in the early-90s. They would go travelling or live in a squat or get an arts grant or just go on the dole. I'm a bit too young to remember myself, but from what I'm told, going on the dole was just a thing people did from time to time. I even had friends a few years older than me who wore their lack of work ethic as a badge of pride. Anyone younger than me would have been abhorred. And the stigma around benefits has increased so sharply since then that even people who genuinely deserve social security and government money are painted out as scroungers in society.

But yes, we're digressing here. Or maybe not... The same UK slackers I'm thinking of, who were, as I say, self-professed countercultural types with strong (I would say) antiestablishment, if not quite-far-left values, are now the ones moaning about cancel culture and snowflakes and blah blah

The Mary Whitehouses of this world were trying to protect some sort of old fashioned, almost Victorian values of "decency". Gen X were largely about rebelling against such stuffy, repressive ideals most likely enforced by their parents. It was a dutiful countercultural signifier to be shocking, to break these taboos, to be "authentic" without sugar-coating or genuflecting to notions of decency.

Maggie Nelson's new book has an essay about art, which I haven't read in full, but I found this line to be interesting and illustrative of shifting attitudes:

"The twentieth-century model imagined the audience as numb, constricted, and in need of being awakened and freed (hence, an aesthetics of shock), where as the twenty-first-century model presumes the audience to be damaged, in need of healing, aid, and protection (hence, an aesthetics of care)."

That is interesting. I mean, you could apply a whole bunch of theories here but maybe there's a noticeable cycle of breaking/fixing going on in societal art ove the generations which would be interesting to look at. I certainly find the whole turn-of-the-millennium era of pop culture interesting because a lot of it really does feel like the apex of unapologetically provocative excess: Limp Bizkit, Tom Greene, Blink182, superclubs playing Ibiza trance anthems, the rise of pop songs specifically about money, Eminem etc. To 19 year old me (who had grown up with 90s punk, hip-hop, rave, metal etc) it felt like all that stuff was overshooting and missing the point: It felt like an extreme apex, endpoint and farce of the stuff I had previously enjoyed, like someone heard Rage Against The Machine and thought "Yeah these guys are really angry about something, probably their breakfasts or something" and copied it and 'roided it up and took out all the politics and had a big hit with it. All that kind of stuff felt to me like the logical conclusion of "shock values" because it had no agenda other than to shock or provoke little more than an apolitical sense of energy and excitement that was nevertheless aimless.

... Blink-182?

I'm sorry, was there more than one band that went by that name

no see they're Blink-182-1, you're thinking about Blink-182-2

I think you're thinking of Black 47.

You're thinking of the Blink-182 from Earth 31.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SqhSfx2TkE

John Mayer (of all people) said something recently about David Letterman in this interview that got me thinking along similar lines:

Letterman was this trusty depot: 5 nights a week you could hang out in this place where, if you were a bright person — but one who also didn’t want to use their intelligence manipulatively — you could watch someone use their intelligence for entertainment purposes. Basically misappropriate their intelligence! I grew up in Fairfield, Connecticut, and if you grew up in New England and you were bright, there was a good chance you were going to go into some dark art, like become a defense attorney. But Letterman was sending up erudition by misappropriating it for nonsense, and I always found that heroic.

The idea of misappropriating talent and entitlement feels like something Letterman and Belushi brought to Gen-X American men.

And where the edgelord business ties in, as a model for Gen-X men to imitate, is the idea morrisp said of "intentionally being a dick" -- from Dr. (fun honorific!) Hunter S. Thompson to Bill Murray, being kind of a self-aware dick and leaning in to the entitlement.

Thanks for that Maggie Nelson quote, jaymc — loved it so much I ran out and got a copy of her book of essays you mentioned, On Freedom.

I've ordered it too.

Haven't listened yet, but the description implies it will be good:

http://vishkhanna.com/2021/12/15/ep-656-steve-albini/

Steve Albini talks U.S. politics, Electrical Audio and pandemic life, Shellac’s 30th anniversary and updates on their new record and new singles collection, Get Back and the Beatles he has met and spoken with, why he unlocked his twitter, owning his own insensitive socio-cultural mistakes, his Norm Macdonald encounters, Poverty Alleviation Charities’ 24 Hour Improv event on December 18-19, future plans and more!

His McCartney story (cameo appearance by the Auteurs) is funny

They're finally gonna put the early singles on CD/Bandcamp (presumably)? Nice!

It’s gonna be nice to finally own these limited edition items and really dig into them.

Listening to that episode now.

Better than winning a Grammy. https://t.co/kkvQ5KiiHf

— steve albini (@electricalWSOP) January 4, 2022

I'm enjoying Eve 6 guy's sparring/burgeoning friendship with him, even if he couldn't get him into Counting Crows

Yeah, that's been entertaining. I could have sworn the Eve 6 person has a real/fake beef with Patton Oswalt going, too.

Are they still going??

oh god jim goad

that interview was really good

You think I'm lying about that radio station @LinBrehmer can vouch. Occasional Joan Armatrading or Squeeze joints aside, it's all crow. (Lin I hear there's a new Eve6 song just dropped and the promotions budget is unlimited @FalconryFinance merchandise) (beef is so hot rn)

— steve albini (@electricalWSOP) January 5, 2022

no one has played Counting Crows in at least 24 hours. But thanks for listening.

— Lin Brehmer (@LinBrehmer) January 5, 2022

Oh shit, not a beef with Lin Brehmer. Chicago will tear itself in two!

Au contraire! https://t.co/5Q7fVeNVXZ pic.twitter.com/O7eu9etKhM

— Eric Ziegenhagen (@ericzieg) January 5, 2022

lol, I saw that!

not sure why Albini thought that Lin, of all people, would vouch for his minor (but completely accurate) XRT swipe though

so this is what albini does now

based on the timestamps, lin was right. it had been about 24 hours and 10 minutes since xrt played the counting crows.

How do you figure? Counting Crows was played at 2:47 pm the previous day and his tweet was at 2:12 pm today, that's less than 24 hours in my book.

And yes, I am disappointed in myself for spending this much time thinking about it.

It's OK, it was a long December

lol

STEVE ALBINI WAS MR. JONES THE WHOLE TIME!

surely there's a poker game happening somewhere that would be happy to deal ol' Steve in

xpost

oh shit you’re right..i thought i saw 3:12 for lin’s tweet

Not to get super-pedantic (and certainly not on Twitter), but according to the same source, XRT played "Round Here" at 6:01 a.m. this morning!

Can’t believe Albini missed the Black Crowes spins

Apropos of nothing, but an Albini Black Crowes album would've owned.

Crowes did a Zep cover album, and Albini recorded a Page/Plant album, so pretty close!

just to say that 'the back BONE of this country is the independent TRUCK!' is one of the most *bombastic intro*s to a record of all time. that squeal and thud.

He won his second World Series of Poker bracelet last night, taking first out of 773 players. $1,500 entry fee led to $196,000.

pic.twitter.com/vzWCXWmIe4

— steve albini (@electricalWSOP) June 18, 2022

That'll buy a lot of Travis Bean guitars.

Or go towards the staff at Electrical's take-home.

presumably gets his poker face from bands asking “how did you like that?” after a take