STEVE ALBINI

uh

I mean, Bill Withers is great

totally great

Steve seems like

(1) pretty sound on politics, even on calling out people who you might expect him to be tribally loyal to
(2) boringly obsessed by a hobby I have no interest in
(3) conservative and reactionary about any music that isn't exactly his thing, in a way that can come across as pig ignorant, because it is pig ignorant.

These three traits were all very much the standard for most of the American punks I knew about 20 years ago. So I don't know why he's treated as some kind of special case.

xxxpost yeah, that post read creepily adjacent to Withers is 'not Black enough' as an artist to count or something. not that I'm defending Albini's musical tastes but idk maybe take another avenue to crack at them.

i'm down with all pro-Withers sentiment itt.

He makes good money off poker, hardly a hobby! Unless you meant recording albums by ex members of the Jesus Lizard et al.

he's stated in interviews electrical audio would have gone belly up without his poker winnings

neanderthal otm and that idea is as pernicious as anything albini has said

when's that UB40 piece from?

I think it's not "conservative and reactionary about any music that isn't exactly his thing" about music as much as it is the context around how the recording was made. Even in that thread, his dislike of Steely Dan has to do with how it got made, related to his general perspective on how major-label albums get made (see The Problem with Music and also the ethical choice to take a flat fee on In Utero rather than points).

Also, he followed up the tweet by saying he was riffing on Laura Jane Grace's tweet about being the kind of punk who hates football.

CaAL otm

Yeah I'd say "conservative and reactionary about any music that isn't his thing" would seem often spot on e.g. "I detest club culture as deeply as I detest anything on earth."

September 1983 xxxpost

https://swanfungus.com/2008/11/matter-music-magazine-volume-1-number-5-september-1983/

Interesting, that was about the time Labour of Love was released

his reactionary bit about big musical pronouncements is the antithesis of other grouchy old authenticity punk Henry Rollins, who really only seems to talk about music to praise things he likes these days.

^which is in general a good approach if you can manage to pull it off

Yeah, Rollins seems like a useful contrast.

shame about his music but I trust rollins to make an OK jazz playlist at least

He did one in 2010 — part of a series of Blue Note compilations. It's pretty good!

Rollins' Choice

Steely Dan does suck though

― papal hotwife (milo z), Monday, February 6, 2023 2:32 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

xps

nice one hank. actually much less basic choices than I expected

can't remember exactly why albini hates jazz other than his general disdain for music that sounds good and brings people joy. he seems to think it's a con of some kind iirc

This is where Albini was a year ago at least, contrite but also mentioning that he feels he hasn't been held to account for his edgelord behavior and writing. But by whom it's not stated.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7iYe-3bRwg

https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/037/310/CjQ-v9oWgAAuoiO.jpeg

xps my opinion is steely dan and albinicore are two of the more unpleasant forms of music out there and why bother with ether

or either

having read the journal or whatever it is above I'd rather this dickhead just went away forever instead of making a performance out of this whole thing

Quite a condescending interview with Gillian Gilbert in there.

Trying to stay above this but still somehow sort of nursing a grudge, a wound about this. Think I have had to deal directly with this kind of incurious disdainful lashing out one too many times, if that's how I want to describe it today.

I promise you that the path that leads you to Steely Dan is more "incurious" than the path that leads you to Zeni Geva

what if you went through zeni geva and still ultimately ended up at steely dan?

Drinking scotch whisky all night long?

xp

unless you've already been to zeni geva and found them hugely uninspiring

snap!

Heh, maybe. I hated Steely Dan for a long time myself. Can't remember what changed my mind exactly.

Not sure what "pathway" got me there. It wasn't via Jimmy Buffett, if that's what you are implying.

Azita is the only artist who can heal the Steely Dan/Albini rift

Also I love Steely Dan but honestly like this rush to defend maybe the two smuggest zillionaire dicks that ever existed is funny to me

I def still recognize the inspiration in hearing Zeni Geva or whatever other album that is still in my collection despite not haven't listened to it in ~20-25 years. It's really not interesting to me today to outright dismiss all sorts of stuff that I never would have listened to *on principal* when I was 15 or 20 or 30. And I'm glad that I don't draw the black/white lines that I did back then.

It's not just the two guys, though. It seems that much related music is implicated including, ahem, jazz. (xp)

unless you've already been to zeni geva and found them hugely uninspiring

This is kinda where I land. I admire Albini's aesthetic in theory, and he's absolutely a talented and knowledgeable engineer, but too often the actual records (Zeni Geva, the Jesus Lizard, Shellac, most of Big Black even except for Atomizer) bore and disappoint me.

What about, say, backup singer Catherine Russell, whose parents were both musicians- in particular her father, Luis Russell, was Louis Armstrong's musical director for many years - and who herself is keeping alive certain older musical traditions? (xp to me)

B-b-but he couldn't have been dissing her, he doesn't even know who she is! In fact, her was trying to free her from her bondage! You're the racist Rhoda!

Henry Rollins’ own music is absolutely dire but he gets a lot of credit from me for the amazing Infinite Zero reissue label and his early championing of Matthew Shipp.

And (re)releasing The Monks album, iirc.

Okay, maybe people are right, playing Cap’n Save-A-Steely is tedious and tricky, too easy to take the bait and get caught in the trap.

Infinite Zero was amazing, also reissued Gang of Four, Flipper, Trouble Funk, Alan Vega, Devo, Tom Verlaine

also when rightfully talking about Albini's misogyny in this thread might be good to keep this in mind

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/steely-dans-donald-fagen-arrested-for-domestic-assault-50634/

I'm sure other people have already pointed this out, but there's a similar proto-edgelord vibe to both Steely Dan and Albini? Sheltered, bookish, intelligent boys who have this fascination with the gritty and the ugly and abject, and a kind of smugness about your unbothered, cool reaction to this stuff. Albini took it to a different level, but I think the impulse that motivates you to call your band 'Steely Dan' is similar to the one that motivates you call your band 'Big Black' or Rapeman, likewise recording a song like 'Everyone's Gone To The Movies' and Albini bragging about how cool he thinks child porn is.

What's this about child porn and Albini?

see my post above

as i said then i'm not here to stick knives in at all, but it provides context for SA's latter contrition and (former) artistic persona