I don't understand -- Steve Albini doesn't like the band he once referred to in print as "Weiners [sic, although probably not a subtle Simpsons reference] in suits"?
Q: Vinyl or digital?
A: Neither. I go straight for the vagina. You find them on women.
I'm trying to remember the name of the zine that got Steve Albini to give an interview all about food. (It included his recipe for aioli, I think.) I'm always a little nervous that I will meet him -- not impossible, since he's a friend of a friend -- and he will beat me up and take my lunch money scorn me because I'm a vegetarian.
Aha! Gourmandizer!
I didn't have the patience to find out what the Urge Overkill beef was - all I read was that they didn't know how to play their instruments well and that they sucked in concert. Was there more?
Hey, Gourmandizer was written by a very close high school friend of mine and Froz's! I've linked to his anti-depressant reviews here previously.
He's right about Dave Grohl -- hands down, one of the most talented drummers I've ever known.
When I was a teenager in Northern Virginia, I used to hang around Grohl's old band, Scream. I had a decent little Tascam 4-track recording setup, and they'd have me drag it to their practice house to make cheap demos. I still have the recordings.
To record Grohl, all I had to do was hang a microphone off the ceiling, right above his drum set. Sounded awesome. Only had to worry about him hitting it, because he flung his arms around exactly like "Animal" from the Muppets.
"Influences?"
"Yer man Animal, from the Muppets."
Fuck, I loved Scream. One of the punk rock experiences I remember most fondly was seeing them at the Hung Jury Pub, near the GW campus, in a room that was packed to the gills but moving constantly. One of the first songs was "fucked without a kiss" and I just went limp and let the crowd buffet me around.
wow, thanks. I didn't know shellac had a new one out, and had never heard of Washington Philips. When will online backgammon gambling take off?
Charming man, Mr. Albini. Reader asks if he's married, Albini says "you gay or something?" and it goes from there:
[Reader:] Not gay. Chicks listen to good music sometimes, too, you know.
[Albini:] Not straight ones in my experience, no they don't. You are either a lesbian, a dude, or you don't really like good music. This is a fact proven with science and charts.
Start picking which of the 3 applies to you, Previously Straight-Female Unfogged Folk.
Number 2. Although, by Albini's standards, probably 3 as well.
2: I didn't know about that.
I only read the first five or so pages and I gotta wonder who Tatsuya Yoshida has to blow to get Albini, who I'm pretty sure engineered some Ruins albums, to list him among the good drummers.
"Fuck, I loved Scream. One of the punk rock experiences I remember most fondly was seeing them at the Hung Jury Pub, near the GW campus, in a room that was packed to the gills but moving constantly"
Those were the days. I haven't spent a great deal of time around DC in recent years, but it's hard to imagine that the music scene there now approaches anything like what it was from the late 70s to the early 90s.
That Gourmandizer interview is great.
11: Uggh
So in which of those categories would Steve Albini place Kim Deal? Presumably the fact that she makes good music would exclude her from category 3.
I suspect that Albini probably enjoys sounding like a misogynist asshole much more than he *is* a misogynist asshole, but the distinction doesn't always seem important.
Speaking of Kim Deal, I found it remarkable that he singled out Title TK as an album whose production went well. I mean, not that it didn't, but not even this Kim Deal fan could find much to love there.
Yeah, the District's music scene isn't anywhere near as large or as vital, but there's enough to see, I guess.
Rapeman is one of my favorite band names of all time. Maybe second only to John Cougar Concentration Camp.
Number 2. But by Albini's standards, possibly 1 and probably 3 as well.
I'm vaguely remembering some lengthy correspondence feud between Albini and--I dunno--the Chicago Reader or some 'zine. I can't find it now, but it was funny and typically Albinian.
This surprises me: "Most recently, I had my mind blown by Joanna Newsom's playing on the harp. She is a wonder on that thing." She strikes me as a little precious, I wouldn't have guessed she'd be Albini's cup of twee.
His treatment of the chica whose questions he never seems to have bothered answering was very Urge Overkill. It's a fascinating thread otherwise, though; I like that he name-checks The Cape May from my hometown.
I'm vaguely remembering some lengthy correspondence feud between Albini and--I dunno--the Chicago Reader or some 'zine. I can't find it now
Here.
I can't believe that 20 is the first combination of "joanna newsome" and "cup of twee," but Google says it is. (Actually, Google doesn't even know about it yet. Faster spiders, dammit!)
So is "Urge Overkill" the antonym of "wizard cocksucker"?
Can my comments here get any more fucking meta?
No, I pasted wrong. None of those links are actually calling her twee; they're calling other things twee.
25: So is "Urge Overkill" the antonym of "wizard cocksucker"?
And apparently, according to Albini, could also denote "Weiners in suits playing frat party rock." So applicable to anyone acting like said weiners.
OK, I couldn't remember anything about Urge Overkill, so YouTube. I remember this song - decent enough - but the video is execrable.
I like Danny Elfman. Oingo Boingo I can take or leave.
great link. thanks.
Albini is hilarious on that thread.
on liking what he's recording:
"While the recording is underway, I'm like a gynecologist, and it would be inappropriate for me to be getting turned-on by the vagina I'm working on at the moment. I need to have a different relationship with the vagina."
awesome
I just noticed this comment by Albini which I appreciate:
"I don't use computers to make records. I use tape machines, like nature intended."
#22. Ah! That's it! Gracias. "Weiners in suits playing frat party rock" sound like fun, I always thought.
Music-hating lesbian here. So much so that I read the first page of the link, though "meh," and didn't bother reading anything else.
And right in the middle of reading that thread, Big Black's "Kitty Empire" came up on my Personal Music Device.
(18.1's correct, and Albini really hates all sorts of humans, not just women.)
I suspect that both the misogyny and the misanthropy are poses. Really he's as gentle as a lamb.
Albini really hates all sorts of humans, not just women
Ah, well, then no biggie.
Steve Albini: overrated like a fox.
Albini deserves a spot on Klosterman's most-accurately-rated list. Pretty much as many people know about him as should know about him.
Albani is actually misogynist. I don't see how people can think he is just pretending.
He also doesn't think too highly about the improv music scene in chicago:
What I am suffering is more fatigue from an established improv scene in Chicago that has a fairly set demeanor. If you're a regular at these shows, you'll understand when I say that there aren't a lot of surprises, despite everything being supposedly "free."
Also, his [url=http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=11034555&page=0&fpart=36&vc=1]rant about "Private Dancer"[/url] is pretty priceless. (As is the catty exchange with someone named "kepsey" down the page.)
I saw Big Black play live in 1988 (I had never heard of them before that) and it did something to my brain that was permanent. Steve Albini is twenty different kinds of an asshole, but I always pay attention when he talks.
36: Yeah, the writer of "Kerosene" and "Jordan Minnesota" loves all humanity.
44: A pose, I'm telling ya. There's a secret room at Electrical Studios that is full of plush teddy bears and daisies. Steve goes there when he feels like he needs to be "the real Steve"
Well, I guess they know
I'm not no company man
But I can pull on a rope,
I can kill a cow
FAST AS ANY OTHER FUCKER CAN
While prepping for Thanksgiving dinner a couple years ago, I, my wife, and a friend were were listening to Big Black. Friend was buttering the interior of the turkey, well past wrist-deep. I'm not sure who first realized that the song playing was "Fists Of Love".
Rapeman's cover of ZZ Top's "Just Got Paid" is a thing of surpassing beauty and, for me, atones for whatever assholishness Mr. Albini chooses to indulge.
"I saw Big Black play live in 1988 (I had never heard of them before that) and it did something to my brain that was permanent."
I saw Big Black at the 9:30 Club at some point in the mid-80s. It was a great show, no doubt. But the most lasting impact was due to the fact that I lost my glasses in the slam pit.
[Albini ] is actually misogynist.
Seems that the identification of Albini as "actually" misogynist is supposed, by the author of that essay, to be like the identification of Laibach as "actually" totalitarian.
50: That piece is unreadable.
This has got to be the kindest, gentlest version of Steve Albini I've ever read.
51: Laibach presents authority. Laibach must be obeyed. The Laibach consciousness will not be polluted. MINISTRY MINISTRY MINISTRY AIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
(end transmission)
And it's a bit sad that the piece in 50 appears to be un-ironic.
56: I thought that pointing out that Albini is non-Lutheran was a bit gratuitous.
I was kind of on board with that part. Like, "yeah, I hate Lutheran pretentions too, right on." But he didn't really build on the theme.
Is there scuttlebutt about Lutheran record producers going around?
Maybe the Swedes. They do Britney Spears and like that, you know.