Steve Albini left this stone after 61 years, struck down by a heart attack, a sharp blow like the snare drum of the records he produced, in the only place where he probably wanted to be: the recording studio he built in his beloved Chicago in 1997, Electrical Audio.
There is a video series on YouTube called Show Us Your Junk! (literally “show us your junk”) made by Earthquake Devices, a company that handcrafts effects pedals that promise to make your guitar, bass or keyboard sound like some kind of ancient alien artifact broadcast from a beat-up Mivar television on the bottom of the ocean. In each episode a well-known producer, musician or sound engineer shows us his recording studio and above all the equipment accumulated over years of professional work (instruments, amplifiers, consoles, various trinkets: anyone who plays and/or produces music is a serial accumulator of equipment).
As soon as I learned, late yesterday afternoon, that Albini's life had ended as if it were one of my favorite punk records – too soon – I went to watch episode 23 again, the one dedicated to him. It opens with Steve in his classic 1970s Magneti Marelli worker outfit: blue overalls, gray hat, Swiss librarian's glasses, worn shoes. Even a person who doesn't know who he is, who doesn't have the slightest familiarity with his stratospheric curriculum, looks at him and understands that there is no trace of ego, of superstructures, of that rock mythology of which many decidedly less important figures they choose to cloak themselves in him.
A feeling confirmed by the opening sentence of the episode: «Nothing stimulates me. I've been doing this every day for over thirty years, it's just work. Sure, it's a very rewarding job, I love what I do, I interact with the most interesting people in the world, I allow them to realize their wildest artistic ambitions, which is extremely satisfying for me, but well, I'm not in ecstasy when I do my job… because, precisely, it is a job.” They seem like the words that a plumber could use to describe his job (he would also be better dressed), certainly not one of the most important producers and sound engineers that rock has ever had, an absolute godfather of indie.
For those like myself who are approaching half a century of life, Steve Albini was already a legend in the early '90s, when he became the producer of one of the most anticipated records ever, the litmus test for Nirvana after the interplanetary success of Nevermind: In the Uterus, who turned 40 last year. I remember well the day when, with weeks of tips and savings, I went to Mariposa Dischi in Porta Romana in Milan to buy it, then engaging in rituals which today with streaming and the internet have lost all their meaning but which then, in 1993, are pure magic. I unwrap the plastic, smell the CD and finally inspect the booklet, look at the photos, read the texts, the thanks. I'm trying to see if I recognize any other names. For example, there is that of a young director I've heard a lot about, his name is Quentin Tarantino. Then I read: recorded by Steve Albini. Maybe it's because of the Italian surname (his family had Turin origins), but that name sticks in my head.
Soon I would find it in the notes of some of my favorite records of all time, stuff like Pink Surfer of the Pixies, Pod of the Breeders, Rid of Me by PJ Harvey, Tweez by Slint, the first fundamental records of Jesus Lizard. Steve Albini becomes synonymous with brutal, uncompromising sound. Listen to yourself, for one thing, Destroy Before Reading by Jesus Lizard and you will have an idea of how a razor to the face followed by a pouring of petrol on the wound can be acoustically translated.
In addition to being a magician of sounds, Albini was also a great musician, pioneer and architect of the most experimental noise rock, first with Big Black, harbingers of a nihilism that to define as extreme is an understatement, then with Rapeman (a provocative name which he regretted in the years), and finally with his best-known creation, the Shellac. Together with the faithful Bob Weston and Todd Trainer, Albini invents a genre with the group's debut album, the fundamental At Action Parkpost rock: angular geometries, sandpaper caresses that with millimetric precision create monumental scaffolding of sound resulting in sporadic angular melodies.
The absolute protagonist is his percussive and abrasive guitar technique obtained with copper plectrums and Travis Bean aluminum guitars. I saw them at Primavera Sound 15 years ago in Barcelona with my friend Costantino della Gherardesca, and at the end of their set I felt like I'd had wire run through my teeth.
Over the course of his thirty-year career Albini has produced many great artists such as Joanna Newson, Mogwai, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Helmet, Sunn O))), Ty Segall, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, Jarvis Cocker. Without ever betraying his personal and tireless professional ethic: giving his all to indulge the artist's creative impulses, working hard to bring out his personality in a natural way and in the style of field recordings (he was a great admirer of the ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax) without excessive editing. Put the result before fame and money.
That Albini was unique, that there will never be another like him, is testified by thousands of musicians who recorded under his watchful gaze. He was someone who worked with the same dedication whether the client was a multi-platinum artist who parked his Bentley in front of the studio, or whether it was a punk band of runaways who slept in a beat-up van that smelled of urine. He kept the prices of his studio surprisingly low and accessible compared to many producers with a third of his CV, and was very critical of the music industry, guilty of suppressing the creativity and vitality of artists and of profiting excessively from their music .
Although it is a usual practice in the industry, Albini, as a producer, has never claimed any royalties for the records he worked on (including the aforementioned In the Uterus, which sold 15 million copies). «The way producers and studios were paid, especially in those years (the 90s, ed) was a practice of record companies to shift costs from their budget – the studio technician's fees – and make them fall solely on the artist. Every dollar I would have earned (with In the Uterused) would have been one less dollar that Kurt, Chris and Dave would have earned. I believe it is ethically unsustainable, absurd. I work on a record for a few days and you artists have to continue to pay me for the rest of your lives?”. So Albini told an admiring Conan O'Brien on his podcast Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend.
Let's stay on the genesis of In the Uterus. In 1990 Nirvana are driving around in the van when someone puts it on Pink Surfer of the Pixies. Cobain jumps onto his seat, proclaiming to his friends “this is the sound our snare drum will have!”. That sound is thanks to Steve Albini. After the unimaginable success of Nevermind and the popularity that invests the trio, Kurt feels uncomfortable, he thinks that the production of the album is too “glossy”, “commercial”, that it does not fully reflect the sounds he had in his head. He wants to feel free from the pressure of the record company which has allocated a huge budget and has an endless list of producers to whom he can entrust this blonde goose that lays golden eggs. He wants his new work to be a more accurate representation of the band, of himself as an artist, and he wants it to sound like the records he loves. The ones that Steve Albini produced.
In 1992 Nirvana is the biggest band in the world and the sequel to Nevermind It's the most anticipated album ever. Any top producer would have done somersaults with his tail wagging and would have mortgaged both his kidneys to receive a phone call from Geffen informing him that he was on the team. Albini is an independent producer who has been used for years to pushing out records from penniless people who don't even have the money to buy guitar strings in a couple of days, to coming up with the best ideas with very limited means. He is respected in the noise scene for his militancy in the post hardcore scene (in the aforementioned Big Black and Rapeman) and for his intransigence towards the music business, guilty of having sacrificed the subversive drive of rock on the altar of profit. When Nirvana's management contacts him, he doesn't flip or wag his tail. Instead he writes the band a letter that should be the Bible of every musician on the planet. Some excerpts:
«I think the best thing you could do at this point is exactly what we were talking about: put out a record in a couple of days, with minimally intrusive but high-quality production, and no interference from those hard heads on the floors tall. If that's what you have in mind, I'd love to be a part of it. If, however, these days you find yourself being very conditioned by the record company, so that you feel held back and sometimes pulled by a leash (and by things like forcing you to redo a song/a piece of it/the way in which it was produced, maybe calling a guy they hire for ““sweetening” a song, turning the whole thing into remixed bullshit, or something like that), well, you're doing some shit that I don't want to get involved in. I'm interested in making records that truly reflect a band's perception of music and life. If you want to stick to this principle throughout the recording process, then I too will give my all to this album.”
«I love leaving room for randomness and chaos. Producing a record without the seams showing, where every note and syllable is in its place and every bass drum hit on the drums is identical, is really easy. Any idiot with enough patience and money can allow such a mess to happen. I prefer to work on records where more important things like originality, personality and enthusiasm count.”
«Money issue: I've already explained it to Kurt but I think it's better to specify it again. I do not accept and will not accept the rights to the records I produce being transferred to me. Really. Point. I think paying royalties to a producer or engineer is ethically indefensible. The band writes the songs. The band's fans buy the record. The band is entirely responsible for the success or failure of a record. The rights belong to the band. I would like to be paid like a plumber: I carry out a job and you pay me an amount of money appropriate to the work I have done.”
“If it takes more than a week to make a record, someone is doing something wrong.”
No one in his position would have ever had the courage to write such an email to the most famous band on the planet.
To the Guardian he had recently declared: «The part that interests me is the recording, the fact that I am documenting a piece of our culture, the life work of the musicians who hire me. I take this very seriously. I want that music to survive us all. I am sure that analog recordings will survive for centuries.” His certainly does.