Steve Albini's Blues

How Chicago's recording engineer influenced everything

My first baby was born yesterday a little after 11 in the morning. Time stopped mattering to me after that, so I can’t recall exactly when I looked at my phone and saw Steve Albini had passed, but it was one of the few things that could dent my elation. I can’t say I was friends with Steve, and I’d even feel silly saying I “knew” him. I met him a handful of times when I was younger and interviewed him twice as an adult. But growing up a little snot punk in Chicago in the 1990s meant that Albini was my version of Hizzoner. He was to the underground scene I considered myself a citizen of what Dick Daley 1 and Dick Daley 2 were to the rest of the city. He wasn’t a politician, but people who cared about things like the differences between “hardcore” and “post-hardcore” or had opinions on what “real” math rock was always talked about “Albini” in a certain tone. By the mid-1990s of my teenage years, he was established. He’d come a long way from notoriously cranky zine contributor, Northwestern University radio DJ, and founding member of Big Black, chiseling out a little space in the national spotlight as the producer of some of the most important records of the last 50 years. People all over the country and the world cared about Albini’s opinions, and he had no problem sharing them. Given his place in the indie world, Albini obviously had plenty of haters. Some would kvetch about his producing skills being overrated, but would usually offer no concrete evidence to back up their allegations. Others didn’t like the music he made with Big Black and also bands like Rapeman and Shellac. It was intentionally all loud and in your face, but in my mind, it was all brilliant. Albini as a producer, musician, and singular public figure shaped so much that there will likely be college courses taught on his work, a fact that I’m sure would make him sick to his stomach.

As I said, I wasn’t friends with him. I wasn’t in one of the many bands that recorded at Electrical Audio; I was a student, witness, and fan of Albini’s. I got to see Shellac several times, but also appreciated the stories I heard of the shows I didn’t see. Some were real, like the New Year’s Day show I missed at the Fireside Bowl where my friend said “Albini was serving people Pop-Tarts for breakfast,” or the sporadic gigs I’d hear about in random places across the country, a few of which I’ve still never been able to confirm including a strip club in Nebraska (or was it North Dakota?) and a cabin somewhere in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. I’d see bands play live and think “Man, they owe Albini royalties for ripping off his music so bad,” was offered to sit in on a game of cards with him once but declined because I was too intimidated to get my ass kicked at poker by the Great Albini, and was invited to go to a birthday party he threw for his girlfriend over 20 years ago. I don’t recall the specific details, only that it was thrown at the great (but gone) Rainbo roller rink on Clark Street and he supposedly had chocolate coins with his girlfriend’s face made for the occasion.

The few times I met him, Albini was Albini. He wasn’t a jerk, but he had an undeniable energy, the type that told you right away he didn’t suffer fools, so I was on my best behavior not to act like one. He was an individual in a world full of followers, and when you look at his body of work, it’s staggering how fully realized his vision was early on. The way he truly gave no fucks and decided at some point early on that he was who he was, he was going to do things the way he wanted, and the only things he’d change was a slight knob tweak here and there, both literally and figuratively, has inspired me since I was a kid and first heard about him. As I listened to my baby howl and wail a few feet away from me, I let myself be sad for a second that Albini had passed but then was comforted by the fact that there would always be noise, the thing Steve Albini trafficked in and figured out how to shape and mold into something great.