It’s a cruel and unfair world. I’m so sorry for all.

Few people outside my immediate circle impact my worldview. Steve is one of about 3-5 artists that profoundly shaped my interactions with art and life. I remain astounded at his ability to craft language and succinctly distill a topic to its essence.

I saw the New Year open for Shellac at Sons of Hermann hall and I couldn’t bring myself to go interrupt him and Matt K. as they were talking. I often say hello and thanks to bands for whatever reason when I recognize them, but that night it seemed too daunting. I wish I had.

FM kazoozak here. I don’t know what else I can say that others here haven’t already but I wanted to pay my respects. It’s been a weird mix of devastation at the news of Steve’s passing and the comfort of reading so many people’s recollections of what he meant to the community here and to the wider musical world.

All I can say right now is that I would be a much different person if I hadn’t joined the forum seventeen years ago. I’ve drifted in and out but I know this place and the friendships I made here have been a net positive in my life, and that doesn’t happen without Steve.

Requiescat, Steve. Love to his family, the EA staff, his bandmates, and to you all.

Just crushed. 100% my life is where it is today because Steve added a message board to the studio website.

Last time I interacted w/ SA in person was when Maple Stave was recording in B in November 2022 and he was in A w/ Code Orange. I was doing a backing vocal in the control room, just getting warmed up so not even recording anything, and Steve came in to ask Scott about grabbing some piece of gear. He immediately felt terrible that he'd walked in while someone was tracking, and I brushed it off and told him it was no big deal. Ran into him again later in the kitchen and he apologized profusely again, and even when I said it was just practice he said no, that's all his fault for just walking in without checking first. Totally humble and apologetic in the house he literally fucking built.

The first time I became cognizant of Big Black was back in college. I was coming down from a long stretch of hard rock and metal, and my friend, Kevin, was about to thrust me headfirst into underground music. We were hanging out in his garden apt in Lincoln Park. A tiny hovel lit with black lights and various posters on the wall. The one that struck me was a giant one with the faces of Steve, Dave, and Santiago - they didn't look very friendly. We proceeded to smoke a legendary amount of marijuana and Kevin put on Taste by the Telescopes. My mind was melting from all of the noise and all I could see was the faces of Steve, Dave, and Santiago staring back at me. This night meant so much to me in terms of having my mind expanded to different forms of music, sound, and the underground. The following day Kevin made me a couple of mix tapes featuring the Flaming Lips and the Butthole Surfers. I couldn't get that Big Black poster out of my head. What the hell could they possibly sound like? I didn't find out until later after hearing "Kerosene" on WZRD. Never heard a guitar tone like that married to brutal shuffling mechanized beat and grave bass playing. Blew my mind. Seriously, they kind of frightened me. I couldn't figure them out, but I fucking loved that guitar tone. "Passing Complexion"? Are you fucking kidding me with that insistent shrill playfully sadistic riff. Just gloriously dark with precision and movement.

Much, much later I was having a BBQ and my friend, Kristina, who was a bartender at Augenblick, told me to show up at her bar later. She said she couldn't tell me why, but I'd be upset if I missed it. My friend, Bogdan Sipic and I walked into her bar with Steve and Bob disguising their bodies in the shape of a plane. I'm like, what the fuck is going on? Is this Big Black? Why is there a human drummer? The place was drowned in Todd's cymbals. I soon found out it was Shellac of North America's second ever show (I think their first was at Ajax Records but me memory is a cruel mistress). Looking back on it now, yeah, it seems pretty fucking rad, but that is just how Chicago was back then - a phenomenal city with all manner of underground punk and noise rock happening at any fucking time of the day or night. So glad I lived through it.

One time Steve asked if he could give me a nickname. I'm like, well, if you have to ask for permission then it's not really much of a nickname is it? His reply was something along the lines of he didn't want to be a dick and saddle me with a nickname I hated. That was Steve, one of the nicest and most generous people I've had the pleasure to know. At the lowest point in my life he gave me words of encouragement. Every time I saw him he was quick with a hello and a smile. I could not imagine life in Chicago without his music and the community he fostered. You've probably read this one million times by now, but if it wasn't for Steve I wouldn't have met and become great friends with so many wonderful people; there certainly wouldn't have been Whales. I'm thinking of all of you right now about how much I love and appreciate you being in my life.

And not that anyone has asked, but my favorite pick slide in the history of pick slides lands a couple of times in "Crow."

One of my favorite memories is dancing to "Lido Shuffle" featuring The Hype w/Steve on vocals at Drug Church. I'm so sorry you are gone and my heart is breaking on your passing and the sadness of every single person you've touched.

Requiescat Steve

I was just reminded by a mutual .. cat convention speaker, that Steve was also big in the cat world, haha! Ah man, what a guy

I've been trying to figure out what I wanted to say about this and it's been hard. I only met Steve in passing a couple of times and our interactions were limited to a "hi, cool to meet you". I have enjoyed a ton of music he touched over a career that I find inspiring and I've learned a lot about a craft that I love from tangential, voyeuristic study of what media I could find about how he achieved his results, and later how he felt about music and production on a more philosophical level. The thing that I, myself, benefited from this mans existence was coming to this board and meeting all of you, the people I've met in person and the people I feel like I've known forever and couldn't pick them out in a crowded room. Thank you Steve and cheers to and all of you.

Did notice that there was a short piece on his passing during the Chicago NBC affiliate's news broadcast at ten.

Good to see that get a mention even if the reality of it did kind of hit all over again.

sending love to all y'all.

it's wild to think about how different my life (our lives) would be if Steve hadn't been around.
i didn't know him like many of you did. i think we only interacted once — at Borelli's — while he was taking a break from taking orders from our sweetheart Jake in the kitchen.
cooking pizzas for all of us.

no gods/ no producers, i know. but shit, it meant so much to this sap from indiana to see Steve Albini walk away from the merch table holding a rutabega CD.

the think i keep coming back to (other than that pan on the stove quote, which completely wrecked me earlier)... is that Steve showed the complexity of being human, and he also showed that people can truly change and grow. and that when you look back on your life and see some horrible shit that you did or said
the best thing you can do is acknowledge it and do everything in your power to grow and make things better.
it's never too late.

rest well, FM Steve

numberthirty wrote: Wed May 08, 2024 11:32 pm Did notice that there was a short piece on his passing during the Chicago NBC affiliate's news broadcast at ten.

Good to see that get a mention even if the reality of it did kind of hit all over again.

Yeah, WGN had a piece on him too during the afternoon and evening news. Surreal to see Patrick Elwood talk about him.

When I first heard Big Black on Peel I thought “this is how it is meant to be”, the “it” some refined intangible I’d been groping towards. I bought Pigpile, read his sleevenotes, and thought “this is how to say it”, a scarifying manifesto trailed by laughter.

I kept track, met him, once got his permission to pinch his words, saw Shellac around a dozen joyful times. 30 years on, we’re kinder, mostly. I learned some of that kindness from him. Of the handful of idols I chose in my teens, he is unique in that he matured into something greater as we aged: he was a role model for my excitable youth, and became one for when my oversights, ignorance and cruelties unintentional and meant humbled me - he reflected. He became gentle.

His bands are among my favourites, obviously, but he’s also one my foundational writers: first, the Big Black sleevenotes, the startling critiques, and that scabrous tour diary; later, I sought out bootlegs for his trippy improvised monologues during the Billiard Player Song or Wingwalker, or his ingenious hysteria over The End of Radio. At ATP 2002, I heard him say “she had eyes like a house on fire”, only better. A half-composed letter to him lies useless in my head suggesting he compile his writing, all of it, seen and unseen. I wish someone would do this.

I interviewed Shellac on my twentieth birthday, the only interview I’ve ever done. All three of them were tremendously kind and - that word again - gentle. As I walked up to the dressing room, I heard Steve, out of sight but instantly recognisable: “…he must have worn his dick down to a stump!” This trembling kid walks in, they pull a chair between Bob and Todd, noticeably softened, and answered my mumbles thoughtfully, humorously and clearly, answers far better than the questions deserved. I was so happy!

I hoped to one day take my son to see Shellac - he’s currently two - and give context to a clutch of values I will share with him. I’m so sad. We lost my youngest brother 11 months ago, and while this is of a different order, the unhappiness of the passing of irreplaceable good has decked me again. Some of my dearest friendships I owe to him. Many of you are old hands at this, I know.

I told my wife, this will sound weird, but imagine you had a public dad - that was Steve. My actual dad was one of the first to send comfort on the news, my mum too - a measure of how much I banged on about Steve.

He’s left a lot with us; we were lucky to have had him. Unlucky to have lost him so soon. Cheers, Steve, cheers to you all. Salut.