Corey of Touch and Go posted this to Facebook
"Tuesday night, one of my dearest friends, Steve Albini, unexpectedly passed away.
He was supernaturally talented (in far more disciplines than you or I could ever hope to be), kindhearted, generous of spirit, and generous with his time. He had the warmest, most genuine smile and he always greeted you with it.
He was a member of more bands on Touch and Go than any other musician. He played on more Touch and Go releases than anyone else. He recorded more bands on Touch and Go than any other engineer. He was a cherished friend of mine and a champion of my record label for 40 years.
When I met him, in 1984, we immediately bonded over music, barbeque, and fireworks. I had booked a show for Big Black in Detroit. We stayed up most of the night barbequing, laughing, and talking about musical influences, small explosives, and food. By morning, I felt like we’d been friends all my life.
On many 4th of July’s, our shared inner pyromaniac tendencies emerged and we indulged our mutual love of fireworks. Surrounded by members of various bands, and other brave friends, we’d spend the day blowing up thrift store finds, fruits & vegetables, and gas-soaked bags of flour with small explosives. Once darkness fell, the bottle rocket wars would begin. An immaturely good time was had by all… especially Steve and I.
Our lives intertwined over the following decades. Steve made music, and we released it. We signed new bands, and Steve recorded some of them. Once Steve’s dream studio, Electrical, was completed, our bands started recording there.
For a few years, Steve (and Bob and Todd) deemed me Shellac’s soundman and took me all over the world with them (despite my obvious hearing loss which resulted in excessively loud concerts). The adventures we shared on the road will always be some of my fondest memories.
Shellac finished their new album last year. It’s incomprehensible that Steve will not be here when it is released next week.
My life, and the lives of everyone close to Steve, will be forever altered from this moment forward. There’s no replacing a big-hearted friend and kindred spirit like Steve. I love him and will miss him for the rest of my life.
-Corey Rusk"
Re: Requiescat FM Steve
222Trying my best not to engage with the negative shit out there because I think it's bogus. Devastated by the news. Hope y'all are well.
Re: Requiescat FM Steve
223i'd like to record the gratitude i feel for Steve's extraordinary talent, generosity, and commitment to sharing what he learned. for me, 'someone who helps music into the world' is a very high calling, and every part of the way that Steve went about this was a gift and a challenge to others. love and strength to all of you.
Re: Requiescat FM Steve
224^ Yes.dfglv wrote: Sat May 11, 2024 4:16 am for me, 'someone who helps music into the world' is a very high calling, and every part of the way that Steve went about this was a gift and a challenge to others.
I think about this listening to Farewell Transmission:
"Molina also claimed that Steve Albini opened and closed the door to the recording room as required, to help the recording achieve the desired volume."
From: https://soundanalysis.wordpress.com/20 ... nsmission/.
To create stubborn, idiosyncratic art with a deep vision and help bring other people's art into the world with such subtlety and sensitivity (hands-on, not just mentoring and moral support), both to such an extent, feels unprecedented.
Re: Requiescat FM Steve
225I think Steve said that door thing was BS in another interview. That said: Molina's almost improvisational approach is captured in the Josephine documentary, and Steve and the studio was clearly equipped for the job.
I'll go ahead and tell the Lido Shuffle story for those not around at that time. In 2009 for the first PRFBBQ, I put together a live karaoke band accidentally named The Hype!, with little clue of how it would come together or be received. It ended up being a hit, talked about for weeks after. The next summer BBQ came around and of course we were gonna do it again, and Steve at one point on here posted "I'm doing Lido Shuffle!" He had expressed his liking of that song around that time due to the gambling lyrics. Haha, fun idea I thought, but it didn't seem serious. A few weeks before the BBQ he posted again: "you better make room for Lido Shuffle!" Hmmm, ok, so we learned the song just in case. Most people doing karaoke covers would email me, we would verify we were both learning the same version of the song and go over other details, so this request was loose to say the least.
That week comes along. There's a WSOP event in Vegas that Steve ends up doing pretty well at, extending his stay thru the week. "Things are going great but I might not make it back for Lido". Well, damn. We played our set Friday night: 2 hours of sweaty madness and it was great, but no Lido. We all show up throughout the next day, pretty exhausted, but still having a blast hanging out. There are rumblings throughout the day that Steve won a decent amount of money and is heading back that night. Cool he gets to make some of the BBQ, I thought, but the Lido window had passed in my mind. A few of my bandmates were like "we can still do it!" but I didn't take it too seriously. I watched some great sets by Bottomless Pit and Police Teeth, then kinda petered out into one of the backrooms to chill for a bit. Soon over the PA I hear my name, along with a dozen others calling for me to get to the stage NOW. "Steve is looking for you!" He had just gotten out of the cab from the airport and literally the first thing he was asking about was Lido Shuffle. So we talk about it briefly, I see Police Teeth is still breaking down their gear so I quickly ask them if we can borrow it instead. And then it actually fuckin' happened..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aseiXQYGAE
This is the only clip that still exists, unfortunately. That's ok: he wasn't particularly well-rehearsed, and the band was exhausted and playing on other peoples' gear. But it was amazing and the room went OFF. The best line gets cut off during that clip: when the keyboard/guitar harmony happens, Steve points to Liz and says "it's like there's two of her!" I think we stuck around and played another song or two with other audience members singing, "Surrender" I think, and if you've ever seen the picture of a pile of sweaty dudes being held up by FM kerble making the gun-in-mouth gesture, that's where it came from.
But anyway.. Steve only did this because he loved the DIY, industrious spirit of this place. Making shit happen outside even the more established Chicago underground channels and whatnot, simply because it was a cool thing to make happen. Beyond being in great bands and recording great records, I think that will ultimately be his legacy: getting involved, learning how to do things to a high standard, supporting the things around you, passing your knowledge on to someone still learning... just DOING THE THANGS for their own sake. Very few people, if anyone, embodied and manifested that attitude more, or better.
Oh. And there was a pretty good message exchange between him, Marsupialized, and me about the horniness of that BBQ: who was fuckin' who in what corner, but I'm keeping that one to myself.
EDIT: eliya reminded me that Steve dedicated this cover to Silkworm drummer Michael Dahlquist, who was known to have a carefree, live-for-the-moment spirit before he was tragically killed by a reckless driver in 2005. The last line in Lido Shuffle is "one more for the road", Steve ended the song with:
One more drink, one more fuck, one more hearty laugh.
I'll go ahead and tell the Lido Shuffle story for those not around at that time. In 2009 for the first PRFBBQ, I put together a live karaoke band accidentally named The Hype!, with little clue of how it would come together or be received. It ended up being a hit, talked about for weeks after. The next summer BBQ came around and of course we were gonna do it again, and Steve at one point on here posted "I'm doing Lido Shuffle!" He had expressed his liking of that song around that time due to the gambling lyrics. Haha, fun idea I thought, but it didn't seem serious. A few weeks before the BBQ he posted again: "you better make room for Lido Shuffle!" Hmmm, ok, so we learned the song just in case. Most people doing karaoke covers would email me, we would verify we were both learning the same version of the song and go over other details, so this request was loose to say the least.
That week comes along. There's a WSOP event in Vegas that Steve ends up doing pretty well at, extending his stay thru the week. "Things are going great but I might not make it back for Lido". Well, damn. We played our set Friday night: 2 hours of sweaty madness and it was great, but no Lido. We all show up throughout the next day, pretty exhausted, but still having a blast hanging out. There are rumblings throughout the day that Steve won a decent amount of money and is heading back that night. Cool he gets to make some of the BBQ, I thought, but the Lido window had passed in my mind. A few of my bandmates were like "we can still do it!" but I didn't take it too seriously. I watched some great sets by Bottomless Pit and Police Teeth, then kinda petered out into one of the backrooms to chill for a bit. Soon over the PA I hear my name, along with a dozen others calling for me to get to the stage NOW. "Steve is looking for you!" He had just gotten out of the cab from the airport and literally the first thing he was asking about was Lido Shuffle. So we talk about it briefly, I see Police Teeth is still breaking down their gear so I quickly ask them if we can borrow it instead. And then it actually fuckin' happened..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aseiXQYGAE
This is the only clip that still exists, unfortunately. That's ok: he wasn't particularly well-rehearsed, and the band was exhausted and playing on other peoples' gear. But it was amazing and the room went OFF. The best line gets cut off during that clip: when the keyboard/guitar harmony happens, Steve points to Liz and says "it's like there's two of her!" I think we stuck around and played another song or two with other audience members singing, "Surrender" I think, and if you've ever seen the picture of a pile of sweaty dudes being held up by FM kerble making the gun-in-mouth gesture, that's where it came from.
But anyway.. Steve only did this because he loved the DIY, industrious spirit of this place. Making shit happen outside even the more established Chicago underground channels and whatnot, simply because it was a cool thing to make happen. Beyond being in great bands and recording great records, I think that will ultimately be his legacy: getting involved, learning how to do things to a high standard, supporting the things around you, passing your knowledge on to someone still learning... just DOING THE THANGS for their own sake. Very few people, if anyone, embodied and manifested that attitude more, or better.
Oh. And there was a pretty good message exchange between him, Marsupialized, and me about the horniness of that BBQ: who was fuckin' who in what corner, but I'm keeping that one to myself.
EDIT: eliya reminded me that Steve dedicated this cover to Silkworm drummer Michael Dahlquist, who was known to have a carefree, live-for-the-moment spirit before he was tragically killed by a reckless driver in 2005. The last line in Lido Shuffle is "one more for the road", Steve ended the song with:
One more drink, one more fuck, one more hearty laugh.
Last edited by penningtron on Sun May 12, 2024 7:03 am, edited 2 times in total.
Re: Requiescat FM Steve
226Is Marsupialized on the new forum?
clocker bob may 30, 2006 wrote:I think the possibility of interbreeding between an earthly species and an extraterrestrial species is as believable as any other explanation for the existence of George W. Bush.
Re: Requiescat FM Steve
227No. I think he's a bit embarrassed about those years, claiming he was "hopped up on pills".
But in appreciation for all the work Marsup had done in those years, Steve presented him with an electrified Xylophone (featuring his old Travis Bean pickups) signed by CocoRosie!
This interview from the Shure site in 2018 is quite good. Deep cut stuff. I saw it on Linkedin of all fuckin' places.
Re: Requiescat FM Steve
228I can relate. My early posts are at times awful. I’ll check out the article.penningtron wrote: Sat May 11, 2024 8:39 amNo. I think he's a bit embarrassed about those years, claiming he was "hopped up on pills".
But in appreciation for all the work Marsup had done in those years, Steve presented him with an electrified Xylophone (featuring his old Travis Bean pickups) signed by CocoRosie!
This interview from the Shure site in 2018 is quite good. Deep cut stuff. I saw it on Linkedin of all fuckin' places.
clocker bob may 30, 2006 wrote:I think the possibility of interbreeding between an earthly species and an extraterrestrial species is as believable as any other explanation for the existence of George W. Bush.
Re: Requiescat FM Steve
229Has anyone thought to check in on FM Vincent Gallo to see how he's handling all of this?
© 2003 el protoolio
Re: Requiescat FM Steve
230https://www.newyorker.com/culture/posts ... eve-albini
. . . but no other engineer was quite as attuned, in an almost metaphysical way, to the humanity of recorded music, its senselessness and magic, the truths it could crystallize or reflect back at us. The creation of music serves no plain biological purpose—how utterly reasonless and inexplicable that we do this at all! How beautiful!
. . .
The evening after I learned of Albini’s death, I took to Instagram—as one does—to post a photo of “The Magnolia Electric Co.,” an Albini-produced album by Songs: Ohia, released in 2003. Songs: Ohia was then the alias of the musician Jason Molina, who died young, in 2013, at age thirty-nine, from complications due to alcoholism. It’s a formative record in my life, heavy and deep and flawlessly recorded, which is to say that when I put it on, there’s nothing in the way. No distance between me—between any listener, anywhere—and Molina. Because of that, it feels like a portal to another sphere, a lifeline, and hand to hold in the night. It sounds like air and starlight. Molina’s voice is plaintive, desperate, close. Art like this is inherently benevolent. It is there to help us. Albini could be caustic, often combative, but perhaps he was simply saving all his love and care for this one gesture.
. . . but no other engineer was quite as attuned, in an almost metaphysical way, to the humanity of recorded music, its senselessness and magic, the truths it could crystallize or reflect back at us. The creation of music serves no plain biological purpose—how utterly reasonless and inexplicable that we do this at all! How beautiful!
. . .
The evening after I learned of Albini’s death, I took to Instagram—as one does—to post a photo of “The Magnolia Electric Co.,” an Albini-produced album by Songs: Ohia, released in 2003. Songs: Ohia was then the alias of the musician Jason Molina, who died young, in 2013, at age thirty-nine, from complications due to alcoholism. It’s a formative record in my life, heavy and deep and flawlessly recorded, which is to say that when I put it on, there’s nothing in the way. No distance between me—between any listener, anywhere—and Molina. Because of that, it feels like a portal to another sphere, a lifeline, and hand to hold in the night. It sounds like air and starlight. Molina’s voice is plaintive, desperate, close. Art like this is inherently benevolent. It is there to help us. Albini could be caustic, often combative, but perhaps he was simply saving all his love and care for this one gesture.