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Thanks for the heads-up on the Oldham article. That was great.

Gramsci wrote: Mon May 13, 2024 4:17 pm

Lu Zwei wrote: Mon May 13, 2024 3:08 pm I probably should not post mine then cause it's kinda weird...

See, now you have to…

Soooooooooooo...

We recorded with Steve in Italy from Friday to Sunday November 2011and we really had a great time, with our little present of bringing him a bottle of Cockta with us as a present for him. I knew that Steve fell in love with our herbal Coca Cola knock off when he was visiting. It was around the time that Steve would religiously play Scrabble with FM Trey and I had a little in with the stuff that Steve would do in his off time from recording. We really hit it off from the time we met him, we were really practiced and tight and Steve loved the fact that we managed to record all of our tracks in one or two takes. The time off was so great, we would talk In Utero recording session (kidding) and how he would always be mentioned in press clippings for the holly trinity of Albini music journalism (Pixies, Breeders, Nirvana). I mean, we were three boys from the Balkans, and we wanted to hear it first hand. I would ask stupid questions about David Yow, and my drummer would just have this everlasting grin of happiness on his face.

It wasn't really hard for Steve to "get us" and see what he has gotten himself into. The meals with him were so fucking great. We would talk all the time, about world stuff, just relaxed shit, and I would marvel how can this small man eat so much pasta in one sitting. It really blew my mind. You could tell that he really enjoyed his stay in Italy, as one always should. Our host, Paride, was so on point with the pasta selection, that you could jizz in your pants just by looking at it.

So, to the days of recording sessions passed and we recorded all the instrument takes for the record in two. I had to record the vocals on the third day in the morning hours and the mixing was done after that. But I had something else in mind, I hated my vocal session even before when I started doing it so I decided to drink my wedding gift schnaps right after breakfast. Right around noon I was semi drunk. At lunch break I was starting to feel like I was slurring all around, and the guys from the band were at first mad at me but soon after just started laughing their asses off. It was something around 14:00 CET that I started doing drunken pushups in the recording room and hearing nothing but the silence in my headphones. Usually there was Steve in between songs asking me if I wanna do it again or if I'm sure that screeching voice sounds satisfactory to me (LOL!?). I remember that it was on Houlihan that I started doing pushups in the middle of the song. My band mates just started laughing out loud with Steve not really knowing what is going on.

He gets up from the mixing console, looks at me doing pushups and says: "Youh Sipp, what the fuck are you thinking you're doing!?" and the guys in the controls room just bust out laughing. And you know, Steve had a chuckle ready for it. I come back to the control room, and he's like; "Dude, if you're like this all the time, I hove no idea how they don't kick your ass each and every day they interact with you... I would fucking kick your ass myself...."

There you go. Steve. I fucking loved him for saying that. How could you not!?

That was great. As is that album.

Steve was fucking great. I'm crying again. FUCK YOU.

Lu Zwei wrote: Wed May 15, 2024 11:17 am He gets up from the mixing console, looks at me doing pushups and says: "Youh Sipp, what the fuck are you thinking you're doing!?" and the guys in the controls room just bust out laughing.

So good.

Lu Zwei wrote: Wed May 15, 2024 12:17 pm Steve was fucking great. I'm crying again. FUCK YOU.

Great story. Link to the album?

Took me forever to get back on the forum, was wiped out for a bit after the server switch.
That being said, I was lucky enough to record with Steve this past November for a second time. More on that later:

Rewind to 2005 - My band Zao is performing in Chicago. A very nice young woman introduces herself to the band and explains she is using footage of the band in a documentary she is working on. She proceeds to tell us her boyfriend records bands and we should check out his studio since he expressed interest in us after seeing the footage being edited. It turns out this was Heather. Within the hour the bartender is holding the phone up behind the bar and says "is somebody from Zao here for Steve Albini?" After the show the band went and toured Electrical.

We ended up working with him in early 2006 on our next record. We lived at the studio for about 2 and a half weeks. (during which time we did get to see Heather's documentary finally). Some great memories of that time:
1) Steve delaying one of our starting days because he was stuck on the phone. I was on the computer in the lounge right outside of the office and was hearing him gushing to whoever was on the other end. "I mean, you guys are one of my favorite bands of all time" "I can send some samples of my work just to make sure you want to do this" etc. After 2 hours he came out and apologized for the delay and said "sorry, that was Iggy Pop"
2) We were given the billiards bet. We win, he records for free. He wins, we pay double. We did not accept this.
3) We stopped the session 2 different times to watch the steelers in the playoffs, Steve said "you guys and Neurosis with this football stuff shutting stuff down. only bands that do this!"
4) We were there RIGHT when Steve was in the height of his obsession with St. Anger/Some Kind Of Monster. His speeches about them both were truly things to behold. When Heather found out we got him going again on it she basically said "oh my god, you don't understand how much time he spent listening to St. Anger, it became a problem"
5) Being as that we were from Pittsburgh, anytime the tape was about to be rolling steve would ask "Yinz guys ready?"

As was expected our label was mad at our album, Steve actually wrote to us and apologized. We told him there was no need. he gave us exactly what we asked for. It was probably one of the best recording experiences of my life and I stayed in touch as much as I could (without getting in his way). Whether it was a phone all or an email asking recording advice or gear advice. He ALWAYS got back to me, and quickly. Some friends of mine in the band Microwaves were doing a cover of The Power Of Independent Trucking for a 7 inch and asked me to get in touch with Steve for them to ask about a lyric question. I told them to call the studio and ask. sure enough he picked up the phone and told them "let me see what I can do" and within hours sent the official lyrics to them.

Fast Forward to this past november, I get a call on a Sunday night. Can you be at Electrical Audio to record with steve in 5 days? The drummer on the session bailed. Of course I could! (and even if I couldn't I would have made it work). Got sent 4 songs to learn and flew out. Steve talked me into using the glorious Jenkins Martin kit in Kentucky. Dear lord, what a sound. I forgot how truly great it was to watch him work. He was massively apologetic when the Eventide's both shit the bed in the middle of takes which made me have to re-do stuff and wait while he troubleshot what was wrong. I will admit a perverse pleasure seeing him write "in the tech journal" what was wrong (I did follow greg's tech journal after that and was happy to see they were fixed

Metallica was brought up again. He didn't go into Some Kind Of Monster this time, this time he explained how he was really into the making of the black album documentary at that point mainly for "Bob Rock's narcissitic mind games on the members of metallica" in it.

One of the things that he said that REALLY blew my mind, I noticed he was using the Cole's ribbon mics in a different position as overheads. I asked about it. He said "I went to someone's studio to work on something and they had the drums mic'd this way and said they really liked it so I rolled with it, and I ended up loving it so I have been doing it ever since." without any further prompting he said "okay, I will tell you, it was paul mccartney". I didn't ask further WHAT that was, hopefully time will tell.

It was a way to quick trip, i got asked to stay ONE more day because everything went well and the band leader wanted to try to get one more song but due to the short notice I HAD to be back. If i could do that over again for one more day, I would.

Before I left I did talk to him about bringing Zao back. He was into it.
We still may.

either way, this has been a hard week and my thoughts go out to everyone at the studio and to heather.

Gramsci wrote: Wed May 15, 2024 12:40 pm

Lu Zwei wrote: Wed May 15, 2024 12:17 pm Steve was fucking great. I'm crying again. FUCK YOU.

Great story. Link to the album?

man, fuck my album. right straight into the sun.

the corpo wrote: Wed May 15, 2024 9:00 am

twelvepoint wrote: Wed May 15, 2024 8:52 am Maybe I missed it, but have any arrangements been made for in-memory-of donations in Steve's name to a charitable cause?

I saw this on his memorial page

https://sympathy.legacy.com/en-us/funer ... E1NzgxNDg0

Ok, thanks. Well, tree purchased. Seems woefully inadequate. Shouldn't we all be looking into like a memorial library or 10 foot tall bronze (aluminum?) statue?

Lu Zwei wrote: Wed May 15, 2024 1:22 pm

Gramsci wrote: Wed May 15, 2024 12:40 pm

Lu Zwei wrote: Wed May 15, 2024 12:17 pm Steve was fucking great. I'm crying again. FUCK YOU.

Great story. Link to the album?

man, fuck my album. right straight into the sun.

See, now I have to hear it…