Lacking significance through having been overused; unoriginal and trite.
Pixies
Pixies

Rest in Peace, Steve Albini

I know there’s “cooler” albums to talk about, but In Utero and Surfer Rosa were profoundly important to my teens, and I haven’t stopped listening to Mclusky Do Dallas since seeing them in San Francisco this past March.

My friend Tom had the good fortune of studying under Albini in the early 2000s and had this to say:

“Steve is one of a literal handful of people that I would consider a role model. In addition to opening my ears to what a good record should sound like, he showed me what a good person should act like. As an impressionable teenager and into my early 20s, he taught me how and why to treat people ethically and how to give absolutely zero fucks about the opinion of people who don’t.”

Some recommended reading:

Steve Albini Shows That Punk Rock Ethics Are Good Business: “If you start from the premise of refusing to be an asshole, then a lot of other decisions kind of make themselves.”

And of course his famous letter to Kurt Cobain:

“I explained this to Kurt but I thought I’d better reiterate it here. I do not want and will not take a royalty on any record I record. No points. Period. I think paying a royalty to a producer or engineer is ethically indefensible. The band write the songs. The band play the music. It’s the band’s fans who buy the records. The band is responsible for whether it’s a great record or a horrible record. Royalties belong to the band.

I would like to be paid like a plumber: I do the job and you pay me what it’s worth. The record company will expect me to ask for a point or a point and a half. If we assume three million sales, that works out to 400,000 dollars or so. There’s no fucking way I would ever take that much money. I wouldn’t be able to sleep.”

We’ll always have the music. I suggest you crank it up to 11.

20 Years Ago I Was At Coachella

So were the then recently-reunited Pixies, whom I interviewed.

And Air, also interviewed.

And Tommy Lee, whom I had a drink with in the VIP lounge.

Which is where I also Mike Watt. And Fred Schneider. And Wayne Coyne, who would debut the Space Bubble the next evening.

And Kraftwerk, who I managed to get into a packed tent to see and have my mind blown.

And Radiohead. If you were there, ya know.

And also Belle & Sebastian, Broken Social Scene, The Cure, Erase Errata and a lot of bands I can’t remember or may have missed because I was working and drinking and loving life and completely caught up in the magic.