Due to a nagging heel spur, I haven't been getting to the park as much as I'd like to this spring, but I promised myself to make it at least once during azalea season, even if I had to crawl. I wasn't disappointed, even though in the back of my mind I knew that in previous years I had seen the azaleas in better light, usually very early in the morning. But you learn to compromise as you get older, and it wasn't hard to be satisfied.
I was also thinking about Steve Albini, who died this week at the age of 61 from a sudden heart attack. I first heard about Steve Albini in the 1980s and generally avoided his music because of his reputation for being a caustic asshole and because the album cover for 'Songs About Fucking' made me think about straight sex, which was not something I wanted to think about. But I certainly agreed with the piece he wrote in 1993 for the Baffler about selling out, which probably defines the Gen X ethos as much as anything else. It was also around this time that my friend Matt K told me that his band (Bedhead, who I've written about here) was going to record their third record 'Transaction de Novo' with Steve Albini. I was surprised, but when Matt explained a bit more about Steve Albini's recording philosophy -- basically: to reproduce as closely as possible the 'live' sound of the band on tape -- it made sense. It was exactly what made every Bedhead record sound so beautiful (I mean, in addition to the music, which was also beautiful), and 'Transaction de Novo' was no different. (Buy the box set and you can read my liner notes as your mind is blown away by the music!)
Fast forward to 2000. My old band wanted to record a new record, and our bass player (Mike D) was playing in Matt K's new band (The New Year), which was recording their first album, again with Steve Albini. Mike D had nothing but good things to say about Albini, and so we booked a long weekend at Electrical, his Chicago studio (I'm almost sure that we were in Studio B). At this point, it's worth noting a few things about Albini: First, he had already recorded any number of Huge Bands (including Nirvana and Robert Plant/Jimmy Page and the Pixies and a million others), so the fact that he would record a very small band like Saturnine is already kind of a miracle. Second, his rates were good and included rooms to sleep at the studio, which made things very easy: all we had to do was fly to Chicago, take a cab to Electrical, and get started. Third, he booked us over Labor Day weekend, which meant that his staff was off, so it was just Steve Albini and us for three twelve-hour days. Lots of other people who knew him much better than I did have already said this, but he was incredibly generous, even or especially when he had no reason to be.
In terms of the music, he was very business-like. He set up the mics and cables and sat behind the board (reading a book) while we did as many takes as we wanted until we felt like we had something good enough to move on. He never offered his opinion of the music, but it didn't matter: his job was to engineer the session, and it was clear that he took the job very seriously. A few times he made producer-esque suggestions, and they were always perfect. My favorite one was on what became the first song of the album ('When We Were Anchors for the Sun'). I had done a few takes of my guitar solo, and he said [Steve Albini voice] 'why don't we use both takes?' and he played them back together. It sounded perfect, exactly what I had dreamed about: loud and raucous in an otherwise quite song (the guitar solo starts at 2:35 if you want to listen). When we took breaks, we had a great time hanging out. He clearly enjoyed arguing the merits of pretty much anything, which sat well with a band like ours that had two lawyers. Arguing about whether something was 'Crap/Not Crap' was something we did a lot of that weekend. He told us a story about going to a small town in Italy where everyone looked exactly like him, which I thought was funny.
I never spoke to Steve Albini again after that session, but I heard about him by way of Mike D and Matt K. A few years ago, I started seeing him on Twitter, where he was a natural. Given my own trajectory from pretend-heterosexual to non-heterosexual, I was excited to see him regularly take on right-wing zealots about all manner of things, including complaints about 'the gay agenda.' I found this thread, in which he talks about his casually homophobic past with sincere regret -- or as he would say 'owning his shit' -- to be one of the more sincere and effective apologies I've seen from anybody in terms of understanding how they once made life worse for gays but now plan to do better. He owns the language; he owns the actions; he owns the regret; it's a model of understanding and empathy. Everyone should read it and act accordingly.
Steve Albini is a good example of a (famous) non-homosexual who saw the light. He didn't have to change; it wasn't like he owed it to the 'community' or to anyone else (as far as I know). He did the right thing and was able to convey this process with truth and acerbic wit. It's something that still happens only rarely in this country, which has so much to apologize for in terms of its treatment of gays (among others).
When it happens, it's a beautiful thing to behold.
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