Steve Albini: 1962–2024

Tremendous-sad information at this time out of Chicago, the place phrase got here down that musician, recording engineer, author, designer, skilled poker participant, and all-around iconoclast Steve Albini died of a coronary heart assault yesterday. He was simply 61.

I didn’t know Albini properly, however we had some good interactions through the years. He was an enormous fan of my Nineties zine, Beer Body: The Journal of Inconspicuous Consumption. When the primary six problems with that zine have been compiled right into a e-book, Inconspicuous Consumption: An Obsessive Take a look at the Stuff We Take for Granted, I requested Albini to put in writing the foreword, and he graciously agreed.

Extra not too long ago, a bit of over a 12 months in the past, I did a very enjoyable, freewheeling interview with Albini. We talked concerning the visible aesthetics of bands and data, the uniforms worn by the workers at his recording studio, the virtues of DIY design, and plenty of different uni-adjacent subjects. (That interview, which was printed on my Substack, is accessible with out a paywall right here.) I’m proud to say that he owned a Uni Watch seam ripper and even prouder that he referred to it as “an unimaginable merchandise possibility. I imply, I can’t truthfully can’t consider a merchandise merchandise extra particularly arcane than that.”

Like quite a lot of indie-rock followers of my technology, I used to be an enormous fan of Albini’s first Chicago band, Massive Black. However his writing at all times me greater than his music. His mid-Nineteen Eighties articles in Pressured Publicity, Matter, and different zines have been vastly influential on me once I was in school, and I used to be at all times desirous about studying just about something he needed to write, as a result of he had such a fertile, attention-grabbing thoughts and such a palpable intelligence. Even once I didn’t agree with him, I felt like I at all times discovered issues from him.

Albini was fiercely loyal to folks he favored, however he didn’t endure fools gladly, had zero no endurance for bullshit, and will typically be acerbic, confrontational, and offensive, particularly when he was youthful. Extra not too long ago, he recanted a few of the extra inflammatory and morally questionable positions from his youth whereas sustaining his uncompromising advocacy for the higher, smarter world he wished to see. I’ve nothing however respect for a way he dealt with all of that.

Now that I’m about to depart Uni Watch and am on the point of transition again to Inconspicuous Consumption, I hoped to interview Albini once more sooner or later within the close to future. My thought was that I’d get along with him throughout my subsequent go to to Chicago and have him take me on a tour of his favourite inconspicuous architectural particulars and design thrives across the metropolis. I do know it might have been nice, and it sucks to know that we’ll by no means get the prospect to do this. R.I.P., buddy — you’ll be missed.