Today, on what would have been Albini's 62nd birthday, we dive into the enduring legacy he left behind.
So as most of you know on the 7th of May we tragically lost Steve Albini, one of the greatest living recording engineers. An initiative of his wife Heather and bandmates Bob and Todd is for this day (July 22nd) to be a day where we can all flood social media with stories and photos and create a digital archive of his legacy through the hashtag #ThankyouSteveAlbini. I ask you to follow this hashtag and glean as much as you can about a life in the audio trenches.
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Steve had brief but critical encounters in my life that started at a seminar in France in my early 20’s. I first met him, like most people, with a level of apprehension and fear. My feelings were that this guy is one of the key figures in the underground who has shaped the music I am into, how I listen to it, and is also a recordist that is operating on a technical level beyond what I could assimilate in my own life.
I left that experience with assurance and vindication of where the hinge in my path was taking me. I also left with a bunch of lifelong friends all cut from the same cloth and a pen pal in Steve that was vital.
Once when I was gas-bagging to Steve about accessibility in the industry and how this can affect archiving and quality, he immediately shook it off; “don’t worry those people don’t know their dick from a tree.” But the truth is if anybody with an interface and a laptop reached out for help or assistance he would give them all the support and guidance he could muster. He would disperse any information he had spent his early years coveting and decades cultivating. I can’t think of anything more beautiful than this.
He gave himself to everyone that allowed it. He helped people who helped people make records and document meaningful culture whilst never losing grip on his own tools.
Steve was so much to so many people, whether you connected to him through audio, the underground music, poker, woodworking, pyrotechnics, cooking or any of the other worlds which he carved out an aesthetic and association within. To tie up a long and complex life is a fool’s errand. All this to say I’m going to share below 5 songs that I think you should examine as an engineer and immerse yourself in as a music lover. Due to Steve working on thousands of important records it’s impossible to cherry pick, but rather these are the first bunch I listened to when trying to comprehend the loss.
I leave you with these words he himself once wrote about grappling with mortality shortly after the death of John Grabski:
“… when my time comes, I hope I can follow his example. I hope when I die I go like John, embroiled in the middle of things, surrounded by people I love, doing the things that matter most. I hope I leave a mountain of shit unfinished, that I have a pan on the stove, a phone call waiting and a pencil in my hand. I hope I’m man enough to be thinking about tomorrow.”
Here’s five songs demonstrating the sound of Steve Albini and his stellar understanding of the craft:
Keep up with the studio that Steve Albini left behind, Electrical Audio, the place he built his legacy here.
