Peace Be With You: Mr. Steve Albini…Performer/Producer

Steve Albini passed away this week. He suffered a massive heart attack while working in his music studio. Not to make light of anyone’s death but if someone like Steve Albini had to go, dying in his own music studio was probably exactly where he would have wished for it to happen. You see, Steve Albini was very knowledgeable and passionate about music and the space within the greater world that music occupied. He had very definite opinions about how artists should create their Art and about the role of said Art in our society. While he began his career as a creator of some of the most incendiary music that helped launch Punk as a music genre in America, he is arguably better known as a producer who helped others find and/or maintain their own musical voice and artistic integrity. But more than anything, he was a defender of music as an artform and of those who created it as artists. He was not corrupted by corporate influences and did not view money as a motivating force in anything he did. Steve Albini was a unique presence in a world that seems less inclined these days to value nonconformity. In the many tributes that poured through my social media timelines on Thursday (the day of his passing) the one that struck me the most came from CBC music commentator George Stroumboulopoulos. His tribute began with the line “He was the guardian of the original intent.”  That perfectly encapsulates who Steve Albini was for so many of us who are mourning his loss. Let me briefly tell you why that line is such a great line and why Steve Albini’s death leaves such a vacuum at such a critical time in our social and political history.

Steve Albini was one of the original punk rockers who followed in the wake of bands such as the Ramones and the Sex Pistols. What punk rock did for kids such as Steve Albini was provide them with a new way to express themselves musically. It allowed them to say things that needed to be said. It allowed them to connect with likeminded audiences in a much purer and more personal manner. Finally, it was a genre that served as a perfect fit for the DIY mentality. Punk rock was not a music format that crossed into the mainstream and had mass appeal back in the 1980s, which was a good thing for those who practiced that Art. Because the punk scene in cities like Los Angeles, New York, Detroit, Washington and Chicago (where Albini plied his trade) were insular scenes, those involved in the scene were granted a rare reprieve from the corrupting influences of the corporate world. In most cases, bands and fans were left alone to scream and thrash about in community halls, private basements or in small clubs that welcomed that sort of thing. If you were in a band, you wrote your own songs, you lugged your own equipment to and from gigs, you created your own posters to advertise your shows and you handled your own finances. You answered to no one except your fellow band members and to your fans who paid to come and see your shows with their nickels and their dimes. There was a sense of purity to it all. For Steve Albini, it was a worldly experience that became a permanent part of his mindset for the rest of his life.

Steve Albini was one of those angry young men, screaming and playing on stage in sweaty spaces for teeming masses of humanity who responded to every song with raucous energy in reply. Albini’s band Big Black became one of Chicago’s preeminent punk bands in the early 1980s. It was from the stages of Big Black shows that Albini grew comfortable in practicing his politics. He also wrote many articles in local punk magazines (simply called ‘zines) and developed a reputation as someone unafraid to speak his mind, to call out those he felt were delivering inauthentic efforts with their music and continually promoting the notion of always being true to yourself in everything you did. Albini was a passionate believer in the punk ethos that said that the involvement of corporate interests was the surest means by which an artist would lose their creative way. But, as firm in his resolve as he sometimes appeared to be, Steve Albini also knew that real life is hard for many. Having food to eat and a roof over one’s head are important aspects of living in a modern society. He knew enough to realize that you can’t eat your principles and feel full. At some point in every band’s musical journey, the business of being in the music business would become a factor. So, early on in his life and career, Steve Albini made a decision that not only changed his life but also changed and influenced the lives of hundreds of other artists and bands…he decided to start his own record label and become a record producer.

On the surface, a statement like the one I just made would seem to imply that Albini was turning into the same corporate leech that he had so often decried on stage and in print. But the reality of it all was that Steve Albini got into the business end of the punk scene in order to protect the integrity of the music and of those who made it. He had two principles, among many, that help illustrate the philosophy with which he acted as a producer and business associate. The first principle was that he never demanded nor accepted royalties from any band or artist whose record he helped to produce. No matter who showed up in his studio, Albini charged them all a flat fee and then allowed them to reap the full extent of the profits that their music accrued. Secondly, unlike many studio producers who have a style or a formula that they use with any band or artist who passes through their studio, Steve Albini was intent on helping each artist find and maintain their own true voice. In order to help this to happen, prior to recording a single track with any band, he would hand out a homework assignment. That assignment was to write out a story about each song. In that story, the band was asked to describe what the song was about, what the inspiration behind the song was and how the band/songwriter envisioned the song being recorded. With that information in hand, Albini would stick to the script and help each artist or band make their own musical vision come to life. In essence, Albini felt that helping bands stay as true to their voice and their artistic roots as possible in a world of homogenization of sounds and product was the most punk thing he could do with his life. So, for the last 30+ years, that is exactly what he did. Fittingly, he was doing that very thing this past week when he tragically passed away in his studio.

Steve Albini was willing to work with almost anyone, provided that they came armed with the proper mindset and the willingness to be as open and vulnerable in the studio as possible in search of their true voice. Over the course of his career behind the console, Albini helped bands to create some of the seminal albums ever in the genres of punk, alternative and grunge music. He produced In Utero for Nirvana, Rid of Me for P.J. Harvey, Surfer Rosa for The Pixies, 24 Hour Revenge Party for Jawbreaker, as well as working with everyone from Fugazi, to The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Urge Overkill, Bush, Veruca Salt and on to Canadian acts such as King Cobb Steelie, Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet and Thrush Hermit, plus hundreds and hundreds of earnest young artists and bands that many of you may not have heard of all yet all of whom had songs that deserved to be sung and messages that deserved to be heard by others. Steve Albini helped everyone say what needed to be said without worrying about marketing or plotting songs on financial spreadsheets. He lived his life believing in the purity and sanctity of music and of those who made it and stuck with that philosophy, all the way through to the end.

It is for that reason that so many are finding his death to be such a blow. Like it or not, we live in a world that is increasingly becoming commodified. Everything is for sale for the right price. Our most sensitive ecological spaces, our ability to access the information we need, our ability to feed ourselves or find medicine in times of injury or illness, our privacy is up for grabs and has been for a while…everything is for sale in our world. In times like these, I know that I often find myself looking around at the leaders in my hometown or my province or my country and wondering who, exactly, is looking out for my interests? Who among those sitting in the big chairs care about things that are important to me or my family? More often than not these days, the answer is that unless I pay for access with cash, my voice is not heard by anyone anymore. I speak from my platform on this blog to a few hundred other souls who, like me, have about as much influence in the affairs of our world as do the chipmunks that skitter to and fro across the lawn in my backyard. So then, to whom do we turn to help us be heard? Well, up until this past week, Steve Albini was someone who had the strength and courage of his convictions that allowed him to speak with his own voice and to help others to do the same in song. In these polarized times, standing on the soapbox in Speaker’s Corner is something only the brave or foolhardy do anymore. And now we have lost one more from an ever shrinking base of champions.

I know that punk music isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. But let me tell you that one of the things that initially drew me to punk rock was the fact that it seems like one of the last remaining bastions of pure, personal expression. The characters who make up the punk rock scene are often independent minded do-it yourselfers who have something to say and are unwilling to compromise in the belief of their right to say it. In many cases, what they have to say is closer, politically, to the world in which many of you reading these words actually live. The punk voices I listen to tend to be anti-gun, pro-environment, anti-government, anti-war/pro-peace and, most of all, they promote the idea that we, as individuals, still have the power to shape and control our own lives and that of the world around us. In losing Steve Albini, we lost someone who, as George Stroumboulopoulos stated so eloquently, was “the guardian of the original intent”. Punk rock was always intended to provide a platform for those whose voices may not always have been heard in polite social circles. It was always about the music being a means of providing that voice that needed to be heard. Steve Albini ensured that the music was made and that those voices were heard. And now he is gone. Who will amplify the voices of the voiceless now? Steve Albini was only 61 years old. While he has left us far too soon, he has done much that is important in those 61 years of living. He has more than earned his rest. It is with much gratitude and respect that I say to Steve Albini and those who knew him and loved him, may you rest in peace now and forever more. 

The link to the official website for Steve Albini can be found here.

For those who wish to do a deeper dive into the life and career of Steve Albini, here are some links to news articles that have appeared in the wake of his death. You can access these articles here, here and here.

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