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A morning of tab maintenance. Got too many of the bastards open so spinning a few off as bookmarks and dropping a few into the blog.
This has gone all over the Internet by now, but I love me some Shellac so I’m belatedly rambling about it anyway. Steve Albini did an interview with GQ magazine. Most people picked up on the fact that he had a pop at Sonic Youth* and then finished off wishing the magazine would fail. Nice. I’m always drawn to opinionated fucks because they make life on this rock interesting. If Henry Rollins is Seth Gecko then Albini is his younger brother. Him saying, “I don’t rate movies as an art form” is as problematic as leaving Richie Gecko to babysit. I’m still processing this.
But I love that GQ informs its readers that Albini “has a bit of an independent streak”. I don’t think I’ve even glanced at a copy of the magazine before so I have no idea how much irony is supposed to come loaded into a sentence like that.
If you’re still scratching your head as to who the guy is then I heartily recommend You Weren’t There: A History of Chicago Punk 1977 to 1984. A portion of the documentary is musicians calling Albini out as an asshole and you can see how much he got under their skin as a kid. Plus the music is fucking great.
Speaking of which, Albini namechecks Grandfather in the interview. I’ve been listening to their album all week and seeing as its currently up as a free download you’d be dumb not to go grab it.
And I should also mention the continuing epic ‘Women in Punk’ series of articles over on The F Word.
Go read, listen, break something.
*Shellac are actually supporting Sonic Youth at a New Year’s Eve party here in London. If it were any other night of the year I’d go.
The title of this post immediately reminded me of the #2screen talks I went to last night. There was some techy-stuf, some footy stuff (world cup, spread betting) but also a healthy dose of decent storytelling.
Have a look over the hashtag if you get a chance, I don’t know if the presentations will be available for download, but I think you might find it interesting.
It’s probably a Dan thing too. I should tell him as well
Cheers James! I’ll go have a wade through the hashtags now.
Not too surprised that Albini took a swipe at Sonic Youth and their Geffen years. Henry Rollins pretty much told them to fuck off over the video to 100%. I’m assuming that since leaving a major label and going to Matador, Albini may have more respect for them on a business level.
Like Harlan Ellison, I think Albini is simultaneously an example of how to “do it” and how “not to do it.”
They should be applauded for their integrity and their guts. And on another level, you need to ask yourself if you have the strength to be as exactly as willfull as them. To be honest, most people are not.
[...] mentioned them back in October and have been abusing their album ever [...]