'You know, Steve Albini!': Looking back at a spellbinding conversation about the legendary producer with Nirvana's bassist
Nearly a decade ago, Nirvana's Krist Novoselic flew his single-engine plane to Chicago to remaster the band's third studio record with Albini, who died last year
Note: Following is an edited and updated version of a story I wrote just after Albini’s passing in May of last year.
Wednesday marked exactly a year since prolific and legendary record producer Steve Albini died. Albini’s death, and now its anniversary, has left me thinking about a chance conversation I had with Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic more than a decade ago — about Albini’s work with Nirvana and Albini’s opinion of the band’s third studio record.
I was covering cops and courts in those days but had written a few stories about Novoselic, who lived along the Lower Columbia River and was studying pre-law at the local community college.
Novoselic had always been kind, quick to return reporters’ calls and more generous than he needed to be with his time. The two of us sat outside his farmhouse one evening as he explained a political cause he’d taken up. And Novoselic shared a ton I’d never known about Nirvana’s history when the band was inducted into the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame.
He’d spent much of this sunny, September morning in court rooms, observing hearings for one of his class assignments.
“Tony!” he called across the court house’s lobby. “How are you? How was your summer?”
A lot of work, I said, but also a lot of fun.
“How about you?”
“Busy!” Novoselic said. “I played Safeco Field1 with Paul McCartney!”
“My God! That’s great!” I said, and it occurred to me I’d likely never again hear those words spoken in that order by another human being.
Pat Smear, Nirvana’s former touring guitarist and now a Foo Fighter, had helped set the whole thing up, Novoselic told me.
Pat: “Paul wants to play ‘Helter Skelter.’”
A slightly panicked Krist: “But I don’t know ‘Helter Skelter!’”
Novoselic recalled catching a glimpse of himself projected on a towering screen. (“Whoa! I’m big!”)
And he and his wife were so giddy after the performance, they threw open their chauffeured van’s doors at a downtown Seattle stoplight and burst into the summer night, leaving behind their befuddled driver.
I found all of this endlessly amusing – and more than a little surreal. Here was a member of one of the world’s greatest and most-hallowed rock bands, himself wide-eyed and agog as he described sharing a stage with a Beatle. It was enough to make the tips of your fingers tingle.
But it wasn’t until Novoselic mentioned what he’d been up to in more recent weeks that my knees buckled. He said he’d piloted his single-engine plane all the way to Chicago. The reason: to remaster Nirvana’s third studio record, “In Utero.”
“Steve always felt the mix on that record was a little flat,” Novoselic said.
“Steve?” I asked.
“You know, Steve Albini!”
I slowly reached back and steadied myself against the wooden bench behind me.
Hearing Albini’s name spoken with such casual familiarity — spoken by the likes of Novoselic, no less — was like stepping into a dream world.
There are rock gods in the sense that people worship them.
And then there are Rock Gods like Albini, who have earned the distinction for their sheer creative power: “Let there be drums and bass and guitars and vocals and backing vocals – and let it all be loud. Really goddamned loud.”
Albini could conjure all manner of magic, thunder, passion, power, truest love and lust. And it’s often near impossible to figure how he did it.
Which is why, a year after Albini’s death, we can’t stop talking about him.
On Saturday night, The Jesus Lizard’s David Yow gave a shout-out to Albini during a careening, breakneck show at Seattle’s Neptune Theatre. Albini produced four of The Jesus Lizard’s earth-shaking records, including its first EP and a split-single with Nirvana. The Neptune crowd (and Yow, of course) went wild.
In what amounts to an online estate sale, thousands of Albini’s vinyl records, rare and odd books, t-shirts and other possessions went up for sale this week on a website called Steve Albini’s Closet. For most, visiting the website will be a digital pilgrimage in search of relics.
Albini was behind the boards on so many indie-rock albums, he’s revered by millions of music fans who have come to know him by a wildly disparate variety of bands.
Some revere Albini for Silkworm’s “Lifestyle” or Big Black’s “Atomizer” or, notably, Superchunk’s “No Pocky for Kitty” and Slint’s “Tweez.”
For me it’s always been Albini’s work on the Pixies’ “Surfer Rosa,” easily among my top-10 all time favorite records. There’s a kind of dark, supernatural energy that spins off that record. It’s all at once eccentric, feral — and full of wonder and joy. “Surfer Rosa,” is more than the sum of its parts. It also happens to melt the paint off walls.
Another Albini-produced favorite: The Breeders’ “Pod. “Last Splash” may be The Breeders’ money maker. But “Pod,” another full-length debut, is Kim Deal and Co.’s Albini-produced masterpiece.
“He built worlds,” The Breeders said on Facebook shortly after Albini’s death.
Albini also produced PJ Harvey’s incomparable “Rid of Me,” which, even played at sensible volume, can leave cracks in the ceiling.
And, yes, there’s “In Utero,” Nirvana’s last studio record before Kurt Cobain’s death. It’s somehow as raw as it is complex. And yet, like Albini, I also thought it a bit flat in the mix.
But I didn’t tell Novoselic that. How could I?
An important disclaimer: My ear is anything but well-trained, and I can operate a sprawling sound board about as well as a troupe of spider monkeys can fly a 737.
I listen with my body as much as my ears. I feel the best stuff in my chest. When it’s right, the hair stands up on my arms and the back of my neck. My heart quickens. Everything feels all charged and radioactive.
All of which is to say when a mix is flat, I know it’s flat. That much I know.
I started collecting vinyl records about five years after that courthouse conversation with Novoselic. Among my first purchases (fittingly at West Seattle’s Easy Street Records) was the remastered version of “In Utero” that Novoselic and Albini had worked on together all those summers ago.
They got it right — guided in no small part, I’m sure, by Albini’s instinct.
The mix on that record isn’t flat. Not anymore.
Which is now known as T-Mobile Park.