June 2024: Remembering Steve Albini, Hanif Abdurraqib on André 3000, and Food + Music
Howdy!
We made it to a second newsletter! Truly a milestone. Thank you for sticking with me. Please tell your friends.
Steve Albini, one of the the most influential engineers in modern music, passed away this month, just 61 years old. Most of the newsletter is dedicated to the great writing that followed his death.
Beyond that, this month I was happy to read a rarity - a great author getting to profile a great musician and having actual time to do so - and to see some fun connections between food and music.
Remembering Steve Albini
When somebody as remarkable as Steve Albini passes away in the internet age, the sudden amount of writing about that person can rival what was written during their lifetime. Albini deserves it. He was a champion of music, hard work, principle, pragmatism, and giving credit where credit was due.
Of the typical obituaries, check out Lars Gotrich’s textbook obit for NPR if you are unfamiliar with Albini and looking for all the facts. For long-time fans, Grayson Haver Currin’s link-dense reflection for Pitchfork gets into all the nooks and crannies including Steve’s prolific Twitter presence. And, of course, Amanda Petrusich’s beautiful tribute in The New Yorker:
Art like this is inherently benevolent. It is there to help us. Albini could be caustic, often combative, but perhaps he was simply saving all of his love and care for this one gesture.
I think those are fantastic places to start, but the best thing I read is “How to Live an Intentional and Ethical Life: RIP Steve Albini” by Trevor Shelley de Brauw, guitarist from Pelican, in Luke O’Neil’s Welcome to Hell World newsletter.
Given his skillset, intellect, and notoriety, he could easily have pandered to an audience, but he opted for a rockier road – willfully shaking people out of a complacent stupor…
Stick around for the excellent kicker: a perfect Steve story.
If you want more like that, Leor Galil is curating remembrances from Albini’s friends (the piece is being updated as more come in)and other members of the Chicago community. Many of them moved me to tears. In particular, Matthew Hale Clark’s is full of stories (making Steve a cherished pair of coveralls, heckling together and a Stravinski-for-rock band concert) and beautiful tiny details.
Albini was a great writer in his own regard. You many be familiar with his famous 1993 Baffler manifesto on the “The Problem with Music” that still, unfortunately, feels relevant today. He also bared his principles in the recently released letter he sent to Nirvana before agreeing to work on In Utero.
But I want to turn your attention to a remembrance he wrote of Michael Dahlquist, drummer for Silkworm, in the Chicago Reader. Even in writing, his voice is so clear. His affection for Michael is pouring off the page:
I’m going to try to explain something specific about Michael, so bear with me, because unless you’ve experienced it you might think I’m being coy here. Michael enjoyed literally everything that ever happened to him. Everything was a marvel to him–a moment of discovery, of novelty and insight to be celebrated with an openmouthed laugh. I mean everything. The best coffee, the shittiest gig, the cutest waitress, the worst hangover, the most awesome video store, the worst unrequited crush–all of it was worth discovering, laughing about, and genuinely reveling in. An unremarkable afternoon was worth reveling in because it was the most unremarkable afternoon, ever.
Steve Albini did the work, as many have noted, but even more remarkable is that he did it while caring about people.
One Great Interviews Another
André 3000’s New Blue Sun, his departure from rap and full swan dive into the flute, improvisation, and experimentation, came out in November. The best piece I’ve read on it - Hanif Abdurraqib’s feature profile and interview for The Bitter Southerner - was published 6 months later. It’s a rarity for an author to be allowed that much time and it is well-worth it.
Abdurraqib’s writing is the kind that reminds you that writing is not only about getting the point across, but about doing it beautifully. You can bask in his writing, unbothered by how long the piece is because you never want it to end.
It seems unfair that he can be both a beautiful writer and such an insightful observer and interviewer (for sure honed by hosting my favorite music interview show ever, Object of Sound). Where other pieces about New Blue Sun and André 3000’s new interests seem to get stuck around “Why not hip-hop?”, Abdurraqib has the courage to ask what seems obvious, “Why the flute?” He actually investigates the new direction independently and as a result gets deeper about both the future and the past.
“A lineage lets me know I’m human,” he says, softly, after I ask him if he hears any of his influence in the world. “My life meant something. My trying times, my fucked-up times in this world has meant something. I wasn’t just here.”
Mm..Food
We’ll end the newsletter on a lighter note: Musicians and food.
One of the big stories of May was the beef between Kendrick Lamar and Drake. I will admit I am not the one to ask about the details of this scuffle, but I did find this quick piece by T.M. Brown on New Ho King, the Toronto Chinese restaurant mentioned by Kendrick in “Euphoria”, to be a fun angle on the whole thing.
Way outta left field, I was alerted (h/t Leor Galil’s Bluesky account) to the delightful newsletter of Gracie’s, an ice cream shop in Sommerville, Massachusetts, which features interviews between the ice cream shop and touring musicians - like this one from early May with singer songwriter Jack Van Cleaf - about eating and snacking on tour. The voice and personality this is written with brings me a lot of joy.
Gracie’s: Your diet sounds like it's maybe 30% to 50% taco depending on where in the country you are.
This is exactly what I wanted when I started this newsletter: finding music writing worth reading in unexpected places.
Thank you for reading!
Justin Anderson-Weber
