Do It Together: Steve Albini 

Hello Otis. I am married to Steve Albini. Thank you for making such a thoughtful and informed tribute. It means more to me than you can imagine. You should; check out Robbie Fulks entire catalogue. In particular Let’s Kill Saturday Night, Couples In Trouble, Georgia Hard & his tribute to Michael Jackson. The song “God ISn’t Real” may be the reason he isn’t better known. Or “F**ck This Town” about Nashville. Also fun fact: Robbie taught Tina Fey guitar!

Thank God there are so many cut aways of Steve's shoes.

Rest in Peace, Steve. Your methods in recording those prolific albums will be remembered forever....

RIP legend ❤❤❤❤❤

Rest in peace Steve Albini So sad to see all of the legends leave this world Respect 💙

I think it's really sweet that you let your kid run the camera.

Sound arguments, opinions, and predictions, reasoned from first principles. As true today as it all was 13 years ago. What a life he gave us. ❤

The king of snare drum ambiance lol

Crazy how a 38-minute Albini interview has only 900 views. Great work.

He says a right thing about govenment and subsidies and all. I dearly miss him, who was DIY person from beginning to end, yet being a respected expert of what he does.

I don’t what it is about Albini but I could listen to him lecture about the menu at Waffle House and be mesmerized

The audio in this video is very punk rock

Didn't know Steve wore anything but his mechanics coveralls in the studio.

We turned down a quarter mil of Mercury/Polygram's money, in 1990, because they wanted us to change all our lyrics. I'd love to be making a living with my guitar, but I'd do it again. I agree, Mr. Albini.

He’s a smart dude, he rubs some people the wrong way but with him there’s no BS. This is how he thinks, this is how he operates and that’s that. We are lucky to live in the times we do but also unlucky, we are so lucky in our ability to access music, you pretty much get music from any artist or band whether it’s on Spotify, RU-vid, or some other platform. You can be exposed to some band in another country who’s recorded a livestream, no album, no record label just their music, that is awesome. The negative is still mostly what non music people hear as ‘music’ is the stuff on radio, in movies, in ads and that’s still overwhelmingly commercial crap. It’s about as memorable and meaningful as your last dump, it’s a product usually associated with an image. It’s written, produced and recorded with the goal of selling, not creating something that means something, that’s created because someone wanted to express themselves, someone feels something tell a story or just fun. Where the creation is purely for the song, the music, not we will appeal to the lowest common denominator and look to sell tens of thousands. It’s like McDonald’s vs a top restaurant, one you get cheap, mass produced ‘food’ the other you’re getting something of quality, that’s for those that appreciate the food. I just want to see more independent bands and artists, who write their own music, who can do it live, real musicians. Don’t have to be talented, punk was not full of virtuosos but it was real, that’s the key, it’s real music whether it’s someone bashing out three chords or someone going Steve Vai, long as it’s real, made for the music, not as a product. A good song resonates with you, makes you feel something, it touches something inside you, sometimes you don’t know why but you hear it and you connect. Will those in the popular charts be remembered in 50yrs? I doubt it but every day a kid hears the Beatles or led zeppelin or buddy holly or black flag or muddy waters or Bach for the first time and it resonates with them, that’s what real music does. It’s almost timeless.

This is an incredible video. Thank you for capturing and producing this content from Steve. Brilliant, wise, and flexible for the future of music. I'm inspired and also excited.

2 years later I doscover this....better late than never. Great perspectives.

We need more people like Steve Albini, missing him already 🖤

I've always appreciated Steve's materialist perspectives on the music industry and diy finances.

Holy shit fuck, people drop'n like flies this is so fucken sad! I was thinking about contacting him to make a recording of a song or two. Shat! Love your stuff so much Steve, rest well good sir!

Relatively uninformed fan here. This was a lovely production & conversation. Informative, occasionally hilarious, even teary - the bits about record storeS brings back so many fine memories of fantastic store clerks everywhere sharing with customers. Thanks bands, stores, clerks, musicians, Albini et al for all the great stuff. What’s life without it? Rest in peace brother. Kerosene!

what a loss. RIP. Steve.

Rip man so sad.. 😢 too young to be gone already..!

I love his harsh, brash and honest approach to anything in life. And I love that he thrives within the same crowd that is repulsed by him dropping the R word in this video.

I've never seen an interview with Steve where he fails to use the word 'paradigm', I think he has a bet with someone from years back that means he has to use it in literally every interview he does.

YOU'VE HEARD THIS, GUYS, WE CAN USE DUDE'S MUSIC ANYWHERE AND HE DOES NOT GIVE A FUCK. wish I was making skating videos so I can put shellac on it

This is an awesome interview. Thank you for sharing this!.

This is fascinating, and it's impossible to fault Albini's music business recommendations on an ethical level - on the other hand, most of the music I love was created by wasteful egomaniacs who couldn't organise a sock-drawer.

I'm really glad this exists--thanks for posting!

great interview!!!!

This was wonderful.

really great interview, thanks

This is raw & brilliant.

Relaxed, raw & brilliant.

What a compassionate, unexpectted sweet smart perspective

This camera work is comparable with The Room.

Such a great interview!

Words of wisdom.

Steve the Sage. Thanks for this video.

Very insightful. GREAT interview.

Thanks For This

so true... so true so much intelligent and wise words expressed... thank you so much

Such an honest and transparent view.

He’s really mellowed out with age. Asshole or not , your choice. He’s the cats’ meow always has been in my mind. I’m a hard ass, he’s a hard ass.

Thanks for sharing

I loved this guy

so good !

So great to watch my documentary...

I agree with his feelings toward intellectual property. The man had a great character.

Albini telling it like it is

Incredible Listen

RIP STEVE

Rest in peace you are still a legend of a man

He said it all ❤

Rip the legend

Great and informative interview. He is correct that the economic environment is quite different for musicians between Europe and the States, I have lived both, but when he said European government subsidies come without strings attached he was wrong. if you deviate from the establishment script you are excluded. He also came from money so he could afford to live his 'underground' life until it paid for itself. I worked for him once. he was very decent. RIP Steve.

Rest Steve, .

Steve is a genius

Great interview, thanks! The IP obsession isn't limited to the music industry; it's an American thing generally. It keeps all the lawyers in clover.

this was a fucking excellent interview.

RIP Steve Legend

During an interview with Steve Albini is the wrong time to learn how to use your video camera.

Love craft.

more closeups of the trousers please, great camerawork

RIP Steve Albini

This is just good life advice from the point of view of a musician/engineer/etc

He puts soul in his recordings but when he talks he could strip the humanity out of anything.

real raw love Steve Albini -PREXENTS #prexents

Albini taught us how to create music as a believer. He’s like the Charles Manson of nerds.

Guitar sounds cool,

A lot of wonderful, unvarnished truth here. The US health system needs urgent overhauling. Tax the rich, and give some of that money to creative arts grants.

Albini is one of the best theorists of IP.

Glad the camera man fought through that bout of Parkinson’s.

why is the secondary camera so shaky/out of focus/done so randomly? 😐 (audio engineering program, but took a camerawork class, basically they tell you to commit to something instead of moving everywhere)

Enjoyed this. What is the name of the opening and closing song?

Have some sympathy for the viewer to not take them out the moment so the words don't get lost....

Camera 2 either has some legit technical issues or is trying way too hard. Lol… really good interview tho

Albini was always worth listening to.

Where can I watch the rest of the doc?

big steve droppin 900 r words in this but also droppin absolute facts

Great interview, the artsy shots were a little distracting though.

What monitors are those

B CAMERA needed to go to the bathroom or what??

there is a certain kind of person that really gets irritated by darting, close-up shots. I am not one of those people, but there seem to be a lot in this comment section. I love the focus shots on objects in the studio, his hands and stuff. It's great. I don't get what everyone's problem is. Y'all would hate the Safdie Brothers films. lol

This is a fantastic interview, but why did the editor decide to have so many extreme closeups? Like, I don' need to see every single hair on Steve's face...

RIP. 😪😪😪

Man...that is just some really damn depressing news man...

Fantastic bogey shot at 10:10

Love the video game riff... "conceptually, I'm OK with it... but if you ask me, I'd say NO... however, if you just used my music I would never know about it so WHY ASK???"

Datum??

Why are you on his LV-4? Why not ST-12?

Well, bravo. Hugs from Russia.

love how he bashes his own fans at the end

TL;DR: We jam econo

Directed by Paul Greengrass

We lost a great one, eh? RIP

That scandi art dollar is tax dollars... So many of us resent paying tax. This is a good reason why we should.

I thumbed up at about 4 minutes...

The handy cam footage is really fucking this up :(

He never gets older, does he? 😁 Great interview, thanks. The only thing I disagree is his denial of digital music-making as he talks about the guy with the laptop on a stage with light show in the background. It's not the blacksmith's fault that people now drive cars and vice versa. And it's the same thing with digital musicians.