Steve Albini, 1962-2024

Speaker 30s - 16.2s

Hi, I'm Mark Caro, and welcome to episode 133 of Carol Pop, sponsored by Revolution Brewing.

Speaker 216.92s - 39s

Like so many people, we hear Carol Pop were devastated to hear the news of Steve Albany's death at age 61 of a heart attack. He was a Titanic figure in the music world, having engineered, and though he didn't like this word, produced timeless works by such artists as Nirvana, P.J. Harvey, the Pixies, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, and Robbie Fultz.

Speaker 039s - 48.9s

And I've phoned amongst a hundred words, but words don't do it right. Alabama, white night. Alabama at night. Alabama at night.

Speaker 249.06s - 173.82s

He also was known here in Chicago for working with many musicians who were not that well known, did not have that much money, and yet were able to book time in Albini's electrical audio studio on Chicago's north side with one of the industry's most supportive, talented engineers turning the dials and cutting the tape. Yes, tape. His number one priority was to protect and preserve an artist's vision and he felt digital technology can't preserve itforever so he kept working with analog tape no matter the extra labor and care involved. This was a guy who put his money where his mouth is, some of that money coming from his poker prowess. He was a musician's mensch who also donated his time and services to good causes, such as the Second City's annual 24-hour Letters to Santa Benefit. And of course he was a trailblazing musician himself with his band's Big Black and Shalak,the latter of which has its first album in 10 years to all trains coming out May 17th on touch and go. Live shows had been scheduled. Albini spoke with us for back-to-back carol pop episodes that were posted in January 2022. For the first one, we met inside electrical audio, amid all his equipment, and discussed analog versus digital, whether the digital revolution had been more of a blessing or a curse for musicians, and whether the industry had grown more or lessexploitative. In the follow-up conversation, which took place over Zoom days later, we dug into the most famous album he recorded, Nirvana's In Utero. Did he think the controversy over his mixes was overblown? Did he accuse me of not understanding how musicians think? Had he mellowed out nonetheless while remaining constantly insightful? Yes, yes, and yes. This will be a supersized episode combining those two conversations,and we wish we could hear more. We miss you already, Steve. Welcome to Carol Pop, Steve Albini. Thank you. Thanks for having me. So we're sitting in your control room B.Is that what you call it?

Speaker 1173.86s - 176.98s

Exactly. The control room of Studio B at Electrical Audio in Chicago.

Speaker 2176.98s - 184.06s

And how much of the equipment in here was here when you built this and how much of it is stuff you've replaced over the years?

Speaker 1184.98s - 185.06s

The vast majority of this equipment predates the... when you built this and how much of it is stuff you've replaced over the years?

Speaker 2191.18s - 191.44s

The vast majority of this equipment predates the existence of the studio.

Speaker 1195.5s - 206.56s

Like most of this equipment was in the home studio that I had that was about a mile from here. In this control room, I would say 80% of this control room was moved intact from that little bungalow on Francisco Street to this building when the studio opened.

Speaker 2206.9s - 212.98s

And over time, we've modified and adapted and acquired some stuff, but the bulk of it has stayed the same.

Speaker 1213.3s - 217.02s

And then you have your Studio A control room as well. Same with that?

Speaker 2217.44s - 220.02s

No, Studio A was sort of top to bottom brand new.

Speaker 1220.32s - 242.28s

I had one studio at the house on Francisco Street, and when we bought this building, we bought it with the intent of making two studios in this building. And Studio A was the sort of nicer, fancier of the two studios. So we had a new console, new tape machine, and a lot of the equipment in the, a lot of the secondary equipment in that studio was acquired for Studio A.

Speaker 2242.28s - 252.92s

So you're known for recording all analog, all the tape. Are there improvements in technology with that, or is it just a matter of?

Speaker 1252.92s - 328.14s

Oh, absolutely, yeah. I mean, just even small things, like test and measurement equipment now allows you to do refinements of circuits and maintenance that were impossible 50 years ago, for example. There have been improvements made in what you could call generic components, the things that you use to build electronics out of, right? Resistors, for example, are now much tighter tolerances, and the cost of precision has come way, way, way down. So it's nowpossible to make analog or improve analog equipment to be better than it was in its heyday, as it were. One of the tape machines that we use regularly here is the Ampex ATR tape machines. Those were new in the late 80s, in the mid to late 80s. And since then, there have been techniques developed for refurbishing those machines and optimizing those machines that makes them better than they were when they were brand new. So those machines are now operating, you know, 30, 40, sometimes 50 years after their introduction. They're operating better than they ever were, and they allow you to dobetter, more accurate recording and playback than you could during their heyday.

Speaker 2328.56s - 333.66s

So is this a moment in time where you could basically make recording sound better than you ever could before?

Speaker 1334.82s - 366.9s

Well, to a given standard, yes. I would say there are certain things that in certain things are just not applicable to the analog domain, like people who work in computers for making purely electronic music that is entirely absent a performance component. Like that stuff is just not applicable to the analog techniques. Right.But if you're talking about musicians doing a performance in front of microphones being recorded on a tape machine, you can certainly do a better job of that now than you ever could.

Speaker 2367.02s - 372.92s

Are there certain elements that have sort of, you know, gotten better at a different pace than others, like microphones,

Speaker 1372.92s - 621.4s

do on a certain era of microphone, but a certain era of speaker or something like that? It's kind of amazing that microphone technology went from being incredibly crude to being nearly perfect in the span of about 30 years. So by the late 30s, early 40s, essentially all of the technologies that are used in microphones had already been developed and documented and in some cases nearly perfected. And so there are microphones that were current in the 1940s or 1950s where you literallycan't do better now. Like, from a technical standpoint or from an aesthetic standpoint, a lot of the very early microphones were about as good as it gets. Then as technologies and manufacturing techniques improved, a lot of things that used to be rare esoteric technologies or microphones that were difficult to get a hold of because they were, they used exotic materials or exotic construction techniques difficult to get a hold of because they used exotic materialsor exotic construction techniques or whatever. A lot of those now are sort of are nearly commodity items. Like you can buy usable condenser microphones that cost $100 now as opposed to $1,000. You know, and you can go to any guitar shop in America and out yourself with a kid of microphones that is serviceable and does a decent job for less than the cost of a single microphone in it, you know, in the analog heyday. Right. So that's one example of a technology that was sort of that matured very quickly.And then the thing that improved over time was the access to those technologies, you know. It used to be that ribbon mics were somewhat esoteric. You didn't see ribbon microphones in every studio. And now there are dozens of companies that make new ribbon microphones on along classic patterns or along, you know, in, you know, with respect to the classic designs, but that are now available readily and affordably everywhere in the world. So that's one of the ways that that technology has developed is that the access to it has gotten a lot easier. Things like recording consoles, they started out very simple just because the technology,the electronics of the day were bulky and cumbersome, you know, vacuum tube electronics versus transistor electronics. Then the consoles got more features and they got more compact and you got more channels and that sort of thing. And then in the end of the analog era, you had these massive consoles that could have hundreds of inputs and each channel had many, many, many redundant features.But then in the digital era, a lot of those, a lot of those features were unnecessary. You weren't using that many channels on the console anymore. And a lot of the console features would be built into a software program like Pro Tools, for example, and you wouldn't need it on the console. So from a sort of pinnacle of massive consoles that would cost you, you know, a quarter million dollars or whatever, to now consoles are very simple and very modest in that they don't have as many channels, they don't have as many features. But because there are fewer channels and because there are fewer features, they can be made to a very exacting standard.And so recording consoles that are being made now can be made to a higher sound quality standard than the sort of general purpose consoles that were made back in the day. Now, some of these consoles were made to a very high standard and they have a classic sound and they are as good as anything will ever be. And, you know, no slight on a beautiful old recording console. But my point is that as technologies change over time and as access to things changes over time, the focus of development changes, whereas there was kind of an arms race in the 80s or the 90s for a console with the most lights on it and the most buttons on it.So the recording console could do the most things to the sound. That's not necessary anymore. So now you can concentrate on having a smaller number of channels that sound spectacular rather than a large number of channels that were, every one of them was like a utility knife or whatever.

Speaker 2622.04s - 662.22s

And you've talked a lot about, including to me, when we did a Tribune story, what, in 2014, about, you know, one of the main reasons to be committed to analog is that it's an actual physical record of the recording. And it's not something that software updates are going to make, like, the thing sort of go away. And sort of basically a lack of belief in the stability of a digital product. Do you think, are there other aspects of digital recording that you've liked, though,and that have sort of improved the overall quality of what music sounds like or recording sound like?

Speaker 1662.28s - 707.3s

There are different paradigms of recording. In the digital world, the features of a digital system are entirely about manipulating the sound after it's been recorded. That is, the recording of the sound is considered the beginning of the process. Right. And then there will be, you know, there will be edits made. Sounds will be manipulated and processed and stacked.And things are rarely left as they are in the digital world. That is, the majority of the energy in a digital session is spent editing, manipulating, moving, optimizing, already recorded sound.

Speaker 2709.06s - 714.86s

Or like if there are 10 takes of something, you like this phrase from one and this phrase from another and becomes this Frankenstein mix or version.

Speaker 1714.86s - 718.1s

So those are standard things in the digital realm.

Speaker 2718.34s - 793.38s

In the analog world, you can do all of those things, but you only do them very specifically and for cause. In the digital realm, in the digital techniques, those are standard methodologies that are applied sort of universally to everything. So you're asking if there were things about digital recording that I think were better. There are some theoretical benefits, which I appreciate. The power of the processing is incredible.Like, the fact that you can instantly duplicate and repeat passages, that you can correct tuning errors, that you can do radical sculpting of the sound. Like, those are impressive kind of circus tricks that you can do in the digital paradigm. That, you know, in some cases, there is no analog equivalent to those things. In most cases, there is, but in some cases there isn't. And that's a definite and genuine advantage for people who are working in that paradigm is that they can take advantage of that kind of manipulation.The carrying on effect of that is because you have so much power in manipulation at your fingertips, everything gets manipulated. Nothing is ever left alone. And in the analog world, the majority of the work in perfecting or in

Speaker 1793.38s - 827.58s

idealizing the sound happens prior to the recording. That is, songwriting, arrangement, rehearsal, performance, optimization of sound quality. All of those things happen before you hit record to the extent possible. And then you, of course, you'll do some workon all of those things after the fact, but the moment of recording is much more pivotal, is much more critical in the analog world. Because when you're recording something,it's there forever. When I say forever, I mean, you something, it's there forever. You know, when I say forever, I mean, you know, a few hundred years.

Speaker 2827.66s - 848.92s

I mean, that whole notion of the studio as an instrument, you know, originated in the analog world and like the psychedelic eraof the 60s and stuff like that. But it was a different sort of thing, like, like, you know, for all, for all of how advancedSergeant Pepper was considered at the time, like those are pretty low-tech effects they were using.

Speaker 1849.04s - 869.74s

What people don't appreciate is that those, a lot of those psychedelic effects were practical effects, like the equivalent of, you know, singing through a cardboard tube or whatever. Like a lot of the effects, a lot of the things that were done to abstract the sound were done in real time, we're done in the real world. They weren't purely electronic or they weren't technical solutions

Speaker 2869.74s - 874.3s

in most cases. You're like running the vocal mic or the guitar through like the Leslie keyboard

Speaker 1874.3s - 892.42s

speaker or something like that. Yeah. And all of those sort of practical things, you can do those in the digital paradigm, but there are much more aggressive manipulations done every day in the, in the digital paradigm. And, you know, for all of its complexity and for its intricacy,

Speaker 0893.18s - 899.02s

Sergeant Pepper was recorded on four-track tape machines, you know. And that's a, that's something

Speaker 3899.02s - 905.64s

that's not appreciated by people who, you know, don't, wouldn't think of beginning a session

Speaker 0905.64s - 908s

without sort of infinite tracking available to them.

Speaker 1908.18s - 910.86s

So do you get artists who come in

Speaker 2910.86s - 921.64s

and they say, you know, we just, we have our ideas, but we want to use the studio as an instrument and we want to kind of experiment around? Like, does that work with you and your approach?

Speaker 1921.64s - 1005.8s

Well, I'm perfectly willing to conduct a session that way, but bearing in mind the era that we live in, where everyone has a studio on their laptop, where they can do all of these studio-specific experimentations, coming into a studio where you're paying for the time in order to experiment, in order to fiddle around with things at random, is a money-losing proposition. It's an inefficient way to spend what is becoming very scarce resource of a studio budget.So most of the time, when a band comes into the studio, they have their ideas fixed and they're coming into the studio to execute them, rather than coming into the studio to play around and see what happens. Because everyone has the capability of playing around to see what happens at home for no cost. And there your time and your energy are essentially unlimited. You can spend as much time as you want developing a crazy effect for a moment in a song because no one is charging you for that time.And because you're not wasting any of a budget to spend time at home tinkering around with something on your headphones. And I think that's a very good way to sort of conceptualize the experimentation impulse is that if you want to get lost on a journey, you can get lost on a journey all on your own nowwithout involving a staff of people and, you know, a on a journey all on your own now without involving a staff

Speaker 01005.8s - 1018.9s

of people and, you know, a janitorial crew and that sort of thing. And so I think that's a tremendous artistic and cultural development. I think the fact that everyone who wants to can have like

Speaker 11018.9s - 1042.3s

an exploratory experience using all these different techniques in the studio, everyone has access to that now. It's not just, you know, take acid, go up on the roof and let George Martin tune the fiddles or whatever. It's like you can have a kind of an experience like that, you know, pop an edible and spend the evening on the headphones. Like, I think that's a really amazing development, you know.

Speaker 21042.38s - 1060.2s

Do you think cost aside, there's also a sense of working with you that they consider you to be sort of more devoted to capturing performance in a certain way that maybe is not going to be about, hey, let's run these tapes backwards and let's do guitars upside down and, you know, that sort of thing?

Speaker 11060.68s - 1155.58s

You know, I genuinely don't know why people choose to work with me. I know what they tell me, but in some cases, I'm sure that's guarded, you know, what their genuine, like, rationale is. I have deduced from decades of doing this that one of the reasons is that I'm a bargain is that, you know, coming to this studio and working with this equipment and other trained engineers and a collection of high quality microphones and we're using classic techniques, that's an experience that some people want to have and that experience is more attainable than they might have imagined in terms of its cost. So that's one thing is that I'm relatively speaking, I'm a bargain. The other one is that I've made a lot of records, which means that if you're in a band and you're in the company of musicians, you likely know someone who's been here to record and can give you a firsthand account of what the experience was like. So you can get a reliable report from someone you trust about whether or not you're going to have a good time if you come here. get a reliable report from someone you trust about whether or not you're going to have a good time if you come here. And I mean, that sort of word of mouth thing is often spoken of as networking, which I think is a slightly repulsive term for it.Word of mouth is better than networking. Yeah. But the long and short of it is I've made a lot of records and a lot of people have been here and been through the process. And so if you're interested in it, if it appeals to you on any level, you probably know, you can ask to, you know, what was it like? I'm just going to guess that you know someone. Absolutely. That has been here to make a

Speaker 21155.58s - 1158.94s

record. And you could ask that person what it was like. I know someone who is here recently.

Speaker 11158.94s - 1210.18s

Do you know someone that's been here to record? I'm asking everyone in the room. Yes. Yeah. So, and you're not, you're not even principally musicians. You just know musicians. So if you were also musicians and were spending all of your time in the company of musicians,then you would likely have multiple reports that you could glean about what the experience of working here with me was like. And so you could evaluate that more fairly than if you just imagined theexperience of working with some other engineer whose name you've read on the back of records, but you have no direct or even indirect contact with. Like, if you, you know, read a name on the back of a record and you imagine, oh, I wonder what it must be like to work with this person and this studio. In most cases, you would have a hard time finding that out. With respect to me, it's trivial. Right.

Speaker 21210.38s - 1239.06s

I mean, at the same time, I'm sure there are a lot of people who are like, hey, this guy did, you know, the pixies and Nirvana and PJ Harvey and the breeders, and, you know, he was in Big Black and Shalak and, you know, just start naming your resume. I would imagine you get a fair number of people who come in and they say, oh, I want this sound because you did this. And I'm wondering, like, is that, do they tend to come in and say,I want that Steve Albini drum sound or that guitar sound or something like that?

Speaker 11239.08s - 1290.94s

And then there are other people, obviously, who are doing completely different music who don't want that. Yeah, again, I mean, I only can go by what people tell me. And it's certainly the case that some people who make music that is idiomatically similar to other records I've done would want to be treated similarly. And that makes perfect sense to me in the same way that, you know, if you like Greek food, you go to a Greek restaurant. You know, that makes perfect sense. I am always surprised when people mention, when it comes up, when people mention records that I've worked on that have meant something to them. And the reason that I'm surprised is that they typically mention a record that would not have been expected from the kind of music that they make. Like there'll be like a filthy, grungy, heavy metal band, for example, where, you know, like, where they're all, you know, sort of character actors playing the part of a heavy metal band.

Speaker 31290.94s - 1322.16s

Right. And, like, two of them will mention this album that I did with Joanna Newsom, who's a harpist and a folk singer, right? Or someone will mention, someone in a fairly conventional, straightforward band will mention some of the experimental music that I've worked on as being important to them. And I think that speaks to the fact that people's tastes are much broader and much more Catholic than they're given credit for. Like, generally speaking, people don't just listen to one kind of music.

Speaker 11322.78s - 1383.5s

If you take anybody's iTunes playlist and scroll through it, you're going to be surprised, based on what you know about that person and their taste. You're going to be surprised by a significant amount of it. And I think that's kind of a great development of the sort of technological era we're in, is that you can go down these weird rabbit holes and find the weirdest shit, you know, that you, you know, like, wow, it turns out I really like Senegalese guitar players. And now I'm going to go find a whole bunch of Senegalese guitar music to listen to. Or like, turns out I think I really like Cambodian pop music. So now I'm going to go find a whole bunch of Cambodian pop music.Like, those are the kind of experiences that everyone has now. Like, everyone curates their listening experience on this really microscopic scale, really fine-grained interest that wouldn't be catered to by a radio playlist or wouldn't be catered to even by a conventional record collection where you had to go to a store and buy a record every time.

Speaker 21383.5s - 1400.02s

Yeah, I buy more vinyl now than I ever have. But at the same time, if not for, you know, hearing about some, you know, some obscure Philadelphia soul artist from 1972 who then I can go listen to immediately on the internet, then maybe

Speaker 31400.02s - 1403.02s

I'm not going and finding those albums and buying those albums.

Speaker 01403.16s - 1406.38s

I'm like, oh, like these Betty Davis records are pretty cool and crazy,

Speaker 31406.62s - 1425.2s

which is not Philadelphia Soul or, you know, and Peebles, which is Memphis or, you know, you know, these other OJ's records, which is Philly Soul. But, you know, I mean, and then sort of weird, like kind of crout rock and things like, like these little rabbit holes you can go down because it's on these streaming services.

Speaker 11425.34s - 1545.06s

Exactly, yeah. YouTube. But at the same time, then you kind of go back to the analog source if you're me or you don't if you're a lot of people. One thing that I find curious is that when I was first getting into music in the beginning of the punk rock era, there were outsider fringe artists even within the outsider fringe that I was a part of, right? fringe artists, even within the outsider fringe that I was a part of, right? So there was, there was a general music scene, you know, the general punk music scene. And then there were the esoteric weirdos who were on the margins of that. And even within my circle of friends, those peoplewould be, you know, not mainstream or not the, not the people that they would have known about, right? That they were so distinctive means that now, decades later, people who are decades younger than me, who are getting into music, are following the same threads and the same tendrils that invigorated me about this music when it was new.So let's say in 1980, if I was having a conversation with another punk music enthusiast, and I mentioned the band Metalerbane, who were a French electronic punk band of the era, their records came out in the late 70s and early 80s. Most people would not have heard of that band. Or if I mentioned suicide, an experimental music band that sort of survived across the punk era, but were not really directly related to the punk era. Or Silver Apples, who were another electronic band, sort of a precursor to the band'ssuicide. If I was having a conversation with another punk music fan in, say, the 1980s, those would have been considered obscure, and they probably, they may have heard of one or two of them, but not all of them. If I have a conversation with a young person who has gotten into punk music of that era, and I have that same conversation with them, they'll be familiar with all of those artists. They'll be familiar with all of them, and they'll have the same appreciation for them that I did because access to it is no longerrestricted. Like, it used to be, if a record was rare, you never heard it.

Speaker 31545.22s - 1545.4s

Right.

Speaker 11552.86s - 1552.96s

And now, if a record is rare, it's actually easier to hear because people post rare records up on YouTube so that you can hear them, you know?

Speaker 21562.12s - 1595.8s

Yeah, and I remember hearing about Big Star, and it was like, because I, you know, in buckets of brains, you know, Peter Buck or Mike Mills would have it on their 10 best, you know, Desert Island disc list. And I'd be like, where is this radio city? How do I hear that? And now, you know, you could buy like 15 different colored vinyl versions of it. And Pylon, um, Pylon box came out and there's a booklet in there. And you wrote an essay in there about seeing them when you were at Northwestern and how formative they were.And, you know, they were like this, you know, a little Athens, Georgia band, you know, between, you know, the more commercially successful B-52s and REM. And I mean, I knew them, you know, a little Athens, Georgia band, you know, between, you know, the more commercially successful B-52s and REM. And, I mean, I knew them, you know, from then, but I had, but by the first exposure I had to them was the REM covering crazy. But you had a very nice

Speaker 31595.8s - 1605.52s

essay about that. And now it's like, you know, it's big box with a book and colored vinyl or not colored vinyl stuff. And Pylon is like sort of this form, you know, it's kind of a building block of

Speaker 11605.52s - 1629.12s

that music but if you if you were to find um musicians who are active contemporaneous with pylon especially um underground musicians in the south like from Georgia North Carolina um every one of them would have pointed to pylon as being like a leading figure in the underground music scene in the South during that era. Every single one of them.

Speaker 31629.16s - 1629.32s

Yeah.

Speaker 11629.48s - 1665.22s

They, you know, as notable as you could be in that scene, they were an extremely notable band. They never achieved sort of mainstream commercial penetration. So it takes something like the collective will of all of those people to get them the kind of attention that they warranted, that they warranted because all of the bands that were directly influenced by them would say, yeah, we were directly influenced by Pylon. In the same way that Pylon would have said, yeah, we were directly influenced by the B-52s. You know, they're as influential and as important within that community.

Speaker 21683.48s - 1686.86s

So to really generalize it, you know, looking back, do you think, is digital a good thing for music overall in terms of, and including like the whole internet, everything that's digital, is that something that has helped music overall, or is it still something that if you could wave a magic wand and make it go away you would? Absolutely not waving in that magic wand.

Speaker 11694.92s - 1713.16s

Like the access that people have now to music such that it allows them to indulge the specificity of their tastes, the way I was describing earlier, like that's such an enormous benefit that even if there are some drawbacks to it, like the fact that compensation for records is now much, much worse than it used to be, that, you know, the streaming services, for example, are even worse than record companies in terms of their exploitation of the artists.

Speaker 01716.68s - 1719.34s

Taking all of that on board, just the access to music and the access to an audience for artists.

Speaker 31719.34s - 1724.08s

Like if you're a bedroom artist where you just make music to amuse yourself,

Speaker 01724.76s - 1739.74s

it's now possible that you can go directly from your laptop in your bedroom to a worldwide audience. Like with bypassing all of the show business steps in between. And a number of significant artists have done that already.

Speaker 11740.14s - 1822.36s

You know, like Lil Nas X, for example, like went from being somebody who is making music to amuse himself to being an international smash, you know? Billy Elish, for example, went from making music with her brother at home to being an international superstar. And all of that is a direct result of the technological development, right, that has enabled the democratization of the process of making music. Now, I've mentioned some people that were commercially successful and have done things on a big scale. I don't, that, to me, that's not the most important part of it. The most important part of it is that now everyperson who's ever wanted to make music can make music. And they're doing these intensely personal, odd things with this power that they've gotten, this access that they've got now. There's an example that I like is there's a woman in England who releases music under the name Billy No Mates. She was amusing herself with music-making programs, and she made some recordings of herself, and she got them into the hands of some people that she liked. And almost overnight, she was accepted as a peer by those people, and her music started to be disseminated by them.

Speaker 31822.44s - 1874.3s

She collaborated with people like the Sleaford Mods, for example. They were her favorite band at the time. And within a year, she was doing collaborations with them on their record, you know. She's just finished a tour with them in England. She's just put out her own album last year. And this is all like intensely personal homemade music, music made with the simplest of tools, you know.And I think that's amazing. I don't, I don't think the commercial success of something is an, is an indication of its importance. What I think is an indication of its importance is the fact that it's now anyone can do it. It's not just if you happen to own a guitar, or if you happen to be in the company of other people that want to form a band with you, or if you happen to have access to this sort of specialized equipment, like literally you can do it on your iPhone.

Speaker 11875.1s - 1932.82s

You know, and that to me is such an overwhelmingly positive development that whatever negative associations I make with the way that the digital paradigm is kind of denigrated other aspects of music technology, other aspects of music and other aspects of technology, that cultural good is so great that it's totally worth it, 100% worth it. Like the digital revolution may very well put me out of business in terms of me being a studio owner with a big studio that's full of real estate and expensive equipment and fancy microphones and a staff and, you know, my overhead is extraordinary. And all of those things mean nothing with respect to the ease of use of the digital paradigm, right? So if I end up being put out of business by this shift, it's still worth it. Like, you know, my life's work down the drain. Still worth it. Well, I was wondering,

Speaker 21933.06s - 1943.26s

you know, whether there's, whether it's actually sort of a positive, like, like, when I did that Tribune story, my, my premise basically was everyone is like garage band or Pro Tools in

Speaker 01943.26s - 1971.56s

their basement. Sure. So how to is like, you know, a CRC and all these places sort of keep going. And, you know, and the one thing with electrical audio is that you're such a defined, like what you do is so defined that it's a specific approach that is not the same as your generic, whatever other studios there are. And so what I'm wondering is whether having more people having access to the digital stuff

Speaker 21971.56s - 1999.18s

maybe gets them to have the bug of, hey, I've been buying a lot of vinyl because vinyl's back. Maybe it would be cool to record like a AAA classic sounding record with Steve Albini at electrical audio. And so then maybe that actually helps your business, as opposed to everyone just is used to doing stuff on their own digital technology and everything sounding super compressed, and they just don't want to deal with it.

Speaker 11999.18s - 2006.22s

I mean, that's an interesting notion. And if you wanted to start a promotional campaign to that effect,

Speaker 32006.4s - 2017.8s

you know, by all means, I think people don't think about things in that way. I think people can hear the results of their work and they're either happy or they're dissatisfied.

Speaker 12017.8s - 2105.46s

And they can hear the results of doing things along using classic processes and techniques. And they can imagine extrapolating themselves into that scenario. And I think that resonates with people on a very base level. I don't think it's nearly as intellectual a process. I don't think there's as much strategizing about it as you're making out. It's more a matter of, I play in a three-piece rock band. All of my favorite records were recorded simply, and here's a place where we can do precisely that. Let's give it a shot, because that's the way all of my favorite records were done. Or, I have this grandiose notion of my music. I want it tosound like this classically orchestrated and performed masterpiece. These little synthetic simulacrums are not doing it for me. I want the real thing. I want to hear an orchestra playing in a room, playing one of my songs. I want to hear a 12-piece band cranking while I sing over the top of it. There are becoming fewer and fewer places where you can have that experience. And, you know, it's a normal aspect of any technological development that businesses that aretied to a previous generation are eventually going to, you know, are going to fall off one after another until there are only a few left. And the ones that are left are the ones that still provide value in that idiom.

Speaker 22105.46s - 2134.04s

I see more, you know, just from looking on Facebook pages, Reddit pages, like stuff that I didn't used to look at myself, partly out of, you know, sort of like getting, going deeper on some vinyl and music stuff or whatever. But I just see, I, so maybe it's just, again, everyone has their own little personal Twitter feed of information they're getting on the Internet. But I certainly see a lot more about analog, is this analog versus digital, the advantages of that.

Speaker 32134.34s - 2142.54s

And so I would think that would bode well and could help with this promotional campaign that we're going to come up with when we're done doing this podcast interview.

Speaker 22142.54s - 2145.44s

But I just, I hear a lot of that.

Speaker 32145.56s - 2148.86s

Well, there is some kind of snake oil there.

Speaker 12148.96s - 2156.3s

Like a lot of people attribute to the analog process, a kind of magic, which it absolutely does not possess.

Speaker 32157.06s - 2165.38s

The analog processes and techniques are mature technologies that have been worked out over a long period of time and they're optimized for their job.

Speaker 12165.54s - 2243.26s

So an analog engineer will be very careful about the processes and do as accurate a recording as is possible. Like that's job one is to make an accurate recording, right? What people attribute to analog as its kind of magical sound are either engineering errors where someone did something mistakenly or they're mistaken about that it's that it's part of the process. And I think in a lot of cases, the critical mind tends to short change the creativity of the artists and the, and the quality of the people making the music becausethey're looking for an externality that they can attribute the greatness of a record to. They don't want to say, oh, these simpletons, how could these dumb people make an amazing piece of music? It must be because they had Phil Spector, you know, or it must be because they were using this horn section, or it must be because they were using this classic studio and this classic equipment and the classic production techniques. The reality is that the people playing the notes, the people who dreamed this music up and executed it, those people deserve the credit.

Speaker 32243.84s - 2246.84s

And you see it, it's quite parochial as well.

Speaker 02246.96s - 2264.02s

Like, you hear it, like, the musical output of Jamaica from through the 60s and 70s is incredible, considering what a small population it is, what an extraordinary number of really distinctive, unique, incredible sounding records came out of there.

Speaker 12264.22s - 2272.24s

And all the shifts from one era to the next, it's like, oh, this is like, this was sky, but then this was rock steady and this was reggae, a music hall.

Speaker 22272.24s - 2278.52s

Exactly. And at every stage, there were, you know, iconic records made, right?

Speaker 12279.92s - 2309.86s

People are always looking for an externality to credit that distinction to, like, oh, what was the recording console at Studio One? Like, oh, you had this crazy genius working there. It must have been, you know, when it was, in fact, people who were good at their job. Right. And people who were accurately recording interesting performances and interesting musical ideas, you know.

Speaker 22310.16s - 2324.4s

Well, I think now it's like you got your 50th anniversary of this record and your 40th of that and your 20th of that. I mean, I saw the 20th of in utero in your lounge and realized even that's like 20, even that, the 20 year anniversary version of that is 8 years old.

Speaker 02324.46s - 2344.2s

So, so then these things come out and these new issues and you could, well, do you have the 40th anniversary or the 50th anniversary of this record? Well, this one has these lacquers cut by this person and their AAA. This one was from a high-quality digital. They went back to analog. So, but there is this sort of like, people are asking, well, is it AAA?

Speaker 22344.2s - 2351.3s

And so there, so do they really know that, you know, can you really tell the difference or is it just sort of like they're kind of like.

Speaker 12351.3s - 2411.66s

There's a practical consideration in some of these things. Like, analog master tapes are durable. Right. So I can tell you because I was involved in the execution of it from start to finish that the Nirvana album that I worked on, its 20th anniversary edition, was made to absolutely the most exacting standards that I could possibly describe. The mastering was done directly into a copper disk that is a direct metal master from the original master tapes, not from a production master. The records were plated and manufactured using the full DMM process.And just from an experience standpoint, listening to that version of the record is a much closer experience in my sense memory to me listening to the master tape played back than any other edition of the record. the master tape played back than any other edition of the record. So I can say that that record was executed very carefully, and it's an exceptional version. It's an exceptional rendition of those

Speaker 22411.66s - 2416.5s

original master tapes, right? Yeah. It's as accurate as I know how to make a record.

Speaker 12416.5s - 2420.2s

See, and that's an example of something where when it came out, it was totally the CD era,

Speaker 22420.32s - 2425.74s

and I have that album on CD, and I've never gotten it on vinyl, and I'm sure this would sound way better what I'm talking about.

Speaker 12426.66s - 2506.5s

Anyway, feel free to have to listen to it and tell me. But when I listen to the production version of that in the day, the experience wasn't that satisfying. When I listened to this reissue version where all the manufacturing steps were taken very seriously and where it was done carefully, as opposed to just being done as a commodity, then the experience is different and it does sound familiar to me.It sounds like the experience at home is very much like listening to the master tapes in the studio. But my point being, those are analog master tapes. They have survived and they can take advantage of, for example, these improvements in playback quality that are possible now over the playback quality from when they were new, right? They can take advantage of those things. In the digital domain, things are frozen at an era of technology and they cannot possibly get better. Like there is no extra data in a 16-bit file that can be extracted at a later date. Whereas if you have an analog master tape that's poorly rendered or rendered as a commodity in its day, if you take extra care and do more careful transfer and more careful execution, you can make a better, more detailed,

Speaker 02506.66s - 2516.52s

more revealing version of that from an analog master. That's not possible from a digital master. And in some cases, and in all cases eventually,

Speaker 12517.46s - 2607.44s

the digital master will become unplayable because the digital formats change over time, and they're all proprietary. So, for example, the earliest digital recordings that were done on 3M and Mitsubishi and Sony Open Reel digital tapes, most of those are unplayable now, either because there are no working machines that can play them or because the tapes themselves have materially deteriorated somewhat. Those that were done in the workstation era on formats like Pro Tools, a lot of those fileshave survived, but in some instances, you have a proprietary format that requires a specific piece of hardware to play it back, and now that's impossible. That's not generically true for workstation-style digital recording. But the early digital recordings were done on dedicated hardware, where you'd have this tape machine could only play this manufacturer's tapes, you know, so if you have a master on this format, you can only play it on one machine in the world, you know? Right.And that's not true of analog tapes. Analog recordings are universal. It's a mature technology that's open-source, and you could literally build a tape machine in your garage if you wanted to, and it would work just as well as a tape machine that was built in a factory.

Speaker 22607.66s - 2617.06s

Yeah, I guess the digital people, I'm guessing, would say, well, but when you make a copy of the digital, it's exactly the same anyway. So it doesn't really matter, because as long as you can keep making copies that are updated.

Speaker 12617.44s - 2649.26s

Yeah, but no one is doing that. No one is making these endless series of digital updated copies of master tapes or of masters. No one is doing it. I appreciate that it is conceptually possible to have someone dedicated to doing nothing but copying your digital files and to ever-changing formats over time and updating the software so that those files are then readable and maintaining a constant active archive of your material. I appreciate that that is technically possible,but no one is doing it.

Speaker 22649.46s - 2655.54s

And archival stuff aside, there is an aesthetic difference, too, that your ear can still perceive the difference between one and the other, right?

Speaker 12655.62s - 2728.18s

I take people's word for it that they can hear a difference and have a preference between a digital master and an analog master. I know when I am working in an analog setting, I am trying as hard as possible to make the input and the output the same.And I have heard digital systems, early digital systems, like the 15 and 16-bit digital systems, sounded terrible. The conversion technology was bad. There was a lot of data corruption. There was a lot of error concealment. And so those early digital formats, up to and including the CD, sounded bad to my ear. Like when I wouldhear them, it would be an unsatisfying listen. That's not true of current high resolution and high definition digital formats. Like the 24-bit high, you know, the 24-bit systems that are available now for digital recording, I think sound fine. Like, on a pure sound quality level, I have no complaints with them. And, you know, my soul and unfortunately rather stubborn reservation about digital recording is that it's not a permanent solution to an archival

Speaker 22728.18s - 2731.88s

master. So when you're home listening to music, how are you listening to it? I listen on records.

Speaker 12732.1s - 2743.64s

My wife has a smart speaker and she will just shout at it, you know. Play Bill Withers. And then some Bill Withers comes out. But if I'm playing records, I'm playing records.

Speaker 22743.78s - 2747.24s

But so you're not like sort of like cruising around YouTube looking for stuff?

Speaker 12747.54s - 2753.52s

Just for Snicks, you know, when I have the computer open and I'm killing time. Yeah, I'll tool around on YouTube or band camp.

Speaker 22753.9s - 2755.84s

I quite like band camp. I think it's a nice interface.

Speaker 12756s - 2756.34s

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 22756.76s - 2767.14s

And I think of the streaming platforms, I think band camp is the one that I can, that seems at least to be sympathetic to the predicament of the

Speaker 32767.14s - 2767.34s

artist.

Speaker 12767.34s - 2773.4s

So has, so over your years, you know, working in the music industry, has it become more or less

Speaker 22773.4s - 2774.48s

exploitative to artists?

Speaker 12774.56s - 2841.46s

The degree of exploitation at the highest level, that is the level of the administration of professionals and not people who are playing and performing music, that degree of exploitation has not changed. That is, the streaming services, the major streaming services, are as exploitative or worse than the record labels were. And the record labels were as exploitative or worse than the sort of controlling managerial people were, like the sort of Sengalis of music who would sign artists to managerial contracts and then keep all the money, you know, the sort of Colonel Tom calibermanagerial people. And those people are as bad or worse than the record labels who were buying songs from blues artists for a case of beer and then making millions off of them. So that, the degree of exploitation has not changed. It's, if you are a musician, you are still responsible for making your own living, basically, as has always been the case.

Speaker 22841.66s - 2845.96s

Do you think it's, is it, is it any easier now or it doesn't seem like it? Certain aspects are easier.

Speaker 12846.54s - 2915.42s

Things like booking a tour, finding a way to release your music, communicating with people around the world about your music, building a fan base, building an audience for yourself. Those things are much easier. The Internet has made all of those things much, much, much easier. Selling records now, if you can get a record manufactured, which is proving difficult in the era ofscarcity, but if you can get a record manufactured, selling the record, you now have multiple outlets for selling your records independently. You no longer need to go through distribution networks or a record label or even conventional retail stores. So there are aspects of it that are much, much easier and more efficient. Your relationship with your audience, for example, can now be unfiltered.Like, people can literally text you and you can speak directly to them as opposed to having to go through a publicist and, you know, magazine interviews and things of that nature. But so certain aspects of it are much, much easier and much, much more efficient. But making a living as a musician has always been difficult, and I don't see it getting easier.

Speaker 22915.42s - 2929.64s

Are there any artists that you really like, whose music you like, but you listen to their recordings, and you think, there's so much, I don't know, compression, digital stuff, whatever the approach is that I'd love to get into electrical audio and record them.

Speaker 12930.06s - 2973.82s

I'm pretty agnostic about other people's methods. Like, I have my methods and I have my rationale for doing things the way I do it. And I trust other people to hear their own music and decide that they've done it correctly. And I'm not particularly critical of the sound quality of other people's music. I think when people are working on their music, they're paying attention, and they're careful, and they are crafting it in a manner that suits them. And if it doesn't suit me, that's not their fault. You know, I class that as a listener error on my part. If you've made a record and you're 100% satisfied with it, I hear it and I think, hmm, hi-hat's too loud.You know, like that's a very petty moment on my part as a listener.

Speaker 22973.82s - 2986.1s

And I'm just not, I just, I don't want to indulge that kind of thinking. Have you ever allowed yourself to have that thought of, boy, this would be the dream artist to record here. Yeah, I mean, of course

Speaker 12986.1s - 3044.94s

there are people that I've always admired and that it would be a fantasy fulfillment to be able to work with, but that's not a very realistic way to spend my time and energy. Like, I'm grateful for the fact that I have gotten to work with a lot of people who are genuine heroes of mine. Like, I've done sessions with the stooges and cheap trick and Fred Schneider and, you know, other people who I consider personal heroes. And we've become friends and those relationships have survived beyond just the reckoning of making a session, you know. And that's anincredible, incredibly satisfying thing for me. So I'm not going to shed any tears over the one that got away. So who do you want in here most? If I had to pick one?Yes. I'll say crazy horse. Carropop is supported by

Speaker 23044.94s - 3096.72s

Revolution Brewing, Illinois's largest independent brewery. Now that spring really has kicked in, Revolution's premium lager, cold time, truly hits the spot. It's an all-malt beer featuring Midwest two-row barley, Mexican lager yeast, a touch of German hops, and pure Great Lakes water. It's never pasteurized, and the brewed low and slow badge on the can attests to a slow, lower-temperature fermentation that mellows the beer for a smoother, more flavorful sip.Cold time is available in 12-packs of 12-ounce cans. So I wanted to get back with you about, because you were talking about the in utero 20th anniversary and you were saying that that's the one that feels the most like what it felt like when you were in the room. Are you talking about the 2013 mix or are you talking about the remaster?

Speaker 13096.72s - 3255.34s

The remaster of the original album is for my money like the best possible representation of those sessions. The remix album that was done in 2013 was an attempt by the surviving members to sort of broaden the experience of that record for people who were already intimately familiar with it. Like, well, let's see what it sounds like if we stick that extra guitar solo in there. Or let's see what it sounds like if we add that backing vocal we got rid of,or there was a percussion track we gave up on. Let's throw that in there and see if it's any, you know, see if it's a value, like that sort of thing. Basically just like stepping through the record and making a different choice at certain junctures where there were active decisions made,like some stuff just plays out normally. Like you've got a three-piece band with, you know, a vocalist. That's going to be the meat and potatoes of the song, you know. But sometimes, okay, there's a second guitar there. We chose not to use that second guitar. Why did we choose not to use that second guitar?It sounds a little sour in these parts. But, you know, that gives it a certain perverse energy. Well, let's throw it in there this time, you know, that sort of thing. The idea was if you were already intimately familiar with the record, it would be difficult for you to have a new experience with it. You could have a slightly better experience with a better sound quality or whatever. Right.But everything about the experience, everything about it would be familiar. And specifically, Chris Novicellich had had the experience of listening to a Doors remix that had been done for a surround edition of a record. And because of that, there was random crap in different parts of the, of the room, you know, in a record. And because of that, there was random crap in different parts of the room. You know, in a surround mix, they felt obliged to make use of those speakers behind your head and the ones under the other whatever. So they were just sort of randomly sticking elements in thosespeakers. And so Chris Novoselich had the experience of listening to a record that he was intimately familiar with and hearing something new and that that was engaging to him. And so he wanted to see if he could like specifically wanted to see if he could create a new experience for people who were already intimate with the album. And so that's that was the function of the 2013 mix. Nobody, absolutely nobody would say or thinks or thought that the program was to make a superior version.

Speaker 23255.76s - 3261.26s

It wasn't like the Francis Coppola ultimate version of Apocalypse Now or something. It was just a different version.

Speaker 13261.38s - 3293.98s

Exactly. It was, it was, it's not the director's cut. It was, it was like the, Shakespeare has the quarto and the folio versions of some, some of his texts where this one was before revision, this one was after revision, or this one was published and this one was rejected or whatever. And that's sort of what they're, what they were going for here was like, you get another bite at the apple of having a new experience with a record that maybe already means the world to you,you know?

Speaker 23294.1s - 3299.88s

And you were, you were, you were, like, it was you and the two of them, basically,and Pat Smir?

Speaker 13300.1s - 3362.12s

It was me and the three, I mean, Pat Smir was there as an integral part of the whole thing. Right. And it was the, me and the three, I mean, Pat Smir was there as an integral part of the whole thing. Right. And it was the me and the three of them going through the songs one by one, finding things that we thought could be highlighted or changed or elevated. And then I would make a, if, like, I think for the very end of that mixing process, Dave and Pat had to leave for something.So I was sending them reference material by this device called the internet. And they would listen to it and put commentary and give us advice. And then we would take those comments on board and make another edition, another version, and then send that off to them for revision. So it was a more cyclical process at the very end. It was a more iterative process at the very end. But for the beginning, they were all three sitting on the couch,you know, exactly the same way they had been 20 years earlier, like telling me what to do,

Speaker 23362.32s - 3365.16s

basically. When this idea was proposed to you what was your

Speaker 13365.16s - 3459.28s

feeling about it um i'm game for anything like if you know there's a lot of there's a there's a weird perspective that people who are in the audience have where they feel like their take on a band's output is the legitimate one and that the band shouldn't like interfere with their experience of the band's music and i come at it from the other perspective of being in a band my whole life and knowing that my band internally is going to have a logic that will allow us to reach some conclusions or decisions and what other people outside that group have to say about it, it means fuck all,you know. So my perspective has always been, you get to do whatever you want with your own band. And if the general public has an opinion on it or if critics have an opinion on it or music historians or an undergraduate, you know, with a special project on Nirvana has an opinion on it. Like, they're welcome to their opinions, but they don't count as far as the decision making is concerned. You know, so when the members of the band who are in the band want to do something with their band, they get to do it, you know, and I'm happy to help.

Speaker 23459.28s - 3472.84s

And the idea of revisiting this material was there something, given just all of the talk about the mix and stuff at the time, was it kind of refreshing for you to sort of go back to this and go back to those tracks

Speaker 13472.84s - 3481.92s

just to try to reassemble it? I mean, the remix project had a very specific goal, which was to create something new and something slightly different from the original recipe. So like,

Speaker 23481.92s - 3486s

dumb gets, loses its cello part from the part of it and everyone's like,

Speaker 13486s - 3625.34s

where's the cello? Exactly. Like sort of denuding something of a decoration, reveals something about the structure, things like that. So that was the brief was to do something different on each song, even if it's something marginal. Just do like find another avenue that wasn't explored and give it a shot.You know, so that was the brief on the on the remix album. And I was happy to do it. But at every turn, you know, the thing that impressed me was how good the raw material was. Like the performances were fucking fantastic. And the sounds that the band dreamed up for themselves to execute this music, like their choices were really great and invigorating. And the, just overall quality of the project, like, I was just struck with thatover and over again. Like, you guys did a great job on this record, you know? And as far as like the critical stuff about me being involved and my aesthetic not being appropriate for the band, I mean, that's all bullshit. That was bullshit in the beginning. It remained bullshit. And, you know, it's all water under the bridge between me and the band.Like our relationship survived through that, you know, which I credit them, you know, it's all water under the bridge between me and the band. Like our relationship survived through that, you know, which I credit them, you know, because I could have been a petty little bitch about it quite comfortably. But, you know, they were magnanimous and they were fair and they were even tempered about everything. And they saw that they had like split responsibilities. Like, yeah, their music was the livelihood of a bunch of people that they worked with. And they didn't want to, they didn't want to like breed a scab with the people that they were going to be working with every day.So they got along with those people and they, you know, made a record that they were proud of on their terms, you know, and I'm, I'm 100% behind all of theirdecisions. So that whole thing, like that, all the public relations stuff, I mean, it was all noise. It was all bullshit. It didn't affect the music. It didn't have any effect on the decisions the band made on the record. It didn't, you know, they were under incredible pressure. Don't get me wrong.

Speaker 33626.04s - 3629.8s

Right. But if you look at what actually happened, what actually happened was they made a

Speaker 13629.8s - 3701.28s

record on their own. They chose to remix a couple of songs and change some elements on their own. Other people happened to be yapping at them from the outside during that time, but they made all their decisions. And the record that went into the stores was the record the band wanted you to hear. And I'm 100% down with that. There is a popular mythology that the record label made them change some things.And I think somebody needs to say unequivocally, that's just not true. That didn't happen. The record label and their management and all those people, they're fucking idiots and they don't make music and they had opinions, they had ignorant opinions about what the band was doing internally. But like I said, every band has its own internal logic and they worked through what they thought of their own music and made some decisions about how they were going to proceed with their own record.And that's how it went. You know, I can't find fault with that. That's a perfectly normal way for a band to behave. That's an honorable way for a band to behave.

Speaker 23701.28s - 3715.7s

You know, at the same time, a band is going to internalize some of those notes they're getting from the record company and that they're like, well, we want the record company to be happy. They're experts of this. So maybe we do this on these two songs that we're putting out as singles and sweeten it a little

Speaker 13715.7s - 3736.66s

bit or that sort of thing. So what you're doing right now is what I just described. Someone who's not in the band, someone who doesn't make music, someone who's not part of the, who's not enculturated into the notion of creativity as a part of a band, postulating what might have happened in the minds of musicians.

Speaker 23737.6s - 3742.68s

Exactly. That's exactly what I'm doing. That's what you're doing. Right. And I'm telling you,

Speaker 13742.68s - 3793.44s

you're wrong. The band made their own decisions based on their own logic. And of course, they are going to hear the carping and the complaints of the people that they work with. But it's, knowing that, I think it's unfair to say that they were weak-willed enough that that they would allow that to change their minds about their own music, right? That's my beef. My beef is that people assume that a band like Nirvana working within a corporate structure is in some way obliged to do what they're told. And that'sabsolutely not the case with respect to nirvana. That is one of the things that made them different and special. Right. But using weak-willed as a

Speaker 23793.44s - 3814.18s

term, you could also say they were open-minded. I mean, there are different ways you can characterize that. I mean, do you think that they just listened to those mixes that you had and they thought, oh, you know what, we think heart-shaped box and all apologies should be remixed in this way that's a little more radio-friendly because that's what we want. And we would have thought that without any input from anyone?

Speaker 13814.5s - 3933.32s

I had a conversation with Kurt after he brought the master's home and played them for everybody and everybody. And the first words out of his mouth were they all hate it, right? And then we had a more and we laughed about that because we both knew that they'd made a great record. And then we carried on in depth and he had some reservations about a couple of songs and those two in particular, having to do with the level of the vocals. There was a backing vocal that he wanted to add at some point. So he had his own opinion and his own perspective on it. And in the process of that conversation, it became clear that it was an open-ended question, that if we started remixing things,that it could be an endless process, and that then that could be a process open to manipulation by people from the outside. And I thought, okay, let me listen to everything. And if I think I can do better, then I'm happy to be a part of this. If I think that we rung the sponge and we're done and it's as good as it's going to be and I can't see myself doing better on any of this stuff, then I'm going to take a powder and you guys can carry on from there. And that's what happened.Like I had a copy of the Masters and I listened to everything myself and I felt like I couldn't do any better on anything. And I thought the greater risk of getting involved on a process that could be on ending should be avoided. And I said, yeah, you know, if you guys want to do some more mixes on your own, that's your business. It's your record. But I think my involvement is done, you know?

Speaker 23933.72s - 3940.22s

Right. And then so, but the version you consider the definitive version is the remastered version of the

Speaker 13940.22s - 3943.92s

original album that came out at the 20th anniversary. Yeah.

Speaker 23944.18s - 3949.02s

For my money, I mean, I heard the original master tapes being played in the studio,

Speaker 13949.56s - 3958.64s

and that was an exhilarating experience. And the closest you can get to that at home is listening to the fancy edition that came out in 2013. Right.

Speaker 23959.14s - 3969.2s

And then it included your original mixes of Heart Shape Box and All Apologies, which to me are pretty exciting to listen to, especially because you know, you've heard the other one so many times.

Speaker 03969.2s - 3975.26s

But heart shape box, it's like, I'm like, oh, I hear exactly sort of what the two value

Speaker 23975.26s - 3997.28s

systems that are sort of in conflict here because the vocals are drier, they're farther back, but the guitar just kind of bursts in both songs. The guitar really bursts out of you and hits you in a visceral way that it doesn't on the other versions. And there's kind of this texture to the tones and the feedback and everything else. And so it's kind of an exciting listen when you're used to the other one, certainly.

Speaker 13997.28s - 4105.52s

So what you're describing is that experience that Chris Nova Sellech had with the Dors album that gave him the impetus to do the remix version of the album, which is that you heard something on a song that you were familiar with that struck you in a different way, and it seemed novel, and that alone sort of intrigued you. And I'm not being shy when I say, you know, I'm not being demure when I say that, honestly, if you played the mix that I did of one of those songs and the mix that cameout on the original record that Scott Litt did, side by side, I'm not certain I'd be able to pick mine out instantly. It might take me some time to figure out which one I was listening to. Now, having said that, I'm not into, you know, I didn't spend a lot of time internalizing those record, that record. I didn't, you know, I didn't spend a lot of energy, like, on that record the way I would have if I was a pure fan.So I, I'm not a nostalgic person by nature, so I haven't spent a lot of time in the interim, like, reviewing it. But I don't think the differences are as big as everyone is making it out to be. And when you listen to them side by side, it certainly doesn't seem like one of them is trash and one of them is gold, you know? They seem like alternate perspectives on a session that was by itself quite, you know,pretty self-defining. Like when you listen to any version of any of those songs, they sound sort of a type. They sound like they're in the same family. So I don't think, I think all the, all the hype and fault are all about the different versions and the different mixes. Right. Grossly overplayed. But it's interesting.

Speaker 24106.22s - 4122.62s

And there is still an aesthetic difference in the approach, even though it's more subtle than people. It's not like, it's not like, you know, the one with the strings and the choirs. You know, it's like there's still, you know, that band playing that song, it's just like little differences in the effect on the vocal.

Speaker 04123.12s - 4134.44s

And how, whether at some point when the guitar surge, the vocal is harder to hear because it's like he's singing over really loud music as opposed to having his voice mixed up. So he's singing in front of really loud music.

Speaker 14134.74s - 4148.82s

Yeah. I mean, I buy all of that, you know, but my point is that I don't think the differences are as dramatic and as critical to either the success or the failure of the project as everybody made out at the time.

Speaker 24148.82s - 4176.24s

Was that a sort of pivotal project for you just in terms of you figuring out where to, I mean, you've always said, it seems to me, you've always had a pretty good sense of where you are in the whole music industry. But this was you like being as close to that sort of machinery and, of machinery and the recording industry as you've been. And I'm wondering whether you sort of looked at that as sort of a pivotal point on, okay, this is how I relate to this and this is what works for me and this is what doesn't.

Speaker 14176.24s - 4190.6s

Well, if you look at the timeline of the records that I'd been working on up to that point and post, you'll see that I worked on a lot fewer big label records after that. Right.

Speaker 34191.04s - 4195.9s

So, and I think that that's a, that's sort of a marketplace decision, like the market has

Speaker 14195.9s - 4247.82s

spoken, like the big record labels were not interested in buying the potential problems of having me work on a record. And so, like, post that album, my working life was reverted to sort of the way it had been leading up to that point, where it was mostly underground bands, independent labels, independent bands operating completely independently. I mean, very few big label projects after that. And that seemed,at the time, it seemed intentional on the part of the people who were making those decisions. And I know for a fact that some people were told specifically that they weren't going to be allowed to use meon their records. So that's, you know, that's another data point there.

Speaker 24248s - 4249.4s

Did that piss you off? No.

Speaker 14250.68s - 4251.52s

It's their money.

Speaker 24251.62s - 4252.9s

They can spend it on whoever they want.

Speaker 14253.02s - 4258.3s

I mean, if you take the big picture, and it seems a little crazy because you record things

Speaker 24258.3s - 4265.08s

quickly, the stuff sounds good, and you're not taking points on it. And so you're a relative bargain compared to these

Speaker 14265.08s - 4270.4s

other... Hold on a minute there. What you just described as an as an aggregate benefit,

Speaker 24270.4s - 4277.42s

like all of those things are net negatives in the in the mind going back into the mindset of the

Speaker 14277.42s - 4365.24s

mid-90s record boom, right? The more money you can spend on a record, the better because that means you're a player and you can spread that money around within the industry and you can buy the favor of everyone who gets some of that money, right?It's not your money as a record executive or as someone, a project person on the record. You're spending money that you, that won't cost the label anything because it's coming out of the band's pocket, right? Right.So you are incentivized to spend as much money as possible, right? Because it's, the more money you spend, the bigger a player you are. The bigger a splash the record can can make in its advanced publicity. The, you know, the bigger it is seen as an event when that record comes out within the industry. Making a cheap record is an insult into those people. Right. So you've described things that to us in the real world, in the practical, like sort of having to pay our own waymanner, those things are benefits. It costs less to make a good record. The record sounds pretty good. It doesn't need to be fiddled with after the fact. Like, I'm not extracting any additional payment from the band. Like, all of those things seem good to you because you're a normal, rational person.

Speaker 34366.04s - 4372.98s

Right. In the mindset of a record executive in the 90s, what that means is I'm not going to be able

Speaker 14372.98s - 4470.32s

to dole out largesse for this record. I'm not going to be able to become the favorite client of a studio manager. I'm not going to become like another footnote in the career of an A-list producer. I'm not going to be able to engender the favor and also acquire the promotional benefitof having a hit-making team work on this record. A hit-making team that has their own publicists and their own eagerness to make the record succeed, right? So that's the schism there, where you and I in the real world see the way that I do things and the way that I prefer to work as being a net benefit to the band.And that's the reason I keep doing it is that it is a net benefit to the people with whom I'm the most sympathetic, the bands and the musicians, right? They get the most out of a relationship with me because they're not spending extra. The records are relatively cheap to make. They get a good product, they don't have somebody fiddling with them, like messing with their heads or messing withtheir music or their behavior. For someone in the music business paradigm, that means I'm not allowing them to use any of their tools of coercion. That means that I'm not allowing them to use any of their little secondary promotional benefits. That means I I'm not allowing them to use any of their little secondary promotional benefits. That means I'm not allowing them to be a player. I'm not allowing

Speaker 24470.32s - 4479.02s

them to be a big shot. Do other, have you gotten flack from other producers who were like, hey, what's the business with you leaving all this money on the table? You know, we want our royalties

Speaker 14479.02s - 4490.04s

and everything. You know, are you trying to change the industry in some bad way or? Oh, no. I mean, everyone is aware that as long as you stay within that paradigm, you get those cookies, you know.

Speaker 24491.08s - 4493.04s

So nobody's afraid you're changing the game.

Speaker 14493.12s - 4493.56s

They're just like,

Speaker 24493.62s - 4494.2s

ah, that guy.

Speaker 14494.2s - 4494.6s

I mean,

Speaker 24494.66s - 4496.14s

a lot of them think I'm nuts.

Speaker 14496.88s - 4497.38s

I mean,

Speaker 24497.42s - 4498.42s

a lot of like the more,

Speaker 14499.08s - 4525.84s

the high end pro producer type people think I'm nuts because I, you know, there are literal millions of dollars that I didn't get because of my ethics. But I'll just point to the fact that I've had a very long tenure as an engineer making records every day. And a lot of them have moved on to fucking trading NFTs or whatever the fuck they do now.

Speaker 24527.04s - 4533.16s

So no one's tried twisting your arm just like, you better, you got to take more or you're letting the team down or anything like that

Speaker 14533.16s - 4543.46s

because you're, they're just like, you know, he's off on his own doing his thing. No, everybody makes their own deals. Like all those other people, they make their own deals. And, you know, what I, what I do doesn't affect them at all.

Speaker 24543.7s - 4576.38s

Right. Yeah, I just interviewed, uh, Shell Tommy, who produced those early Kinks records and my generation and the easy beats and the creation. And he was taking points. I'm pretty sure. I mean, I think that that was his vision of what the producer is. You're taking control of the band and you're bringing in Nikki Hopkins and Jimmy Page and you're doing this, this and this and of course, you're responsible for it.And he speaks in a way where he's responsible for it, which is a contrast to the way you speak, which is, I'm here to let the band be what they can be. And there are other producers who are like, I made them, I created their sound.

Speaker 14576.38s - 4659.12s

Right. I mean, and you can imagine what sort of personality type would be susceptible to that kind of thinking and want to be a player like that. I'm not one of those people. You know, you can imagine how some of those bands felt when the producer said, no, you're not going to be allowed to play on your own record. I'm going to bring in a ringer. You know, you can imagine that conversation and how that must have made them feel.And you can imagine, like, how the social fabric of those bands was not treated with any respect. And, like, oh, if we have to get a new singer, we'll get a new singer. You know, that sort of thing. Like, it's just a different way of looking at music. It's either, you're either looking at music as a product.And if you have to break a few eggs to get that product, it's nothing, you know, you can't be afraid to get your hands dirty. Or you're looking at the bands and music as culture and those relationships as personal relationships as significant as marriages and family. And the music is an expression of that culture and of those relationships. So whatever the music is, is ultimately secondary to the long arc of those relationshipsand that part of culture.

Speaker 34659.92s - 4661.12s

And that's what I look at it.

Speaker 14661.2s - 4735.08s

Like I see the bands and their music and their relationships and the culture as the product. That's what we're working on. We are working on a project to advance culture using these relationships and these bonds and this boundless creativity of people that is this innate function of the human experience, right? That's what we're working on. I'm not trying to make a hit single, you know. I have genuinely no interest in the commercial success of any of the music that I work on. I think that is a kind of a curiosity and it's a, and at times it tells you something about the rest of the music that I work on. I think that is a kind of a curiosity and it's a and at timesit tells you something about the rest of the world when some things become popular. But that's absolutely not a metric that I care about. And it's absolutely not a goal of mine to achieve some certain status. And because I've avoided all of those perversions of this culture that I'm a part of that I'm embedded in that I'm surrounded by, right? Then I've been able to keep at it

Speaker 34735.08s - 4741.66s

for decades where most people get burned out fairly shortly, fairly quickly. Like they have a,

Speaker 14741.66s - 4770.8s

you know, they have a clever gimmick. They run that gimmick a few times. They have a few hits. They kick their heels up. Live on the royalties, you know. And I just never wanted to be a part of that.I've never wanted that's, you know, that way of looking at music as a product. And it just belittles all of these people who are my peers and the people that I've become friends with and the people that I like admire on so many levels.

Speaker 24780.6s - 4824.88s

Neil Steinberg, who is an excellent longtime columnist at the Sun-Times, was a classmate of yours in college and wrote a couple of columns earlier this year where he sort of got back together with you after decades. And you two had these conversations that were really wonderful to read and had like a lot of wisdom and shared, you know, kind of been through it sort of observations. One of yours was that you talked about how if you don't have goals, you don't have anxiety and that if you're not a goal-oriented person, then you sort of set aside all this other stuff, which I thought about because I do, like, I do get anxious about like, oh, I haven't achieved this or that. Have you always felt that way? Or is that something you sort of realized this is what I'm going to do to sort of have longevity and to stay sane?

Speaker 14825.16s - 4990.98s

I think everything about my life has been an evolution, you know, and when I first started making records, when I first started toying around with a tape recorder, the immediate goal was to make sound come out of the speaker, you know? And so like I think my goals on a sort of a moment-by-moment basis are quite small. Like, I have a task at hand and I want to solve that task. But in terms of, like, a long arc, like, I never imagined that I would have a career in music when I got interested in music. Like, it just seemed like a fantastic impossibility, right?fantastic impossibility, right? Music was something that I did because it satisfied a part of me, right? It was something that I was doing to ease my creative ambitions or, yeah, I mean, I think the creative impulse is an innate part of humanity. And so making music was my expression of that creative impulse or one of the expressions of that creative impulse, right? It never occurred to me that it would be a job ever. Then as I got deeper and deeper into it and I started to become more of a participant in more areas of music.You know, first I was doing it for myself, then I was doing it with my friends, and then I was doing it as part of a music scene. And then I was using my other skills and abilities within the music scene to, like, further the cause or further the effort of the music scene as a cultural force. And then I started to, like, see making a studio as a resource for the whole of thatmusic scene and the whole of that community. And then I started to see myself as kind of like the steward of this studio. And that in so doing, I could like further that effort of being of being of use, I guess is the way to put it to the music scene and to all these people like i said that i admire you know and it happened very gradually so it was never the case that i like you know sat at home thinking about what i would say at the grammies or whatever like that like, like, it just, right.I never, I never had a goal in mind because it always seemed like I was engaged in the process of the moment, like trying to get this one gig put together, trying to get the string on my guitar before showtime, you know, like I had one little thing that I was doing every moment. And it just sort of one, you know, piece by piece, it built into an occupation.

Speaker 24991.34s - 5009.54s

I mean, like in the early 90s, you, I think to some extent had a reputation for being combative, or at least those who read the reader or received you sort of feuding with Bill Lyman and going on about urge overkill, like that you were sort of, you know, carrying the, I don't know, torch for the certain set of values. Would you, would you have reacted that strongly

Speaker 15009.54s - 5016.3s

now or do you feel the same like reaction to that sort of thing now? There are a bunch of things

Speaker 25016.3s - 5022.8s

at play there. Like, in the 90s, you were seeing a sort of a fracturing of the music underground

Speaker 15022.8s - 5225.28s

into several tiers of people. There were those who were committed to the music and the project of culture. There were those who saw their moment to become celebrities of some kind. And those people were following their ambition. And I thought it was a clear distinction between people who had those motivations and people who had the motivations of all of the people that I admired around me.And I still see those distinctions, obviously. I feel less embedded in a specific element of culture than I did then. At that point, I was part of the post-punk generation, like people who had their minds blown by punk and had then built a very robust, independent music underground, which was functioning on its own independent of the rest of the music, the professional music world, right? And I saw the viability of that independent music world as being critical to the sort of freedom that we were all experiencing within it, right? The moment it becomes subordinate to, the moment it becomes like a minor league for the mainstream music scene,then you have to start behaving like them. And I just refuse to do that, right? So that was the cultural moment that was critical at the time, was that there was a clear break being made between people who wanted to behave like the mainstream music business. The thing I had been at odds with my entire life, right?There were people who wanted to do that or be like them or in some way garner the approval of that and them. And then there were the other people who were happy tooling along in the independent world in the underground, which was a perfectly viable self-sustaining economy, right? Like you could live a comfortable middle class life, only ever playing clubs, only ever releasing records on small labels. It's not the case that you either go broke in the underground or you make it big in the mainstream. That's a false paradigm.That's absolutely false dichotomy that was created as a manipulative tool to convince people that they should graduate into the mainstream music scene out of the underground. And I think I, my life in music, this studio, which has had a very long tenure, the bands I've been in, the record labels I've been associated with it, with all of them, all of those are evidence that I was right, that the independent music scene, that the underground, that the non-professional class is a perfectly viable existence. You can keep doing it forever. It can be your whole life, right?You can keep doing it forever. It can be your whole life, right?

Speaker 25232.54s - 5273.04s

And it puts a lie to the idea that you have to have to make it big, or you're going to disappear and be trash. And a lot of this is happening very close to home because in, you know, Chicago, like 93 or around then, you get smashing pumpkins breaking out and urge and Liz Fair. And, you know, so that was sort of represented, you know, one set of music that was not what you were doing. You know, at the same time, a lot of great bands also wanted to make it big and wanted to write themselves a Cadillac or something like that. And they still ended up making good music. So it's, there's like there's the, there's the ambition part, and then there's still the music part. And it seemed like you were, you were down on the music because you thought it was coming from the wrong place.And I'm wondering if you would still feel that way as much.

Speaker 15273.3s - 5275.18s

It was also trash for what it's worth.

Speaker 25275.4s - 5278.16s

You didn't like, you didn't like any of it then and you don't like any of it more now.

Speaker 15278.16s - 5353.18s

I have, I have grown to appreciate Liz Farr's first album and especially how important it was to women in the in the music scene at the time. And I think that as a statement of a woman navigating, as she described at Guyville, I think that's, I think that was an important statement and it, and the record has its value, right? Didn't appeal to me. That's not important. It wasn't for me, you know. So, yeah, that would be a revision in my perspective.I mean, the other thing is I don't, I don't think it's, it's not specifically, the fact that I don't like something doesn't shouldn't make other people feel bad about it, you know, and that some music doesn't appeal to me just means that it doesn't appeal to me. And I can have sort of meta music reasons for not liking something. I think everyone does. But usually you can tell just from listening when something is bad.

Speaker 25353.76s - 5359.14s

But your feeling was like if a rock critic embraces that stuff, that there's something corrupt about that person's thinking.

Speaker 15359.38s - 5377.46s

No, not de facto. No, not de facto. It's when there is, it's when there is an orchestrated effort to achieve public success as opposed to creating something of merit and having success appear.

Speaker 25378.8s - 5379.28s

Right.

Speaker 15379.82s - 5418.28s

When you put the cart before the horse, when you have a team of publicists and when you have a high profile, you know, payola placement of your band on gigs and when you have like all these careerist moves being executed, you've given the game away, right? You've told us what matters to you. What matters to you is success and popularity on mainstream terms. What doesn't matter to you clearly is the music that we have to hear, endure on the way to you achieving some kind of celebrity. So did you think that like Billy Corgan

Speaker 25418.28s - 5423.8s

didn't care about the music as much? Or did you just not like it as much? The emphasis

Speaker 15423.8s - 5487.12s

on career was an insult to the music as much or did you just not like it as much? The emphasis on career was an insult to those of us who thought a career in music would be associating yourself with all of this stuff that had been suppressing our end of culture forever. It's like joining the Republican Party, right? If you say that what you want is equality and generosity of spirit and a welcoming society. And your tool for doing that is to join the Republican Party, then you were lying about that first bit. You know, what do you do by the, to protect your ears?

Speaker 25488.88s - 5491.72s

That's actually a really interesting topic.

Speaker 15494.22s - 5513.62s

I limit the exposure of my ears to loud noise, but not in musical settings. So, for example, whenever I'm not in the studio, if I'm out in the public, if I'm out in the world, and subject to wind noise, like, if I'm on my bicycle, I have earplugs in,

Speaker 35514.34s - 5520.98s

if I'm in a chattering group environment, like if I'm at the airport, or if I'm in, you know,

Speaker 15521.02s - 5542.88s

when my band is on tour, I'm wearing earplugs basically the whole time when we're in the van, which can be noisy, or when we're in a group setting at a club or whatever, when I'm around other people sound checking or any noisy environment, I'm wearing ear protection, just regular ear plugs.

Speaker 25543.28s - 5547.14s

But when you're actually on stage with your band, you're not wearing any protection.

Speaker 15547.42s - 5590.64s

Yeah, we don't play at crushing volume. My band, Shalak, does not play at crushing volume on stage. We don't have onstage monitors for a start. We just use our own amps, and there's a small, there's typically a vocal monitor behind the drum kit. So we can hear Todd, our drummer can hear the vocal cues. And we can hear ourselves generally well enough from the PA and from that monitor that we don't need individual monitors.And that's true whether we're on a big stage or a small stage. So our stage volume is comfortably low. And the other benefit of that is that because we're not using monitors, it sounds the same everywhere. You know, we're not beholden to whatever capabilities of the monitor system there are.

Speaker 25590.64s - 5594.1s

And your hearing is good still? I guess.

Speaker 15595.46s - 5598.68s

No hearing tests should tell you otherwise.

Speaker 25599.04s - 5613.3s

Yeah, I'm avoiding, I'm strategically avoiding having my hearing tested and calibrated because I don't want to be introducing doubt into a process that so far I've been able to manage.

Speaker 15614.22s - 5618.3s

I'm certain my hearing is not as acute as it was when I was in my 20s or whatever.

Speaker 35618.3s - 5625.52s

No one's is like 24, 25 your hearing starts to deteriorate a little bit for everyone.

Speaker 15626.72s - 5698.94s

But I have been, there is a very specific thing that I do. I focus my attention on the elements that I know need to be carefully placed when I'm mixing something, for example. In the same way that you can touch something and know it's there, or use the tips of your fingers to feel the contours of it, right? You can focus the, or like if you're, if you see something out of the corner of your eye or in your general field of view, you can tell it's there.But if you focus on it using the most sensitive part of your visual spectrum, like the most sensitive part of your vision, you can see more detail in it, right? There is a similar method of hearing where you hear something, you can hear it passively and kind of crudely, or you can focus your attention on it and listen to it in detail. And that's something that I've been doing sort of for my whole career, but I do it now very acutely for those elements that I think might be affected by just normal aging.Right.

Speaker 35699.24s - 5710.96s

So high frequency detail, small balance decisions, like where you have one or two dB difference between elements.

Speaker 15712.32s - 5760.7s

There are ways that you can focus your attention on those elements that mean that you won't be making gross mistakes. And then you also, you rely on other people that are working on the record as well like the other people that you know if the band says that they hear a funny anomaly you don't blow them off and say you're you don't know what you're talking about you concentrate on what they're drawing your attention to and then you can find the the problem that caught their ear as well you know right so that's a that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's part of the culture of making a record is like, you have to be willing to take other people's hearing on board. Like, if someone says they hear something, you have to believe them and then look for it, you know. Right. And when you go

Speaker 25760.7s - 5768.36s

see a band in a club, you're not putting earplugs in or anything. If I go see a band for pure entertainment, I will have earplugs in most of the time.

Speaker 15768.36s - 5824.56s

Like the whole time leading up to the show, the whole time I'm in, you know, if the opening band is not of interest to me, like I'll leave earplugs in for the opening band. You know, if it's a band where I want to sort of be overwhelmed by the experience of the music, I'm not going to be wearing hearing protection to watch a band like that. But I will wear hearing protection like in all other noisy environments. Like I play poker for part of my income and I wear earplugs at the poker table. And I do that for a number of reasons. One, it focuses my concentration on what's happening and I'm not distracted by the chatter and noise.Most of the time, I'm sitting at a table full of assholes whose conversations I do not want to engage in. There are often, if I'm in, you know, this isn't the case during the COVID era, for example.

Speaker 05851s - 5853.6s

Like, I'm not going to casinos to play poker and during the COVID era but except for a trip to the world series of poker during a relative lull in case counts and after everyone had been vaccinated like I'm not in a casino environment very often these days but when I did have to regularly go to a casino to play poker, the noise, the general noise of a casino can be kind of overwhelming. So I was always wearing earplugs there.

Speaker 15855.64s - 5864.32s

And then when I'm traveling, like I said, on an airplane, in an airport, in a crowd, on a bus, whatever, I'm always wearing earplugs in those environments.

Speaker 25864.46s - 5867.48s

Yeah, a friend of mine years ago said, oh, I'm going to this poker game,

Speaker 15867.82s - 5871.92s

Steve Albini is this poker game. You should come play. And I'm like, I am not doing that.

Speaker 25872.24s - 5876.32s

I'm so not going to go lose my money in that situation. Because that's absolutely what I

Speaker 15876.32s - 5879.68s

would have done, because I don't really play much. Well, then it's a shame you didn't come.

Speaker 25880.18s - 5884.22s

But I know, exactly. I could have helped fund one of the next albums or something.

Speaker 15884.22s - 5897.18s

But he was probably talking about a very casual poker game that's been running for many years. That's very low stakes, very social poker game. Unfortunately, during the pandemic, we haven't been able to do it in person very much.

Speaker 35898.34s - 5902.62s

But there is an online expression of it as well, which I think is quite charming.

Speaker 15902.62s - 5911.14s

I like the way things like that have sort of moved online as a as a kind of a placeholder for the real world experience.

Speaker 25911.44s - 5929.86s

Thank you so much. I really appreciate you talking to me about all this stuff. You know, I always like talking to you. It's just, there's a lot there and a lot to think about. And I appreciate you continuing to fight the good fight for, you know, good audio and good music. Not necessarily in that order. So thanks again.

Speaker 35933.36s - 5940.02s

That's all for episode 133 of Carol Pop. Thanks so much to Steve Albini for his immense contributions

Speaker 25940.02s - 5982s

to music, culture, and the general spread of wisdom, creativity, and empathy. Shalak's new album to All Trains comes out May 17th on Touch and Go. You can order it at touch and go records.com. Carol Pop is produced by Chris Swake. For mere $24, you can become a Carolpop friend and help keep this thing going. Please contribute at Carolpop.com.Your support is much appreciated. I'm Mark Carroll. Please follow Carol Pop on Twitter, X, and Instagram at Carol Popcast. You could follow me as well at Mark Carrow at M-A-R-K-C-A-R-O. Please share this episode, subscribe, tell your friends, and tune it again next week for another Carol Pop conversation. Thanks.