Steve Albini

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Steve Albini, May 2007

Steve Albini (born July 22, 1962 in Pasadena , California ) is an American musician and producer .

Life

Steve Albini grew up in Montana and made his first recordings in 1978 with a rented four-track tape machine. In 1980 he moved to Chicago to attend college. There he wrote articles for several underground fanzines of the emerging punk scene such as Matter and Forced Exposure . After graduating from college, he studied journalism at Northwestern University in Evanston , Illinois .

In 1982 he founded the hardcore punk band Big Black , with whom they released a series of EPs and two albums ("Atomizer" in 1986 and "Songs About Fucking" 1987) in the 1980s. In 1987 they broke up, however, Albini worked in the band Rapeman until 1988 .

Since 1981 he had recorded demos for befriended bands. From 1986 he started to set up a recording studio in his house and to work professionally as a sound engineer . In the course of his career, Steve Albini mainly produced bands from the independent scene away from the mainstream. In a lecture he gave in 2004, he spoke of almost 1,500 productions, of which he describes around six to eight as "major releases by major record labels".

These major label releases include albums by PJ Harvey , The Auteurs , Bush and especially Nirvana , who recorded their third and final studio album " In Utero " in 1993 with him. Mainly because of this production, Albini became famous beyond the independent scene, although he was criticized for his work on this project from many quarters. On the one hand, the record company Geffen Records accused him that his production was not for sale, on the other hand, he was suspected by the independent scene of selling himself for commercial success.

Since 1992 he has been working in a band again. Together with producers Bob Weston and Todd Trainer he founded the band Shellac . Since 1995 he has been running the Electrical Audio studio in Chicago with others . In total, he has worked as a sound engineer and producer on over 1500 productions.

Principles

The principles by which Steve Albini works as a music producer are that he does not consider himself a producer and even rejects the term. According to him, the job of a recording engineer is to document the sound of a band as well as possible, while a producer tries in most cases to realize his own ideas. Albini's experience as a musician in various bands has also contributed to this point of view.

Just as Albini rejects the tutelage of musicians by producers, he is a sharp critic of the exploitation of bands by the record companies and managers. Therefore, it can be paid on the basis of a fixed daily rate. This is in contrast to the practice of many producers of demanding a share of the income from record sales as payment, the so-called "producer points". He also prefers to work with independent labels.

As a producer, Steve Albini works on the principle that musicians know exactly how they want to sound and express this in all aspects of their playing. In his productions, Albini tries to preserve as much of the original sound of the instruments as possible and places more value on good recordings than on complex mixing and post-processing.

For the best possible recording, in which the musicians can react naturally to each other, he prefers that all instruments are played at the same time.

Discography (selection)

poker

Albini plays regularly in once a year to July from May in Las Vegas discharged World Series of Poker (WSOP), the poker world championship. In June 2010 he reached the money ranks for the first time in a tournament of the Seven Card Stud variant and took 14th place, which was paid with more than 6,000 US dollars . At the 2013 WSOP , Albini finished twelfth of 4407 players in the Seniors Championship , which requires a player to be 50 or older, for over $ 40,000. In June 2018 he won an event in Seven Card Stud , securing a bracelet and a prize of more than 100,000 US dollars.

In total, Albini has made it into the money seven times at the WSOP and has won prizes of more than 165,000 US dollars.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento from September 29, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ 41st World Series of Poker (WSOP) 2010 ($ 1,500 Seven Card Stud) in the Hendon Mob Poker Database, accessed June 17, 2018.
  3. ↑ 44th World Series of Poker (WSOP) 2013 ($ 1,000 No Limit Hold'em - Seniors Championship (Event # 26)) in the Hendon Mob Poker Database, accessed June 17, 2018.
  4. ↑ 49th World Series of Poker (WSOP) 2018 ($ 1,500 Seven Card Stud (Event # 31)) in the Hendon Mob Poker Database, accessed June 17, 2018.
  5. ↑ Steve Albini Wins 2018 World Series of Poker $ 1,500 Seven Card Stud Event on cardplayer.com on June 16, 2018, accessed on June 17, 2018.
  6. ↑ Steve Albini in the Hendon Mob Poker Database, accessed April 3, 2020.

Web links

Commons : Steve Albini  - collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Albini, Steve
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American musician and producer
DATE OF BIRTH July 22, 1962
PLACE OF BIRTH Pasadena , California