regular steve albini
@electricalWSOP
Followers
79K
Following
35K
Media
593
Statuses
17K
recording engineer who plays billiards and poker, and eats like a viking I reflexively block blue check accounts and promoted tweets @electricalwsop.bsky.social
Joined May 2010
Louie Anderson once blew 80 grand, all his money, gambling in LA, then rented a car, drove to Vegas in the middle of the night and used a casino line of credit to win it all back in the pit by sunup, caught a 7am flight and went straight to shoot a 7-11 commercial. Requiescat.š.
115
2K
26K
Thread: .I work in an arcane field where the job requires specific technical knowledge, built on a ladder of understanding and breakthroughs going back over 100 years. It's not immunology but it's not nothing.
319
6K
21K
Yes, I'm saying the Juggalos are good. A non-judgmental, inclusive community for people on the fringe, built on a beautiful communion they call "family." They remind me of punk/queer chosen families and I love them. I haven't heard much of the music, it's atrocious. Who cares.
182
1K
20K
Indulging the "DEBATE ME!" shitheels does nothing to further the truth. It is exhausting because its purpose is to exhaust you and no credible person should do it.
293
3K
19K
No, I'm not going to watch his special before I say it is fucked up and sucks. I have seen fucked up things that suck before and I already know the joke. They only have the one joke. Anti-woke trans-bash comedians are cultivating an audience I want very much not to be a part of.
382
2K
19K
People talking about a no-fly zone like it's a big net. It means shooting planes out of the air. Full-scale war.
158
1K
17K
Nobody earned a billion dollars. It's literally impossible to be paid for work and end up with a billion dollars. You get a billion dollars by having other people work for it, then taking it.
Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz complains about Sen. Bernie Sandersā (I-VT) āunfairā labeling of him as a billionaire:. āI came from nothing ā¦ Yes, I have billions of dollars āĀ I earned it. No one gave it to me. And Iāve shared it constantly with the people of Starbucks.ā
119
2K
16K
What an incredible band. Everything about them is minimal and immediate. Possessed by a mania, you can't take your eyes off them. Ricky the most original guitarist in a decade, everyone's role perfectly defined. Like a Taj Mahal made of twigs.
242
1K
15K
@Charlie_Carrel This is, legitimately, the funniest thing anybody has ever said about me.
82
221
14K
Baked into the discussion of student debt is the idea that the function of education is to prepare someone to work, that it is a ticket for the ride of employment. This is a dangerously toxic notion that deserves no respect. Education is learning, literally anything.
70
3K
14K
Judas Priest are a good example of why debating the willfully ignorant is a fool's errand. It's expensive and exhausting to have to disabuse people of patent bullshit they are attached to. You have to educate people who do not wish to learn and do not trust you.
66
2K
13K
Trans people are targets of cruelty right now. Official targets, official cruelty. By law. Life is already hard for them, and there is a significant bloc of assholes working night and day to make it harder. If you aren't in direct, vocal opposition to that, you are a bad person.
450
3K
12K
Dolly Parton do you like analog recording.
167
727
11K
If you're working for somebody else, this is awful advice. In your 20s you're made out of rubber and nothing leaves a dent. Live your fucking life. Drink all the drinks, take all the drugs, fuck anyone who'll have you. Stay up all night. Don't work a single minute off the clock.
Unsolicited career advice:. Work your butt off in your 20s. Forget about work-life balance & all the other BS you hear about. You're still young, can test yourself physically & train your mind to work under long, intense pressure. Identify limits, have fun & keep fit for energy.
94
1K
11K
@Charlie_Carrel You call it "trans mania." You are not prepared to have a good faith discussion.
28
113
10K
I will always be the kind of punk that shits on Steely Dan.
1K
1K
10K
You risk-averse sheep want the government to do everything for you. We intend to disrupt everything. Money, banking, tech, the very idea of business, all of it is on the table for us, the risk-takers. (disruption occurs). Fuck oh fuck. Fuck. Somebody do something. Fuck.
54
1K
8K
When somebody poisons a conversation with stolen, contrary rhetoric, saying reparations or affirmative action are "racist," banning abortion is "feminism," terfing is "protecting women," or that scabs "are workers," a good way to handle it is to tell them to fuck off.
91
2K
8K
So this fact-averse mindset persists, whether about evolution, vaccine efficacy, gun control or cryptic satanism. No matter how thoroughly an absurdity is shown to be bullshit and nonsense, its advocates will insist that didn't happen.
38
777
7K
Women of America, I appreciate the restraint you've shown in not murdering all of us men in our sleep until now. If tonight is the night, I understand and I still think you've shown remarkable restraint.
63
1K
7K
Taylor Hawkins was a terrific drummer with a gorgeous disposition, seemed always to be having the time of his life. I didn't know him well but I know music is lessened by his passing, made duller and smaller. Requiescat. š.
19
586
8K
As the Omicron variant drives case rates up again, with nearly a million of us dead already from this fucking thing, I have absolutely no patience with the chorus of the same always-wrong little fuckers saying we're overreacting by trying to keep safe from it. Eat shit.
121
816
7K
I don't know about you, but if I could spend $100 to keep somebody from being strangled to death, I'd happily hand over $100. So if you see someone in distress in public, before you strangle them to death, consider just giving them $100.
763
607
7K
@PaulStanleyLive I remember when punk rock came along and made you irrelevant the first time.
180
291
7K
for master tapes that represent an investment of sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars. You have to answer their ignorant objections continuously. And in the end they will just shrug and say, "I don't think so," and that will be that. They will remain unconvinced.
9
306
6K
1/ There's an important thread of continuity over time about the exploitation of bands by record labels that deserves a closer look, re the current Spotify debate.
52
2K
6K
Spent my whole fucking life voting defensively, having to choke down some lame suit-and-tie asshole in the general to avoid a worse asshole. Absolutely thrilled to have voted for Brandon Johnson. He wants all the things I want and he's going to be the fucking mayor.
69
345
6K
There is an envelope marked FASCIST MANIFESTO on my desk. I open it and retrieve a 3x5 file card, with the words "I am neither conventionally right nor left" written on it.
39
737
6K
I don't take royalties for recording bands. This is normal ethical behavior in every other industry and should not be exceptional or notable in music. That it comes up every time we discuss how musicians get paid ought to be embarrassing, but for the nth time. .
60
634
6K
"Put seeds in your pockets." All-time top tier ice-cold shit talk. I'll be using that for life.
26
309
6K
However you define "woke," anti-woke means being a cunt who wants to indulge bigots.
96
822
6K
I can't imagine grinding through a massive, gelatinous discography trying to find something I might like by the Grateful Dead with Marquee Moon just sitting there ready to go.
243
452
6K
Beautifully lyrical guitarist, underrated vocalist. Television made a new kind of music and inspired new kinds of music. Marquee Moon is a perfect record. Requiescat. š.
29
1K
6K
You have to start with Maxwell's equations and the theory of electromagnetism, teach them about the persistence of polarity in magnetic domains, explain the mechanics and design of magnetic recorders, the process and handling of masters in a studio and the chain of custody. .
5
220
5K
Because it completely encapsulated everything awful about now. Outlandish amusement for the wealthy, trollish libertarian disdain for expertise and regulation, macho bro daredevilry capped off by signing a waiver. The only thing missing is a cop murdering somebody.
69
722
5K
. ie the engineer did a cryptic reverse-speech soundscape collage, hidden within the apparently-normal recording of a rock band, for the purpose of inducing teen-agers to commit suicide. Every aspect of that argument is beyond absurd, yet it had its day in court. Literally.
9
208
5K
I came to college to have no one disagree with me. I found some people disagreed with me. This is censorship. I am so silenced my only outlet is the New York Times.
52
346
5K
There is an excellent inclusion of this in @mountain_goats John Darnielle's excellent novel Wolf in White Van. Of course people like me, professionals in the recording field intimately familiar with the process and technology of recording, knew it was all horseshit.
11
157
5K
I graduated at 21 with a normal 4-year degree and debt I finally paid off when I was 37. Debt for education is obscene and anything done to alleviate it for anyone should be celebrated. The only thing to get mad about is that there is such a thing as educational debt.
33
489
5K
@Charlie_Carrel Consider -- just maybe -- that your framing is an example of you kicking yourself in the dick and when people see that pointed out, they think, "heh yeah," and click like.
26
77
5K
Okay, maybe that record didn't have backmasking and secret messages, but what about *this* one, or *this* one, or *this* one. Maybe that master tape didn't have a secret message track, but what about all the tapes we haven't examined?.
5
157
5K
For clarity, being kind to other people isn't virtue signaling, it's virtue. Putting "christian, father, patriot" in your bio, that's literally virtue signaling.
24
584
5K
People are dunking on these absurdist demonstrations but I think they're kinda cool. The point they're making is that your most priceless shit is worthless on a dead planet, and while they're not going to change any minds it's a way to get that idea into the discourse.
Activists with @JustStop_Oil have thrown tomato soup on Van Goghās Sunflowers at the national Gallery and glued themselves to the wall.
176
550
5K
As an expert in analog recording, I know there is no way for these things to have been done surreptitiously or other than by the normal methods of recording, but lay people don't know any of that. They could be convinced there was some other, secret, conspiratorial way.
9
168
4K
A lot about the Juggalos is dumb/laughable. So what, your life isn't? Get over yourself. The part that matters to them, that they are there for each other in material ways other communities fail at, that's the whole thing.
34
201
5K
So this is exactly what Judas Priest did. They played their master tapes in court, showed the track sheets and other documentation, had their engineer testify that he was never asked to record any satanic messages, all that. You would think that would put an end to it but no.
5
178
4K
The game is rigged and antidemocratic, but when solutions are obvious (enlarge House, add DC and PR states, enlarge SC, codify Roe & voting rights) and ignored, the conclusion has to be that the D party prefers it rigged, prefers to lose & not accomplish the things we voted for.
47
582
5K
Does a butcher need a degree? Fuck yes. Classics, physics, painting, dance, pick one. I absolutely want a broadly-educated population, with every house a little study group and every person an expert in some ridiculous arcane specialty. Yes, yes, please let us have that world.
49
630
4K
When somebody says "Red hot chili peppers," it instantly makes me think of the band by the same name. From California.
116
248
5K
A couple decades ago there was a christian panic about something the press started calling "backmasking," an outgrowth of the similarly absurd panic about subliminal messaging and advertising, about which I could also talk about for too long but will not now.
36
260
4K
According to the panic, Satanists were hiding messages in music by recording secret messages, only audible if the music were played backwards, but somehow still perceivable and persuasive on listeners. Such messages were blamed for drug abuse, teen suicides and cult behavior.
52
221
4K
Every year the phone company delivered a book to our front door with the assassination coordinates of everybody in town. Amazing how little assassinating there was. Unless assassination is almost always a fantasy, a reflexive part of an immersive egomania. Maybe that's it.
71
520
4K
Make a list circa mid-80s: Morrisey, Lydon, Rick Astley. Kinda nuts who turned out the best by a mile.
96
398
4K
There may be dumber people in public life than Joe Rogan but given the nature his audience (credulous, uninformed) there is likely nobody who amplifies his stupidity to worse effect.
1/ I watched Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Joe Rogan yesterday and it gave me an opportunity to look into some of the "old-school" antivax claims. First Joe Rogan let's us know that he used to think RFK Jr. was "kinda loony", but now he's a true believer in RFK's antivax claims.
250
508
4K
Less annoying than Deadheads by an order of magnitude. Very few lawyers and CEOs for a start.
26
94
4K
Jason I love you but mounting a 4038 ribbon mic sideways like that means the ribbon is under lateral stress, likely to distend in the magnetic gap, potentially rubbing against the armature but certainly not operating in its linear range. Please keep ribbons in the vertical plane.
Tonight is a rare night we canāt complain that thereās nothing great to watch on TV.Our @JasonIsbell (and @amandashires) documentary premieres tonight on @HBO.āRUNNING WITH OUR EYES CLOSEDā.@SamJones @HBODocs #MusicBoxHBO
85
178
4K
Music fans pull up. Bands are trying to tour again. Decisions about when to tour are always made far in advance, and given the relentlessness of the pandemic, when the time comes to do it, the band has to decide by a deadline whether to go or not, with imperfect information.
44
802
4K
Regardless, "secret messages" retained popular appeal and a few lawsuits were even pursued, one against the band Judas Priest, lent credibility by the passion of the people who believed in it, despite that they had no expertise or evidence, and an unlearned and credulous public.
7
163
4K
This became a Big Deal. There were articles and TV shows about it, proponents mounted conferences, did public demonstrations and lectures, and eventually there were a core of believers who were convinced of the problem and adamant in outrage.
10
136
4K
The campaign to notice that nighttime is when it gets dark is similarly dangerous and absurd.
138
316
4K
Live your life like Patti Smith will be writing your obit.
46
859
4K
In order for something to appear on a record, forward or reverse, it would need to be recorded onto the master tape, and debunking it should be as simple as going through the tape track by track and demonstrating that there was no demonic message there.
6
138
4K
If you're confused or offended by ACAB, while it's true good people might want to be cops, they must choose between being good and being cops, so there are no good cops.
20
616
4K
This is absolutely model owning-your-shit behavior, and if a goddamn fucking Juggalo can manage it, a nine-figure podcaster can step the fuck up without whining.
Sometimes I think about Violent J and I am reminded that people can change.
34
798
4K
You say there would be some evidence of the recording having been done, but couldn't it be done some other way? I recall a lawyer in the Judas Priest case arguing that the message in question was made as a composite of sounds including the vocal, guitar and hi-hat. .
3
115
4K
So this time it's not funny because it's *you*. It's fucking awful because *you* are saying the same things people hear when they're being abused, when their humanity is being denied, when they're targeted. The things they hear right before they're murdered.
118
214
4K
It's not my day so I'm not trying to tell anybody what it means but I will say the moment I realized trans people didn't want anything more than to be treated like people everything clicked into place and been cool ever since. I love you guys you make the world more interesting.
28
251
4K
Better than winning a Grammy.
Steve Albini is another one who's become an insufferably estrogenic shrieking moralist spouting the same brainwashed pieties. And they all wind up looking like the same elderly gender-studies student.
79
86
4K
Genuinely charmed by people trying to "out" me regarding stuff that had print runs in the tens of thousands, bands that toured the world, stuff that was already reported on by Pitchfork. whatever. I am not afforded the luxury of secret shame, guys. Knock yourselves out.
41
244
3K
30 years ago I hit on this lady in a bar. 17 years later she agreed to marry me and she's still there. How lucky am I.
77
32
3K
Learned about Victor Jara after playing in a venue named in his honor. The junta tortured public figures as a terror. They broke all the bones in Jara's hands, smashed them to paste. They hammered out all his teeth. They shot him and left him in the street for his mother to find.
Today marks 50 years since the U.S.-backed coup in Chile that overthrew the democratically-elected Salvador Allende. We remember the thousands disappeared or murdered, including singer and activist Victor Jara. It is long past time the U.S. declassified our role in the coup.
48
691
3K
we are what we pretend to be. Indulging the pretense eventually becomes so comfortable that it fuses with the person underneath. I've seen it happen up close, with people I called friends, and it demands the self-reflection people of my generation have failed at.
19
206
3K
Correct. I am not a fucking tool.
37
81
3K
You'll have the next sixty years to buckle down and be professional, and by the time they give you your gold watch you won't have a mushroom guy in your phone any more. I'm going to be 60 in a few weeks and I regret every hour of my life I traded for wages like I was robbed.
34
249
3K
This idea that you spend money on an education as a cover charge to a career should be laughed out of the room. Most people don't work professionally in their field of study, but their studies helped form and complete them as people, and that is actually a better use of them.
9
477
3K
From now on, I'm pronouncing "doing" the way I pronounce "boing," with a bouncy comical inflection. What is everybody doing tonight?. My life is empty. The dry brittle husk of my ambitions.
74
179
3K
House shows are the linchpin and ideal expression of a thriving underground music scene. Everybody formed in one of those scenes has moments from house shows burned into their very identity, indelible for life. This is heartbreaking.
Fatal shooting at a DIY punk house in Minneapolis last night. Devastating. Good folks picking up the pieces. Please share and donate if you can:.
10
417
3K
Again and again I am heartened by the clarity and commitment of people much younger than me. My generation blew it and we're almost done. The kids are all right.
Wow. Students are standing outside the Tennessee House right now and chanting, āFuck you fascists.ā Young people are absolutely pissed off & we are about to give Republicans hell like theyāve never seenZ We arenāt forgetting this.
45
210
3K
Fuck this. I come here to read jokes, end capitalism and shit on Steely Dan, not be a captive audience for Fuckhead Bigot U. I'm about through, find me on bluey.
80
194
3K
Ricky Gervais got comfortable inducing groans, learned to do it like a trick, got famous and wealthy from it. Eventually he saw the groans as the point, and in enlightened circles, the way to induce groans is to disdain enlightenment and be a bigoted piece of shit.
25
233
3K
Oh fuck completely off.
Higher minimum wages may increase homelessness, @AsymmetricInfo writes
30
183
3K
From what I know, Taylor Swift is one of the smartest people in music. Oh, almost forgot. Let's hear your record, cocksocket.
109
184
3K
You only need one. Guitar, amp, snare drum, crash cymbal, whatever. You can use the same one for every song for the whole of your career and it's fine.
67
186
3K
"Like Chicago: Most of the shootings are young black men killing other young black men. Is that not correct?" [Yeah] "Much more than what the cops do. Why doesn't anyone talk about that? Why aren't there 100 giant black celebrities saying 'What are you doing to yourselves?"
39
132
3K
Did 20 songs, tried not to include any I worked on but made an exception for Nina.
133
233
3K
I used to like Ricky Gervais. His comedy hinted that he disliked the part of himself he indulged so flagrantly, the boorish, selfish unaware part. Him playing an oblivious creep was a necessary element of comedy critical of being oblivious. But as Kurt Vonnegut observed. .
18
104
3K
Ding-dongs are baffled at rejecting a blue check. Elon is a cunt, all the nazis have blue checks, hardly anybody I want to read has one, and it adds no veracity to the handle. There's literally no reason to want one and a thousand reasons not to. Ding-dongs gonna ding-dong.
39
214
3K
Yeah misspelled haha funny but if I ever start tweeting inspirational quotes of myself, I insist that one of my friends do me in with a shovel.
77
174
3K
I don't need someone to guide me through the Grateful Dead. It's fucking Albuquerque, I don't need to know my way around I'm not fucking going to Albuquerque.
141
170
3K
I heard the news in the most base circumstances, surrounded by degenerates, stuck and cursing, in a conference room in Deerfield. I was momentarily overwhelmed, the sound of her voice resonant in my memory, beautiful and heartbreaking. Godspeed Mimi Parker. Requiescat. š.
Friends, itās hard to put the universe into language and into a short message, but . She passed away last night, surrounded by family and love, including yours. Keep her name close and sacred. Share this moment with someone who needs you. Love is indeed the most important thing.
10
186
3K
Whenever I see one of these fascists post a baby picture as though it were exonerating, all I can think is, yep Little Lord Fuckleroy here looks like a typical silver spoon asshole. Gonna grow up and make people miserable.
78
155
3K
". and given a choice I much prefer racism, abject insanity and oppression of women to unionizing the workforce.".
NEW: Elon Musk says heāll vote for Republicans this year because āthe Democratic Party is overly controlled by the unions andā¦class-action lawyers.ā. Musk is a notorious union-buster & was hit with a class-action lawsuit from 1k Black workers who alleged rampant racism at Tesla.
40
293
3K
I found this badass store called Dan Flashes that's my exact style
42
159
3K
I'll admit I was out of my depth with the chip butty thing, my bad. But I don't get standing in a queue for 24 hours to look at a dead body. There's nobody I hate that much.
95
157
2K