A while back, I mentioned that Jarvis Cocker (the infamous cad and frontman for the britpop band, Pulp) had recorded his second solo album with Steve Albini. I also mentioned how weird I thought that was. Turns out, Cocker had barely heard of Albini. He talked about how the sessions came together in an interview with the kids at Emusic. Here’s a taste:
Big Black, one of Steve Albini’s former bands, had an album called Songs About Fucking.
I believe you. I’ve never heard it. That’s a funny thing, I’m looking forward to playing with Steve’s band, Shellac, at a festival this month in Barcelona. That will be the first time I hear the kind of music he plays, to be honest.
When you met Albini to begin recording Further Complications, did you have preconceptions about him?
I don’t think so. I knew that he wasn’t just a producer. I’d seen things he’d written about the music business, so I could tell he was pretty opinionated. It was an almost an accident that we ended up recording with him, because we were playing at the Pitchfork music festival in Chicago, where his studio is. A couple of the guys in the band suggested we work there. Technical things and all that crap I can’t get involved in. I thought recording with Steve would be an interesting experience. I like his attitude of not wanting to get in the way of what the band sounds like. It’s an admirable thing to aspire to, certainly the polar opposite of most producers, who like to see themselves as a god figure.
Going into this recording, were you trying to get the more immediate feel of the band you’d been touring with?
I made a resolution to write the songs with the band more and make sure we played them in front of an audience before we recorded them. The logical extension was to record the songs live. Nowadays, if you’ve got a band, I can’t see any point in not recording live. Otherwise, get a MIDI sequencer and have something completely in tune and on time. The only point in having a band is if you want something different than that. Which is that slightly indefinable thing of what happens when five people try to play in time and in tune, and you’ve got those little human things that turn it into something else. It’s so fucking boring going into the studio doing it the other way, where people play one bar and use ProTools to repeat it 60 times.
It hardly seems like creativity.
Usually, the first day in the studio you sit in the control room drinking too many cups of coffee while someone hits a snare drum all day. Because I’m not a technical person, I thought there must be a reason for this torture. But I don’t think there is.
So that’s pretty great. But after listening to the new record once, I’m not quite excited about it yet. That’s alright, his last one wasn’t so great either. If you’ve never heard his stuff, I recommend starting with one of the classic Pulp records (e.g., His and Hers, Different Class, This is Hardcore).
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Speaking of Albini, I came across this post last night on Metafilter:
In 1997 Steve Albini produced a re-recording of Cheap Trick’s (warning: may automatically start playing awesome music) In Color album. It is suspected that it was released by a disgruntled employee. It contains an awesome version of Lennon’s I Want You to Want Me even though Yoko didn’t approve.
Needless to say, that lead me down a rabbit hole, but I ended up at www.xtrmntr.com, where I found something I’d always wanted to hear: Pussy Galore’s much-talked-about-but-little-heard-cover of Exile on Main Street. In its entirety. When I was much younger I used to look for this at record shops, but I finally figured out it was never formally released. Allmusic says it was cassette-only. Anyway, in the post-Napster world I forgot all about it. Until stumbling upon it last night. And it’s all there. For free.
I’m not really a fan of Pussy Galore, but I’m a huge fan of Exile. It’s thrilling to hear someone take the piss out of these songs, and it’s kind of surprising how much of the originals the notoriously un-musical band actually retain. But the thrill lasts for about 20 minutes. It’s still Pussy Galore, after all.
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Finally, I’ll pass on a favor done to me earlier this week and link you to Tanya Donelly’s demos for Belly’s debut album, Star. To me, Star is very near perfect. I liked it when I was 18, and I like it just as much now. Of all the songs that became hits on alternative radio in the 90s, I loved the singles off this record the most. “Gepetto” and “Feed the Tree” fooled me into thinking the radio might start playing good music.
Donnelly did great stuff with the Throwing Muses and the Breeders, too. Sadly, she never made anything worth a damn after Star. But her demos for that record are fascinating. Her guitar playing and arrangements are mostly there in the demos, stripped of the sheen Pixies producer Gil Norton gave them. And it’s great to hear the elemental riffs and vocals all by themselves.
That’s the way Albini would have done it, right?
Did you find the change between Steve Albini and Gill Norton drastic?
"Kinda, like, here’s Steve Albini from Big Black and then there’s Gill Norton, from… Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, hahaha, or Echo & The Bunnymen, Throwing Muses, Wet Wet Wet! They’re completely different people and tastes but I liked the way it worked out. We had to fight a lot with Gill in pre-production in our rehearsal studio, but after he hung out with us for a month and listened to us play our songs… it was sorta, hey, you know, man, he hung out in America and ate American stuff. It’s a plus to have someone like us, our pop structures, melodies and the way we presented ourselves, which he did. I think he wanted us to play a little more tightly. He’s more into using contemporary technology in, if I might say so, a very British way, which is fine because he’s British. But we had to fight with him to remain simple. But we kept to the same Pixie set of rules. We’re a little less hyper, if you know what I mean. We’re getting more into playing, well, a groovy kind of rock as opposed to hyper (impersonation of hyper cat). At the start, we sent demos off to the record company, with lyrics made up on the spot, the wrong lyrics, y’know, and then Steve Albini rolls into town, like, ‘yeah, man, let’s make a record’, turning everything on and that was it, as opposed to this, sitting down with a guy and playing the songs with him for three weeks, eight hours a day, and fine-tuning every little niche and cranny!"
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This weeks recommended download (thanks, Jman): Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson
Belly’s King is a very good record.
I hated King. I remember it came out the same day as The Jayhawks’ Tomorrow the Green Grass, and I bought them both at Cactus at midnight. I was so damn excited. The Jayhawks record was great. But King was a terrible disappointment. Twice the production and none of the hooks.
it’s her teenager.
i always thought Now They’ll Sleep was kind of a spiritual successor to Not To Soon: http://www.joost.com/082005x/t/Belly-Now-They-ll-Sleep-Video#id=082005x
if you can look past the failed marketing push to make Tanya into some kind of post-grunge superstar (prolly the reason copies of King are ubiquitous in pawn shop dollar bins), I think there is stuff to like about this record.
plus Tanya Donelly one time told me I was cute! heh.
What is Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson, and why so many names?
Hell if I know. Just some guy Jman has been listening to. I dug it so I pass it on. I have no clue who the dude is or what associated stories there are “behind the music”.
Weird…lots of connections from my life in this post. Albini (and all his incarnations), Belly (the Deals), the Pixies, Pussy Galore (I even own the Pussy Fuzz harmonic percolator clone pedal Albini made for Jon Spencer). Albini is a pure genius on so many levels. His diatribe on the music industry (in “The Problem With Music) really resonates with the actions of the RIAA and how the “industry” has always ripped off artists and consumers even 10+ years after he wrote it (copy on Negativland’s website). If you ever find the “secret” online files of the unadulterated “In Utero”, you will really understand the unbelievable sound engineering skills he possesses. His Electrical Audio bulletin board is one of the most comprehensive resources available to anyone trying to put music to tape/lp/cd whatever. Ever read Albini’s comments on the Pixies? Yeah spot on. And Pussy Galore has a lot of value in my book. Quite a journey from “Groovy Hate Fuck” to “Dial M for Motherfucker” (which was actually supposed to be titled “Make Them Eat Shit Slowly” as a jab at White Zombie’s “Make Then Die Slowly”). My 2 cents, for what it is worth.
You should know that since reading this post, I have been telling Maya epic stories about a new character I made up: Jarvis the Cocker Spaniel. She loves these stories. But she keeps asking me who Michael Jackson is.
What draws you in re:MBAR? I find the doubled vox immediately distracting. I think that has to do with fooling around with that stuff too much in the studio myself (although I don’t think I’ve ever released anything doubled like that…I always spend a lot of time listening to double vox mixes).
Huh, that’s probably one of the things I like about it. But I tend do double my own vocals quite a bit. Though I’m rarely so obviously out of time with myself. I’m a sucker for the reverbed-out rustica, too.
There’s also a little in here that reminds me of the old Matador band, Fuck. Though this isn’t quite that good or as funny. It’s a bit too serious, actually.
Funny connection there mrshl. Jman Sage and I know a girl married to one of the guys from Fuck. I stayed with them in Oakland once. He is a stained glass artist and the whole front of their space had wicked glass pieces in different stages of completion including a gigantic dragon fly that was very cool.
I wonder now how Jman knows this guy.
The only other kid I knew named Marshall lived down the street from me. His mom did A&R for Matador, and his step dad was the singer in Fuck. My first Pavement record was an advance cassette of Wowie Zowee he managed to wrangle from his mom.
Years later I saw Fuck at Rudyard’s, and got to meet the guy. He was old then; no idea how weathered and sardonic he looks now. What a great band, though.
Great links, thanks. I esp dig the Pussy Galore (which i used to own years and years ago, may still be in some crate full of cassettes, but this is way better). And I’m looking forward to the Albini/Cheap Trick stuff, sounds like a winning combination.
Thanks for the great tidbits! I love Jarvis (though I agree with you about his last solo album) and Cheap Trick… those links to In Color made me really happy.
Weirdly enough, I believe myself to be the first person who told Steve Albini that Cheap Trick might be interested in recording with him, back in the early 90s when I interviewed him for Thora-zine magazine. I did a massive piece on Cheap Trick’s influence on grunge era rock that the editor cut, and I’ve always wanted to transcribe it and put it on the web.
Maybe you could put it on the this corner of the web.
Absolutely. You can have this Wednesday if you would, holler.
I’d be surprised though if the suggestion had not been put to both of them many times being that all those guys hang out in the Chicagoland area. Even I’ve caught the CT guys and Albini out and about, I’m sure they have many connections.
Thanks, Justin and Mr. That’s a great offer! I will have to poke around in the shed and see if I can find my old stuff. Not sure if I can make it happen by Wednesday.
To be sure they were all in the Chicago area and Cheap Trick was aware of the Big Black cover, but talking to both of them it didn’t sound like they knew each other. I certainly didn’t set it in motion that they recorded together. But I think I was the first person who told Albini that Cheap Trick might record with him.
awesomeness.