That time Steve Albini recorded our band

Steve Albini taught me to play poker. In the fall of 2007, the magazine I was working for was doing a feature on—if memory serves, as it’s a bit foggy—trying things out for the first time. So one staffer would take on fronting a band at a club, another would give standup comedy a go. That sort of thing. I immediately volunteered to take on playing poker at a casino. The decidedly unglamorous ones of Gary, Indiana, were only a half-hour drive from Chicago, where I was living at the time. And besides, I knew a great teacher: Steve Albini.

Knew is being generous. A few weeks earlier, Albini had engineered a four-track EP by the band I was in at his space, Electrical Audio. So I knew him so far as I spent one very long day and night in his company getting those tracks down and then one very short afternoon watching him do a rough mix, basically nodding along blindly to everything he said. Countless bands knew him that way. But I was well aware that he was a poker aficionado. He talked about it during our band’s session, and his poker nights with fellow musicians, held in his kitchen above the studio, were something of an indie-rock legend. (He also was legitimately great at it: As recently as 2022, he won one of the World Series of Poker tournaments.)

So I emailed him, sheepishly and apologetically and way too lengthily, about whether he remembered me and would be into walking me through the game. A minute later, he shot back a short response, something along the lines of, “Happy to. I’ll call you.” That call ended up lasting a good hour, with Albini rattling off the poker books to avoid and the ones to seek out, if I was really serious about getting good. (I wasn’t, but I did appreciate the thoroughness.) Most of this went over my head, and my mind kept returning to the question: Why is he doing this? He wasn’t promoting anything. He wasn’t getting anything out of it. There is, of course, a simple answer: He loved talking, and thinking about, the art and strategy of poker. And he was more than happy to set aside chunks of precious time for those who he felt shared that same passion. He loved what he loved. And to hell with the rest. It’s just noise. That’s a philosophy you could easily use to describe his career in music, too.

Which is all to say: When I heard the news yesterday that Albini had died at the age of 61, my heart sank. Suddenly, flashes of that summer of 2007 came flooding in—of smoking a Camel Light outside the space in the harsh morning sunshine, my heart racing and palms sweaty; of unpacking and setting up, turning the reverb up to level eight on my amp, which happens to be sitting in the next room as I type this; of our drummer nailing his first take in that custom-made drum room, and the thrill of hearing those “Albini drums” (there is no other drum sound like it) playing loud and clear behind the studio glass; of the engineer reassuringly telling me to calm down and take a breath when I kept fucking up a guitar part I’d played a million times; of him suggesting that I strum a little looser and less Strokesy, a small note that made one of our songs infinitely better and more natural sounding; and of joking around and being young and dumb in front of a guy who grew up to do the thing we all wanted to do.

Much has—and will continue to be—written about the seminal albums he worked on. The In Uteros. The Surfer Rosas. But when I think of that time, of the excitement of hearing from our bassist that he’d record us, my mind immediately goes to the albums he engineered over the preceding few years. Here are just a few standout songs from those records:

Songs: Ohia, “Farewell Transmission” (2003)

Part of Albini’s engineering philosophy was simple: capturing the best version of a band playing live. That’s no more evident than in this stunning album opener from the late Jason Molina’s project, which rises and falls beautifully like the sea (and over just three chords for most of its run, no less).

The Ponys, “Shadow Box” (2005)

If Albini had just recorded the Ponys’ second record, Celebration Castle, I would have still been plenty nervous to play in front of him. They were my favorite local band at the time and very much a template for what I wanted us to be like. I love this track, sung by Ian Adams, who’d exit the band after this record.

Joanna Newsom, “Emily” (2006)

And now for something completely different. Ys was my album of the year in my friends’ top-five poll for 2006. And Albini captures Newsom’s delicate vocals and harp playing just gorgeously here.

Electrelane, “On Parade” (2004)

Those drums! Nobody recorded them quite like him. This track from the Brighton outfit is still in regular rotation for me.

For Albini, our session in summer 2007 was just another day, another clock-in for a guy whose workload was staggeringly busy by design and for philosophical reasons (about art, about commerce, and about how the two really have nothing to do with one another): Your band would pop in, he’d make them sound as good as they ever would live, and you’d pop out. Another young band would surely be waiting, nervously, for you to come down to your studio wearing your blue jumpsuit the next morning. But for us—and, I’m sure, so many others—leaving Electrical Audio and driving around at night, blasting a CD of what we just recorded that day, what didn’t exist that morning, by a guy who was very much a hero, was magical. It was just like that scene in 24 Hour Party People, only we weren’t, you know, Joy Division.

More often than not, those big moments in life, the ones you’ll remember and pick apart decades down the line like you’re the narrator in a Bruce Springsteen song, don’t feel like it when they’re happening. This was different. This absolutely felt big, special, like the sort of thing you’ll tell your son or daughter about if you ever have one. And so my friends and I ducked into a late-night bar off Belmont and Western, a stone’s throw from Electrical Audio, and we clinked our glasses of PBR and smoked our cigarettes and annoyingly asked the bartender to play those four songs and made fun of each other and felt that glorious buzz you do when you’re young and dumb and made something you’re proud of. I will never forget that moment.

And I thank you for that, Steve Albini. Truly.