Albini vs Jourgensen

Discussion
1

When asked whether Minstry influenced Big Black:

In th early 1980s there was a Chicago band called Stations that used both live drummers and drum machines. I was in this band briefly (1981) during a drum machine period, and it is definitely where I got the idea to play with a drum machine.

Before I joined, they had recorded a single with a drummer named Stevo, who was in Special Affect with Al Jourgensen, and later drummed for Ministry.

Al also worked at Wax Trax, the incredible record store that was the epicenter of the Chicago punk scene at the time, and he almost certainly sold me records that influenced me tremendously. So thanks, Al.

In its earliest incarnation, Ministry sounded like the Cure, and I have heard the test pressing of an unreleased single that proves it. I don’t think it would be possible for anybody to have been influenced by this early eyelinier version of Minstry.

I’ll leave it to others to decide who influenced whom, but I don’t think I have ever intentionally listened to a Ministry record, so that would be a tough case to make.

Albini fans on Ministry:

http://www.electricalaudio.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=899&hilit=al+jourgensen

Another quote from Albini:

Unrelentingly stupid music in every incarnation. It takes a worldview clouded by inexperience to get anything out of this crap. It’s phony and borrowed and dress-up and superficial on every level.

Despite the involvement of a few great musicians over the years (Ion Barker and Bill Reiflin from the Blackouts, Martin Atkins, Rey Washam) I have always hated this shit, from its pretend-Classix Nouveaux beginnings, through its pretend-Killing Joke era to its pretend-Anthrax phase. Out of a civility instinct I suppressed my hatred at least verbally when in the company of the Wax Trax people I liked, but I still hated this music. It is as stupid and phony as anything on America’s Next whatever. Knowing that its auteur is apparently a complete piece of shit doesn’t make that better or worse, I suppose, but we know that, so there’s that too.

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Big Black was horrible.

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Albini’s always been a dick.

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I love Albini as a producer. Oh, I’m sorry I meant “recording engineer” or whatever he demands people refer to him as. He’s produced so many of my favorite albums and I really like the sounds he gets. But I don’t give two shits about his opinions on anything outside of production and engineering.

For someone who is so vocal and angry about a band supposedly being phony and a rip-off he sure had no problem producing an album for that shitty Nirvana rip-off band Bush.

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I’ve never heard him say anything positive, he’s a cock. His track record isn’t exactly blemish-free anyway, fuck him.

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Stevo was never in Special Affect. But it’s true he was in Stations, briefly.

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Steve Albini doesn’t seem to like anything. He’s produced some good albums, but never seems to have anything positive to say.

Steve Albini on (insert noun or verb): It’s terrible.

But I am sort of surprised he didn’t mention Racer X vs Stigmata. Perhaps that’s what he was hinting at with the “influcenced” remark.

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I do love the fact that Albini does all the Shellac shows at reasonable hours. It’s nice to see a show and not feel like shit the next day.

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Some chat about Special Affect from Albini:

I wasn’t into them. I picked up their album from the Wax Trax dollar bin and only remember playing it once. Within the punk circles they were laughed at, unlike the Mentally Ill, the Imports, Tutu and the Pirates, Navastrau, Stations, Epicycle and most of the other proto-punk bands. Steve Bjorklund’s nickname for them, Specially Affected, took the mockery honors.

Their drummer Harry Rushakoff was pretty good as I recall. He played on the Stations single and I think ended up in Concrete Blonde or a similar high-profile band. Their singer Frankie Nardiello ended up a mainstay of the depressingly stupid Wax Trax drug&disco scene.

I like this poster’s tale:

I will say this about Al: I first met him when I went into the local record store to buy the first Pretenders album - he told me don’t bother, and sold me the first Clash album instead. Then when I went in to buy whatever else remained of the available Clash catalog, he told me don’t bother and sold me The Ramones. That blew my mind, so when I went in to buy the rest of the Ramones albums, he told me I should purchase Pink Flag by Wire instead - and why not Betrayal by Jah Wobble and Second Edition by Public Image, too? I think he also made me buy “Warm Leatherette” by The Normal. So anyway, the dude was pretty formative in shaping my musical taste!

A year or so later, Steve started his radio show at WNUR, which proved equally formative, if not more so - weird how these two opposites kinda dovetailed when it came to my musical edumacation
 I think my ears first encountered Killing Joke when Steve played “Requiem” on his show, and I’ve probably never been the same since
 I often think about how weird it was that these were just two dudes that happened to be lingering around my hometown, and what effect it had on me.

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Wow, after reading some of that shit on that forum I welcome a nuclear war. What a bunch of pretentious fuckheads. Are they for real or fucking around?

This is is one of the many examples of pretentiousness and stupidity that I cannot fathom:

I voted crap because I am an adult.

Ministry aren’t for adults, and thus I feel something of a killjoy.

When I was 15 I thought Ministry was pretty damn good.

“NOW LOOK MAN!..DOW-DE-DOW
NOW LOOK MAN!..DOW-DE-DOW
etc”

Used to love that.

CRAP.

This guy sounds like he’d be a fucking blast at parties.

I can totally understand them dissing current “Ministry”. And what pisses me off is that Al’s current shit music only helps some of their points. That’s a large part of what’s pissed me off about “Ministry” post-Barker. It’s embarassing to like and I have to go, “No, that’s not Ministry. Listen to this album or that one.” and explain. But after seeing the “99 Percenters” video do you think people are going to give anything else a fucking chance? Hell no.

I completely agree with them bashing the shit “Ghouldiggers” and “99 Percenters” videos and lyrics and all the Bush Trilogy shit. But to bash the entire back catalog and shit on everything the band has done? Fuck them. I’m usually the one bashing Ministry but goddamn.

Can you imagine a gathering with these people? Holy shit. Nothing is cool, everything is passĂ© (they pronounce it “pawsaaay” and sound like they’re bored when saying it), and having fun is never acceptable.

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Can you imagine a gathering with these people? Holy shit. Nothing is cool, everything is passĂ© (they pronounce it “pawsaaay” and sound like they’re bored when saying it), and having fun is never acceptable.

I used to hang out with tools like that. I mean, real fucking music snobs. People here think I’m pretty uppity when it comes to what’s in and what’s not but I tell you, spend a week with these guys and soon enough Peligro seems like the most genenerous, open minded guy on earth.

I remember playing a Secret Chiefs 3 (band formed by Trey Spruance of Mr Bungle/Faxed Head/Faith No More fame) album at a gathering once. I was sitting next to this guy who was more or less the ringleader of this particular group of intellectual purists. He was digging the album, thinking that it was early 70’s era Morricone. When I told him it wasn’t Ennio Morricone and that it was in fact an album made by an ex member of Mr Bungle, the guymore or less spat in my face, then launched into a 15 minute tirade against “corporate” bullshit and “music for the masses” and “crappy teenage angst music”. Which I found odd, seeing that Secret Chiefs are on Web Of Mimicry - a tiny independant label- and if I interviewed 1000 people even in an inner city, hipster, bohemian area, I’ll wager that maybe, just maybe, 2 or 3 people would have heard of them.

The guy then got up and sat next to someone else - probably to pontificate over his opinions on Stockhausen and La Monte Young. So there you go. These people are out there and they will probably die alone and poor. Poor because they are too anti establishment to do anything as “corporate” as even get a job (cos that’s only for mainstream types, right?) and alone because being so full of negative energy, like rats in a cage, they will always eventually turn on each other.

In regards to Albini and Jourgenson - I’ve always enjoyed the fruits of both their labours. Both Atomizer and Rape And Honey are brilliant slabs of wax that inspired a young enthusiastic Peligro to no end and if push came to shove I probably couldn’t pick a favorite.

But fuck Albini if he thinks that Ministry were faux anything. I think he’d be a complete bore to hang out with. I’d imagine he’s the sort you’d likely find masturbating to Glenn Branca’s Lesson No. 1 with his mate Richard Kern after a lengthy discussion over Kafka in a tiny New York slum apartment.

He probably lives on beans and rice too and refuses to buy a car for “moral” reasons. Hipster cock-knocker


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The only thing I know Albini likes is King Crimson. Surprised? I’d love to see Albini and Fripp at a party. What’s the worst that could happen?

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[reply]
Can you imagine a gathering with these people? Holy shit. Nothing is cool, everything is passĂ© (they pronounce it “pawsaaay” and sound like they’re bored when saying it), and having fun is never acceptable.

I used to hang out with tools like that. I mean, real fucking music snobs. People here think I’m pretty uppity when it comes to what’s in and what’s not but I tell you, spend a week with these guys and soon enough Peligro seems like the most genenerous, open minded guy on earth.

I remember playing a Secret Chiefs 3 (band formed by Trey Spruance of Mr Bungle/Faxed Head/Faith No More fame) album at a gathering once. I was sitting next to this guy who was more or less the ringleader of this particular group of intellectual purists. He was digging the album, thinking that it was early 70’s era Morricone. When I told him it wasn’t Ennio Morricone and that it was in fact an album made by an ex member of Mr Bungle, the guymore or less spat in my face, then launched into a 15 minute tirade against “corporate” bullshit and “music for the masses” and “crappy teenage angst music”. Which I found odd, seeing that Secret Chiefs are on Web Of Mimicry - a tiny independant label- and if I interviewed 1000 people even in an inner city, hipster, bohemian area, I’ll wager that maybe, just maybe, 2 or 3 people would have heard of them.

The guy then got up and sat next to someone else - probably to pontificate over his opinions on Stockhausen and La Monte Young. So there you go. These people are out there and they will probably die alone and poor. Poor because they are too anti establishment to do anything as “corporate” as even get a job (cos that’s only for mainstream types, right?) and alone because being so full of negative energy, like rats in a cage, they will always eventually turn on each other.

In regards to Albini and Jourgenson - I’ve always enjoyed the fruits of both their labours. Both Atomizer and Rape And Honey are brilliant slabs of wax that inspired a young enthusiastic Peligro to no end and if push came to shove I probably couldn’t pick a favorite.[/reply]

Dear god, I’d spray my brains all over the walls if I had to be around a group of people like that for more than 5 minutes.

Was it the album “Second Grand Constitutions and Bylaws” or does most of their music sound like that? Because I’m checking it out right now (the first track, at least) and I can totally imagine some hipster, music snob thinking it’s Morricone and then being bummed when he finds out he’s wrong. I don’t understand how Ennio Morricone is less “corporate” or “music for the masses” than some indie band. I love his stuff. “L’arena” is one of my favorite pieces of music ever written. But still.

Music is important to me and all
 it’s pretty much one of the most important things to me actually. But at the end of the day it’s still just music. These people that have to give fucking lectures about it and discuss trivial shit on end ruin it and take all the fun out of it. They listen to obscure bands that nobody else likes. Well, there’s sometimes a good reason why nobody likes them or has heard of them. It’s because they fucking blow.

But fuck Albini if he thinks that Ministry were faux anything. I think he’d be a complete bore to hang out with. I’d imagine he’s the sort you’d likely find masturbating to Glenn Branca’s Lesson No. 1 with his mate Richard Kern after a lengthy discussion over Kafka in a tiny New York slum apartment.

He probably lives on beans and rice too and refuses to buy a car for “moral” reasons. Hipster cock-knocker


Ahahaha, that’s disturbingly accurate of some of the pretentious mouthbreathers I’ve encountered and how I imagine them spending their evenings.

Banana bikes, mustaches, earth-tone colors, scarves, brightly colored Wayfarer knock-offs, trust funds, portable record players, sweater vests, ironic t-shirts, corduroys, etc.

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I love Big Black, great music to have sex to. The production is almost too shitty for its own good though I think
ironic because he’s known as a producer
I guess they wanted it to be noisy obviously but it I feel at times it’s over the top in shittiness.

Either way the band has a special place in my heart. Listening to them now.

Regarding the Al comments, Albini does seem like a prick with a lot of his comments.

I mean Al’s a dick too, but I’ll take that kind of dick over the Albini type of dick any day


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I like both bands.

Scratch that, I think I actually like Shellac more than Big Black. Hahah.

And even though Stigmata is pretty much a rip-off of Racer X, it’s probably the better “song” structurally and such.

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I enjoy Albini’s writing more than his music. This is a favourite:

http://www1.chicagoreader.com/hitsville/pander.html

Another:

There is a thing that people do when a band is crap, but friends. The people, they say, “They’re really great guys
”

Todd Trainer, a genius, once said, “I wish someone would say,‘what assholes! But what a great band!’”

I’m sorry, that won’t be me. The Butthole Surfers are world-class shit-heels, and I vote crap.

The Buttholes were an awe-inspiring and inspirational band in their early period, because they used punk ingenuity and genuine perversity to create a spectacle of themselves. A dazzling human spectacle. This period was short.

Along the way they started treating everyone around them like shit, taking absurd advantage of every situation, and gradually deteriorating into a parody of themselves as a wing of the conventional cut-throat showbusiness world.

Then they started making bullshit, half-assed music, and covered by playing movies behind themselves and firing strobe lights at the audience.

They squandered the respect they had been awarded and made enemies of friends.

This culminated in the retarded war they waged against Touch and Go, the only label to ever be genuinely straight with them and pay them regularly.

They will roast in a particularly oily corner of Hell.

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Regarding the Al comments, Albini does seem like a prick with a lot of his comments.

I mean Al’s a dick too, but I’ll take that kind of dick over the Albini type of dick any day


Yeah, Al may talk shit about the people he used to collaborate with, but I don’t think I can recall him dismissing anyone’s musical output on such a snobbish level.

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^ Yeah, and Paul Barker was just the bass player


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Nah, he talks about Paul like that but he’ll still admit they did good tunes together. And, as far as I know, he’s never called any of Paul’s solo music before after or during Ministry shit (he was dismissive of Flowering Blight in an interview once, but I don’t think he was slagging the music in and of itself).

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