Why reissue the Big Black stuff now?
There is a degree of pride I suppose in everything that we did, but it was never our intention for the stuff to ever become unavailable. The only reason it did was the record company that we were dealing with for the first couple of Big Black records, Homestead, proved to be a criminally irresponsible label. Rather than put up with that any longer we said that we would let these agreements lapse and then reissue them whenever it is possible. It was never our intention to let them go out of print, but by default we would have had to continue dealing with criminals. In England it was a different arrangement we didn't actually have a falling out with Blast First until very recently, it was about two years ago when we finally came to the conclusion that Blast First were not willing to make good on their promises, so we pulled all of our stuff. As for Southern I have had a long series of pleasant experiences with John Loader, the guy who runs Southern and Touch and Go is about the only responsible label in America. They are about the only honest to pete independant label left of any consequence because all the other labels that call themselves independant labels have connections or aspirations to connections with the big labels. (As for small labels): Those are the labels where all the really groundbreaking stuff happens anyway. Touch and Go has had some really amazing records recently, but there haven't been very many things that have come out of the blue, y'know total unknown things that have come out of Touch 'n' Go that were real mind benders, that does happen, not frequently, but it does happen on small fry independants.
Producer?
I am a recording engineer.
Why not in a band?
When Rapeman broke up I was pretty heartbroken, Rapeman was, as far as I am concerned, the best thing that I have ever been involved in and the most satisfying and I didn't want the band to break up. When we did it was quite a blow and I made a promise to myself that I wasn't going to start another band unless and until I was convinced that I could do something of that calibre. It was obvious to me at the point that I could do whatever I wanted and there would be some audience, of some size that would be willing to buy it. I wasn't willing to indulge the weaker parts of my personality that would have enjoyed doing any old thing and getting away with it. I made a conscious decision not to do anything that cheap.
Rapeman split over then name?
That was a lie, we just said that stuff because it was funny. None of us had any problem with the name. Really the only people that did have a problem with the name were certain overly touchy political people in England. There would be occassional picket line of Housewives and Lesbians in America, certainly no general sentiment that it was an offensive name. To my mom, Rape man is no more offensive than Sex Pistols.
Big Black, dark side of America.
The subject matter of Big Black, I don't really identify it too closely with the band, I identify it more with my personality and the personalities in the band. I was thinking more in stylistic terms when I wrote that. Nowadays, not only is it not uncommon, it is also required for a band to write songs about unpleasant goings on. When we were doing it, it seemed a little bit out of character.
BB influenced people through the lyrics.
Nobody can ever control. . . there is something that was quoted from some famous son of a bitch, or whatever "You can never control who your audience is going to be, you can only control your creative output', so I never felt very responsible for people who have misinterpreted what we have done or who have taken it as a kind of stylistic raincoat that they can put on, to me that was never my responsibility. There are some bands that were inspired by the climate of music during that period that Big Black was active, which was a very fertile period of American music, there were bands like KillDozer, Big Black, Sonic Youth and other smaller bands that people probably wouldn't be familiar with that were equally inspirational and there are a lot of bands that took their inspiration from that era and have gone on to do things that are equally noteworthy. They are not necessarily inspired by Big Black, they are inspired by the climate of music that was generated during the period that Big Black was active.
What about the current music climate.
I think it sucks. I think we are in the weakest period of Rock Music since the early seventies. I think right now it about 1973 to be honest.
Who do you rate.
There are about three or four good bands in the world. There is the Jesus Lizard who are an outstanding band. There is Fugazi and . . . . I'm really reaching now. There are a couple of Japanese bands, there is one called Zenie Gava(?) and there is another called UFO or Die. I like those bands. I think the Jesus Lizard are one of the most original, most important currently active rock bands in the world. I have a feeling, that to the same extent Led Zepplin inspired every idiot rock band in the last five years, fifteen or twenty years after they gave up, I think the Jesus Lizard will be the equivelant of the Stooges or Led Zepplin in terms of their impact.
How do you feel about the route that the eighties band took.
A lot of them, in my opinion, have given up the very qualities that made them distinctive in the first place. The Swans, for example, when from being one of the most Monolithic, Powerful bands in the world to being a maudlin cabaret. I haven't heard a Swans record that i liked in a long time. Sonic Youth, are a really sad story, because they were an amazing band during a period of their existence, and that was a very poorly documented period. From their very beginning to the period that they released EVOL, that era of the band was enormously infuential, I think they really covered a lot of ground, the distance that they have gone since then has been a very small distance indeed. Basically refined a very few notions and turned some of them into downright parodies and their current tack is very insubstantial. They are pretending to an extent that they are still the band they were seven or eight years ago and the way that they do that is by sort of presenting themselves as a more lighthearted jocular version of themselves with their tongue in their cheeks they are slowly dismantling their reason to exist. They still occassionaly write a good song, to use terms that they would appreciate, there is an occassional that you listen to and think that that is a pleasant enough song but they don't ever have the sort of spellbinding, scare the shit out of you quality that they used to.
Big Black - Did it end timely?
I think Big Black finished at a point that had we continued we would have begun to deteriorate, I think we finished at the top of the arc. Rapeman was on its way up when we broke up, I think if we had stuck it out for another year or two we would have been a truly outstanding band, as it was we were still in the developmental stages when we broke up.
Who are you working on now?
I am a little uncomfortable spilling the beans on stuff that I am working on because I don't really feel that that is my perogative.
Do you actually pick and choose your own projects?
Only on the larger scale things. For example, if a band comes to me and they have no money and no option, no way of making a record unless I am willing to make it cheaply then I will do it. I don't care who it is. If a band comes to me and they have several options of where they can go, and who they can use and have a lot of money behind them then I am more inclined to be selective about who I deal with. It is the only way I feel comfortable doing it. If somebody comes to me and says we need to make a record and we have a total of a hundred dollars can you do it? I would say, yeah. If they have a budget of 30,000 dollars then I start to be selective, for 30,000 bucks you can do a lot so the only reason you should want to do it with me is if you really want to work as a team.
Frankly, I don't know why people call me. I flatter myself in assuming that they have heard stuff that I have done and liked it and thought it would be appropriate for me to work on their records but I am sure there is a degree of people wanting to be famous by association with other bands that I've recorded "Oh, this guy recorded the Pixies therefore if we are recorded by him we will be equally sucessful".
Silverfish?
I saw Leslie about a year ago socially wandering about Chicago, she had some sailors dick in her hand; I don't know how that came out. I don't think much of their records since they got signed to whatever the fuck label it was (Creation).
before Big Black
I was at college, studying Journalism
How did you get into being a producer?
As long as I have been interested in Punk Rock I have been recording stuff and it just developed that out of recording Big Black records I would help other people out in the studio and it got to where people were asking specifically for me, instead of me offering my services to help people out. Then eventually I got so much work that I stopped doing anything else, this is all I do for a living. I can support all these loser bands that I do charity work for.
Any of the bands you are producing any good?
Most of the bands I work with are pretty bad. I am unusual in that a lot of recording engineers either pretend to be enthusiastic fans of everything that they work on, so clearly these people are dishonest or they only work on a few projects and those projects they develop an intense affection for them by virtue of just having worked on them. I don't behave that way. I will work on some bands record as a technician and do a good job, but that in no way changes my opinion of the quality of the material. I mean I have worked on records for months and an ordinary engineer would have got emotionally involved in a project and become part of the team and lost his objectivity and appreciate the record far more that it really deserved but my perspective is still that of a fan, I still listen to the record and think "Do I like this, does this appeal to me?" and the great majority of times, because the batting average of bands is so low the only satisfaction I get from working on a record is the technical satisfaction of having do a good job. I don't pretend to be an equal participant in the music, I am a technician and the band are responsible for their music, in that respect I don't feel any obligation to pretend to be enthusiastic and like the band. I will do a good job for anybody that I do work for and I will do my damnedest to make sure that they get everything done that they want done, but I can't pretend that I am a big enthusiastic fan of a band that I don't really give a shit about.
Over here when you read about a band that you have produced it is always like 'Steve Albini's latest find'?
That is the way English music people view the world, but 9 times out of ten it is someone who I have never met before who calls me up on the phone and says hey can I book some time, and after finding out the situation they are in without hearing a note of their music I am committed to doing their album.
State of music press
What they call music journalism in Great Britain is really expository. . .not even tabloid journalism there, it is just a regurgitation of press release stuff. Most of it is someone calls the music press up and says that I am faxing you a press release about some band and they rewrite that in some form and issue it as news. There is no one that actually works on stories, there may be feature articles about bands but there is no one, for example, trying to uncover the abuses in PRS society. There is no actual journalism going on.
A new concept for a new band?
I am not going to admit to having been in a band currently, if that is what you are asking. It is the one thing that I want to do more than anything in my life, I want to be in a rock band. Everyday I wake up and I think, wouldn't it be grand if I was in a rock band, it is obvious to me that is what I do best, and it is obvious to me that that would give me the most satisfaction. I also haven't felt in a position to do it yet, partly to do with the climate of the music scene and partly due to my own insecurity about my own ability and my own intentions.
Lollapalooza
Lollapalooza is the worst example of corporate encroachment into what is supposed to be the underground. It is just a large scale marketing of bands that pretend to be alternative but are in reality just another facet of the mass cultural exploitation scheme. I have no appreciation or affection for those bands and I have no interest in that whole circle. If Lollapalooza had Jesus Lizard and the Melvins and Fugazi and Slint then you could make a case that it was actually people on the vanguard of music. What it really is is the most popular bands on MTV that are not heavy metal.
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