THU., SEPTEMBER 01, 2005
Things Are Touch & Go with Steve Albini
by Douglas Wolk
Touch & Go Records released its first few discs in early 1981 — singles by the Midwestern hardcore bands the Necros and the Fix. It was originally a tiny punk label like any other, run at first by Tesco Vee, who'd published a 'zine that was also called "Touch and Go," and Necros bassist Corey Rusk. By the late '80s, Rusk had built the label up into one of the pillars of American punk rock, starting with other punk bands from Michigan and Ohio (Negative Approach's retrospective Total Recall contains some of the most scalding hardcore ever recorded), then reaching out across the country for bands like Killdozer, Scratch Acid and the Butthole Surfers. Each generation of Touch & Go-associated bands spawned more: Scratch Acid alumni went on to the Jesus Lizard and Rapeman, Negative Approach's frontman John Brannon formed the Laughing Hyenas, and the short-lived Rodan brought forth June of '44, Rachel's, the Shipping News and solo artist Tara Jane O'Neil.
Almost 25 years after its inception, Touch & Go is still around (along with its "sister label" Quarterstick), Rusk is still running it, and it still has a reputation for loyalty from the artists associated with it. One of the most notable — and devoted — is Steve Albini, the frontman of Big Black, Rapeman and Shellac. A sought-after recording engineer, a ferocious music-industry gadfly and a guitarist with a sound like claws scraping through solid metal, Albini has recorded over a thousand albums for bands from Low to Nirvana to the Pixies. (They include a sizeable proportion of the Touch & Go roster, although he's famously unwilling to be called a "producer": the "Fluss" given production credit for albums like Guided By Voices' Under the Bushes, Under the Stars was Albini's cat.) We talked to him about why his relationship with Touch & Go has endured so long.
"The underlying principles that Corey operates under are inherently fair," Albini says. "Without knowing anything about the way the music business works, if you were to try to devise a fair system, whereby bands could put records out and be compensated and relationships could be sustained over a long period of time, you would arrive at precisely the way Touch & Go does things. You don't put any obligation on anybody, so there's never any dissatisfaction when that obligation isn't met. You split the money up so there's never any question about who's getting the bigger share. If they make a dollar, we make a dollar. It's an obvious solution, and it's allowed Touch & Go to flourish; almost all of their peer record labels have gone broke and disappeared.
"Touch & Go's methodology — doing everything above-board, with plain English language, no lawyers, no contracts, everything between human beings as normal personal interaction — is important enough to me that I would walk through fire to defend it. I'm ecstatic that my bands have been able to work with the best record label in history. We've caused a lot of problems, and Shellac still occasionally causes problems for Touch & Go. Big Black made obscene records with offensive record covers — more than once, Corey had to scout around to find somebody who would manufacture them for him. That was a pain in the ass for him, and the fact that he was willing to go through with it because that's what we wanted to do speaks volumes about him and about the way that label works.
"When Touch & Go started, it was basically bands Corey liked, either because he liked their music or because he liked them as people. Since then, it's developed into Corey doing records with people he wants to do records with. Touch & Go has put out some awful fuckin' records lately, and I can't really fault that — in a way, I kind of think that that speaks to the generous spirit of Touch & Go, that they'll let people go out on a limb and make mistakes and not punish them for it."
Albini's a legendary audiophile — an early CD collection of Big Black material was called The Rich Man's Eight-Track Tape — and he's got some strong opinions on MP3s, too. (At he's least consistent — Albini has elected not to have his music distributed in digital form, which is presumably the rich man's CD.)
"I think MP3s are a tremendous convenience for people who don't listen to music seriously — for people who just want to have music as background music, or for while they're on the Stairmaster or whatever. When I listen to something, I generally want to listen to it in a way that reflects as much as possible what it's supposed to sound like. But if I'm sitting in the office, I might have something playing on the computer speakers. I'm not listening to music seriously in that case — it's like the radio in the kitchen while I'm making breakfast."
Finally, we asked Albini what he's been listening to lately:
"I like that new Pelican record. We did some shows with a band called Call Me Lightning, from Milwaukee, and I thought they were a really good, high-energy rock band. I always like Shannon Wright. I think she's an absolute jewel, and an incredible guitar player. And Michael Dahlquist, the drummer from Silkworm, was killed recently, and I went on a binge of listening to all their old records. Those records were amazing — he was amazing."
Almost 25 years after its inception, Touch & Go is still around (along with its "sister label" Quarterstick), Rusk is still running it, and it still has a reputation for loyalty from the artists associated with it. One of the most notable — and devoted — is Steve Albini, the frontman of Big Black, Rapeman and Shellac. A sought-after recording engineer, a ferocious music-industry gadfly and a guitarist with a sound like claws scraping through solid metal, Albini has recorded over a thousand albums for bands from Low to Nirvana to the Pixies. (They include a sizeable proportion of the Touch & Go roster, although he's famously unwilling to be called a "producer": the "Fluss" given production credit for albums like Guided By Voices' Under the Bushes, Under the Stars was Albini's cat.) We talked to him about why his relationship with Touch & Go has endured so long.
"The underlying principles that Corey operates under are inherently fair," Albini says. "Without knowing anything about the way the music business works, if you were to try to devise a fair system, whereby bands could put records out and be compensated and relationships could be sustained over a long period of time, you would arrive at precisely the way Touch & Go does things. You don't put any obligation on anybody, so there's never any dissatisfaction when that obligation isn't met. You split the money up so there's never any question about who's getting the bigger share. If they make a dollar, we make a dollar. It's an obvious solution, and it's allowed Touch & Go to flourish; almost all of their peer record labels have gone broke and disappeared.
"Touch & Go's methodology — doing everything above-board, with plain English language, no lawyers, no contracts, everything between human beings as normal personal interaction — is important enough to me that I would walk through fire to defend it. I'm ecstatic that my bands have been able to work with the best record label in history. We've caused a lot of problems, and Shellac still occasionally causes problems for Touch & Go. Big Black made obscene records with offensive record covers — more than once, Corey had to scout around to find somebody who would manufacture them for him. That was a pain in the ass for him, and the fact that he was willing to go through with it because that's what we wanted to do speaks volumes about him and about the way that label works.
"When Touch & Go started, it was basically bands Corey liked, either because he liked their music or because he liked them as people. Since then, it's developed into Corey doing records with people he wants to do records with. Touch & Go has put out some awful fuckin' records lately, and I can't really fault that — in a way, I kind of think that that speaks to the generous spirit of Touch & Go, that they'll let people go out on a limb and make mistakes and not punish them for it."
Albini's a legendary audiophile — an early CD collection of Big Black material was called The Rich Man's Eight-Track Tape — and he's got some strong opinions on MP3s, too. (At he's least consistent — Albini has elected not to have his music distributed in digital form, which is presumably the rich man's CD.)
"I think MP3s are a tremendous convenience for people who don't listen to music seriously — for people who just want to have music as background music, or for while they're on the Stairmaster or whatever. When I listen to something, I generally want to listen to it in a way that reflects as much as possible what it's supposed to sound like. But if I'm sitting in the office, I might have something playing on the computer speakers. I'm not listening to music seriously in that case — it's like the radio in the kitchen while I'm making breakfast."
Finally, we asked Albini what he's been listening to lately:
"I like that new Pelican record. We did some shows with a band called Call Me Lightning, from Milwaukee, and I thought they were a really good, high-energy rock band. I always like Shannon Wright. I think she's an absolute jewel, and an incredible guitar player. And Michael Dahlquist, the drummer from Silkworm, was killed recently, and I went on a binge of listening to all their old records. Those records were amazing — he was amazing."
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