050726

Scooter McKeever, bossman.

When my friend Steve died, I spent hours thinking he was still alive. I thought he was alive, and I had intended to text him. I caught wind of the upcoming Wire cover story as the band he was in, Shellac of North America, were about to release their seventeenth record “To All Trains.” I was gonna tease him over Savage Pencil’s portrait of bandmate Bob Weston. I was gonna tease him over my impending dilemma of “I bought tickets to see The Urinals in one city and had tickets to go dancing to Daniel Wang’s dj set in another city, and oh gosh bossman what should I do?!” From what I knew, the guy was still in France recording our friends in Mint Mile and probably sound asleep.

I stopped keeping close track of Steve’s daily schedule several years before, despite our rather frequent communication. I didn’t need to know what he was recording everyday or where he was everyday, or what work he had yet to finish. Probably an unintentional boundary on my part. I spent close to nine years keeping close track of him, as I was hired to manage his recording studio, Electrical Audio in 2006. I left that job in 2015, leaving the work and my mess to clean up (just as the man who split before I took over had done for me) to Taylor Hales. Taylor still manages Electrical Audio, and like everyone at Electrical Audio, is a mensch and also completely deranged. You have to be deranged to own a recording studio. You could say, “yeah right now?” but really any time in the span of history, you’d have to be completely deranged to own and operate a recording studio. “Yeah lets do this thing that will yield no money, and work within proximity of not just the mafia but the most fickle and hollow of American cultures, The Music Industry.” Sign me up.

I’d argue that it was completely deranged that Steve hired me; I had no business acumen, could barely manage my own personal budget, but I did know how to pick up a phone, answer an email, talk to people, and keep a schedule. He didn’t know any of this, and neither did his wife Heather Whinna who called me one day while I was working at Reckless Records. I was hating my life having just been demoted from my role of new product manager, a kick in the teeth after 11 months of total grief following the sudden death of my mother, a long term relationship imploding, housing insecurity, a new love, another implosion, just shitty turtles all the way down. So shitty that Atlanta, Georgia circa 2006 looked appealing—the fuck, yeah lemme go work at williams street, fuck outta here. Heather Whinna called and asked “hey do you have any interest in managing Steve’s recording studio?” Really, who does that? I didn’t know shit from fat meat, but now I’m being asked to oversee the daily flow of not just one of the premier analog recording studios in North America, but Steve Albini? Completely deranged.

You leave most jobs, you don’t talk to your boss after you leave. If it’s amicable, you visit on occasion, maybe you run into one another at an engagement or something. Most jobs, you aren’t leaving a bad gig, but bad management. Steve was different of course; inviting me to his house for a meal, pestering (THE LEGENDARY) Jon San Paolo to “get Sowley a key” after he learned I lost my old studio key on a bike ride. For a moment, I had an issue with packages disappearing from my apartment, so I had my mail sent to Electrical. Whenever I’d stop by to pick up my items, Steve would say “we need to find a way to pay you to just hang out here.” Then the texts. I’d be in my car at some ungodly hour after finishing my shift at Danny’s, decompressing, and then…
vibration
”entertain me.”
”where are you?”
”I’m in Spain. Where are you?”
”Poor thing. I’m in my car, in Hermosa. How should I go about preparing this hanger steak?”
"What’s with this band?” and we’d go on about some band, and he’d argue that he doesn’t need any music, that he just needs a copy of Funhouse. Then I’d remind him that he’d be leaving out Suicide, to which he’d say “Right, Suicide.”

I’m pretty sure if you ask his friends, they’ll all have some variant of the same story: If he had your number he’d text you. Hell, if he had your number you probably had shelter for the rest of your life so long as he was around. The home he and Heather built provided shelter for many friends “going through it” at points in their life. It’s just how they are. But man he loved to gab with his friends. He loved bringing his friends together and doing things when others were in need. Kim Deal said “Steve liked people with little confidence.” He loved to boost people where he could; he loved to connect—”Oh you need a plumber? Got the guy for you…” and that guy comes by and fixes your plumbing, doesn’t rip you off, and maybe he ends up going to a ballgame with you every other week for the rest of your life. Or maybe they end up in your band. Or maybe y’all end up fucking for a while, and then that’s it. Point is, Steve brought people together from different worlds, different subcultures, different social and political backgrounds, and somehow, for the most part, everyone got along well enough. It’s one thing to have a job change your life for a little bit, but there’s so much of my life that was changed, impacted, illuminated because of Steve Albini and Electrical Audio. People I ended up traveling the world with because of him. People I love beyond measure, because of him.

When I did get a call, it was technically May 8th. My friend, a friend connected via Steve, Matthew Barnhart, called shortly after 1 am pst. I was returning home having gone for a drink and a read after work. I got off work at 11pm, and went to the one patio left open in Oakland after 11pm to decompress from counseling. “Oh yeah, be sure to text Steve about that Wire cover. Bust his balls about going disco dancing or going pogoing. Oh yeah don’t forget to bring up that you finally “get” how the single version of ‘Dancing Naked Ladies’ SMOKES the album version,” I thought as winding down my evening. Matthew called, and I certain it was 8 am in France as surely Matthew was over there with Steve and Mint Mile.

“What’s up, baybeeeeeee?!”
”hey babe. Where are you?”
”I’m at home, I just got home where are you?”
”I’m at my place (Matthew and his wife lived in the apartment of Electrical Audio, previously occupied by Steve and Heather.)”
”Oh I thought you were in France”
He sounded shook.
”I have bad news. Steve died. He had a heart attack at home.”
I just repeated “I love you, I’m sorry” like a delirious mess thinking if I said those four words nothing that was just said to me would be true.
I sat on my floor dumbfounded. I don’t remember what happened, but according to Matthew, I did some sort of arranging of people should be contacted and in what order. I chose to contact some people on Matthew’s list; no one should do this alone. No one was awake in my world except me and Matthew and I wasn’t going to start ringing the bell on people at three or four in the morning, their time. In 2013, a friend of mine passed away, and I learned of their death by someone whom seemed to take a delight in being the first to break it. It didn’t matter that that person had no social grace or really any reason to contact me about it, but they just had to break it. It was really gross and insulting to me, and I didn’t wish to do that here. I sent texts that read “hey, call me before you look at anything on your phone. Love you.” Only mildly alarming.

I sat on my floor, crying, staring at my phone waiting for a text from him to arrive. Just something to undo the reality. I paced, I smoked, I tried to watch “year of the horse.” I debated going to the airport, and flying to Chicago. I just kept looking at the clock waiting—”Okay, it’s 8am in New York. Surely one of these people will call me.” Eventually they did, and each call was understandably brutal. At one point, while chatting with a friend—the last person on my list to get back to me—my phone started vibrating uncontrollably. Text after text started to come through on my phone. A couple phone calls. “Hey, I think the news broke.” “Yeah it looks like it did.”

At this point, I was nearing 24 hours awake, in grief, subsisting on water, caffeine and nicotine. My phone wouldn’t stop ringing. I checked in with the staff at Electrical Audio. “Should I fly out? I feel like I need to be in Chicago.” “Stay put for now. We don’t really know what’s happening.” It was very sunny outside, and my typically womb-like bedroom was atypically illuminated. I called my ex girlfriend, told her the news, and asked if I could go over there and sleep. Her bedroom is just as womb-like, and I can turn my phone off. She encouraged me to come over, and I slept, sort of, while she worked. In the evening, after another series of phone calls, we walked to a fantastic sushi restaurant, proceeded to order many plates of food, and converse between big sighs into sky. “He’d want it to be this way” is how I’d rationalize any indulgence I took for the next two months. I couldn’t go anywhere without crying. I’d go see a band and just sob, thinking about friendship, community and the force of art. I’d think about some moment, some stupid bit, or something I was upset about that truly didn’t matter anymore and just fall apart. I checked my phone every morning like I did everyday before May 7, 2024 expecting a text from him. Nothing. Waking up in grief is like getting a bucket of very cold water splashed on you “GOOD MORNING, YES THIS IS REALITY, YOU ARE STILL VERY SAD ABOUT THE TRUTH.” Brutal. I had dreams every night no matter how much dope I’d smoke in hopes of countering it. I cry all the time. The other week, I cried while making coffee, thinking of how he’d greet me, and how I’d never hear it again. It just shows up, and I cry through it; it’s not thrilling, its merely living and moving through it.

My mother Sally died of a sudden stroke at 60, behind the wheel of her Subaru forester, a car that I now possess. I was 28 years old. Steve died of a sudden heart attack at 61. I was 47 years old. My father is still alive, at 83. I have no idea when I will die, and I try not to think about it too much, but I’m getting closer to 60 than I am 28. Steve encouraged me for 18 years to be my genuine self, to tell people what time it is, to own the space I take, and do my best to not “engage in asshole behavior.” Don’t gatekeep anything. Treat your peers fairly. Don’t be greedy. Share what you know. Both of these changes in my life forced me to look at where I am at, and how I want to move forward in grief, in healing, and in being true to myself. I feel like I am moving forward, although it’s a very unstable and unusual time in my life. But I know I’m being the most genuine article of myself, or at least trying to be that. I have to at least try, because I saw that man do it, right up until the end.

I’m grateful for the time that I had with Steve. I hope he knew how much I loved him. He was a beautiful, complicated, funny, brilliant man. Yes, opinionated and problematic as a young person, but unlike many of of his compatriots he did show vulnerability as he grew older, and walked back much of his shitty twenty-year-old-know-it-all-behavior. I got to witness that over the 18 years I spent around him, and I am honored to have observed that growth. Change is the only constant in this world, whether it’s brought on by death or rebirth, or good ol father time and mother nature. We move forward, and for someone who’d argue he’s “incredibly lazy” and “(doesn’t) get involved in THINGS” he certainly moved forward, as shown in his advocacy, his empathy, and generosity. That said, it didn’t stop him from being a world-class hater, and a very funny, very eloquent one at that. I truly regret blowing up my twitter account without archiving it first, as there was some very good bullshit in there. I guess I got one up on him because I ended the savage year of 2024 by getting the word “JAZZ” tattooed on my chest in his handwriting. (Sidebar: at some point, there should be an Albini font; if you look at any reels, that fax he sent to nirvana, that Shellac 7” on drag city, his handwriting is just magnificent. Taylor Hales recently remarked “he must’ve spent hours upon hours getting it just right.” It’s really gorgeous handwriting. Get one of these font dorks on this, stat!)

I miss him every day of my life, and I can’t believe whatever power that moves through my world brought me to him. I feel like in the last two years, between death, job insecurity, and heartbreak, my confidence has been completely shredded. I find little moments of confidence, I mean, I guess I am doing things for myself? I know some decisions I made were spurned by this grief—”better do it now before you’re dead, and your doctor doesn’t seem to think you’re dying so… start telling people what time it is?”

I will tell you what time it is—it’s 4:06 am on May 7th, and like the man I miss, I am up late, writing, after putting some hours behind the mix, edit and documenting everything. I’m still unemployed, I ran out of UI this week, I had jury duty today, crashed back into bed after Jury Duty, woke up in the evening, switched my topical patches, lit up my Steve Albini candles and got the records out. Initially, I was going to focus on Big Black/RxMan/Shellac, and they all show up here, but it became more fun to play jams that he loved, and some bands he loved to record, all threaded by the sound of him lighting a match.

I leave you with this: in 2012, Shellac participated in A Nightmare Before Xmas in England, an annual winter weekend music festival hosted by All Tomorrow’s Parties. You go out to a beach resort in England, you get a little chalet with your friends, and a band “curates” (christ, please let that be the only time I use that word) a weekend of music, cinema and events, (Hell, the tv feed in your chalet—Shellac chose an endless stream of “the Thick of It” and Billiards competitions!) It was basically a big ol’ friend hang. The artist chalets were in one section of the resort, so if I stepped out for coffee, maybe I’d run into Tim Midyett, or maybe Shannon, or Bob and Carrie, or Kim, or Agostino and Giovanna, or Nina and Kennan. On that Saturday, as dusk began to set, Steve was in one place—his chalet, but the sliding door was open. There was a constant flow of friends coming through as Steve manned the stove, cooking a feast of bird, beans, broth, greens. “COME IN, EAT!” And that was his afternoon, bands would come by before or after their set and chow before he’d set into late night of poker. It seems like nothing, but there’s something about the generosity, the want to make a scene for your friends to feel at home. To build a studio so you can record bands and treat them fairly, like they’re peers. Truly deranged behavior.

I love you Steve. I miss you.

I don’t think he’d like this current, stupid world too much, but I know he’d find a way to love the world he built within it.

xoxo,

Steph
Puzzle Palace
Oakland, CA