St Ranger

                St Ranger released another sweet song off of their yet untitled album. I’m not sure if giving away music is a good business model. Perhaps it is important to give the listener some idea of what to expect. That’s what I assume the purpose is for this young, young group.

                When I hear they were all in other bands before this, I feel so lazy. How many people have been in bands since their early teens? Every day it is more and more people. I had a solo project, I’m not sure if it counts as the same thing. Laptop musicians aren’t really as beloved.

                Their most recent song “Shark Week” sprawls. I mean this in the best way possible. Seeing a band get messy is one of my greatest pleasures. What would “Teenage Riot” be if Sonic Youth decided to whittle down its length? Listening to “Shark Week” shows what happens when a band decides to stretch out. 

                “Shark Week” begins in the middle of things. Unlike the previous song, you’re just thrown into things. The drums are a bit more prominent in this one. I’m still pretty amazed at how St Ranger manages to sound so graceful. You’re reminded this is a five-piece band, it sounds so big. The vocals are fantastic. Again I’m reminded of the late 80s, when music began to pull itself out of the ‘New Wave’, out of plastic pop, and feel human emotions. That may be one of my favorite periods of music, hands-down. 

                Part of me wonders if they aren’t just going to tease out the entire album. You know, every couple of weeks release another track until lo and behold, it is summer. I wouldn’t be opposed to this approach. Seeing them live wouldn’t be a bad idea either, but unfortunately they haven’t quite made it to my neck of the woods yet. Perhaps they will sometime soon.

Should Steve Albini win some sort of medal for his evisceration of everything on Earth?

Steve Albini makes a living out of heaping scorn, along with the occasional release from his band Shellac. It is this attitude that the mainstream music industry is evil that attracts him so many followers and so much business. When Nirvana wanted to prove to the world that they were still ‘independent’, they went to Steve Albini to seek his blessing for the album “In Utero”. 

Today Steve went back to his roots, deciding to take on the famous indie band, or moderately successful mainstream one Sonic Youth. According to Steve in his GQ interview, Sonic Youth basically squandered a prime opportunity to continue to expand the independent music scene. Instead, they worked as scouts, searching for other indie rock to co-opt into the mainstream. He even did one of his famous “Now I don’t want to say they were wrong, but they basically ruined everything for everyone.”

All of this of course harkens back to his now famous article “The Problem with Music”. Anyone speaking to Mr. Albini first has to prepare themselves for the most caustic response imaginable when they ask:

“What do you think about bands that sign to major labels?”

Usually he’ll say “They are ignorant fools who will be indentured servants to their corporate music master for an indeterminate period of time” or something less nice. He’ll then pull out that excel spreadsheet that describes exactly how doomed they are. Perhaps he might even tell those future major label signers to take jobs at 7/11 instead, since after all fees are paid for, they’ll have almost nothing.

Weirdly, it sounds like his evisceration is getting less biting. Maybe it has to do with him getting old, not being able to muster the bile he used to have. Some of what he said even sounded nice, like how he was happy that festivals existed to treat bands properly. He even said how good treatment can be good business, which is shocking since business is never something he’s endorsed before. 

The second shock had to be an admission of him: that had he been in the same position as these bands were at 18, he might have signed a contract as well. Fortunately, no talent scout ever got near Steve before he transformed into the lovable curmudgeonly rocker we all know and love. If that happened, we might not have gotten such bands as Big Black, Shellac, and the notoriously named band Rapeman.

So yeah, Steve Albini deserves a medal. It is hard to be this angry all of the time; he’s like the Lewis Black of indie rock. Plus, he calls out a lot of the grossness that other musicians are either willfully ignoring or complicit. Thanks to his tireless efforts on this front (and the advent of the internet) great deals of bands have avoided needless exploitation. And for that, Steve deserves a medal.