Loops

"Famously" is perhaps doing some heavy lifting in what follows, this album being relatively unknown. The opening track, 'Farewell Transmission', from the 2003 Songs: Ohia record 'Magnolia Electric Co.' was famously recorded live in one room, in one take - the first take. No overdubs, no edits.

Those familiar with the recording style of Steve Albini will probably not be surprised at how this was achieved - Albini's entire MO was about capturing the sound of a band in a space as faithfully as possible - dynamics, intensity, restraint, space: it's all there. As a production ethos, it's not everyone's cup of tea, and as ever if you feel like arguing about the merits or otherwise of it, please face the mirror and do so there.

For me, this song is one of those hair-on-the-back-of-the-neck activators, every single time. It's not just the song, it's not just the lyrics, it's not just the production - I really don't see how this could have existed without any one of those elements being exactly the way it is. Another argument about determinism, fate, perspective... again, plenty of reflective surfaces available for throwing those thoughts against, thank you very much.

In my opinion, each of the above elements is 100% of the whole. There's not a sliver of insincerity or cynicism. We're listening to purest integrity, honesty and the cleanest channel to the expressive voice of Jason Molina ("leader" of Songs: Ohia), the performance of each musician, the dynamic and intuition of the whole band, as well as the method of capturing the sound made in the room. It's perfect.

From here this post will become pretty self-centric, but please indulge me. There is a point to the post, and I'll get there when I'm good & ready, as usual.

The separate parts that make up the whole in the case of this rambling story of course occurred in a sequence over time, but telling them in order would do a disservice to the point I'm trying to make, and would only act as blinkers to the insight available to us as the mechanics of our daily lives play out. Time is not of the essence!

So where to begin? I should try to keep things tied to cymbal making. So, I guess I'll start with stepping off a plane at Honolulu, as I rushed desperately to make my connection to Hawai‘i Island, where I would be meeting Russell at Big Island Cymbals to do a few days' teaching. I turned my phone back on and had a text from a good friend and bandmate of 20+ years saying that Steve Albini had died. He'd been working at his studio, Electrical Audio in Chicago, when he sadly suffered a fatal heart attack. Incidentally, this is the studio where 'Magnolia Electric Co.' was recorded.

Albini had been a huge part of my musical education and personal growth. Listen to The Jesus Lizard album 'Goat' and tell me there's not an almost aggressive refusal to do anything other than precisely what was needed at any given moment - performance and production stripped of any influence from opportunity. Again, it's not for everyone, but as soon as you try doing something for any more than zero people, the path starts getting muddy. What's that you say? The refusal itself could be a muddying factor? Absolutely right. How do we square that one away?

My reaction to this news was one of sadness and shock, of course. The lens of self kicked in and I thought back to seeing his band, Shellac, several times around 20 years ago and realising that these young, interesting people who could be held as figures to follow were no longer young with, hopefully, more than two thirds of their lives ahead of them. And if they were getting older, so was I. Thanks a bunch Steve Albini - a reality check I'd spent plenty of my time and money trying to avoid.

The fact that both my parents and all my remaining grandparents had died in quick, traumatic succession in recent times was also something I'd done my best to avoid, or at least deal with in small, healthy doses, so that came rushing back too. Hashtag triggered.

"But Dave, Steve Albini dying wasn't about you, what's your point???" I'm getting to it. Maybe this can be like one of those "Choose Your Own Adventure" books... If you want to see how this plays out, turn to the next page. If you're sick of Dave's pretentious, self-referential, defensive, attention-seeking-by-way-of-claiming-to-be-looking-outwards-at-larger-universal-truths thing, click away to "How to Distribute Tension in Old K Clones".

Moving on, and while at PASIC in 2025, I was feeling a bit in the way trying to help set up the booth I was sharing with Ryan Hayden. I'd brought essentially nothing to the show as I was there mainly to talk about teaching cymbal making alongside one of my students. Ryan was getting stuck into setting up stands and cymbals and I realised that asking "anything I can do?" over and over wasn't helping! So I went for a wander to explore Indianapolis.

I had a few hours to kill, and decided I wanted to get a tattoo - something I like to do when I travel. I'll always feel a bond to Manny of Skretas Family Cymbal Company thanks in part to heading off to get inked at the same time when I was in Texas teaching him.

Walking into the empty parlour, the artist greeted me and asked what I wanted to get done. No idea! Then I remembered the cover of 'Magnolia Electric Co.' and, even though I spent a while going through other options, it was a done deal.

The image on the cover is an illustration by the artist William Schaff. The owl with the tilted head, the raised hands (hands!?), the tear, the lightning, the magnolia, the claws... it's a strong image. It now sits on my left arm above the elbow, under some tribal pattern I had done when I was 19 and had no clue what I was doing or why. Not much has changed!

Another synchronistic moment - William Schaff had done an illustration for a Gravenhurst EP I played on back in 2004. Also, he'd done work for bands like Godspeed You Black Emperor! (before they moved the exclamation point), who had been produced by Steve Albini. So, you know, you find your tribe, I suppose. No coincidences here.

I'm extremely pleased with the work the tattoo artist did - it was a long session, we chatted music and life, and the guy was very careful to get every little line in the owl's feathers. The fact that he missed just one of the feather lines under the beak is very pleasing, and makes it unique, as if it wasn't already. It all existed in the moment, now etched into the past.

Feeling all pleased with myself, and seeing an opportunity for some "content" and the dopamine hit of self-importance disguised somehow in this modern cloak of social media "sharing" and worldliness, I posted a picture of the tattoo to Instagram (aka - Hell in Your Pocket). I tagged the band.

Sadly, Jason Molina had died in 2013, but his life and work were so important to so many, there was a healthy online presence curated by family and bandmates as a tribute to the man and the music. The input of the musicians around him deserves this recognition too, so one way or another - they weren't being forgotten.

The band shared my post, which gave me an extra hit of dopamine. Honestly, it was thrilling to be somehow connected to something so important - genuinely pleasing at the surface level. Also, and again honestly, a childlike element of hero-worship had buttons pushed which back-fed a need for love and approval hanging over from an empty childhood. Overanalysing? Too much information? Probably. But for many of us, not all, the social media mating ritual, when really scrutinised, will show you (and others) precisely who you are. Question your motivations the next time you want to share something altruistically. Nothing wrong with benefitting personally from a kind gesture, but just look at it through the clean channel - the one lacking insincerity, cynicism & opportunity.

I was happy with being reposted - I'd not planned it, but what a great bonus to come from a following of the nose!

Then, a message - the drummer of the band, Jeff Panall, reached out. He'd looked at my profile and found out I made cymbals. He was interested in the fact that a cymbal maker had grown up on bands like Songs: Ohia and the scene surrounding it, assuming (as many do) that cymbal making is more the realm of the jazz player. (Off we all go for more mirror arguments!)

We instantly bonded over a shared love of similar bands - I told him about my spider tattoo, taken from the back cover of the Slint album 'Spiderland' which, as some of you will be bored of me talking about, is the whole reason I make cymbals. We shared the inability to verbally express just how great that music is, just how much unique phrasing and feel the drummer, Britt Walford, had managed to naturally place by playing and not playing in ways that make total and utter emotional sense.

Jeff then asked about the possibility of making a cymbal for him, and he told me about the crash cymbal he used on 'Magnolia Electric Co.' and a couple of stories about the snare he used - how it was some thrift store find that Steve Albini had at the studio, and how he'd tried to buy it off Steve because sometimes the accidental finds come with a beauty you didn't know you needed. Steve refused, and the snare stayed at Electrical Audio.

I'm currently in the process of making a crash and a pair of hi-hats for Jeff, and we speak now and then about meeting up next time I'm in Chicago. If I ever do more podcast episodes he'll be a guest for sure. It's become a pleasure catching up, sporadic and voice-note based though it may be, and a connection that's more than "company makes product for customer".

I feel there can be a similar feeling in "band records music with engineer", and recently it struck me that in this modern incarnation of cymbalsmithing, with all due respect to the masters - the history, the geography, the names, the cultures - there's something interesting happening, which is that in many cases of new cymbal makers cropping up, the surnames are prominent.

In a world of "Coffee 4 U" type businesses, there's an artisanal thread surviving, coming and going. Perhaps it's just the lens I'm looking through - I suppose there will be coffee companies, knife makers, rug weavers, vehicle designers, pen makers etc. etc. working independently and with their name, their family name, leading them to their platform.

But perhaps the rise of large, broad, data-driven big business reaching to our very psychological core and manipulating us openly, often while we compliantly roll over and say "thank you, master", has brought some to a point of... not necessarily even rebellion, just boredom perhaps, enough to start valuing the personal touch, like approval back-filling an empty childhood. Good, bad - who knows.