Listen To Steve Albini On Marc Maron’s WTF

We've been waiting for this shit! We knew it was coming, but now we get to hear two guys with reputations as aging guitar-rock curmudgeons have an absolutely magical conversation. The comedian and podcaster Marc Maron is one of the great interviewers in the game, and the legendary audio engineer and Big Black/Shellac frontman Steve Albini is one of the great interviewees, so their interview was always going to be great. I haven't quite finished listening to it yet, but thus far, it's really great. Albini doesn't really use it to get into any sort of axe-grinding, which honestly isn't a surprise if you've paid much attention to him; he's way more of a proud craftsman than a shit-starter. But there are some real gems in here. Early on, there's a moment when Maron yells to his neighbor, asking him to stop using his leaf blower, and we end up with this exchange: "Is that punk rock enough?" "Sure." Also, here's Albini on hearing the Ramones for the first time as a teenager in Montana: "This inept bubblegum music, just played super ferociously — what a perfect comedy that was for us." And here he is on the Pixies, who he worked with on Surfer Rosa: "The Pixies as a band? You know. They were fine. Whatever. They were fine. As a band, I thought their music was kind of unremarkable." Listen to the whole thing here.