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.