As their acclaim grew, they soon began performing on the East Coast and in Europe. In 1984, they signed with legendary indie punk label Homestead Records in a unique arrangement: the band’s recordings were licensed to the record for a set amount of time, the band accepted no advance, paid their own way and signed no contracts. As a result of their bare-bones, no-administration ethos, the band was able to perform quite cheaply, frequently profiting from their tours ( no easy achievement). At the final show, a friend of Albini’s called out song titles, and all three of them dug into their instruments with ferocity until the end when they destroyed them as an act of finality. “I remember after I smashed my guitar, this kid asked if he could have a chunk of it that was on the ground,” Albini says. “I said, ‘Sure, yeah. It’s garbage now.’ Then when I was working on the In Utero album with Nirvana, Kurt Cobain told that he had asked me if he could take a piece of my guitar and I told him he could, and he still had the little piece of the guitar. The point of this story is that it was a really cool gig and weird stuff happened, and long after the fact, people remember the cool stuff that happened.” It meant nothing to us if we were popular or not, or if we sold either a million or no records, so we were invulnerable to ploys by music scene weasels to get us to make mistakes in the name of success. To us, every moment we remained unfettered and in control was a success. We never had a manager. We never had a booking agent. We never had a lawyer. We never took an advance from a record company. We booked our own tours, paid our own bills, made our own mistakes and never had anybody shield us from either the truth or the consequences. The results of that methodology speak for themselves: Nobody ever told us what to do, and nobody took any of our money. [20] [21] You Weren't There: A History of Chicago Punk 1977-1984 (dir. Joe Losurdo and Christina Tillman) (2007) - Documentary Sanneh, Kelefa (September 14, 2006). "Critic's Notebook; 'Those Were the Days,' the Punk Remix". The New York Times . Retrieved March 27, 2010.

Christgau, Robert (September 2, 1986). "Christgau's Consumer Guide". The Village Voice . Retrieved June 19, 2016. Riley, Dave. "Worthless Goddamn Cripple". Archived from the original on 2010-02-27 . Retrieved 2010-03-25. Algebra Suicide – Alpha Cue (studio album, 1990): bass guitar, piano, and additional percussion on "Summer Virus Night" and "What Rubs Up to You"Albini’s notoriety grew exponentially in the 1990s, though much of it had nothing to do with his music. He worked on a handful of epochal releases in the late 1980s, including Pixies’ 1988 album Surfer Rosa and Slint’s 1989 debut Tweez, but it was his credits on Nirvana’s 1993 swan song In Utero that launched him into the upper atmosphere of in-demand producers. From that platform, he wrote an instantly legendary article for alternative magazine The Baffler that warned of the dangers of signing to a major label, just as the majors were in the midst of snatching up almost every indie band they could find. II "In My House" is a Mary Jane Girls cover that was included with copies of the Pigpile video. [68] Video albums [ edit ] Year I've been thinking about what I would do if I had written "Jordan, Minnesota". That I would never have written "Jordan, Minnesota" is wholly beside the point. If you've lived long enough- let's say thirty-five years- and haven't said something you now know to be completely wrongheaded and stupid, you're either in denial or terminally boring. So that's not the question. The question is, how do you handle it when you've said something you now know to be colossally dumb and very probably harmful that is now enshrined as a "classic"?

Roland, Albini says, has since ceased to exist. “The housing for it broke and all the components under the pads have deteriorated to the point that it’s unusable,” he says. “Some of the programmed parts of the memory have failed. It wasn’t getting any use, really.” I "Rema-Rema" is a Rema-Rema cover included as a one-sided single with issue No.9 of Forced Exposure, and limited to 500 copies. Christgau, Robert (1990). "B". Christgau's Record Guide: The '80s. Pantheon Books. ISBN 0-679-73015-X . Retrieved August 17, 2020– via robertchristgau.com. Robert Dimery; Michael Lydon (23 March 2010). 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: Revised and Updated Edition. Universe. ISBN 978-0-7893-2074-2. The song "Kerosene" has been covered by Kerbdog (as a b-side to their single " End of Green" [24]), Pitchshifter (on the "enhanced" version of their album Deviant [25]), Lamb of God (on their album Legion: XX, under their original name Burn the Priest [26]) and St. Vincent (live at the Our Band Could Be Your Life 10th Anniversary Show at New York’s Bowery Ballroom on May 22, 2011. It was named by Consequence of Sound as one of her best covers. [27]).

Notes

Azerrad, Michael (2001). Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981–1991. New York: Little, Brown and Company. p.314. ISBN 0-316-78753-1. a b Azerrad, Michael (2001). Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981–1991. New York: Little, Brown and Company. p.314. ISBN 0-316-78753-1.

Savage Beliefs – The Middle of America Compilation (various artists compilation, 1984): bass guitar on "Shake Your Neighbor's Hand", drums and vocals on "Double Standard" Riley, Dave (2006). Blurry and Disconnected: Tales of Sink-or-Swim Nihilism. Warsaw, Illinois: Contortmedia. ISBN 0-9777353-0-3. Organizationally, we were committed to a few basic principles: Treat everyone with as much respect as he deserves (and no more), Avoid people who appeal to our vanity or ambition (they always have an angle), Operate as much as possible apart from the "music scene" (which was never our stomping ground), and Take no shit from anyone in the process. [20] [77] Members [ edit ]Over the following nigh-on three decades, in spite of the incendiary nature of his musical output - both on record and, philosophically, off it - Albini has become one of the most level-headed assessors of the state of music and of how we consume it: opposing the disposable nature of certain formats and questioning the integrity of particularly indulgent studio practices, but equally championing the egalitarian possibilities of digital music consumption and of necessary improvements in fidelity. He’s cast as a dinosaur of a bygone time in some lights but, in actuality, that’s only warranted by the acuteness of his observation and the retained sharpness of his bite. Larkin, Colin (2011). The Encyclopedia of Popular Music (5th conciseed.). Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-0-85712-595-8. a b c d e Azerrad, Michael (2001). Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981–1991. New York: Little, Brown and Company. p.330. ISBN 0-316-78753-1. Weisbard, Eric; Marks, Craig, eds. (1995). Spin Alternative Record Guide. Vintage Books. ISBN 0-679-75574-8. In addition to the ones mentioned below, the album was included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. [15] Publication