Not solely was the late Steve Albini a legendary recording engineer, musician, and poker participant, he was additionally a longtime collector of underground memorabilia. Now, hundreds of his belongings—uncommon vinyl, bizarre books, classic t-shirts, CDs, cassettes, singles, zines, artwork, and “mysterious bargains”—are being bought on Steve Albini’s Closet, a brand new web site that operates as a weekly digital property sale. A brand new batch of things from Albini’s archives will probably be launched each Friday by means of the tip of 2025. Byron Coley of Pressured Publicity runs the positioning, with all cash going to the late Albini’s property.
“Steve pursued many fields of curiosity, and most of them are represented someplace in his collections,” reads the web site’s description. “All gadgets bought are accompanied by a Certificates of Authenticity from the gathering’s administrator, Byron Coley, and the proceeds are directed in the direction of Steve’s property. All supplies are assured genuine, and listings are up to date on a weekly foundation. All supplies are assured genuine, and listings are up to date on a weekly foundation. Some gadgets are bought by means of different websites like Discogs and eBay.”
All gadgets from the primary spherical of obtainable belongings have since been bought, together with the grasp of Neurosis’ A Solar That By no means Units and Albini’s private copies of data by Lifeless Moon, Large Boys, Can, U-Males, Elvis Costello, Buzzcocks, Cinerama, Didjits, and dozens extra. Based on the positioning’s classes, although, it seems to be like there’s lots extra to come back past vinyl and CDs within the coming weeks, together with poker-related belongings, outdated fliers, live performance posters, and even awards.
Albini died on Might 7, 2024, of a coronary heart assault at age 61. Along with fronting the important rock bands Shellac and Large Black, he was a veteran of the recording studio—the place he most well-liked being referred to as an “engineer” as an alternative of a “producer”—who recorded every thing from Nirvana’s In Utero and PJ Harvey’s Rid of Me to Joanna Newsom’s Ys and Cloud Nothings’ Assault on Reminiscence. His final recorded album as a musician was Shellac’s To All Trains, their first album in a decade, which got here out every week after his loss of life.
Along with his musical accolades, Albini was additionally an outspoken critic of exploitative music trade practices and a outstanding poker participant with two World Sequence of Poker gold bracelets. Final summer season, the town of Chicago named the 2600-2700 block of West Belmont Avenue, which is residence to Albini’s recording studio Electrical Audio, as “Steve Albini Means.”
