In 1996 Steve Albini & Shellac recorded the song “Copper” for the compilation album Ground Rule Double.
Copper, let us take you
To a furnace where we’ll break you
A fire so big and pretty,
you could cryAs you buckle, you could ask me
“what was wrong with me before”
“Did I need the silver to be suitable?”Copper, I have a use for you,
it’s easy work and it suits you
Dazzled dirty beauty, you must knowCopper is a conductor
and makes for decent cooking
Dazzled by your beauty, still you knowPlated or anodized,
you even fool a layman’s eyes
Presentable though you might be,
it’s unwise to try to fight meCOPPER – YOU’LL NEVER BE GOLD
Listening, however, I always grammatically misheard this last line as:
COPPER. NEVER BE GOLD.
As in —
BE COPPER. NEVER BE GOLD.
….which at first, of course, I dug its direct, unvarnished meaning as a pean to the material materiality of a material, a love song to copper being rad enough in its own right. But it didn’t take long discern a broader, sharper exhortation — to be copper. Copper. Never be gold. It doesn’t take much reflection to reveal the idea of being copper, never gold as a dwarf-star heavy & concise metaphor for an ethics, an ethos, a way of living in the world… and a workable summa for Albini’s life project.
A life’s project about which reams of words have been shared & spilled in light of his preposterously untimely death. To which I’ll simply add the following…. Thinking about Albini, it strikes me how often we lazily frame “dropping out of the mainstream” as “falling into weirdness” of one sort of another — freaks, geeks, etc…
…but it is worth reflecting on how many people “fall” out of the mainstream into “maker” or “craft” communities; Artists, chefs, musicians, cardsharps, & pool hustlers, woodworkers or gardeners — tight, intense, loving cultures & scenes woven from materials, techniques, refinement, lore, argot, history, the glue of mutual enthusiasms. Once you fall through this Narnia cabinet (and he was right, punk in the early 80s was a real door) it’s worth reflecting on which world was the weird, fucked up one full of fucked up weirdos.
I think a lovely way looking at Steve, that unifies everything, is as somebody who found the fissure, the crack in the wall, the rip in the fence that led to where the a real shit really was, the joy, the heat, the miracles, and the yucks & the yum and jokes, comrades & friends, wires & cables, fuck, shit, piss, ugliness & grace and all of it as grand as a cathedral; who just yelled out forever to everyone within earshot — It’s right here. It’s right fucking here. No. No, not there, here. Fuck fuck fucking here, here!!!! and then when you got there, shook your hand, walked you to his house, and cooked you dinner.
Requiescat Steve. And thanks for everything. Oi.
(my audience photo, Shellac @ Bimbos, San Fransisco, 1998)