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“I WILL ALWAYS BE THE KIND OF PUNK that shits on Steely Dan,” wrote Steve Albini on Twitter, back in February 2023. A series of withering posts followed about “that cocaine shit music”, including several lampooning people in his comments who pleaded a Damascene conversion to Steely Dan in older age. “I’ve never feared aging, there is genuine wisdom in experience and I try to appreciate that as my youthful capacity for other things fades,” Albini replied. “Not that though. Never that.”
Albini’s thoughts on Fleetwood Mac don’t appear to have been recorded for posterity. But there is a certain karmic balancing to this issue of MOJO being one that mourns the shocking loss of Albini, a genuine underground revolutionary, while celebrating a mainstream superstar like Stevie Nicks on the cover. Albini, capable of both trenchant aesthetic consistency and evolving self-knowledge, might have cavilled at sharing magazine space with such an establishment figure; Nicks, though something of an uncompromising trailblazer herself, probably never considered hiring him as engineer. Nevertheless, this is the broad church that we try to bring together in each issue of MOJO. Not every part of the congregation might get on with each other, but the noise they’re all making can often transcend old prejudices and tribal lines. For some of us, anyway…
Come on, man, quit goofing around. This is serious business.
Three flashbacks. Late 1970s: a gig by Split Enz at Leicester Poly. Eraserhead hairstyles, clown make-up, Pierrot outfits. Great show – somewhere between art rock and new wave. We’re at the front and, at the end, the Finns et al line the stage, bending over to shake hands, dripping sweat over us all. Early ’90s now: it’s Crowded House at the De Montfort Hall, Leicester. At some point, drummer Paul Hester vanishes, only to reappear above us. He balances on the rail of the balcony, which he proceeds to skip around. Early 2007: we’re pulling our cases on to the bridge outside our hotel in Venice, on our way to catch a boat, a bus and a plane back home. There standing on the bridge is Neil Finn, gazing around, taking it all in. The way you do in Venice. We’d like to stop and tell him how much we love Everyone Is Here, which we’ve been listening to for the last year, but the moment passes and we move on.
Interesting interview with Neil in MOJO 367, but no mention of Everyone Is Here, the great 2004 LP he made with Tim and as good a record as either of them has ever made.
I’m out there on the frontlines liberating people with my music
In your excellent Paul Weller article in MOJO 368, I was surprised you failed to mention his collaboration with the late, gre
