If it is the article I think it is (I have no desire to read it again) the quote of him defending Sotos (about washing his car etc) is from a 2012 reddit thread. I read a fair chunk of it this morning. I don't think he actually defended him. He was asked about Sotos again further down and made it clear he didn't want to talk about him.
RIP Steve Albini
- Thread starter braindancer
- Start date
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
That's a shame. And cowardly imo. Were they made aware of something they didn't know before? No. Had people who were abused by Peel come forward after his death? No.
Spandex
A crazy bulbous punchbag of sound
I want to come back to this, as it all got a bit acrimonious the other day and its never the best time to discuss difficult issues when the temperature is up like that. It means the discussion petered out with accusations that posters were apologists for pedophilia and child abuse left hanging in the air and I wanted to explain myself some more. I don't even care that much about Steve Albini these days, but I do know a bit about the 80s industrial/noise/power-electronics scenes that Albini and Sotos were part of and I think an understanding of that is important to understand where the 'apologists' are coming from. I was never into it, but I had a friend who was - the sweetest straight-edge punker, who was into all the most extreme things he could find because he wanted to "fuck shit up" and not have a boring life.
Inspired by COUM Transmissions and Throbbing Gristle, various interconnected international sub-cultures developed in the late 70s/early 80s that saw themselves as much as perforance art as bands. One part of this scene claimed to be exploring 'the dark side of humanity' by presenting completely unadorned black and white images of the most awful shit you can think of with no authorial or editorial distance, just the thing itself. While dressed up with an intellectualism inspired by Burroughs, I suspect for many it was more about taking juvenile joy in being shocking. Bands like SPK were playing gigs with animal carcasses on stage and videos of autopsies projected on a screen. Bands like Genocide Organ filled their output with KKK and Nazi imagery. All the worst aspects of humanity thrown in the audience's face to challenge, provoke and snigger about like teenagers.
There's a hell of a lot to criticise in that scene from the content of what they were putting out, to the questionable motives of some of the people involved, to the macho 'how much can you take' approach of some. The defence was always '...but you know I don't mean it really', however it wasn't always clear that they didn't mean it and there were some in the scene who apparently did mean it.
It was as part of that subculture that Albini's friend Sotos made his notorious zine Pure. I've never seen it and I don't want to see it but I've read about it before. Calling it simply a 'child pornography' magazine, like the Medium piece, mischaracterises it. A photocopy and staples punk style DIY zine, it was made to shock, disturb and provoke. Beyond the horrific image on the cover were quotes from Goebbels and De Sade, positive descriptions of serial killers, Nazi atrocities, extreme misogyny and child abuse. It's content is indefensible.
Albini's thing in Forced Exposure (another photocopied zine for that subculture) is quite aware that Pure crosses the line into illegality and clearly thinks its brilliant and clever for doing so - so edgy, so shocking, so transgressive, so punk. It doesn't occur to the 21 year old Albini how wrong headed and stupid it is, how damaging it could be.
That could've been the end of it, one more shock punk zine forgotten in the attic of the handful of people who were part of the scene. Except a copy of Pure was found in the home of a suspect in a series of child abductions, murders and grave robbings in Edinburgh. That's what led to Sotos being arrested and becoming the first person charged with child pornography in Chicago. After that he continued returning to the same themes of serial killers, sadism and child abuse in his work (whatever you do, don't listen to Buyers Market by Whitehouse, made while Sotos was in the band), leading to people questioning whether he was actually really into it rather than just doing it to be shocking. Is he a paedophile hiding behind his art or is he really an artist who makes work to challenge? What is the line - is there a line - between those two things? I don't have a firm opinion as to do so would require engaging with the horrific stuff in Sotos' 'art' and I have no interest in filling my head with that shit. Obviously he did distribute child abuse images, which is what he was convicted for, and he absolutely should be condemned for that. Albini continued to stand by him maintaining he was an outsider artist until the end. He talks about him in this interview from 2022.
The whole Big Black tour diary is another piece of look at me, I'm so edgy and transgressive and better that you because of it writing that Albini was doing at the time. He comes across as a total dickhead throughout the thing, quite apart from his I saw a child abuse picture and liked it claim.
Albini kept up his edgelord dickhead persona into the new millennium, even though many famous people he worked with claimed he wasn't really like that when they met him and I've not read anything to suggest otherwise.
There's loads to criticise Albini for, something he accepted. But that criticism should come from understanding what he was about rather than based on the two quotes and one iffy friendship that were tied together in the Medium piece to present him as a paedophile. Of course it was shocking to read - that's what it was originally supposed to be, doubly so thrown at you without any warning of what you were reading or where it came from. Albini never did directly address the issue of paedophilia based on those two quotes, but that's because when he was giving interviews reflecting on his edgelord behaviour he was being asked about all the other indefensible shit he'd come out with, like why would he call his bands Rapeman and Run Nigger Run.
People have been asking why they never knew Albini was a paedophile, why wasn't this mentioned in other obituaries and write ups after he died? Maybe that's because reputable sources have looked at it and concluded trashing someone's reputation on such flimsy evidence isn't defensible.
The writer of the Medium piece seems to be a self-appointed internet detective. Medium is essentially a blog. Maybe he really does believe he's uncovered something terrible and needs to tell the world about it. The danger of 'doing your own research' is always that you'll get the wrong end of the stick based on partial information. He seems to have stumbled into a decades old debate about who meant what in the industrial/noise scene without even realising there was a debate. He's had some trouble since writing the piece, as Albini fans have found that he posed as a Nazi to infiltrate Nazi groups and have been throwing quotes from his Nazi persona at him. Unfair, but it doesn't seem to have given him pause to think that people don't always mean what they write.
At least, that's my understanding of all this. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there is stuff that hasn't come out yet and if it does I'll look like an idiot for writing this and I'll willingly and quickly change my mind, but so far I haven't seen anything new that hasn't been public knowledge for years.
Inspired by COUM Transmissions and Throbbing Gristle, various interconnected international sub-cultures developed in the late 70s/early 80s that saw themselves as much as perforance art as bands. One part of this scene claimed to be exploring 'the dark side of humanity' by presenting completely unadorned black and white images of the most awful shit you can think of with no authorial or editorial distance, just the thing itself. While dressed up with an intellectualism inspired by Burroughs, I suspect for many it was more about taking juvenile joy in being shocking. Bands like SPK were playing gigs with animal carcasses on stage and videos of autopsies projected on a screen. Bands like Genocide Organ filled their output with KKK and Nazi imagery. All the worst aspects of humanity thrown in the audience's face to challenge, provoke and snigger about like teenagers.
There's a hell of a lot to criticise in that scene from the content of what they were putting out, to the questionable motives of some of the people involved, to the macho 'how much can you take' approach of some. The defence was always '...but you know I don't mean it really', however it wasn't always clear that they didn't mean it and there were some in the scene who apparently did mean it.
It was as part of that subculture that Albini's friend Sotos made his notorious zine Pure. I've never seen it and I don't want to see it but I've read about it before. Calling it simply a 'child pornography' magazine, like the Medium piece, mischaracterises it. A photocopy and staples punk style DIY zine, it was made to shock, disturb and provoke. Beyond the horrific image on the cover were quotes from Goebbels and De Sade, positive descriptions of serial killers, Nazi atrocities, extreme misogyny and child abuse. It's content is indefensible.
Albini's thing in Forced Exposure (another photocopied zine for that subculture) is quite aware that Pure crosses the line into illegality and clearly thinks its brilliant and clever for doing so - so edgy, so shocking, so transgressive, so punk. It doesn't occur to the 21 year old Albini how wrong headed and stupid it is, how damaging it could be.
That could've been the end of it, one more shock punk zine forgotten in the attic of the handful of people who were part of the scene. Except a copy of Pure was found in the home of a suspect in a series of child abductions, murders and grave robbings in Edinburgh. That's what led to Sotos being arrested and becoming the first person charged with child pornography in Chicago. After that he continued returning to the same themes of serial killers, sadism and child abuse in his work (whatever you do, don't listen to Buyers Market by Whitehouse, made while Sotos was in the band), leading to people questioning whether he was actually really into it rather than just doing it to be shocking. Is he a paedophile hiding behind his art or is he really an artist who makes work to challenge? What is the line - is there a line - between those two things? I don't have a firm opinion as to do so would require engaging with the horrific stuff in Sotos' 'art' and I have no interest in filling my head with that shit. Obviously he did distribute child abuse images, which is what he was convicted for, and he absolutely should be condemned for that. Albini continued to stand by him maintaining he was an outsider artist until the end. He talks about him in this interview from 2022.
The whole Big Black tour diary is another piece of look at me, I'm so edgy and transgressive and better that you because of it writing that Albini was doing at the time. He comes across as a total dickhead throughout the thing, quite apart from his I saw a child abuse picture and liked it claim.
Albini kept up his edgelord dickhead persona into the new millennium, even though many famous people he worked with claimed he wasn't really like that when they met him and I've not read anything to suggest otherwise.
There's loads to criticise Albini for, something he accepted. But that criticism should come from understanding what he was about rather than based on the two quotes and one iffy friendship that were tied together in the Medium piece to present him as a paedophile. Of course it was shocking to read - that's what it was originally supposed to be, doubly so thrown at you without any warning of what you were reading or where it came from. Albini never did directly address the issue of paedophilia based on those two quotes, but that's because when he was giving interviews reflecting on his edgelord behaviour he was being asked about all the other indefensible shit he'd come out with, like why would he call his bands Rapeman and Run Nigger Run.
People have been asking why they never knew Albini was a paedophile, why wasn't this mentioned in other obituaries and write ups after he died? Maybe that's because reputable sources have looked at it and concluded trashing someone's reputation on such flimsy evidence isn't defensible.
The writer of the Medium piece seems to be a self-appointed internet detective. Medium is essentially a blog. Maybe he really does believe he's uncovered something terrible and needs to tell the world about it. The danger of 'doing your own research' is always that you'll get the wrong end of the stick based on partial information. He seems to have stumbled into a decades old debate about who meant what in the industrial/noise scene without even realising there was a debate. He's had some trouble since writing the piece, as Albini fans have found that he posed as a Nazi to infiltrate Nazi groups and have been throwing quotes from his Nazi persona at him. Unfair, but it doesn't seem to have given him pause to think that people don't always mean what they write.
At least, that's my understanding of all this. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there is stuff that hasn't come out yet and if it does I'll look like an idiot for writing this and I'll willingly and quickly change my mind, but so far I haven't seen anything new that hasn't been public knowledge for years.
Spandex
A crazy bulbous punchbag of sound
crossthebreeze
Well-Known Member
were any of these women messing about with child sexual abuse imagery though? Not to my knowledge.
Spandex
A crazy bulbous punchbag of sound
Not that I know of either.
As I say, I've never been into this, although I've been aware of it. I'm not looking to excuse it. I'm just trying to clarify what it is.
There were discussions on another thread about sexual and other forms of abuse of children within the Catholic Church. And every instance of an attack on a child's innocence and self esteem/worth is a damaging experience AND it is common. A deeply traumatised child/young person or adult will likely suffer the consequences all their lives, and many of those lives are cut short.
But (not to cast aspersions, discussions can move quickly and tangents can get absorbed), it really is a societal problem.
The scale and generational damage that is ongoing is a deep tragedy. And will never be fully eradicated.
But there are however some (I can't describe them) who embrace this situation.
But (not to cast aspersions, discussions can move quickly and tangents can get absorbed), it really is a societal problem.
The scale and generational damage that is ongoing is a deep tragedy. And will never be fully eradicated.
But there are however some (I can't describe them) who embrace this situation.
scifisam
deleted
I understand that you don't think you're making excuses for a paedohpile. But it wasn't just Sotos's zine, which he made using real images of raped and murdered children that he couldn't have accessed in any legal way, but didn't even try to report them, just used them.
It was also the diary where Albini talked about only getting off on porn if kids were involved. And the way he described that, and the way he described his best bud's "zine," sounded like someone getting off on it. Like Humberto said, he could have gone to the police about it.
Some would include the album Albini made using real audio of abused children and their relatives. That's one you could excuse as art, maybe - it was possibly more anonymised, and I haven't listened to it and am not going to. Along with his other actions, it is very clear that Albini was buying and watching a lot of child abuse on video and in print.
And it was also the fact that Albini defended his pornographer friend to the end - it doesn't matter that it was a Reddit thread, it was him saying he'd do anything for him. And that was after he apologised for his other behaviour.
Albini wrote about watching paedophile videos and not only wrote about paedophilic images, he did it in a way that shows he did it for fun. That fits the definition of a paedophile.
Belboid seems to be think enough to think that paedophiles are only those who abuse children in person, but Albini fits the definition of paedophile. He just does. He watched child porn for fun on multiple occasions, and he promoted it, and he continued to do so after he'd taken back most of his other "edge lord" behaviour - though, notably, he doesn't seem to have done anything other than apologise for that either.
He was a paedophile. And when you write things like this:
"It doesn't occur to the 21 year old Albini how wrong headed and stupid it is, how damaging it could be."
Then you are defending him. The man - a man, not a child - who watched child abuse on video, wrote about it and said how it was the only thing that could get him off, then wrote far worse about other child sex abuse imagery.
Sometimes "times have changed" can be an excuse or at least a mitigating factor, but none of this was acceptable in any country.
It seems like you genuinely believe that he wasn't a paedophile because it's more complicated than that. But every paedophile has complicated reasons for it, and it doesn't mean they magically stop being a paedophile.
"Former paedophile" could be possibly justified if he hadn't posted such a supportive statement for Sotos, and also never even seemed to think what he said about raping babies to be more than just being edgy.
The reason I used the term paedophile defender is because people are defending a paedophile. This is not me being emotional, and it's not due to a heated argument. He was a paedophile and people were defending him.
If you hadn't liked his music you'd never even consider defending the things he'd done. Or at least I hope you wouldn't.
Spandex
A crazy bulbous punchbag of sound
Can I start by saying I like and respect you as a poster and it upsets me to think that our difference of perspectives on this might have upset you and led you to think less of me.
I've thought long and hard about what you say and I can completely see where you're coming from. I've thought about how to reply, but I have a feeling that any further discussion about this will end up focused on things we don't see eye to eye on rather than building towards what I hope we do agree on, that child sexual abuse is the worst thing someone can do and it should never be taken lightly for any reason. Our disagreement has been playing on my mind, I've got other stuff going on irl and I don't have the headspace to think about this subject any more at the moment as it disturbs me and I hear quite enough about child abuse at work. Is it okay with you if we leave it there?
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
I dont believe that at all. Anyone using and enjoying, let alone distributing, images of child abuse is a paedophile. That is an absolute.
What I do believe is that Albini wasn't telling the truth when he said he loved them. He was being a complete fucking arsehole, but not a paedophile. He did address the issues around his continued relationship with Sotos and gave what he [Albini] seems to genuinely believe about his [Sotos'] work.
Albini said:
‘I’m Overdue for a Discussion About My Role in Inspiring ‘Edgelord’ Shit’: A Conversation with Steve Albini
In a recent Twitter thread, the famed audio engineer owned the ugly parts of his past — years of offensive music, statements and posts — and said his generation needs to talk about how culture has changed
melmagazine.com
Whether Albini's view of Sotos is correct, I dont know, but I think it is clearly how he seems him - not as a pornographer or someone sexually aroused by child abuse imagery. And even if Albini is right about Sotos, it still doesn't excuse that imagery. No matter what point Sotos was trying to make, using that imagery is unnaceptable. As was calling his next band Rapeman.
That's why, as I said in my opening sentence on this thread, that I protested the Rapeman gig in Leeds. And I have continued to think I was right to ever since, despite the pisstaking from many others Albini fans. I will defend him against charges of paedophilia, but that certainly doesn't mean he didnt overstep the mark on many occasions.
As I said, I think he did address the issue, tho not as straightforwardly as some, very understandably, want. He was always open to being asked though, the question could very well have gone into the Guardian Q&A he was due to do the day he died. But it seems harsh to hold him responsible for not answering questions wasn't asked.
scifisam
deleted
It is for me (regarding the last sentence).
The general tone with quite a lot of men defending Albini was unpleasantly disingenous, with posters claiming not to understand that paedophile includes people who watch children being abused as well as those who abuse it, or that saying "I'll always support Sotos" isn't defending him. I do think some people need to have tiny think about why they defended Albini's paedophiliac writings (it's not because they are themselves paedophiles), but they never will.
I'm going to put the music forum on ignore rather than leave altogether.
