Steve Albini's Big Black/Rapeman Guitar

Noirie. · Post by **Noirie.** » Wed Oct 28, 2009 12:24 am

Any insight into this guitar?
http://l.yimg.com/g/images/spaceball.gif
[youtube][/youtube]

endsjustifymeans · Post by **endsjustifymeans** » Wed Oct 28, 2009 12:55 am

Not sure... but I'd sell my soul for that tone.

Justin J · Post by **Justin J** » Wed Oct 28, 2009 12:57 am

is this the one? looks like a double cutaway tele or something.

hotrodperlmutter · Post by **hotrodperlmutter** » Wed Oct 28, 2009 2:16 am

Dave · Post by **Dave** » Wed Oct 28, 2009 2:30 am

Dudes that not a guitar, that his penor. Noobs.

hotrodperlmutter · Post by **hotrodperlmutter** » Wed Oct 28, 2009 2:39 am

Will · Post by **Will** » Wed Oct 28, 2009 3:25 am

The one usually associated with him is a Travis Bean TB-500.

Not sure what that one is.

aen · Post by **aen** » Wed Oct 28, 2009 3:57 am

The BEans were Shellac. The Mystery guitar here is aluminum though, hence the waist belt thing.

hotrodperlmutter · Post by **hotrodperlmutter** » Wed Oct 28, 2009 4:07 am

i thought he used electrical guitars or whatever with the aluminum necks for shellac?

these appear to have a wooden neck.

Gavin · Post by **Gavin** » Wed Oct 28, 2009 5:02 am

I can't find out the actual name of the Luthiers that made it, but apparently it's a custom guitar that he called "The Black Sled". It got broken on tour.

Tuesday August 4 -- Enroute To Providence

Have spent most of this flight on the Airphone talkin' to pals. Novel ways to blow dough. The gig was enjoyable, but had a few disasters. I blew out the horn in my speaker, I busted the neck pick-up out of the black sled, and Dave blew something apart in the SVT we rented. Me and Sant met up w/respective former girlfriends and fucked ourselves dry. Dave met up w/Frightwig and some weird junkie-type babe and got himself fucked up, like he's been doing a lot lately. This is the tour where we smoke a lot of amps, I guess. Hope I can fix the sled, it'd be a shame if it didn't last out the week. Byron's supposed to meet us at the airport, but he's such a bo queen, you never know what's going on in that acid-rattled little head of his.

There were all sorts of luminaries at the S.F. gig. Sitting in on a roundtable between Lydia, Foetus and Biafra is plenty weird, especially when Biafra and Lydia seem to have a measure of respect for each other. In a way, you can sort of feel sorry that Biafra (an obviously bright fellow) has gotten saddled with the audience and peer group he has, but then, he's never tried to disassociate himself from them, which is the only way to make them go away.

Friday August 16 -- At Work

I am in deep fucking depression. The band was my entire life for five years, and now I'm floating for the first fucking time. So is everything I own. The basement flooded last night, filling up two feet deep. I've been wandering around like Huck Finn in the Mississippi, with my pants rolled up above my knees, fishing out electronic equipment and dodging the floating debris. Quite a lot of shit is destroyed, but thankfully not the tape machines or the mixer. Lost a lot of minor shit and a coupla amplifiers.

My neighbors now routinely call the police on me if I'm doing anything after midnight. It doesn't even have to be loud. If I'm barbecuing or even sitting outside, the squad car shows up. If there's anyone playing in the basement after 8:30, the police show up. Clearly the next-door-neighbor is insane. I will have to kill her soon.

That sweet Catholic dish I've been periodically sliding it to called me. She's pregnant. Great. Thankfully she's not putting up any resistance to doing the right thing and killing the little monster. Italian Catholic genes, man. We're fertile as hell.

I paid all the bills that accumulated while we were gone, and now I'm totally fucking broke again. Shitstain. Shitstain. I want to get going again with this whole band thing, but I'm terribly afraid of just fucking up all the nice things Big Black did. Aw, how's about fuck yous.

I gotta quit this job or go insane.

P.S. Crazy German woman is now out of business after some weird incident involving Police/Nick Cave's unborn child/Gibby/violent audience. Joel is awake and talking again. I'm quitting my job for good Dec. 11. Told the guitarmakers I broke the sled & now they won't speak to me.

http://petdance.com/actionpark/bigblack/tourdiary/

Will · Post by **Will** » Wed Oct 28, 2009 5:08 am

Nothing makes you want to not be a musician like reading anything Steve Albini writes.

theshadowofseattle · Post by **theshadowofseattle** » Wed Oct 28, 2009 5:46 am

Will wrote:Nothing makes you want to not be a musician like reading anything Steve Albini writes.

Seriously.

That sweet Catholic dish I've been periodically sliding it to called me. She's pregnant. Great. Thankfully she's not putting up any resistance to doing the right thing and killing the little monster. Italian Catholic genes, man. We're fertile as hell.

What a douchebag.

Gavin · Post by **Gavin** » Wed Oct 28, 2009 5:52 am

Mages · Post by **Mages** » Wed Oct 28, 2009 7:11 am

it looks like a doublecut tele. I always thought that would be an awesome idea.

edit: oh wait, justin already said that....

Bacchus · Post by **Bacchus** » Wed Oct 28, 2009 7:17 am

theshadowofseattle wrote:
Will wrote:Nothing makes you want to not be a musician like reading anything Steve Albini writes.
Seriously.

That sweet Catholic dish I've been periodically sliding it to called me. She's pregnant. Great. Thankfully she's not putting up any resistance to doing the right thing and killing the little monster. Italian Catholic genes, man. We're fertile as hell.
What a douchebag.

Aye, he sounds like a bit of a cunt.

Mages · Post by **Mages** » Wed Oct 28, 2009 7:21 am

I dunno, I thought that line was amusing enough.

Post by **Mike** » Wed Oct 28, 2009 9:21 am

Albini is hilarious.

Noirie. · Post by **Noirie.** » Wed Oct 28, 2009 12:02 pm

Gavin wrote:I can't find out the actual name of the Luthiers that made it, but apparently it's a custom guitar that he called "The Black Sled". It got broken on tour.

Tuesday August 4 -- Enroute To Providence

Have spent most of this flight on the Airphone talkin' to pals. Novel ways to blow dough. The gig was enjoyable, but had a few disasters. I blew out the horn in my speaker, I busted the neck pick-up out of the black sled, and Dave blew something apart in the SVT we rented. Me and Sant met up w/respective former girlfriends and fucked ourselves dry. Dave met up w/Frightwig and some weird junkie-type babe and got himself fucked up, like he's been doing a lot lately. This is the tour where we smoke a lot of amps, I guess. Hope I can fix the sled, it'd be a shame if it didn't last out the week. Byron's supposed to meet us at the airport, but he's such a bo queen, you never know what's going on in that acid-rattled little head of his.

There were all sorts of luminaries at the S.F. gig. Sitting in on a roundtable between Lydia, Foetus and Biafra is plenty weird, especially when Biafra and Lydia seem to have a measure of respect for each other. In a way, you can sort of feel sorry that Biafra (an obviously bright fellow) has gotten saddled with the audience and peer group he has, but then, he's never tried to disassociate himself from them, which is the only way to make them go away.

Friday August 16 -- At Work

I am in deep fucking depression. The band was my entire life for five years, and now I'm floating for the first fucking time. So is everything I own. The basement flooded last night, filling up two feet deep. I've been wandering around like Huck Finn in the Mississippi, with my pants rolled up above my knees, fishing out electronic equipment and dodging the floating debris. Quite a lot of shit is destroyed, but thankfully not the tape machines or the mixer. Lost a lot of minor shit and a coupla amplifiers.

My neighbors now routinely call the police on me if I'm doing anything after midnight. It doesn't even have to be loud. If I'm barbecuing or even sitting outside, the squad car shows up. If there's anyone playing in the basement after 8:30, the police show up. Clearly the next-door-neighbor is insane. I will have to kill her soon.

That sweet Catholic dish I've been periodically sliding it to called me. She's pregnant. Great. Thankfully she's not putting up any resistance to doing the right thing and killing the little monster. Italian Catholic genes, man. We're fertile as hell.

I paid all the bills that accumulated while we were gone, and now I'm totally fucking broke again. Shitstain. Shitstain. I want to get going again with this whole band thing, but I'm terribly afraid of just fucking up all the nice things Big Black did. Aw, how's about fuck yous.

I gotta quit this job or go insane.

P.S. Crazy German woman is now out of business after some weird incident involving Police/Nick Cave's unborn child/Gibby/violent audience. Joel is awake and talking again. I'm quitting my job for good Dec. 11. Told the guitarmakers I broke the sled & now they won't speak to me.
http://petdance.com/actionpark/bigblack/tourdiary/

Thanks for that!
Found a more recent photo of it BTW.

Dave · Post by **Dave** » Wed Oct 28, 2009 12:39 pm

Don't want to be an apologist fanboy or nethin', and maybe this is purely conjecture, but Albini has always appeared to be deliberatly ascerbic in his regard to social niceties and is darkly confrontational seemingly for it's own sake....he was known as Steve 'Sphictre-mouth' Albini by the NME in the 80's (so I was told once) for this very reason.

Maybe that was a true event, and maybe the choice of words reflect his real feelings or perhaps he just said it to wind people up because he finds it funny to do so....of course that may qualify him as an asshat in some peoples books but I dig it.

endsjustifymeans · Post by **endsjustifymeans** » Wed Oct 28, 2009 1:00 pm

@hotrod

albini didn't start using the egc until recently, like last year recently. Shellac was his Travis bean before that.

Albini is god.