Nirvana and Pj Harvey Producer Writes Food Blog.

This is Steve Albini, he has played in the legendary Big Black (above) , Rapeman and his most recent band is Shellac. While he has also produced everyone from Nirvana to PJ Harvey. So when I first heard Steve had a new blog out, I instantly thought, oh rants about the music industry, about digital methods of recording or the scum of capitalism,but no I was wrong! His blog is unexpectedly free of music anecdotes. His blog is about food that he cooks for his wive Heather.

After foraging over old articles and interviews with Steve Albini I found that he is indeed passionate about cooking. Here are some quotes about his thoughts on cooking and food:

• For less than the cost of a Big Mac, fries and a Coke, you can buy a loaf of fresh bread and some good cheese or roast beef, which you will enjoy much more.

• Many rock musicians are excellent cooks, I've found, and those that are prefer to eat their own cooking in the studio. I encourage this behavior as I also enjoy the benefits of fresh food.

• when cooking I really want Heather or whomever I’m feeding to like what I make, while in the band we’re pretty much exclusively concerned with pleasing ourselves. A lot of musicians are good cooks, and a lot of cooks are musicians, but I think that may just be a result of the creative impulse finding several means of expression. Probably an equivalent number are visual artists, woodworkers or compulsive liars.

• The woman I am currently crazy about was a vegetarian for a year until I started dating her. As is the case with most vegetarians, she had never eaten properly prepared meat, only commercially packaged or otherwise abused flesh.

He goes on a very entertaining rant about tomotoe paste on his blog

I’ve never been much of a fan of tomato paste as a base for pasta sauce. It tends to remind me of the heavy, wet red gravy served at suburban Mama Mia! Free Giant Garlic Bread! Meatballs As Big As Your Head! All You Can Eat Calamari! Half Price Pitchers On Mondays! Try Our Zucchini Poppers! Famous Tiramisu! Italian Restaurant! I cannot abide restaurants of this type. They debase our palates and insult our ancestors with watery matter piled in mountainous heaps and buried under granulated Kraft Foods “Parmesan.” Screw this school lunch bullshit and get it the fuck away from me. Tomato paste is where that debasement and insult starts.

If you want more of this, visit his blog at http://mariobatalivoice.blogspot.com/

Captain Beefheart's Heart Has Stopped

Tom Waits, Beck, Pixies and Nirvana to name just a few musical entities influenced by the idiosyncratic whiskers of Don Van Vliet aka Captain Beefheart. Captain Beefheart, avant garde musician and visual artist passed away aged 69 in the snowy appetite of December 17^th 2010. Trout Mask Replica will long be considered his masterpiece, it was the first Beefcake I got. I remember lending a copy to my friend who came back to me the next day in English class smiling and proclaiming it to be possessed by a mad genius. At the time this boy wanted to be a nuclear physicist, after this album he wanted to be a brain surgeon.

We both went through the liner notes, the insane lyrics and madcap images, inspired by this glittering star among the concrete mentality of our school surroundings, we started to act more independently, more self assured in our lizard skins using our imaginations as a violent and beautiful paintbrush for our actions. People thought we were on drugs, we were not, we had seen the light, the pink salmon beacon, the power of music and personality instilled in such a marvellous way by the Captain. We salute you here at MRHP Captain Beefheart, may you rest in peace and break out as a zombie if the chance comes, may our brain surgeon friend find a way to resuscitate your imagination from the gratuitous grave!