slint -- _spiderland_: classic or dud

Not that I've listened to it in almost four years, though.

The vocals when they appear are bad, too.

I think Tom is wrong here. Or rather, I think he’s missing a whole lot of fun. To my ears this indie scene (from slint to Aerial M to the For Carnation to Palace Brothers plus zillions of other spin off projects) seems very strong - bands finding audiences for all sorts of projects, lots of cross-fertilisation, forward looking, the emphasis on cheap production tools. I like a lot of these bands, and even when I’m not so wild (Tortoise don’t do much for me if I’m honest) I respect what they’re about. Their influence has probably peaked but compared to the mess that was British indie well, that’s a whole other thread really.

Of slint’s very limited back catalogue I like the final EP (Glenn/Rhoda) best at the moment.

The scene as described - side-projects, cross-fertilisation, forward looking etc - is indeed *exactly* what a good scene 'ought' to be which is probably why I spent so much time c.94-97 trying to find stuff I liked in it. Apart from the occasionally superb Palace, little joy. The music from Slint on in has always seemed dry and uninvolving.

It's to do with my limits as a listener as much as anything: I'm not a musician and so can't technically appreciate a lot of what's going on, and I tend to listen to music for moments rather than flows (not exclusively cf. my interest in minimalism) - aside from the tape drop- out gag on "Djed" little of the post-Slint stuff has grabbed me on that basis.

The influence thing with Slint has become a bit of a joke, though. When prog-metal bands like Geiger Counter namecheck them, they're namechecking their preciousness and deliberate complexity. Isolate these things and they are no more than quixotic. Add them to rich and mysterious songs, and you've got a winner.

House at its best tends to give you moments plus current anyway - breakdowns, diva cries, emotional catharsis and the pulsebeat. "Your Love" (Frankie Knuckles) for instance with that looping keyboard pattern (current) and then Jamie Principle coming in with "I cant let go" (moment).

Some of the Chicago-ish stuff does balance those things. Smog's Red Apple Falls and "All Your Woman Things" have murderously repetitive guitar patterns - reminiscent of Arnold Dreyblatt in the attention paid to the droning string buzz - and then Callahan's lyrics provide the focal point. Similarly some of Jim O'Rourke's solo stuff has gorgeous pop moments - I forgot Bad Timing in my first post.

and there's something else to it at the root of my distaste for post- rock, something bigger, an emotional quality i have trouble articulating. in a weird way, despite its lesser attachment to pop song convention, the music strikes me as more "conventional" in a bad way on some level than the husker du or sonic youth that preceded it. i don't know how to put it any better right now. i'm still trying to figure it out since i really like a lot of classic postpunk and indie/alternative rock and even enjoyed a fair bit of emo and hardcore. i'm probably always harping on this but it's a sense of alienation from a culture and aesthetic tradition that i thought i could relate to at one point.

tom: never write yourself off as a listener because you're not a musician. musical technique is just a tool to create something worth listening to.

The album as a whole, though, I've never quite warmed to. A couple of other good moments (maybe "Breadcrumb Trail" if I'm remembering the title right) but not very consistant.

In a time where bands were either doing clones of early Butthole Surfers, still trying to be hardcore as fuk, trying to move to the Northwest, or trying to morph something new into the Husker Du model-- this record shows up. It just wasn't like anything else.

It is the only record from "1991" that I still find myself pulling out of the stacks.

basically they came out with a way of doing quiet/loud dynamics within the 'song' framework that is quite original. so classic for just that.

I will try and come up with more bcz I haven't heard in a long long time.

but side a ... nosferatu man is such a great song. i think it's the best song they ever wrote.

the "quiet/loud" dynamic thing is mentioned quite a bit but i don't understand why slint defines it. some of their songs are quiet, some are loud, a couple are both. many other bands in rock have done quiet/loud earlier and better.

I can only think of dead C but since the songs were kind of loose in the first place...gimme names.

The photo of the hand on the inside of Umber is over a cassette copy of Tweez.

to answer bob snoom's question: bitch magnet were contemporaries of slint, the bulk of their output (2 LPs, 2 EPs) was released (i bleieve) prior to the release of spiderland (at which time, sooyoung and lexi started seam).

As for Talk Talk, alas I still have never heard them. They are on a mental list of mine with groups like Seefeel, Bark Psychosis, Derutti Column, A Certain Ratio, The Sound, Kitchens of Distinction, Comsat Angels and other UK arty guitar groups I haven't heard, but would check out if I came across their records.

I've got a pretty good sized stash of lps/cds, but I am the first to admit, I haven't heard everything.

Around the same time I posted that comment, I really wasn't listening to that much guitar rock, especially from the 90s, that has changed in the past few months.

I don't know about the "shouty" parts being embarressing, at least for me part of the problem with much of the music of this type is that it never explodes, it kind of stays in one mood. I think in the lust for being taken "seriously" people banished the rock, which to me is a sad thing.

Beyond the dynamics of the music, the way that Slint arranged the guitars were was very lyrical and with quite a bit of harmonizing between the two players. I know that a couple of bands (Ativan & Pencil) playing from Bloomington in Spiderlands wake definitely built from the way the guitars were orchestrated.

Now I know you're insane, gygax!

Somewhere in my parents' house is a tape of the Diablo Guapo demos with Britt on drums.

The Shannon Doughton name is actually from someone Britt went to school with.

While you're at it, is Sooyoung up to anything these days?

I always found the echo whisper part in "Good Morning, My Captain" to be embarassingly bad

How would you say this compares with Ozzy on "Black Sabbath" singing "No NO! Please God Help me!!"? I find them both neither moving nor embarassing. They're both just really effective performances in the context of the songs.

Anyway, the Slint album is a definite classic. All the imitators are duds. The thing is as great is Slint were, there is no real point to all the regurgitation. That album was delivered at the perfect time, and they themselves had the good sense to stop.

(ok, maybe when I was a kid I got goosebumps w/ Ozzy, but I'm talking about now)

:)

I find this shocking and disturbing.

the for carnation - search:

how i beat the devil
get and stay march
on the swing [note: became my favorite song for a week about two years ago]
i wear the gold
winter lair
salo
preparing to receive you
alfredo's welcome

the touch and go album is really good. he (they) played a secret show a month before it was released at bruno's in SF which was incredible.

Did you know that one of the people who replied to the advert for female vocalists was one Polly Jean Harvey? Now there's a pretty cool thought... PJ singing for Slint...

As for Spiderland itself, basically what Jess said, although the proper (2000's) For Carnation album is still one of the most fundamentally *moving* records I own. A great deal of the stuff that followed it was only really impressive on a very superficial level, although I haven't been disappointed by very much of Dave Pajo's stuff.

There speaks a man who never paid out good money for a King Kong album. Me, I'm still bitter...

Shameless lies!

I think seeing this thread revived was the first time I'd even thought about Slint for a couple of years.

one featured a pretty neat cover of "last caress".

Apparently McMahan and someone else who was in Slint was flown in by A&M (?) before the release of Kids to discuss their inclusion of that song in the soundtrack and wanted the two to sign the big contract to allow use of the song. The two were enthusiastic but didn't want to sign just yet, and wanted to reconvene with the other ex-Slint folks to talk about first, see the movie, etc. and then decide if this is what they wanted. Well, anyway, one day, one of the guys saw the soundtrack in the stores with their song in it, much to his surprise -- no contract ever haven been signed or anything. But they apparently got mailed their royalty checks while the soundtrack was moving units in the stores... so hey.

Good ol' music industry for ya.

apparently, lou barlow supervised the KIDS soundtrack. not sure if he had the final say on slint (although sebadoh had an b-side titled "slintstrumental").

haha. i just realized i went track by track and have nothing moreto say.

I was thinking about why I don't mind the mumbles in Calla or even Sonic Youth so much (though MacMahon is lamer to begin with). I think in a lot of cases those guys seem to have instrumental tracks that feel more complete to me (especially when Calla uses electronics -> more going on sonically or maybe just sounds I find more interesting) and the voice is more of an additional texture filling out space. With Slint, it still feels like the tracks are bare enough that they sound like accompaniment to a song that needs a strong voice to give it a centre maybe? I always found the instrumental to be totally pointless. I don't know if that's the only reason I didn't really get into this.

Wow. That's pretty fucked. But still...it was an essential and fitting end to the soundtrack. As for Slint...I REALLY REAALLYYY hate the endlessly annoying vocals, but I can let it pass on Good Morning Captain, it being so undoubtedly classic. Spiderland would be Classic for me, were it not for this particular problem. Therefore, I'm gonna have to say mostly DUD. I'll try to follow Clarke's advice if I gather up the interest.

That and the fact that Billy "I Called Nick Cave English) Corgan is a big fan of Slint, if I remember correctly.

SHAME on your Ned. For sooth! How could YOU of all people not appreciate Spiderland?

How could YOU of all people not appreciate Spiderland?

Like I said a few posts back, "I think seeing this thread revived was the first time I'd even thought about Slint for a couple of years." -- trust me, this is not something that weighs heavily on my mind!

anyway. Spiderland is alright -- and the best by Slint, to my ears at least. Overall, though, they just don't climb into the all time classics for me and I think post-Slint the members have created more than their share of utter shite. a very overrated band who influence on other bands is probably more of a negative for me than a positive.

Damn right!
*jumping on bandwagon*

Not that Ian and Francis have no right to have that opinion. Of COURSE they should. And I agree that this style of vocals coming from a very recent band would most likely sound cheesy, now that it has become an over-rehearsed vocal template for many "jazzy" Radiohead/Slint influenced alterna-emo rock bands, etc... but I can't think of the vocals as "cheesy" or "bad" in the context of Spiderland alone, because at the time, (I feel) they certainly were not.

Also, while I'd certainly cringe if I heard very non-subtle Quincy episode punk rock style vocals coming earnestly from punk bands breaking out today, they don't sound cringeworthy from the bands at the time, from Los Angeles area, for example.. Black Flag, The Screamers, etc.

Is it just a sense of history that allows me to separate the context of similar vocals between bands of different time periods? Or do I just have selectively cheesy taste in vocals?

I actually do like Ancient Mariner tune. Spooky. Whats it called??

sub-SY guitar <> moss icon.

thank you.

can I just say that Tom is just incredibly wrong with the '90s thing'. I mean, I really dislike plenty of 'post-rock' but there is actually a lot to it, one of them being the quiet-loud dynamics: that's the one thing that this band could've been a precursor to, its the way that they would play a in one end of the volume and then switch and catch you unawares, maybe the stop-start stuff.

Also lots of 'tugboat', very fluid, type riffing on here too. Just lovely and pleasant straight note playing on much of it: but then the switch on 'washer' was just perfection, and when it gets 'harsh', they can do that too.

The vocals on this are pretty much incredible: Brian just had a style and went with it: I'd say he tried to sing in the way the band sounded, lots of talking through, creepy wispers, then the kind of Bob Mould hardcore screamins, but lots of very nervous vocals too (reminds of the singing on meat puppets 'II')...overall he's very attentive to the whole atmosphere that the record is projecting.

I got this record back in prob 1999. having actually heard quite a bit from '91, I'd say they were just out of their time.

And as far as indie rock goes I don't like much of it but I really love every note of this.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1592&item=4068088080&rd=1

a quick note about eBay:

recently i've noticed a lot of slint "live" cds being sold on ebay. the most common of them is a show at dreamerz in chicago that features both "good morning, captain" and a cover of neil young's "cortez the killer". while a good show, it's hardly worth the twenty dollar price that i see people bidding. this show is readily available in mp3 form elsewhere on the internet (like at this site), and the people that sell these "live" cds are cheating you. a blank cd costs one dollar, so an average auction yields about a 2000% profit. slint was a great band, and it's not cool that some guy with a cd burner is making money off of their hard work. David Pajo, in response to the Live Songs LP, summed it up best, "Somebody is rolling in some cash right now, low overhead and a big price tag. And they didn't have to play a note, they didn't have to pay for gas to drive to New Jersey, they didn't practice 5 nights a week trying to hone the songs down".

Please don't buy these "live" cds. They do nothing to help Slint and only fatten some guy's wallet.

But "Pam" is a great (fast!) crypto-metal number with the whole band, and esp. Britt Walford, on really top form.

Right. Going to see them play the album tomorrow in Brussels. (setlist in Amsterdam yesterday was: album + two song EP + new 20 minute track) Excited!

(oh, and classic, but not for listening to very often)

Slint kill me. I love "Good morning captain" but oh god is it heartbreaking.

classic, duh

"Good Morning Captain" goes straight to the back of my skull. "Washer" too, but in a more hypnotic, subtle way - "the sombre geometry of the repeating guitar riff" is a really fucking awesome and OTM description. "Washer" is one of the few songs on which I'll forgive the trembly emo-tenor singing. It just fucking works.

Saw them at ATP last weekend, they weren't helped by the cavernous venue in which they played. Still good though.

That was one of the few good things in this month's OMM; ex-Arsenal star Ian Wright reveals his secret love for "Good Morning Captain."

Wait, you're not kidding.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/omm/story/0,,2080706,00.html
"Surprisingly, he felt much the same way about Slint, not least because of the track's X-rated scream: 'That's how it should be, letting yourself go, to the extent that he's fucking screaming.'"

Well I never!

Isn't that song about the fractious relationship between an estranged father and son?

*shivers*

What's most mesmerizing about "Good Morning, Captain" is how the lyrics are like two almost-disjoint sets, the deadpan narrative vs. achingly personal emo whisper that comes flying out of nowhere. Fucking brutal.

And the guitars/drums/bass actually sound seasick, which is awesome.

Well, they were VERY good (album + 2 track EP + new song (not 20 minutes like in Amsterdam - other track?) ), but I'm still having trouble with the whole concept of playing full albums. Anyway, yay!

i nominate this thread for some of the worst writing on ILM. no wonder these people no longer write about music.

hi steve!

who's that on bass? it isn't todd cook.

according to (Dutch mag) Oor, it is indeed Todd Cook:

( http://www.oor.nl/deruit_concertverslagen_details.asp?id=513 )

Britt Walford: drums/vocals/guitar
Brian McMahan: vocals/guitar
David Pajo: guitar
Michael McMahan: guitar (yes, his brother)
Todd Cook: bass

(according to that same article, that is)

this is definitely not todd cook:

<img src=http://bp1.blogger.com/_oDP6_P0g4gc/RlLmlr1HKoI/AAAAAAAAAWs/fxv9cL-fe4E/s1600-h/508472584_c612cac472.jpg&gt;

crap, damn:

http://bp1.blogger.com/_oDP6_P0g4gc/RlLmlr1HKoI/AAAAAAAAAWs/fxv9cL-fe4E/s1600-h/508472584_c612cac472.jpg

wtf i hate nu ilx. go here:

http://bp1.blogger.com/_oDP6_P0g4gc/RlLmlr1HKoI/AAAAAAAAAWs/fxv9cL-fe4E/s1600-h/508472584_c612cac472.jpg

that's not todd cook.

Ah. That certainly is the guy who played bass yesterday.

Does this mean that dutch journalist got it wrong? Journalists getting things wrong, I thought that was impossible? :-(

looks like a de-bearded todd brashear:

http://www.wandwvideo.com/images/toddwrobot.jpg

wow!

I'm pretty sure that's the same guy, yes!

There's now a bootleg of the Amsterdam show, and the final track only looks like being 10 mins, according to the tracklist.

I only heard about that on some forum, by the way. Maybe they meant it felt like 20 minutes?

The instrumental part in "Washer" right after "promise me the sun will rise again..." is so fucking creepy.

it gets all slow and heavy and GOD it is so depressing.

PRIMAVERA MUTHAFUCKAS!

Brussels pix

http://www.soundslike.be/pictures/?pictureID=22

(yes, Pajo was wearing a Lamb Of God tshirt)

Put this on for the first time in a few years last night, blew me away yet again, absolute classic

Whereas I listened to this for the first time a few months ago, and was just... 'meh'.

I completely love this album, and was actually fortunate enough not to have had it played up as a total 90s indie classic (which, in any case, I really think it is, btw) before hearing it. Maybe 4 years ago, one of my older brothers (who first heard it when he was in college back in the early 90s) just put it on after I played him some Mogwai. We were talking a little bit about early 90s indie very generally, and he just kind of casually said, "oh, this is Slint, you'll probably like this." I was totally blown away.

Liked it at the time, but didn't love it. Feel the same about it now. A couple times in between, I've heard it and been blown the fuck away, but mostly it just sounds nice. Requires a specific frame of mind and kind of attention, I guess. Feel much the same way about Mogwai and Godspeed!, two of yr higher profile Slint spawn outfits.

But I totally agree w/ sundar et al about how hard it is to hear this record without experiencing a parallel rush of distaste for the huge, boring museum rock culture it seems to have generated, or at least anticipated.

i bought it because of the cover photo and the intriguing band name, and grew to really love it despite later finding that it was a CLASSIC

Tweez>>>>>>>>>>>>Spiderland to these ears.

Classic. The s/t For Carnation record is just as good, if not better.

"I MISS YOU!"

been listening to this a lot lately, its been the soundtrack to hanging out in my room and sulking lol

It is the soundtrack to a very emotional day for me here too.

Most go back to this. Not listened to it since being wildly underwhelmed by the reunion shows. But just thinking about it gives me shivers. What's the one that ends with the same chord repeated for 30 seconds? Best ending in rock.

Been thinking about "Good Morning Captain" the past couple of days. ILX is on my wavelength as usual.

i feel bad for anyone who thinks spiderland is anything but a dud, and i have to admit i hated it for a while and then i heard the ending of good morning, captain. 'nuff said, this is a top 10 album if there ever was one.

Like Spiderland okay, though it's not a personal favorite. Some amazing moments and a great command of flow, texture, dynamics, but it's all a bit too pinched and inward-looking for my taste. Not sure what the opposite of musically "generous" is (selfish doesn't seem quite right), but whatever it is, Slint have it in spades, and I'm not a fan. Plus I kinda agree with whoever way back when that it's hard to separate Slint from their million bazillion lemon-sucking "post-rock" followers -- from Tortoise to Mogwai to Pelican. I tend to prefer bands who're willing to risk looking like douchey, glitter-encrusted bozos to those who're content to glower and scour from the Corner of Eternal Darkness.

jesus christ stfu

http://i674.photobucket.com/albums/vv105/NAPOLEONROFL/youlikethis.jpg

What? I don't like it. Why should I?

tbf it is kind of a willfully ignant position to not be able to tell slint from mogwai from tortoise from pelican given that they all sound completely different

I know they sound different, and I can see why the comparison seem offensive. That said, I'm not saying I can't tell one from the other. I see Slint as having kicked off a serious and lasting interest in gloomy, exploratory post-rock that's now expanded out in lots of different directions. Including Pelican probably stretches the net too far to make sense, for which I formally recant, but I often think of Tortoise, Gastr del Sol, Mogwai, GYBE! and Explosions In the Sky as the children of Slint (some more direct and others more distant). From there, it's not a huge leap to the more metallic present-day stuff -- with like Godflesh & Neurosis being at least equally influential.

"...I can see why the comparison might seem offensive."

If, on the other hand, the objection is to crap like "lemon-sucking 'post-rock' followers" and/or "glower and scour from The Corner of Eternal Darkness", well then yes: I should be shot.

classic for originality, but the record has never appealed to me to play more than maybe once. its a little boring.

I really wanted to like it and spent time trying to get through it. Then once it clicked and was a pretty emotional experience but I've never been able to go back to it. Spoke to a few people that feel the same way. Maybe once is enough.

rules

it's kinda cool that, by being the first band to talk over music, or 'beats', slint invented rap.

actually, scratch that. forgot about wham.

slint invented rap? are you insane?

anyway, classic.

no, prettylikealaindelon, i do not think that. i corrected myself. take the time to read before you rush to judging people's mental health.

wait, you think that wham invented rap? are you insane?

please take the time to educate yourself before you rush to say that a pop group from circa the mid 80s (many years after the 'invention' of rap) infact invented rap.

Roberto sometimes misspeaks - I believe he meant, and this is an uncontroversial opinion I think, that Wham perfected rap - as Roberto knows, there were others before Wham, like C.W. McCall for instance, but it was Wham who really solidified the genre musically

Wham Rap and Young Guns (Go For It) were also the the zenith of pop's attempt to fuse hard-hitting commentary on the nature of society with undeniable musical invention, thereby a) making music that appealed equally to both pop culture theorists and chart fans and b) creating a force for social change whose impetus was undeniable.

everyone knows blondie invented rap, slint invented hardcore techno

I think you'll find Blondie invented reggae, rather than rap, but it's easy to get the two confused!

Wilco invented sampling -- check out Yankee Hotel Foxtrot!!

Don woke up,
And looked at the night before
He knew what he had to do
He was responsible
In the mirror,
He saw his friend
Niggaaaa

I see what you're getting at, Roberto - that makes a pretty good case for Wu-Tang ripping more or less their entire catalogue from Slint. Good spot!

daaaamn brother, check all dem hoes names on tweez they done banged!

Don woke up,
And looked at the night before
He knew what he had to do
He was responsible
In the mirror,
He saw his friend
Niggaaaa

loooooooooool

gaaaaaaahhhh ahahahah

it was an exciting time for music. just months before this album's release, MBV had opened new doors for rock music by incorporating elements of dance music in "Soon," from the Glider EP.

And in late 1990, the Soup Dragons built on the pioneering work of Blondie a decade or so before and popularised reggae around the world with the "toasting" section of I'm Free.

And in late 1990, the Soup Dragons built on the pioneering work of the Monkees two decades before and popularized downtempo big-beat trip-hop around the world with "Softly".

daaaamn brother, check all dem hoes names on tweez they done banged!

Don't know about the rest of you cats, but I clicked SB like a motherfucker.

http://i54.tinypic.com/k2ela1.png

x-post And "Convoy" was written with Chip Davis, so if C.W. McCall invented rap (and I believe he did) then surely that laid the groundwork for Chip Davis subsequently inventing ambient/chill out/chillwave music.

I always thought ambient/chillout/chillwave music was invented when Duran Duran become the first pop group to use the synthesiser in 1985. But it sounds like I'm wrong on that.

Nah. You're getting things mixed up. You're thinking of Chip Taylor, of Duran Duran, who invented the synthesizer (and wrote "Wild Thing"/"Angel in the Morning").

Chip Davis invented the preset.

Hold up mane, I think Hongro Horace just invented the bitch ass comment only two hours ago in this very thread.

^^^ Needs more blackface

oh gosh darn horace, I thought you were better at the internet than this. nevermind.

20 years old this week. I did an interview with a radio station in Australia that devoted a 2-hour show to the anniversary. (Featuring a rarely heard clip of Maurice, Pajo and Walford's metal band that predated Slint).

just listened this morning! without knowing about any anniversary. anyone who doesn't like "good morning, captain" is no friend of mine!

20 years old ... guess this is one of those records that's never going to really sound "dated"?

I think I said something similar in the interview!

xpost.

oh and hey, i put up this pretty nice live recording of the band yesterday: http://ow.ly/4mA9E

Is that the one that ends with the Neil Young cover?

yeah, it's got a killer Cortez the Killer on there.

That's a good one. I have another Chicago 89 boot that is almost all Tweeze material but includes a super early version of "Washer" - all instrumental and with a much more rudimentary structure.

sounds cool - the one i posted is the only slint live show I have.

So in case you missed it, David Pajo put up the 1985 Maurice demos on his bandcamp page. I wrote a small amount of background about it. This demo was recorded at the behest of Glenn Danzig after Maurice asked if they could open for Samhain on the Midwest leg of their tour.

It's pretty freakin' metal. I think the most noteworthy thing about it is how insanely good Walford and Pajo were at their instruments at age 15.

Oh God Maurice were so fucking great

I saw them open for Samhain in Louisville in the gym attached to a church!

Sean Garrison had so much end-of-the-world / Satan-surveys-the-mosphit charisma you can't even imagine it

that band was intense in every sense: original, powerful, kinda uncannily serious about what they were doing

I'm a fanboy for real and I still treasure my orange and black Maurice t-shirt like a holy relic

the demo is awesome too but the live shows were the real thing

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6026/5915969886_7d53c82d4f_z.jpg

That is amazing!

I think the most noteworthy thing about it is how insanely good Walford and Pajo were at their instruments at age 15.

Walford is the drummer on the first Squirrel Bait album iirc and that was from the same year. Drums are great on that too.

this sounds very good so far

i wish spiderland were a bit ~heavier~

Walford only played on two songs on the first SB album, but yeah, the drumming is great in any case. He was a monster.

Maurice's song "The Struggle" was kind of a manifesto for Louisville HC/metal kids in highschool, the band made a poster with the lyrics and medieval torture illustrations and some sick pictures of Walford with an extremely long devilock flailing around if I recall correctly- the chugging riffs that started "the Struggle" always sound to me like the DNA of the Slint-circa-Tweeze sound too for that matter. this is making me super nostalgic about how fun it was to grow up in Louisville back then.

You could connect those chugging riffs to "Glenn," I think.

one last nostalgic outburst: I was accused of being a "Slint-worshipper" by a CRASS loving anarcho-punk kid in highschool who didn't like my zine and decided to diss me because I wrote an elaborately loving tonguebath review of Slint's show at my highschool in said zine

my friend john lived down there as a kid and he just moved around the corner from me here in western mass. when i was on a panel with d. grubbs in feb. i asked him if he remembered john and his eyes lit up and he said "john a! well, that was his punk name back then..."

lamest punk name ever! hahaha! but i call him that now when i see him. i will listen to these demos. never heard them before.

You could connect those chugging riffs to "Glenn," I think.

Haha - Pajo just commented on my blog post and said that that riff in "The Struggle" was indeed repurposed for "Glenn"! Day made.

Okay now get him to tell us if they're ever going to release a proper recurring of "King's Approach"

RECORDING

I wrote about Spiderland here:

http://devonrecordclub.wordpress.com/2013/02/14/slint-spiderland-round-46-toms-selection/

I think it's remarkable...but what do I know?

I do think it helps if you are not aware of the album's reputation and legacy before hearing it (but if you're reading this thread, presumably you will be).

I'm surprised that anyone on here doesn't like Spiderland. I guess I don't know you that well

Why come they never made a box set or something? I still wanna hear the studio version of "King's Approach"

Good Morning Captain arcs towards its climax so clinically and purposefully that in theory, it runs the risk of consolidating its loose ends in too convenient and predictable a manner. but, it manages to defy all that unequivocally; it's explosive, gut-wrenching and totally fucking incredible. every single time.

Playing in November in the UK: http://www.atpfestival.com/events/endofanerapart2.php

3rd reunion go around, huh. Hopefully they play the West Coast as well.

Don't see myself booking a flight to London, especially since I've got a baby due right around that time. Really *really* hope they come to LA, or anywhere in the vicinity.

Despite writing the book on them, I've never seen them live. Was too young/unaware the first time around, and managed to miss both reunions by being in the wrong place at the wrong time, twice. Now three times. Bummed.

Whaaaaattt??? I got to see them both times. They're not worth seeing twice though the second time they played that unreleased track "King's Approach" which made it all worth it

New box set! $150 is some bullshit though.

• Hand numbered limited edition of 3,138 copies.
• Spiderland, remastered from the original analog master tapes by Bob Weston and pressed on 180 gram vinyl
• Fourteen previously unreleased outtakes & demos personally selected by Slint, mastered by Bob Weston, and pressed on two 180 gram vinyl albums
• 104 page book with over 100 never-before-seen photos documenting Slint's entire history, as well as lyrics to the songs on Spiderland, and a forward by Will Oldham
• Remastered Spiderland on one CD, and the 14 bonus songs on a second CD
• Breadcrumb Trail, a brand new, never-before-seen, 90 minute DVD documentary about Slint and the making of Spiderland; directed by Lance Bangs
• Packaging concept and design by Louisville native Jeremy deVine (of Temporary Residence fame)
• Pre-order the Spiderland Box Set before March 8, 2014 and receive a free T-Shirt created from the recently discovered silk screen Slint used to hand print their one & only 1989 tour T-shirt. These shirts will only be available with box set pre-orders on this site. They will not be sold separately or in stores.
• There is a limited quantity of box sets signed by all four Slint members. These signed box sets are only available from this Touch and Go Records pre-order web page
• All packaging printed in the USA at Stoughton, including heavyweight, "tip-on" gatefold LP jackets
• All three albums pressed at RTI in the USA on 180 gram vinyl

http://slintbox.touchandgorecords.com/

Also where the fuck is this song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iosi9koLsBw

nice

maybe there'll be a less deluxe-o version? would like to hear those bonus cuts, don't really care about a t-shirt.

http://cdn2.pitchfork.com/news/53769/15398dae.jpg

it's expensive, but if you think about the amount of work and the cost of putting together something like this, it's hard to believe they can do it for only $150.

ordered tbh

If I wasn't saving up money for a security deposit/new furniture I would totally (resentfully) drop the money on this tbh :-/

good a time as any to mention this now…

I'm very sorry that I did not contribute to any discussions on ILM re: Slint that the esteemed sctttnnnt (pgwp) may have noticed a few years ago, because I would have been a pretty good interview for his book.

I grew up in Louisville: while I grew up with Will Oldham (as well as drew D, who doesn't seem to come around here anymore), the fellas that would make up Slint were intimidating as fuck to me. Somehow I never saw a Maurice show (saw dozens of Kinghorse ones, tho). I was not immersed n the punk rock scene to the extent that like hundreds of kids my age did.

But I saw the first three Slint shows: first was at Tewligans, winter '87, opening for Killdozer. I thought "yeah, four all-stars from the baddest bands around! this is gonna be the most terrifying metal I've ever heard." Instead it was the Tweez shit, which terrifying in an entirely more bewildering way.

Second was at a battle of the bands at my school that I booked; my own band opened, which made me feel like a gnat trying to measure up to a behemoth. One of my buddies videotaped the whole show, and we would watch their show over and over again: the little brother of the guy who taped it taped a UofL game over it, which is funny cause the little brother was a drummer in L'ville hardcore band of note in the 1990s.

third was at a VW hall that had Big Black and Urge Overkill too. I guess this was the time that Albini and the UO guys were tight, and then the UO guys sold out or behaved in a way that Albini didn't like, which results in him still, after 30 years, talking shit about them on the Electrical Audio Boards. saw them again in lville and 90, when they played some Spiderland shit, and then again at Irving Plaza in 06, surrounded by several thousand more people than at any I had been to previously.

What someone upthread said was much much more true for me at that time: those guys were way way ahead of everyone. It was baffling that the Tweez shit had as few precedents as it did. I was away from Louisville when Spiderland came out, which was again remarkable that it had as little to with Tweez as it did.

Later I had some awkward encounters with BW, but there can be no doubt that he is unlike any drummer who ever walked the Earth prior.

150 bucks seems like a pretty fair price for all that imo. not sure I need to own any more of Spiderland than what I've already got but that sounds like a very nice box set to have if yr really into the record

I feel like I kind of want this, even though I haven't listened to "Spiderland" in yrs, that record is kind of burned into my DNA

Fuck maybe I should just charge it

Veronica, that's amazing. I researched the hell out of Slint during that period, to the point that pretty sure I've pieced together a list of every single live show they ever did (which granted wasn't that many). In that sense I know exactly which shows you're referring to - would loved to have heard more about the experience of seeing them in the moment. From what I've been able to glean, a lot of people didn't appreciate what they were seeing (or maybe Slint just wasn't as good live as on record?), and also not very many people can actually claim to have caught them at all.

About this reissue - I'm excited. I knew of Pam (named for Todd Brashear's mom--his dad is Glenn). It's in a similar vein as Rhoda and, from the bootlegs I've heard, it's great. I'm super excited to hear any post-Spiderland material, as I didn't know any existed outside of the song that became "King's Approach," which they played during their reunions.

I've caught a few segments of Lance Bangs' documentary and what I've seen is excellent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVdU_bLD2-M

oh shit

holy hell that practice footage

so stoked for this

great to hear those louisvillian voices all stacked up like that- sean garrison, david grubbs, brian mcmahan, sounds like maybe britt's dad? (and yeah, I'm honored to be a talking head here too)

practice footage looks awesome and man, they are SO young it's ridiculous

can't wait for my copy to arrive!

they were so fucking young it freaks me out!

like they are just these little kids, who plays music like that at that age??

Just bought tix to one of their shows today. Glad to have the chance to see em finally.

I kinda want to but I already saw them twice in 2004 and again in 2007

I feel like it'd ruin the magic :(

yeah i feel very similarly

I haven't been keeping up with music news much lately. I just found out about this reissue and I am really excited for this. But not at that price! Hory Shiit

Also saw them in 2004 and again in 2007.

I love Spiderland deeply, but I had no idea that these guys were all like 19 or 20 when they made it until I saw that trailer. Totally blown away by this fact.

If you are at all a fan of Slint you will adore the documentary.

That's awesome to hear, I'm really looking forward to it.

I want the album, remastered, but not for $150. Holding out for the single/maybe double disc version if they ever release one.

Stream the remastered album, plus bonus tracks.

1. Breadcrumb Trail (remaster)
2. Nosferatu Man (remaster)
3. Don, Aman (remaster)
4. Washer (remaster)
5. For Dinner (remaster)
6. Good Morning Captain remaster)

7. Nosferatu Man (basement practice)
8. Washer (basement practice)
9. Good Morning, Captain (demo)
10. Pam (rough mix, Spiderland outtake)
11. Glenn (rough mix, Spiderland outtake)
12. Todd's Song (post-Spiderland song-in-progress)
13. Brian's Song (post-Spiderland song-in-progress)
14. Cortez the Killer (live Chicago 1989)
15. Washer (four-track vocal demo)
16. Nosferatu Man (four track vocal demo)
17. Pam (four track vocal demo)
18. Good Morning, Captain (Evanston riff tape)
19. Nosferatu Man (Evanston riff tape)
20. Pam (Evanston riff tape)

what's an "evanston riff tape"?

probably riffs for spiderland recorded somewhere in evanston

that's what i figured, just wondered

Doesn't streaming a remaster sort of make the whole "remaster" part a little redundant?

brand new 96kbps remaster, overseen and approved by the band

this recording is meant to be listened to on earbuds

Britt and Brian went to Northwestern after HS/Tweez, David and Todd would come up to their place and Britt would show them the Spiderland songs and they would jam on the main riffs for hours. I believe the box set tracks are culled from those tapes.

yaaay this arrived today. packaging is great as expected.

so when can the rest of us watch the documentary?

The doc is fantastic. I've tried not to gush too much about it, but it is extremely enlightening and covers so much of such a mythical, mysterious band (and scene) without telling *too* much. It's also extremely funny which I don't think I've heard/read about in relation to any reviews of it. Highly recommended. I can't wait to finally be able see it again.

remaster is punchy as heck

if you ever thought this sounded a little thing on cd then look the fuck out

is this gonna get a single LP remaster release? love the album but not sure about dropping that much coin atm.

i believe the box is sold out now, i assume the 1-lp reissue has to be on the way

releasing this around tax refund time was brilliant on touch and go's part

are the demos and stuff awesome, i am p hyped

Tracks titled "Todd's Song," "Glenn's Song," etc do not bode well afaic, and don't help quell my fears of this being more 'cutting room floor' than 'revelation,' especially given everything else Slint did that wasn't Spiderland. Box looks fantastic though, and I will admit I am very tempted. Will probably be even more so after I see the doc tomorrow night.

Now, put out a Yank Crime box that looks like this, and I'll sell plasma to get it

Probably a mistake to judge Slint material by the names (even placeholders) of their songs as the majority of their output is the names of their parents set to music.

The post-Spiderland stuff is the most interesting to me as it helps bridge the gap between Spiderland -> Pod -> There Is Noone What Will Take Care Of You -> Safari EP -> The first two The For Carnation EPs.

The Rhoda/Glenn 10" was also released in this time span, despite being a relic from 1989 (or was it partially rerecorded?).

"Cortez" was one of the first mp3s I illegally downloaded off the internet haha.

so when can the rest of us watch the documentary?

It's on torrent sites already.

Anyone know when it will be legally available for those of us who didn't buy the box set?

Not sure where you live, but the doc is still making the rounds with Lance doing Q&A and various bandmembers joining him in select cities. I believe it's in Louisville, KY tonight followed by a performance from the band.

Albert I'm incredibly glad you posted this, because I live in Phoenix and it is literally playing here for one showing only, tonight.

so serendipitous. I'm totally stoked.

Haha, you're welcome but also just shows you how accurate I am (not at all, unless there are 2 copies floating around?)

There are multiple copies floating around. It's in Portland tonight, and was in Louisville last night.

Here's a website post that has a schedule. Don't know if there are more yet to be scheduled, or if this is final:

http://fieldrecordings.tv/archives/1204

The version of "Glenn" on the box set is different from the version that was released in 1994. This version was recorded during the Spiderland sessions - essentially the same but played slower, and the overall mix isn't as good (as the title indicates - "rough mix"). They recorded "Glenn" and "Pam" in the Spiderland sessions but then left them off the final version. "Pam" is very much in the vein of Tweez stuff.

"Todd's Song" and "Brian's Song" are works-in-progress after Spiderland. Based on just a couple listens I think they are a bridge between "For Dinner..." (which was one of the last things they wrote for Spiderland) and Brian's For Carnation stuff. Repetitive, slow, quiet.

As with pretty much everything else Slint-related, there is no lost "just-as-good-as-Spiderland" song. ("Glenn" was it, and it's been available for 20 years now.) But it's still fascinating to me to hear the various demos, and to imagine where they might have gone next.

I haven't seen the book that comes with the box set - anyone have more to say about that?

I am still miffed "King's Approach" isn't on here in any form and that it will probably just be lost forever

book is nice, it's got a one-page foreward by will oldham and the lyrics to spiderland are interspersed throughout. the rest is a mix of show posters, pics of slint as tweens/teens, etc. there's a pic on the lsst page of three of them with an older guy who is clearly supposed to be somebody, but not sure who he is.

and yeah someone really needs to ask about kings approach in one of these interviews.

As I understand it "King's Approach" is from a totally different era - something they wrote when they briefly reformed in 1994.

oh interesting, thanks for that info

Why was James Murphy in the documentary? Why does James Murphy involve himself with everything? Post-LCD Murphy really isn't tickling me right.

James Murphy was in Pony who had a song that was a major Slint rip (but nobody remembers Pony nor James' awful hairstyle at the time)... and then James produced Evergreen's record.

Later, Britt lived in James' apartment for a year or two when he worked at Old Devil Moon cafe (RIP) and then MasterBakers.

It is very obscure trivia that Britt was the very first LCD Soundsystem drummer, for their first live show (I.Was.There).

From earlier tonight:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BlOmESYIAAAOQQT.jpg

I think I met the drummer when he was in the uk drumming for the False Prophets before Slint and only found out that he went onto Slint around the time of the 1st Palace Brothers lp. Trying to work out if he was the same guy who was on the '97 Royal Trux tour playing tambourine and looking like Paul Kantner.
Have always wondered what the story on somebody being payed to tour to play tambourine and not really do anything else, unless he was also doing tshirts or something.

Thanks for the info Jersey AI. Any source on Britt drumming with LCD? Couldn't find anything with a google search.

He.Was.There. Ergo, he's the source.

Yeah, at first I had a similar thought about Murphy in the film, like "This guy's not from Louisville or the Chicago scene! What's he doing here?!" But in the end there's enough of a connection, and what he brings to the interviews is totally worth it.

Highlights of the film for me are the interview segments with Britt's mom and dad.

going to see this tonight followed by a q&a with director + 2 slints!

Cool! I was hoping to go to that too, but I wasn't able to swing it. Enjoy!

An additional source on the LCD thing, in case anyone was legitimately skeptical:

http://larecord.com/interviews/2014/03/11/lance-bangs-and-slint-sasquatch-folklore-legendry

I'm really hoping for a 2-disc issue of this, no way can I justify $150 on this thing any time soon.

Liked the pitchfork review a lot

Movie is great. Two immediate impressions:

1. Britt Walford is a genuine, real-deal weirdo
2. There are background vocals on "Breadcrumb Trail?"

More later, still processing.

The LCD thing came up at the doc screening in LA and Britt confirmed it was true.

yeah, this was great. v much enjoyed the parent interviews. kind of agree with HP that James Murphy didn't need to be in this. but it was all about the practice footage, demo excerpts and parent interviews for me. (the performance at the church was particularly tickling).

Very good documentary overall. Loved it, if I had a critique, it would be that it seemed overly preoccupied with Britt. Barely seemed to cover Todd's contributions.

there is an extremely funny story you don't get if they leave james murphy out.

best single moment tho may have been matt sweeney's britt impression.

re: backing vocals on spiderland, i was listening to the cd remaster in the car this morning and thought i caught something new in the second full time through the loud part. need to try again at home.

I loved Drew's story about Slint playing at his high school battle of the bands and taking an hour and a half to set up.

best single moment tho may have been matt sweeney's britt impression.

― call all destroyer, Friday, April 18, 2014 6:57 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this

Also, Drew was really great in this, too.

the end of this lp is one of the best there is, 'devastating' is such a cliché but something like that

I also like one of the Slint members confirming that battle of the bands story by saying they did spend a lot of time tuning at that point in the band's history.

And they show footage of them slowly and awkwardly tuning and tinkering!

There are a lot of reasons Slint made for a compelling documentary, but one of them is it combines the "band makes visionary record" narrative with the fact that this was a teenage band, and as a result there are a number of hilarious high school band stories.

Re the battle of the bands thing, this zine from the era corroborates the story too. There's a review of that concert on p. 2

http://www.louisvillehardcore.com/zines/Conqueror%20Worm/conquerorworm_issue_three.pdf

Oh yeah also two more Slint live reviews deeper into the zine - one was a show with Big Black and Urge Overkill, the other was with Killdozer.

Wasn't Drew Daniel there? Is he in this doc?

can someone explain the exact origins of the chicago-louisville pipeline/relationship?

xp yes he is!

there were four bands at the St. Francis High School battle of the bands. one was called Potential energy, another was mine, called Gil Thorpe: These two were very shitty cover bands. and there was a stevie ray vaughn style band with two guys that had been in a hardcore band with ethan buckler called Dot 39. Then there was slint.

Not to blow my horn unduly, but I had seen their first show opening for Killdozer a month or so prior: everyone was expecting, based on their prior bands Maurice, Squirrel bait and Solution Unknown, the meanest hardcore/metal band to have ever been— but man was it ever a shock to see what they did instead. I told my pals booking the BoB that they should get those guys.

the footage encompassed all four acts: I cannot express how glad I am that no one will ever me prancing around in ball-hugging shorts singing bad CCR and James Brown. It is true that they took 1 1/2 hours to tune: the parents, regular school kids and hardcore kids were annoyed as such, and then when the Tweez shit went down it was absolutely "what the living shit is this?" but yeah me, Drew, my pals and like five other kids were dumbstruck. After I had done like really really shitty covers, I felt like a gnat observing celestial beings creating events of inscrutable majesty.

Conqueror Worm was drew's zine. I wrote something for it once.

I would take that over being at the first Suicide practices.

haw haw haw…hadn't looked at that issue of Conqueror Worm in a couple of years…drew was being ludicrously generous to the stupidly dubbed Gil Thorpe: if a band not comprised of me and two other of his buddies did the same things we done, he woulda shat down our necks. same thing for

and yeah, therein is my review of Pleased to Meet me, which was much much too conventional for Drew. just chuckled when I read that lil jibe: ultimately, I was probly a bit too conventional for him. he and I were in school together and thus close from grade 1 to senior year: I drove him to school sophomore through senior year. his evolution since the 80s is quite poignant for me.

upthread there's more shit from me re: slint and 80s Louisville.

Wow that's awesome Thx for sharing

Really enjoyed this. Laughed stupidly hard at some of the anecdotes. I've read the Britt house sitting for Albini story a half dozen times, but it was great to see him actually telling it. Probably totally fucked up paraphrase: "I guess Britt... never really lived in a house by himself before and didn't really know how a house worked..."

Love the deadpan way Albini says that too; he sounds completely serious, and not at all like he's joking.

It seems a questionable decision by the Wire to let Drew Daniel review the box set, although it was an enjoyable piece to read.

I kinda tried to acknowledge my speaking position with the "i can be honest but not objective" line- I thought that was making clear that I have some bias- I see what you're saying tho.

happy to see that this movie is making the rounds, stoked to see Slint play in Baltimore on the 2nd

I learned a lot from veronica moser about music and how to care about it and how to talk about it, more than I ever let on at the time certainly- hello again! xxoo

Probably the most surprising takeaway from the doc: Steve Albini wears an earring?

Was he wearing his wolf T-shirt?

about the doc:so much talk about Will Oldham and no interview or something?!

Further I get from my teens less I feel the need to ever hear this, am I wrong

I only ever listen to "Washer" and "Good Morning Captain" #emo

And "Nosferatu Man" sometimes. I can't remember what the other tracks sound like.

xps

Will Oldham was thanked at the end, so he definitely contributed in some capacity. I was hoping he'd show up too, but I guess talking head in a doc doesn't really fit into his MO.

I am fascinated by this album, I like the dynamics, I like the sense of foreboding, and the musicianship is great... but the more I listen to it, the less I actually like the songs.

...but strangely, i'm still compelled to put it on fairly regularly.

will oldham is in the "quarry" bit on the dvd. he is wearing purple crocs.

sund4r way upthred

and there's something else to it at the root of my distaste for post- rock, something bigger, an emotional quality i have trouble articulating. in a weird way, despite its lesser attachment to pop song convention, the music strikes me as more "conventional" in a bad way on some level than the husker du or sonic youth that preceded it. i don't know how to put it any better right now. i'm still trying to figure it out since i really like a lot of classic postpunk and indie/alternative rock and even enjoyed a fair bit of emo and hardcore. i'm probably always harping on this but it's a sense of alienation from a culture and aesthetic tradition that i thought i could relate to at one point.

for some reason i never managed to hear slint during the late-90s post-rock boom even though i was all over everything else at the time and was fully aware of slint's reputation. so i'm only just now hearing spiderland. weirdly, after just the other week digging up an old june of 44 record and being kind of bored by its loping plodding austerity.

and what i notice on a first listen is just how little difference there was between that later stuff and this record. like, no one added much, no one took away much. there were variations in style, somewhat limited by faithfulness to the austerity of the original. so, like, the variants that were a bit more screamo. or a touch jazzier. and the variants that were ok with being more grandiose or romantic or whatever ended up sounding like mogwai or gybe! or whatever, also it seems by being ok with different rhythmic bases. and you can hear how suitable this base is for more metallic variants (it would be funny if the bosse-de-nage upthread went on to be the post-rock-black-metal bosse-de-nage!), where a thicker sound would sort of make good on the deadened chug.

but hearing the original, it makes it seem like there wasn't much there to begin with—that it wasn't as much of a fruitful template as a lot of the next ~15 years of imitators and indie rock followers supposed. else they wouldn't have ended up all sounding so much like 'museum rock' (bob standard upthread). they also seem kind of academic in that way, in the painters' sense of 'the radicals are holding their own exhibition to protest the academie'—of adhering to a standard of correctness subscribed to by a closed circle of authorities in which originality is controlled by a very strong sense of decorum. which is maybe what sund4r was feeling?

i wonder if this record is WAY different for people who heard it close to 1991 and imagine it in the context of the underground rock of the time?

you've only listened to it once?>?????

the basic idea is pretty obvious

try listening to it again

I'm obviously somewhat biased here, but I think there is a much stronger emotional core at the heart of Spiderland than there is in a lot of what would come later. I too was into all the post-rock stuff of the late 90s, most of which has not held up too well in retrospect. (I agree re June of 44, for instance.) But there is a world of difference between Slint and all the bands Slint influenced--not least being that those later bands were taking cues from a post-rock playbook that had not been written when Slint were making Spiderland. I think you're right that there was something almost rote about a lot of later bands' application of this style; but there was nothing at all rote about Slint doing it. I think if you are not sensing a difference between Slint and June of 44 (or Mogwai or whoever), then you should try sitting with Spiderland for more than one listen, ideally free of distraction. Even more ideal, but probably impossible by now, would be to listen to it without thinking about how your "supposed" to feel about it.

xp

oh God. "you're."

adhering to a standard of correctness subscribed to by a closed circle of authorities in which originality is controlled by a very strong sense of decorum

there is something to this. not as re: slint but other, later practitioners. It's vexing to me because I like music which does not do as much as you expect it to but there was a feeling of reserve as a safety from exposing one's gristle...

reserve as a way of keeping safe from etc etc i should have said

i agree it really needs to be heard in the context of what surrounded it actually. like in a playlist with whatever else was happening in 'alternative' at the time.

i do agree that it set a _lot_ of the template for would would come, so if you burned out on that, then this sounds less special.

but also it is way more heart on sleeve than lots of later stuff. rodan also feels that way to me now -- everyday world of bodies, which i remembered for the explosiveness i now notice more how emo it is.

one thing I have concluded is that it would be better as an instrumental. i think they should release an instrumental version.

no way

The pictures and stories that the music paints are better created by the listener's imagination, I find. Now that I think about it, it might actually be the vocals that are making me like this album less every subsequent listen.

Steve Albini also suggests that the vocals were ill-advised in the documentary, but he says he's glad he overcame that. It wasn't clear to me whether he came to appreciate the vocals or whether he's glad he didn't completely dismiss the album because of them.

i can hear the difference, arrogantly telling me to or suggesting that i listen again is pointless. i didn't say i wouldn't listen again. it's obviously a subtle record. and perceiving its emotional core obviously depends on getting familiar with those subtleties. but it seems like coming to see them is not going to change the world or anything.

i think your phrase 'supposed to feel' is a good one, scott. not so much in connection with the received critical wisdom, but with the record's peculiar emotional profile, which like i was saying about its musical aspects, i think it shares a lot with what came later. i would understand it in terms of feeling -this-, feeling this specific way that's expressed in this specific music, against an expectation of feeling other ways or against a proscription of feeling that way at all, of expressing it. at least that's how i understand the combination of austerity, moodiness, the specific contours, the quietness, etc. it seems like the criticism of that you could make, more on the basis of the imitators, is something like, yes, ok, but that abstracted angsty reverie is not as profound as you feel it to be. it's a thing. but.

for some reason i'm of a mind to listen to gastr del sol. different things, but their range was greater and their emotional texture more complicated.

Gastr on crookt, mirror repair and upgrade are p much my favorite US post rock.

Especially mirror repair, a perfect EP

used to love mirror repair, but it's not got much in common w/ spiderland

As much as I love this record, it doesn't exactly seem like something that each new generation discovers anew. Not that it matters.

really? wasn't the whole thing about this record that it sold steadily year after year?

I'll stick up for the vocals on this record as adding a crucial texture to the music. I see the argument against, say, "Washer," but the talking/whispering that's on most of the other tracks really adds a certain darkness to the songs, and makes them all the more disconcerting.

What exactly is the argument against Washer's vocals? I mean, I see that they're weak, but I feel that the weakness is completely justified in the songs mood. So much so that I didn't even notice that they were "techinically bad" until watching this documentary and hearing them outside the context of the album.

That being said, I think I might be a little too for weak vocals as a way to justify my own. I don't know.

Hey guys I still like A Minor Forest

Randy: yo, dawg, that was kinda pitchy
Brian: (quivering lip eyes brimming)
Randy: but it was the best performance we've seen all day, you're going on to boot camp w/ brian paulson !
AFTER THE BREAK
Paula: so who're you two?
Al Johnson: I'm Al
Jamie Stewart: and I'm Jamie
Paul: and whatchy'all gonna sing for us today?
Al: we're gonna do "it takes two"

Polvo did an album last year that was good

really? wasn't the whole thing about this record that it sold steadily year after year?

for a while, yeah. don't think that's really been true for a decade plus

I don't have any sales figures in this record, but decade-plus seems like a stretch in my experience. Definitely feel like this record was still "cool" and being discovered when I was in college in the mid 2000s. Maybe in 2006 it totally fell off the radar or something, but my guess is that any drop-off it had was more gradual than that

I mean, I'm sure it was at peak popularity around 1998, but it definitely had a certain cachet well after that.

xp I like Washer's vocals a lot, actually. I was just saying I could understand someone hearing them and not liking them, thinking they somehow subtracted from the mood. Whereas for all the other vocals, I actually have trouble grasping the argument that the album should have been instrumental.

in my experience Slint are still reasonably well known amongst kids who are into post-hardcore

idk why their exposure would have dropped dramatically during a decade when they reformed and played quite a few concerts and in some reasonable size venues if london is anything to go by

because someone is strawmanning

For the record, I don't actually think that its popularity did drop dramatically. I was just trying to point out that this was still treated as an important record by youngish people as late as 2006, and that the earlier argument about its popularity could only be remotely true if it had an unlikely steep drop-off in the middle of the last decade.

The cover photo was taken 24 years ago today.

oh i didn't mean you, intheblanks

when I went to see 'em in Louisville in 1990, they played the Spiderland shit, and "Washer" stood out for the milquetoast manner of the lyrics and BM's vox: me and my friends straight up laughed, under the impression that they were making fun of…someone? or a wimpy sensibility? the idea of folks obsessing over the lyrics "what do they mean/were they losing their minds"-style is one I can't relate to…those guys did not care about lyrics meaning anything in particular in my experience, although that might have changed for the Spiderland era…

their performances in 1987 were notable for the lack of singing: I think "don't worry about me, i've got a bed" etc etc was the only vocal on any of the songs; it's clear to me that voice/lyrix is completely inessential/incidental to Tweez: after watching the footage that's included in the box set over and over in 1987/1988, it was weird to buy the record two years later and hear these non-sequitors all over the songs…also, neither "Carol" nor "Rhoda" were part of the initial repertoire…

quite odd that Will O, who was best friends with those guys and obviously cares about words and singing, wasn't in the band in the first place. but then, it was Will's brother Ned, not will, that was in bands in the 80s; will did not perform as a musician per se until the 90s.

They said in the movie that they tried Will out but rejected him because he could barely play guitar.

What's the song playing over the end credits?

Is this it?

http://youtu.be/RaMTyEG2Zew

Yep, that's it, thanks! Fuck, what a great song.

Yeah King Kong are great

King Kong are definitely not great (not even good) but that is I believe the only song post-Tweez that has Ethan, Britt, Brian and David playing together.

quite odd that Will O, who was best friends with those guys and obviously cares about words and singing, wasn't in the band in the first place. but then, it was Will's brother Ned, not will, that was in bands in the 80s; will did not perform as a musician per se until the 90s.

― veronica moser, Tuesday, April 22, 2014 9:52 AM (1 hour ago)

At the time of Tweez, Will had already co-starred in Matewan and by Spiderland he had played Jessica McClure's father and worked on another Chris Cooper film and I'm pretty sure was living part-time in NYC and Hollywood so I don't think he was as involved in the Louisville scene as his brothers until after all that was over, whereupon he drafted Slint as his backing band.

Reference:

I am a cinematographer
I am a cinematographer
O, I am a cinematographer
O, I am a cinematographer

And I walked away from New York city
And I walked away from everything that's good
And I walked away from everything I leaned on
Only to find it's made of wood, made of wood

And I was a big ol' bear once
O, I was a big ol' bear once
O, I was a big ol' bear once
O, I was a big ol' bear once

And I walked away from California
And I walked away from everything that's shown
And I walked away from everything I lived for
Only to find everything had grown, everything had grown

Now, I am a cinematographer
O, I am a cinematographer
O, I am a cinematographer
O, I am a cinematographer

If you were alone
You could walk away from Louisville alone

a few other things:

Will asked not to be included in the film, but invested a lot of time and attention in the film being made and provided a lot of rare source material for Lance Bangs.

Not sure that Albini's sentiment is being taken away from the film is that Albini was disappointed in the vocals on first listened and quickly realized his mistake (uh... you have read his 1991 NME review by 2014 right?). Why so much stock is being weighted on his admitted mistaken brief first impression is weird imho.

i wonder if this record is WAY different for people who heard it close to 1991 and imagine it in the context of the underground rock of the time?

― j., Monday, April 21, 2014 2:03 PM (Yesterday)

yes, and I won't fall for your other trollbait comments, although I did find them funny!

man this thread revive is really bringing out the fmbb indie bro clods huh

have you listened to it again yet

also bringing out the guys who've found the 755th-most interesting way to say they've decided that post-rock is boring

it's hard for me to imagine what satisfaction you get from your belligerent, ungenerous posting style, waterface. i can only suppose that offline you masturbate compulsively but derive only grim intermittent pleasure from it.

how is me asking you to listen to something twice bellibgernts?

also i post one handed, fyi.

thats why spelling eyrros i have

i've listened to your precious classic a few times. do you have anything more to say on its behalf besides the blank insistence that whoever plays it enough will—what? you need to bring something to the table.

brief beef interruption

i continue to wonder where the girls were in louisville -- aside from jennifer hartman (who was not interviewed - is she still alive? she was praised by albini, but who is she?), the bald college roomie (who may have had one sentence + a laugh?), and britt's mom (no explanation required) this movie was an island of boys. it's not that i demand gender equity in my documentary filmmaking, i was just bummed because i'm only a little younger than they are and i know i existed at the time, so i know there had to be girls around. i wanted to see what the girls they hung out with looked like, to hear from them about the scene. maybe i was hoping for less yow/mackaye and more ordinary people? i don't remember m/any female people in "you weren't there" either.

never said it was a classic. just suggested you listen to it more than once before making a judgment. don't see how that's a big deal, or makes me a compulsive wanker

tara jane?

xpost

was she in the movie? i don't remember seeing her. also she is only one person. did girls not go to shows? hang out? what were they doing? why was jennifer hartman not in the movie if she paid to release their first record? why listen to steve albini tell us how much he respects her but not talk to her? just a bunch of questions i have, maybe because i was hoping to see something that i guess wasn't really there.

still haven't seen the documentary but that is a huge bummer.

also mia zapata was from louisville?

i haven't seen the movie yet, just naming women from louisville. maybe they didn't want to be in the movie?

If none of them wanted to be in the movie, I'd ask myself why not.

Why not email lance and find out? Seems like a nice, reachable dude.

Kim Deal has some great Britt stories but she is neither from Louisville nor part of the Spiderland story so I can see why she is not included in the documentary.

W.O. was around Louisville during the genesis of the band. Matewan was shot at least a year before (I tried out for the part he got). during the Spiderland time he was indeed elsewhere.

were you in Louisville at time, Mr Al? if you were, it would be highly idiosyncratic to not like King Kong…that band pretty much ruled the town in the 90s, although no one woulda guessed it from the initial version in '89, which was like Jonathan Richman plays the blues or somesuch unpromising premise…

Probably the woman who loomed largest in the scene was a gal who went to my high school, who was not a musician and thus maybe I shouldn't name her but she was impressive charismatic and intimidating. and hot. Girls would go to all ages shows, but I do not remember any females in bands to speak of. I didn't know ms. Oneil at that time.

do we know that jennifer hartman actually existed?

Dang, there is some serious butthurted trolling going on. Sorry for liking music you don't, good luck with your Dianogah vinyls I guess.

To vm: not from LKY, but spent some time there in the mid-90s after all this had passed for the most part.

Not interviewed in the documentary, but there was a girl in the pre-Slint band Languid and Flaccid:

http://louisvillepunk.awardspace.com/Photos/LanguidFlaccid00.html

I did not know Jennifer hartman, but the name BW used for the Breeders was a gal who I knew, although I knew her sister a lot better, as she was part of the same "young people's theatre" program that WO, his brother and me were involved with.

the gal I mention in my last post was alleged to have inspired a Squirrel bait song. quite striking that the influence of SB seems to withered away in the shadon of Slint. SB was the act that everyone outside of Louisville knew about. but it's well known that there were two factions therein that pretty much never dug each other. Bastro and BM were the guys that went to Chicago, but Peter Searcy and ben daughtrey stayed in Louisville and did a funk band called Fancy Pantz. They had mainstream aspirations that the other faction probly looked down on. shortly after Searcy got involved with a quasi-fratty band called Big Wheel (they played my prom), and Daughtrey did the Lemonheads and then Love Jones, a "lounge" band that included another guy who was friends with all these guys named Chris Hawpe that went to LA, got signed etc…someone once told me that Atlantic had their eye on Searcy, to turn him into a ROCK SOLO ACT like —and this is a direct quote and I'm curious if anyone will remember this name without googling— Robert Tepper. amused the fuck out of me at the time.

of all the things evidently mentioned in the doc —which I have not seen— that amuses me the most is the "talking anus" trick or whatever its called therein. so I don't know who's identified as such as having done it, but once one of those guys got on his shoulders in front of me, like you would do a handstand, pulled his ass apart and sucked air into his asshole. It was…something.

Jennifer Hartman, if I recall correctly, was a friend of Britt and Brian's during their time at Northwestern, ie not part of the Louisville scene.

Holy shit...fucking Love Jones, tell that guy he owes me $15

Is it possible that Slint's fanbase has an unusually high percentage of dudes?

There wasnt much in the way of ladies in the Minutemen doc either

I heard Spiderland for the first time nearly 10 years after it came out and I don't know, whenever this thread comes up and I click and I see sund4r's 2nd post...its strong set of objections, but the vocals make sense when you hear SST type stuff but its a shift, you wouldn't have Bob Mould or someone like Cobain on it (imagine how awful that would be), there is something in the music where something feeble feels right. Then calling it math-rock, or saying words like geometrical, and placing those words alongside it don't make sense when its a set of repeated riffs, often loose things that aren't necessarily going anywhere and yet are a part of tight song, a very well made song.

Heard quite a bit of post-rock, most of it was dullsville compared to what Slint were up to here.

Most of my favourites things to read and listen to needed very little context, they made sense straight away, all you then do is spend the rest of your life uncovering new readings and depths. Don't know if Slint are like this exactly but its near that..

Def. agree that the vocals fit the whole idea perfectly, hard to imagine them being any other way.

I guess I was a little disappointed in the boys club feeling of this movie in particular because it was during my youth. By the late 80s /early 90s I would have thought things had changed more even in spite of my memory telling me otherwise -- but the times were as I remember them! Anyway, disappointing is all. I still enjoyed the movie a lot.

While I'm at it, iirc there was also no discussion of the Kids soundtrack -- why not, I wonder?

i thought it was weirder that they didn't cover the reunion at all

I like the sort of immediate follow up stuff like Rodan but I have less interest later on when the 'rock' side of things is generally less emphasised

yeah that's pretty weird too!
someone asked about it in the q&a and pajo said, after he looked around and no one else was going to say anything, "we're broke?" and shrugged

man how can anybody say King Kong was not great

Funny Farm is classic from end to end. I don't have any time for Me Hungry but Old Man on the Bridge is good and Buncha Beans has some great jams. 2nd best post-Slint slint-related act after the For Carnation imo

this is the song that birthed spiderland, right?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y60Y323q__0

Half of Spiderland was already written by the time Frigid Stars came out. There are bootlegs of Slint playing three or four different Spiderland songs circa 1989.

If a song by another band birthed Spiderland, this would be my guess:

http://youtu.be/L_MhC4mQaGc

If I were to tell you that The Guardian published an article today that sheds even more light on the band than recent interviews and documentaries have, would you believe me?

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/may/01/spiderland-slint-album-reinvented-rock

great stuff.

i can't stop thinking about this! reading that ^^ and now knowing how difficult it was for brian to record the vocals for spiderland makes me rabid with curiosity about the reunion shows
how do they generally comport themselves on stage? they're playing here in a week or so but the show is sold out. now i kinda wanna go just to observe them.

the shows back in '05 and '07 seemed churchy, the one i saw on tuesday was pretty relaxed by comparison. the spend a lot of time tuning still. brian does the vocals off to the side of the stage and doesn't play guitar on almost all the vocal songs. he tends to stick out his chest like he's trying to project and his renderings (like the rest of the band and their parts) are extremely faithful.

I've only seen 2 of the reunion shows but both times Brian and David were very still and silent, not a lot of movement or action, I don't even think Brian is playing much guitar anymore (his brother does his parts). Britt is pretty animated and a little bit more extroverted but not much, he'll probably come up front to play/sing "Don, Aman" and he sing/speaks the verses of "Nosferatu Man" while playing that crazy drum rhythm.

yeah i loled when he strapped on the headset mic for that one.

new guy on 2nd guitar for this tour also i think.

those are quality details
does anyone seem uncomfortable?
do they talk at all? where do they direct their eyes?

sorry
these are really irritating questions
i'd rather see for myself tbh but i doubt a ticket will materialize for me out of thin air

seeing them tonight for the first time. really excited. they sound great in the live footage i've seen.

Yeah, let me qualify that both of these shows were 7-9 years ago, things probably have changed.

Not a lot of talking at the shows. I think Brian said "Thank you" when they were done.

I was at an event recently that Brian was a guest at and while he was very nice, he just doesn't talk very much. Not uncomfortably either, just brief answers.

You should get a ticket LL.

Also relevant to the Spiderland renaissance is the Alan Licht book on/with Will Oldham. There's quite a bit of pre-Slint ("Tight Little Dirty Tufts of Hair"-era) talk in it, specifically Britt visiting Will on-set of Matewan to convince Will to join and Will's like "I don't know how to play guitar or sing", and he stalled and then that's how Brian joined the band. It's also a great book.

i might try to rustle up a ticket
i would really like to see them

can someone remind me how harmony korine fits into this picture?

Good Morning, Captain was on the KIDS soundtrack. Is there something deeper?

Dislike that article. Slint leading to Mogawi or Sigur ros => lets pack it in.

Eh? Not really an outrageous claim. Also, what is that, one sentence? I appreciated that the article dug deeper into what was going on with Brian. Feel like they just skimmed the surface of that stuff in the doc.

those are quality details
does anyone seem uncomfortable?
do they talk at all? where do they direct their eyes?

― funch dressing (La Lechera), Friday, May 2, 2014 1:48 PM (41 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

not uncomfortable, no. brian said a couple little goofy one or two word things between songs on tuesday. someone in the crowd yelled ten fucking stars and i'm pretty sure he said "thanks, pitchfork" (in reference to the box set getting a 10.0 i guess). he said thank you quickly after the last song.

pajo looks at his guitar, stays very still, very much technician at work (and he's that way in all the bands he's in i'm pretty sure).

not much eye contact needed between them but occasionally it seems like they'll watch britt for a cue. britt is very much in charge from a musical standpoint.

xp - Yeah I know it was on the sdtk (I remember being like WHOA! when i saw it in the theater) -- I mean personally. Korine grew up in Nashville and seems to have come out of the gate with the same sort of enfant terrible thing in his favor iirc. Also Xenia (where Gummo is set) is just a few miles down the road from Yellow Springs, home of Antioch College (a bastion of freewheeling artsiness in -- let's be honest -- a really depressed area) where my BFF went to college, and they all seem to share an aesthetic sensibility but maybe that's just my hindsight 90s glasses. I dunno.

also thanks for the deets CAD! it's about like i expected. also smh @ the dork who shouted ten fucking stars. my god.

soooo much dorky crowd shouting, it was terrible. the '05 shows were in much bigger rooms, but this time they were in a small club which i guess invites that bullshit.

oh also LL as you are a budding drummer i would say try to go if for no other reason than to watch britt, he is amazing

the "ten fucking stars" call out's a reference to Albini's review in Melody Maker. more jokey than worshipful i would think.

yes, i know, it's still lame

it's like congratulating an actor for their movie grossing boffo box office
it's embarrassing for everyone

even in jest

re KIDS: Lou Barlow put "Good Morning Captain" on the soundtrack, but it does not play during the film.

man i am so confused.

i would like to have a conversation with britt about drumming pretty badly but i'm sort of amazed at a base level by how intimidated i still am by these dudes. how stupid. and yet so real!
maybe it's best if i just sit back and wonder to myself instead of trying to figure all of this out. i need a muzzle.

also seeing them for the first time tonight

you guys let us know how the ball-murrr show went tonight…

La Lechera: maybe he's changed, but in my experience, BW was not terribly articulate about what he did. Like, I think one time I told him that he was unlike any drummer to have ever walked the Earth, but he was uninterested in the topic. Show, not tell…etc etc…

The Baltimore show was so great. I spent the last half of it on the side of the stage behind an Australian dude who was losing it like it was a hardcore show. Almost got kicked in the face several times. Pajo was hanging outside smoking afterwards and I talked to him for a bit. Sweetest guy. Caught Britt and Brian briefly too. Such an awesome time all around.

fuckin circle pit at the slint show wtf

it was cool. i dont know their music well at all. it was heavy. don aman with pajo and the other guy facing each other. other guy was shirtless via hot ass stage lights

intense as hell

I filmed the entirety of Don Aman on my phone from pretty close. Shirtless Britt facing me, Pajo with his back to me. Always been my favorite Slint song. Might upload later. It looks gnarly. Bathed in red light.

Eh? Not really an outrageous claim. Also, what is that, one sentence? I appreciated that the article dug deeper into what was going on with Brian. Feel like they just skimmed the surface of that stuff in the doc.

― circa1916, Friday, May 2, 2014 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It only takes one - it leaves a bad taste.

A lot of the time you can tell there is anguish in a singer's voice - not a must to know what exactly is behind that. I got the feeling that the accident did trigger a breakdown but also that he was growing-up. Those pains were there, more felt and present in Brian.

The documentary kinda makes vague reference at the origins of the Nosferatu Man lurching beat:

“One night I had been out. When I came home, Britt was hunched over his guitar and playing Rachmaninoff, a three- or four-second little clip. He’d play it, rewind it, play it, rewind it, and then he’d work on the guitar a little bit. I think he did that for hours and hours.”
-Ben Johnson, brother of Clark Johnson and Northwestern roommate of McMahan and Walford

Maybe when this goes from 6/4 to 5/4?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbbtmskCRUY&feature=player_detailpage#t=529

Tix still avialble btw
http://www.thewicknyc.com/event/540587-slint-brooklyn/

went to see them last night. some observations:

* lots of their fans are really young, like early 20s (these people were generally friendly and nice)
* some of their older fans must not get out much because wow were they super drunk and irritating. one guy wouldn't shut up about weezer and then tried to recommend that i read nick hornby :-/
* britt hid behind the drums most of the time, did not remove shirt
* they had a mystery dude in an accept tshirt on guitar when brian wasn't playing and a guy i recognized from a local band playing bass -- has this been the case elsewhere?
* doors at 11, show started at 11:45, was fully over by 1
* overall, it was alright and i'm glad i went to see for myself but i would posit that they weren't having very much fun at all. this is disappointing, but understandable.
* nosferatu man was my favorite song to hear live
* brian reminds me of brad dourif <3

also - no opening band (maybe this was the venue which is not one of my favorites tbh)

"they weren't having very much fun at all"

saw them in 2006 and it felt the same. it's just their relaxed characters i think.

they were like that in 2004 too, and in 2008, they are just not a v engaging live band once you get past the spectacle of "omg look it's slint playing slint songs on stage"

Agree. I did not feel that their hearts were in it, but Brian showed genuine effort and the bass sub was good.

isn't that kind of ~the aesthetic~ with this pre-95 style of post-rock, though - the idea that just playing the music should be enough, that there's an almost chamber-music vibe of "we are going to play these compositions"? I think when synths and Post-Rock Proper becomes a thing people start throwing a more performative aspect in but I feel like along the Chicago/L'ville axis there was a sort of "Just Play The Songs" dictum

i guess it is, and i remember it being so back then too. i guess i just don't dig this particular approach to music performance. i don't even expect a performance in that it's aimed at the audience. i just hope for a little genuine enthusiasm for playing to be visible, in a head nod or something done with just a hint of relish. as i said, it was mostly britt and pajo who seemed lackadaisical; the sub, brian, and the other guy seemed pretty into it (appropriately understated but present)

also it wasn't some huge deal, just something i noticed because i went there in part with the intention of seeing what the performance itself would be like

it was definitely worth seeing

one guy wouldn't shut up about weezer and then tried to recommend that i read nick hornby :-/
hmm that sounds like a nightmare

at least w/pajo, having seen him perform his solo stuff, he's just kind of always like that

that there's an almost chamber-music vibe of "we are going to play these compositions"?

― Now I Am Become Dracula (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Sunday, 11 May 2014 19:22 (Yesterday) Permalink

I saw them last night and it struck me, esp during "Don, Aman" how chamber music-like both the music and performance was.

I don't think you can really judge how invested in the performance a musician is or isn't based on their onstage body language. I have plenty of friends who play and barely even move onstage but I know they are deeply invested.

That said I was struck by how really strange Slint were (and are), they are truly a singular entity. The show was good. The venue in Mpls was lame. McMahan spoke basically twice, once to say "the last time we were in this town it was 1989" and the second time to name check Man-Sized Action, which always brings a smile to my face.

I saw one of the NYC shows, at the Wick in Bushwick. it was cool, definitely better than the last time around when they were in bigger rooms. unlike what LL described I didn't feel like there were many younger fans there at all but the older fans were cool and the vibe was good.

it also solidified my opinion that Breadcrumb Trail is my favorite Slint song.

some good photos here

http://www.imposemagazine.com/photos/slint-at-the-wick#1

wow, great photos! i'm glad brian got some suspenders. he had to keep hiking up his pants. also spires played with them? did they move to NYC or traveling from Chicago? i have seen them as the opening act for so many different bands, but slint takes the cake. we didn't get an opening band :(

btw if y'all have never heard implodes, i can recommend wholeheartedly -- that's the band i recognized the slint bass player from. they're great.

I didn't watch Spires much. the recordings I had heard by them were like pastoral psych but their set was a super in your face sax and drum blast. I don't know where they live, they opened all three Slint shows in New york though.

shocked by dave pajo's lack of good taste in clothing... though the crass slogan on his shirt is consistent with his brilliant Papa M lyric 'there was something like a wall between us / that stopped your going down on mah peeenus,' a line that my then-girlfriend earnestly described as 'heartbreaking.'

xp they're from Madison, WI I believe.

thoroughly enjoyed spires' set in boston, just good old-fashioned weirdo psych music

they have been totally different every time i've seen them -- i like kathleen baird's traveling bell stuff a lot.
http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Traveling_Bell/

one of them was playing mostly flute and the other was playing mostly sax, they were making a lot of loops with a little stringed lap instrument of some kind and some other stuff i couldn't see.

sort of like a freer take on some canterbury type stuff, it was good

Whoa, every guitar Slint used on those photos has lace sensor pickups (or ones that look exactly like them). Just a nerdy weird side-note, as it is not something you see very often.

yeah i noticed that at the show!

it made me think of zwan lol

god i wanted someone to shout zwan or something so bad

Whoa, was Zwan an all lace-sensor band too? Or just Pajo?

Slint - Washer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yEgcb167k4
this is the only track of theirs that i like from either album.

The recording sessions for Spiderland are reputed to have been difficult for the members of the band and were, according to AllMusic, "intense, traumatic and one more piece of evidence supporting the theory that band members had to be periodically institutionalized during the completion of the album." Rumors circulated that at least one member of Slint had been checked into a psychiatric hospital. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiderland#Context

good post

lol

excerpts from
Melody Maker (Breeders cover: Kim, Tanya, Jo)
May 26, 1990

This January the three women teamed up with homegrown Kentucky drummer Shannon Doughton (Brit) who travelled to Edinburgh to record the album "Pod". It took just 21 days to rehearse and record 14 tracks, at a rate unheard of in these days of World Party or Tears For Fears album schedules.

The band attracted their fare share of attention from the normally reserved Scottish capital. The first night they went to the local pub there were three or four people in what Tanya describes as "someone's tiny living room". On the second night, the place was packed with 75 men, most offering to buy drinks.

"When we ordered pints of lager or committed the ultimate sexual sin by ordering Guinness, they cooled off," Jo explains. At the end of their first week, the studio roof caved in, soaking half the equipment and ruining a new carpet. The following evening, their hillbilly drummer Brit, who'd never been out of Kentucky before, found the Edinburgh nightlife all too dazzling and spent his first big night out dancing with "some really hot babe" who turned out to be a local transvestite. He's now delivering pizzas for Domino's back in Kentucky.

It was drummer Brit who experienced first hand Jo's new found freedom of expression. Kim describes how he was riding in a cab, out of his head, begging Kim to hit him.

"He kept saying, 'Kim, Kim punch me, punch me'. I wouldn't do it. Then, all of a sudden, Josephine did. She took an almighty swing at him. I've never been that close to someone being punched and it was like this dull thud. I was amazed she did it. So was Brit, but he enjoyed it."

I ask Kim to tell me the story behind her stories and she obliges, eventually. One song, "Opened", was based on their drummer's recurring dream of flying with his cousin.

"I'm not sure how much of this you can print," Kim says, "but he's this 19 year old teenager who picks his nose and burps and stuff like that. Anyway he was telling me this dream and using words like boobies and titties and using the same language that old men do in porno films. I thought it was so weird. The song is his dream, verbatim."

The Breeders – Opened (1990)

Walking on his highways
We leave the land
And float inside the dark, black water
Robin flies again

She flew low over the highways
And I saw the wind
Blowing back her barbie doll hair
Robin flies again

And in a kitchen in Kentucky
She thinks she's Peter Pan
And in the bottom of a concrete basement
Robin flies again

I just can't believe that guy. The same person that sung Don, Aman.

Also, a +1 for Don, Aman being a standout on that album. It's completely in the same league as Washer and Good Morning Captain.
The last part of the song have always sprout images of a car crash were Don has killed his friend, but I can't really explain why. Still feels so powerful.

"opened" is pretty neat.
"don, a man" is so corny it reminds me of the poem they read at the funeral in "heathers" or something

that's a completely off the mark opinion, but OK. maybe the most vivid storytelling and imagery on the album. "with eyes like the heads of nails" forever a line that chills me.

"Half of Spiderland was already written by the time Frigid Stars came out. There are bootlegs of Slint playing three or four different Spiderland songs circa 1989.

If a song by another band birthed Spiderland, this would be my guess:

http://youtu.be/L_MhC4mQaGc";

On this, I'm currently listening to Umber by Bitch Magnet and a couple of tracks (Douglas Leader and Americruiser, specifically) sound like they could be considered links between that Minutemen song and Spiderland. It came out in '89 and David Grubbs is on it so it's a decent possibility that they were listening to it at the time (and maybe even that they had heard live/pre-release versions earlier).

David Galt is on Umber, not David Grubbs.

"For the follow-up, 1989's full-length Umber, they added second guitarist David Galt (a later CD issue appended Star Booty as well). Galt's place was taken by David Grubbs later in 1989, and Grubbs toured with the group in between commitments with Bastro." - Allmusic

Grubbs is on the Valmead ep.

Ah, I just went with the list on discogs. Thanks!

What is the most surprising thing about Slint and the enduring popularity of Spiderland?

TB: Probably that new people keep getting into it, instead of just the people who are around our age. At the time I was just happy that we pulled it off and that Touch And Go were releasing it. I never would have imagined it would have turned into such an underground classic. I think it has something to do with having four really hot guys on the cover of the record.

DP: Pretty girls like Slint too.

http://thequietus.com/articles/15930-slint-interview

so surprising

https://gallery.mailchimp.com/27422a6572f095b65ed12eea5/images/68ad44b6-fc42-4ffd-9ce1-2a30e1c7fe95.jpg

1/12/15

To all the customers, friends, and family of Wild and Woolly Video:

Due to the current state of the video industry, and the corresponding financial outlook for Wild and Woolly, as well as my desire to pursue a different career, I’ve decided to make March 23rd (our 18th anniversary) our last day in business. We will start selling off our amazing collection of movies on January 26th. We will keep renting movies through March 15th, but as of today we will no longer be signing up new rental customers. We will honor all gift cards through March 23rd.

I plan on renting out the building for at least a year, or possibly selling it to the right buyer, so if anyone has any serious interest, please contact me.

In some ways this was an easy decision to make, as our business has been declining for several years, and while still profitable, it is no longer sustainable in a format that makes sense for the store or for me.

I am also just ready for something different. I’ve been taking Pilates classes for a couple of years due to a shoulder injury, and they’ve really helped my shoulder as well as my overall health. But I’ve also gotten deeper into studying this method of exercise, and learning about Joseph Pilates, the man who invented it.

So once the store closes, I’m planning to spend at least a year studying to become a certified Pilates teacher, and look forward to helping other people who’ve been injured or just want to lead healthier lives.

But, thinking about all of the great customers and employees- now that part made this a hard decision.

But in the end, I’ve chosen what I think is best for me and my family.

So my family and I thank you for all of your years of love and support and for keeping us around a lot longer than I could have ever imagined. Our customers are incredible and it’s amazing how many people are no longer just customers, but are truly our friends.

Thanks especially to all of the people who work at the store-we would have closed the doors a long time ago if it’s wasn’t for the awesome people who work at Wild and Woolly.

Sincerely,

Todd Brashear/Owner

man an indie video store making it to 2015 is a pretty good run

just watched this movie last week, oddly fascinating

I feel ill just posting this. If anyone knows where David Pajo lives, please go check on him. He posted this about 40 minutes ago: http://www.pinkhollers.blogspot.com/2015/02/i-surrender-to-my-broken-heart.html?m=1

what the fuck!!!

OMG... this is really terrible

posting in case it disappears:

[controversial mod edit]

christ, he's got a pic of a noose around his neck. i am kind of freaking out here

I'm gutted. Really hoping someone who knows him well can get to him.

ok, a FOAF has supposedly gotten in touch with his brother, who says he's alive. i have no other information right now

that is some srsly fucking harrowing reading, man

whatever's up, hoping he comes through it

jesus that's tough reading.

He is in police custody, per twitter.

Posting that letter may have been the smartest move of his life.

:-O

get well soon

That is one of the most heartbreaking, fucked-up things I've ever read. I really hope he pulls through and finds a better headspace.

why would anybody repost that?

or at least, can someone remove it now we know people are with him?

yeah that's a good idea

utterly harrowing read & experience. hoping hard that he gets all the help and support he needs.

How awful.

i posted to make sure that if it had details that could help someone get to him that it would be there. there was location information in there.

Posted just now on Instagram

http://instagram.com/p/zDD-AIE_lr/

oof, hope he gets through this

Me too. The pic is encouraging. So intense to see his face after reading that though.

Poor guy. Those bandages are scary.

nothing really constructive you can say about this whole thing but jesus fucking christ dave :(

how sad

Never saw this before:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kb46UMdmGqY

https://www.loumag.com/articledisplay.aspx?id=59820590

history of Louisville punk

After Skull of Glee, Steve Rigot played in In the Vines, Common Law Cabin and Women Who Love Candy, among other bands. He is an artist (painter) and lives in Southern Indiana.

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/music/2010/04/26/it-was-a-suicide-mission-from-the-very-start-a-chat-with-the-endtables/

http://louisvillemusic.org/blog/2015/03/20/steve-chili-rigot-dies/

haha
http://i.imgur.com/Bl5i66N.png

http://imgur.com/gallery/X83MF

http://imgur.com/gallery/4Tvfr

I bet that last band photo is their first band, Languid and Flaccid. Not Todd Brashear on bass there - I think it's Ned Oldham but not positive.

yeah, last photo is Ned on the right. but the fifth does not depict Ned; the fourth does, as well as Craig Brown and Chris Hawpe, Ned's tightest buds at the time.

apart from the last photo, its all from a J. Graham Brown School yearbook, probably '81-'84.

Slint have finally sold out. pic.twitter.com/VRvIGmm76U

— Loud And Quiet (@LoudAndQuietMag) May 3, 2017

o m g

https://i.imgur.com/7ZWA34Y.jpg

Ahead of their time in so many ways

https://wwpilates.com/

thank you, that really hits the middle of a venn diagram of stuff my wife likes.

aw that's cool good for him

would exercise with todd

that's pretty cool

Love that he kept “wild and woolly”

2 lengthy interviews with/by Britt from a few months ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNs1GUWZefw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZKAN03mnhg

I listened to that in march… and… I was present for the birth of Slint, attending their second, third and fourth shows, and then one in lville a year before the release of Spiderland… I cannot properly express my pride that guys that were only a few years older than me could possibly create music that unique, and he in particular is unlike any drummer to have ever walked the earth… I was in lville for most of the past week, and the awe with which they are regarded there is palpable… and…

I gotta say that interview is exceptional for showing how unusually inarticulate he is about what he has done (and probably everything else, as each of the times I have interacted with him he has been like that) relative to the hundreds of musicians i have interviewed. He is all show, and can't figure out how to tell or is incapable of telling.

I like Spiderland but have literally not listened to it in years. And then today in the car my 16-year-old son plugs in his phone and puts on "Good Morning, Captain." He likes to play me stuff he's found, and to see if I know it. He is now apparently a big Slint fan. I think he got into it via his Microphones-inspired excavation of '90s indie. Anyway, 16-year-olds still getting excited over it nearly 30 years on says something for it.

That is so cool!

tipsy: did you recommend the documentary "Breadcrumb Trail" for your son?

No, and I haven't seen it either. Maybe we can watch it together.

I feel like seeing how young they were (and already most members were in their 3rd(+?) band) might be very motivating to someone of a similar age.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVdU_bLD2-M

Or you could read the book :)

There is an IG story on the Slint account that shows a screenshot of David, Todd, Britt, Brian on a Zoom call with Corey Rusk.

*thinking.emoji*

^^^They were reminiscing while eating Taco Bell mexican pizzas which are being removed from the TB menu, haha.

Spiderland turns 30 on Saturday 3/27/21. Long interview-piece that doesn't shed a tremendous amount of new light for people with this thread bookmarked at Rolling Stone if you're so inclined/bored:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/slint-spiderland-interview-1144942/

man, to me, a louisvillian who was witness to birth of this band but was way too intimidated by those guys to dare to speak to them at the time, this article is off the charts informative relative to, say, the grantland piece seven years ago. I'm super jealous of Shteamer, not just re: the amount of access and consisdration those guys granted him, but the fact that he seems to be able to do these wonky-ass deep dives for rolling goddamn Stone, an outlet not known to indulge in massive retrospectives on artists unknown or irrelevant to Jann Wenner or Joe Levy, for that matter. God bless Jason Fine!

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/4e/ca/f6/4ecaf654d7f7f4adfd6c3e4acc4468c2.jpg

I watched Breadcrumb Trail last night. It's on YouTube.

I think this must be the only instance on the parents having a decisive effect on the music, in allowing those guys to rehearse what would become Spiderland in their basement.

Also not only are they bored of rock but they seem bored of that kind of post-hardcore scene by the time they made Spiderland. I realise how the vocals, which is the thing that immediately elevates this record, are as underehearsed as the music is so overehearsed -- akin to the making of Trout Mask Replica, that stuff sounds so together.

Remarkable how there's just no setup, no manager, no nothing. It's just these kids, Brian's parents, the odd person from Touch & Go, Steve Albini, and Will Oldham (the one person missing from the doc). But everybody is hands off.

And they are so young. You need to repeat that over and over again. Simultaneously the reason they sorta hadn't left home -- which allowed for acres of rehearsal and development of the music -- and the quality of the lyrics/singing goes into that. Explains the break-up too. Too young to make that kind of music. Brian felt the pressure with no setup to take it off.

I just found Brian's parents fascinating. Britt is just insane.

I was going to say it's an odd documentary but it's actually pretty generic - it's the content that's odd. Like you say, Britt is such an unusual character, profoundly introverted and seemingly unaware of his obvious talent. I had no idea that was him on the first Breeders album, for instance. I'd normally roll my eyes at yet another James Murphy talking head but he's instructive in that he can hardly articulate what it is about Britt that is so compelling and otherworldly.

Brian too, seems completely at odds with what he produces. The scene where his accident is discussed passes like a dream.

Quite a few that have Britt stories. Albini talking about the time Britt was house-sitting. Drew Daniel when they stayed over at his then place. Then the guy who talked about his erotic cakes.

Wish Kim Deal was in it too.

And yeah I just forgot about the accident. Kinda weird nobody had died.

It's hard to describe how exciting it was when they started playing shows in 86/87: the Louisville scene was in full flower, but it was hardcore hardcore, hardcore… the Misfits 100% ran that town, and when I heard that two guys from Maurice, one from Sq

It's hard to describe how exciting it was when they started playing shows in 86/87: the Louisville scene was in full flower, but it was hardcore hardcore, hardcore… the Misfits 100% ran that town, and when I heard that two guys from Maurice, one from Squirrel bait and one from Dot 39 (not well known anymore) of course you'd think it was gonna be the most merciless metal-punk to have ever existed… and then they play the Tweez shit at shows and the hardcore kids, despite individual claims to the contrary in decades later, were either bored or bewildered… myself and like five other kids, including a former ILX leading light, on the other hand were absolutely dumbstruck, in awe of what was unfolding (yeah, yeah I'm tooting my own horn here)…

and so then the Tweez shit in particular earns the Trout mask comparison…it is very very hard, maybe impossible to discern what stylistic templates they may have used… the only thing is that Pajo was well known as a technically accomplished player a shredder in fact… and it was clear to me that Walford was unlike any drummer to have ever walked the earth… by dint of the truly extraordinary preternatural, native ability of those two guys, they made music that has almost nothing to do with any previous shit ever… I would only say that Tweez is Pajo's, Spiderland is McMahon's, but its all Walford's. Spiderland more or less came to me like everyone else, although I they did a show in lville in 1990 where they played that material beofre the record was released (or possibly recorded).

said this before, but I was pants-shittingly intimidated by those guys, and when I encountered Walford in the 90s, each time among mutual friends he did not exactly have the interest or ability to set people at ease.

"and so then the Tweez shit in particular earns the Trout mask comparison…it is very very hard, maybe impossible to discern what stylistic templates they may have used"

Only say that bcz in both cases the band spent what seems like an enormous amount of time rehearsing before they got into the studio to record.

Trout Mask was a live album, only engineered (despite the produced by Frank Zappa). Similarly Spiderland was only engineered and as Paulson talked about there wasn't a lot of he needed to do.

t's hard to describe how exciting it was when they started playing shows in 86/87: the Louisville scene was in full flower, but it was hardcore hardcore, hardcore… the Misfits 100% ran that town, and when I heard that two guys from Maurice, one from Squirrel bait and one from Dot 39 (not well known anymore) of course you'd think it was gonna be the most merciless metal-punk to have ever existed… and then they play the Tweez shit at shows and the hardcore kids, despite individual claims to the contrary in decades later, were either bored or bewildered… myself and like five other kids, including a former ILX leading light, on the other hand were absolutely dumbstruck, in awe of what was unfolding (yeah, yeah I'm tooting my own horn here)…

When I wrote my 33 1/3 book about Spiderland, I really loved hearing Sean Garrison (aka Rat)'s perspective on those early days. Veronica I'm sure you already know this, but for everyone else on the board if the name's not recognizable - he was the singer for Maurice which was very much a metal band. He described to me this kind of slow-motion bewilderment/awe at what Pajo and Walford were doing. The last song Maurice wrote was a Slint song (I can't remember without looking it up but I think it was "Pat"), and Rat basically gave up - he couldn't figure out how to sing over the music they were making.

and so then the Tweez shit in particular earns the Trout mask comparison…it is very very hard, maybe impossible to discern what stylistic templates they may have used… the only thing is that Pajo was well known as a technically accomplished player a shredder in fact… and it was clear to me that Walford was unlike any drummer to have ever walked the earth… by dint of the truly extraordinary preternatural, native ability of those two guys, they made music that has almost nothing to do with any previous shit ever… I would only say that Tweez is Pajo's, Spiderland is McMahon's, but its all Walford's. Spiderland more or less came to me like everyone else, although I they did a show in lville in 1990 where they played that material beofre the record was released (or possibly recorded).

Agree, Tweez is Pajo/Walford, Spiderland is McMahon/Walford. Also, Tweez is high school and Spiderland is college--which feels very obvious in the lyrics if not the music itself. McMahon and Walford wrote a good chunk of the album while living in dorms at Northwestern, away from Pajo and Brashear. (The other two had influence on the songwriting too but not to the same degree.)

Thanks for your 33 1/3 book, I devoured that when I was 17. And great write up too Veronica

Thanks HP, I appreciate that.

awesome posts veronica and pgwp

So should I listen to this band for the first time

um yes

No save it till your in you’re 80’s, consuming all music post1960’s in existence beforehand so that you can properly appreciate britt’s drumming on good morning captain (all the talk of the documentary pales in comparison to the shots of a 16yo looking Britt playing the track in a crusty basement)

So very very glad David Pajo is still around and working after his sadly public suicide attempt. I couldn’t believe that Slint was where he started knowing him from Tortoise and Papa M first. What a career, spiderland to millions now living to Royal trux to zwan, while playing live with interpol, the yeah yeah yeahs and now hang of four. Is there any career in rock music that mirrors the broad + influential + not super well known (from my impression) he has?

Jim O'Rourke maybe? Pajo's Zwan bandmate Matt Sweeney is also kinda a rough analogue

This thread has been a great read, thanks all. And I have to read your 33 1/3 book, pgwp.

Thanks so much for the posts, yes. Veronica was so lucky to see them at that time. And for the impression to linger after all these years. We all hope to catch art at the highest levels while it's on the make and people aren't quite sure. People usually get to it when you are already told it's good by some.

"So very very glad David Pajo is still around and working after his sadly public suicide attempt."

Very sad about it when I saw this on his wiki yesterday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7wh270Oc9c

yeah so I finally did it, what do you guys think?

https://i.imgur.com/Yh3rMqR.jpg

shouldn't have gone with comic sans

33 years old! Ashamed to say I've never heard the remaster... until today, I will report back what new things I hear.

My book came out just ahead of its 20th anniversary. Wow.

I couldn't tell you when I bought it or why, I don't recall really ever listening to it, it just seemed like it was always there, I was never as deeply obsessed with it as some people I knew were, like I can never remember what the names of the songs are, I was kind of bored with it by the early aughts when it was touch point for like everything, then the reunion...

But there are times, like this morning when I listen to it and it's like meeting with an younger version of myself, I know everything about it and am instantly transported to my parent's basement or my first apartment or this shitty car I had, the clothes, the smells, the sensations, the details are all right there encoded in the music.

What a weird ass record.

Good post. Similar for me. Those intro guitar harmonics take me right back to the bedroom I first heard it. I can remember my state of confusion first hearing the abrasive guitar in Nosferatu Man. Really an album that captures people, holds them where they are. A drumming student of mine, completely obsessed with hip-hop and funk, couldn't get him to care about any other music no matter how hard I tried, became obsessed with this album of all albums (I mean the drumming is pretty incredible), and I could see it hit his 16yo brain the same way it hit my brain at 16yo. Sorta one of those undeniable works that transcends taste and preference if it is given a listening ear.

Also everyone should read pgwp's book. It is the best.

Aw thanks HP!

Some news: https://store.touchandgorecords.com/products/slint-tweez-35th-anniversary-edition-white-2xlp

I've never gotten into Tweez because of how it sounds. I'm hoping this alternative mix helps!