Joe Orr Road Rod wrote:
I bought Slint's
Spiderland when it first came out, probably because of Albini's review in
Melody Maker. I tried listening to it, tried to give it a chance, but I could not get into it. I kind of just wrote it off as being "not my thing" and tossed it into a box where it sat for 30 years.
Over that 30 years the record became legendary and influenced many bands, most of whom I hate. Hello, Tortoise. But after reading about the 30th anniversary remaster and reissue I gave the album one more chance. I was at a much different place in my life than I was in 1991 and I understood the record in a way I hadn't back then. The emotion is just intense especially on "Washer" and "Good Morning, Captain."
I read the band members discussing the recording of the album, particularly Brian McMahan's vocal on "Good Morning, Captain" and his subsequent emotional breakdown and hospitalization. In the context of McMahan's strained relationship with his family at the time of the recording, the allegory of the shipwrecked captain is poignant to the point of being overwhelming.
In the last verse of the song McMahan seems to drop all the pretense of allegory and speak directly to his parents and his brother. "I miss you. I MISS YOU!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuqEpjc ... ZA&index=7That's notable in that Neil Young does the same thing in the final verse of "Cortez the Killer", a song that Slint famously covered and which lays out a template for the entire
Spiderland album.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQlTesaKJr4Anyway, rediscovering that record led me to seek out some of the stuff that was influenced by it. As I said above, I hate most of it and the very idea of "post rock." But I did find this track. I wouldn't even call it a song. I guess a "piece of music" is how I would describe it. I don't think I've cried more than five times since I was ten years old but as I listened to this I was overcome by emotion to the point that I started weeping:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Shvo9t2qznwTop shelf music criticism. JORR writing about music is always worth reading.
I wouldn't have expected JORR to be the one to drop a GY!BE link on dis here forum. Saw Godspeed with Black Dice once at Abbey. They brought their own sound system. As did Super Furry Animals at the same venue. There was another band before Black Dice, who middled before GY!BE. By the time Godspeed took the stage, the only people left in the audience were the ones with the best drugs.
Never saw Slint, not even on a reunion tour. I did see
The For Carnation a time or two. First time I saw the For Carnation was in the basement of St Andrew's Hall in Detroit. I was there to see Roni Size upstairs but you could pay extra and drift between shows, '3 floors of fun' they called it. and yeah still mining the vein of Cortez. Recall the sound guy at the St Andrews basement show (aka The Shelter) going berserk trying mix TFC's low-fi sound while the EDM show upstairs protruded into the space.
Never much cared for Tortoise either. I enjoy their bassists's other project,
Eleventh Dream Day; who were sorta Slintish in their sound.
Also, one of the members of Tortoise got mad at me at the Rainbo one night and started poking me in the chest like a freaking girl. Called me a bully and said someone should kick my ass, but he was not interested in being that guy it turned out.