Sleater-Kinney - The Center Won't Hold - August 16th

Awesome show last night. They played "Step Aside"!

Scorching in Austin tonight. Carrie is in full Rock Star Mode. It was Corin's birthday. Angie Boylan is a sure-footed & fast drummer. A bunch of the older numbers were practically thrash--even "Good Things" was sprightly! Checking out setlist.fm, I see they doing fairly locked-down setlists aside from the encores. And I do believe they played everything from The Center Won't Hold, plus the new vinyl & digital single "Animal". 29 songs total.

Great interview with Janet about the break up and her career

https://www.thetrapset.net/230-janet-weiss-quasi-sleater-kinney-wild-flag-elliott-smith-etc/

That was quite moving. Janet seems like an awesome person.

Yeah, the whole thing--her career in all her bands, the breakup of SK, the way she approaches her work. All so endearing.

And stunning how Carrie and Corin changed Janet's role.

The conversation that resulted in the blunt "yes you're just the drummer; not creative equal here" must have been a heated argument. I just can't imagine it being so harshly put via honesty alone. I can only imagine the context being used as a convenient way to end a frustrating argument quickly.

this podcast didn't make me want to see SK ever again

Janet said "they made this album sort of without me," while Carrie said, "she’s raved about this album to us and to Annie." Curious what accounts for the wild divergence.

Carrie also said, "We asked her to stay"...so..."You're just the drummer, but please stay with us in your diminished role!"

I remember the only time I saw them, in 2003 or so, one of the openers was Smoosh, a keyboard and drums duo of adolescent sisters. When SK went on they told some story about backstage chatter with Smoosh in which the drummer expressed outrage that drummers tend to not get songwriting credits, pointing out that her sister didn’t write her drum parts.

I love Smoosh!

Oh I remember them, apparently they are 'Chaos Chaos' now?

Yeah, I really need to check them out as CC -- She Like Electric is one of my favorite albums of the '00s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34XX_fg-R_4

i didn't really care much for either of the last two albums but this one's quite nice

It's really catchy!

not bad, but the warm posi vibes of this song/video and the album title can't help but weird me out, knowing how the split went down... it ain't fair probably but :/

I just want more Corin vocals.

xp yeah i totally get that. i'm still pretty baffled by the split and no doubt janet's presence will be missed here

xxp: yeah, I didn't even give Center Won't Hold more than one or two listens, primarily because of that.

it's just not the same band
like it's fine I guess but

janet was totally more of a third guitarist than a drummer

i loved the center won't hold though

This is a good song!

chorus is v wild flag to me which... not my fave personally but i will check out this record regardless

I preferred Center's experiments to the holding pattern of NCTL, no matter how good the latter was.

"the dog/the body" is one of my favorite s-k tracks of *all time*

yep

chorus is v wild flag to me which... not my fave personally but i will check out this record regardless

This is a good call, thought the same thing.

I know it's not fair of me, especially considering Janet wasn't even a founding member, but I feel like I'd be more charitable if this was released under a different project name. It's fine, it just doesn't feel like Sleater-Kinney to me. And, yes, I understand this is more my hang-up, but it's true.

Just not feeling Carrie-led songs from the last album or this, even more than missing Janet (I didn't care for Wild Flag either).

It's...fine. It just sounds kinda average. No Weiss, no dice.

I liked the last 2 records but NCTL is more of a full band record, where Center feels more of a Carrie/St Vincent thing with a little Corin in there. It doesn’t feel like SK to me unless there is a lot of Corin/Carrie interplay. Interesting to see how the (full) departure of Janet changes things.

Serious question, is this the most people have ever cared about a drummer leaving a band/being fired/replaced?

add "dying" and you get Bonham and Moon

this song is ok. Center was meh. I might go to this tour though, I haven't seen Wilco since YHF and I heard enough good things about the Janet-less SK tour that I regretted not going.

the nature of the departure was extra jarring because it seemed to fly in the face of their stated politics to some extent xps

it sounded like it was basically 'creative differences' when it came down to it, but played out in about the worst possible way

this song is ok. Center was meh. I might go to this tour though, I haven't seen Wilco since YHF and I heard enough good things about the Janet-less SK tour that I regretted not going.

― akm, Tuesday, May 11, 2021 9:37 AM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

wilco has quietly turned into one of the great live bands over the past decade or so

A pleasant surprise, in that I was listening to TCWH the other week, thinking then it felt like a final chapter.

But then came the announcement email this morning, and I like this and am interested in hearing more.

Is Angie Boylan still drumming with them and just getting the Daryl Jones treatment?

it's Eric Carr I think

I'm listening to TCWH now and it's a total jam, love it.

XP Anton Figg!

I know it's not fair of me, especially considering Janet wasn't even a founding member

No, but she shaped and defined their sound and approach as much as (or arguably more than) Carrie and Corin. I mean, Neil Peart wasn't a founding member of Rush.

I'll admit, I'm mystified by the reaction in the last two years. They're not the first band to lose a crucial member, nor the first to get credible accusations of bad faith.

I think it's fair to say, setting aside whether it's been a successful transition or not, there was a fundamental change in the sound of the band between NCTL and TCWH, so I'm not terribly surprised to see the reaction. S-K was a band that people took very dearly to heart, so it doesn't seem that weird to see people expressing a strong opinion on the shift.

Well, sure. I love them too. But, you know, shit happens. I don't mind anyone thinking TCWH sucks.

I don't think it sucks, it's just not what I was looking for in a S-K album and I've not returned to it nearly as much as I have the rest of their catalog.

I think the wild reactions also come down to the remnants of the "sell out" bullshit surrounding any tangentially "punk" band from the '90s.

I'll admit, I'm mystified by the reaction in the last two years. They're not the first band to lose a crucial member, nor the first to get credible accusations of bad faith.

^^In general it's wise to avoid FB comments, but I got curious and it seems like every other post is "Bring Back Janet" with the occasional side dish of "St. Vincent Ruined S-K", while another guy (always a guy, speaking of the new single) saying that Janet was fired so they could make "Taylor Swift Music".

it was a relatively ugly split especially with janet's side of the story not making carrie & corin seem very sympathetic at all, so i can understand why people were particularly upset, especially with janet being so beloved & crucial to the band

if they'd just amicably split because corin & carrie wanted to go in one direction & janet wanted to go in another, or at least smoothed over the interpersonal conflicts much more in their public statements, then people wouldn't have had quite as strong of a reaction (though i'm sure everyone would still be sad to see janet go)

of course the album that prompted the split being a change in direction that wasn't that well received by the fanbase didn't help at all either

this isn't bad, and who knows what the real story is, it's just for me personally, rock bands are basically about the dynamics of how certain people play together, that musical chemistry otherwise honestly why are you even listening to rock music?

and without janet, it's just a different dynamic. i'm sure that corin and carrie will write some good catchy tunes but it's not particularly interesting to me i'd rather just listen to something else

also with the selling out bullshit, honestly, I get why they would do this. This doesn't really feel like Sleater-Kinney to be but so what, they built the band and frankly they could both right the identical songs, identical productions, everything and if it said "Carrie Brownstein" or "Corin Tucker Band" on the cover no one would care. their solo tours would probably draw 1/3 of the crowds at best.

so why not? it doesn't diminish the original run of s/t through the woods