Sleater-Kinney breaks up

Still Gear OTM, and I hope they'll come back in like 5 years or something. "Indefinite hiatus" is much better than an angry breakup. I do await the inevitable rarities compilation with baited breath though.

checking to see if there are any new england dates on this last tour. what a bummer! i love pretty much everything they've ever done.

And I definitely thought The Woods was a step in a different direction for them; not just with the music - I loved that needles-all-the-way-in-the-red production - but with the lyrics, too (at least Corin's).

I'm bummed, anyway.

i wonder what they'll do on their own now? i heard rumors of janet weiss doing some weird tribal drumming type stuff lately, which would be better than recent quasi i'm sure. i'd love to hear a carrie brownstein solo joint, too.

Judging by the crowd at Lolla, I think their set will be met with a collective shrug by most in attendance. I don't think the hardcore S-K fans are going to be shelling out for the hefty tickets and dealing with all the other b.s. just for a 35-40 minute set. I'd love to be proven wrong and see a huge, appreciative crowd there to support them - but I don't see it reaching any level of "insanity".

I would definitely want to hear a Carrie solo album--I'm thinking she should do a sort of '70's folk-pop singer-songwriter thing, with Janet on the drums (and guitar solos).

They were awesome live.

that's a pretty ace career

I agree that the Woods must have been a really hard record to make. I think they seemed to be both frustrated and enervated about the political state of the U.S., nevermind Bush's winning the election. When I saw them live during The Woods tour, I personally felt a bit of this desperation in their playing and singing, and it made songs like "Steep Air" sound tragic and desolate.

I knew I shoulda seen them when they came to town. This happened to me with the Delgados, too!

Luckily I had the good fortune to at least see Mclusky before they split.

Adios, S-K! What a fucking great band.

(Exception: Radiohead, who I didn't feel like seeing last week and oddly don't regret skipping.)

I'll really miss these guys, though, esp. since they came closest to what Fugazi was up to while Fugazi was on their own indefinite hiatus. But with bigger hooks and delivered with smiles!

I wonder if maybe they were one of those bands that does very very well in an indie/dive bar/house show context, up to the point of very large bars, but starts to feel sort of disconnected when you get up to arena stages. I mean, they've been doing Pearl Jam tours for a few years now but I wonder if it started to feel weird. They certainly were pretty far apart on that Atlanta stage last summer - while I thought the energy level was higher than ever, I could imagine that it would be weird for them. And meanwhile I'm not really clear on what Sub Pop did for them; I wonder how much shooting those videos cost them, etc. And of course Corin's kid....etc., etc., etc....

I have to admit that I'm sort of disinterested in solo work from them for some reason - I've never checked out Quasi, Cadallaca was okay if you're into that kind of thing, the Spells disappointingly dull. The whole was greater than the sum of its parts.

But what a whole! Gear says it pretty well with just a straight list of albums. They could have retired at Dig Me Out and it would still be showing up on "best albums of the 90s/indie/post-riot-grrl/whatever" lists forever. The Woods is bloody great all the way through; One Beat and All Hands take more chances and explorations than they get credit for (it's interesting how everyone forgot the production flourishes on One Beat when the line on The Woods became "they've finally ditched that lame, shitty sound they've been using for the last four albums!!!!")... and The Hot Rock is simultaneously the one I call my favorite and the one I put on the least, maybe because I burned out on its intricate hookiness without really realizing it.

With the exception of the debut they never put out an album without at least one stone cold classic on it. They worked hard, they riffed, they kicked up a storm, and they could conjure catchiness out of a few spare notes and some raw guts. There were always some really "ehh" lyrics somewhere on the record but then they would drop a line that totally, totally nails it and leaves you wide-eyed and inspired. They were always pushing themselves, and there are few bands I know of, from any age or scene, more fearless in tackling difficult emotions, or more equipped in talent and technique to convey those emotions and that difficulty. One of two, maybe three bands of their generation by whom I own more than one album, of whom I consider myself an actual fan, who really meant something to me. RIP.

I'm pissed I never saw them live, which is the same way I feel about Fugazi. I'm moving the general NW area pretty soon, and I hope that they do some sort of final hometown blowout in Portland or Olympia because I'll definitely go.

I missed them when they swung by in May. Surely there must be some way to make enough noise to get an extended farewell tour going??

"A Real Man" = classic. Better recognize!

Sterling's OTM. All Hands On The Bad One was the last S-K album I seriously listened to, and I can't remember a single song title from it, let alone hum a few bars... I find late period S-K full of sound and fury yet signifying naught, but the one-two of Dig Me Out / The Hot Rock is enough to put them in the record books.

One of their last shows is at The 9:30 Club, I imagine that show will be intense. They should've booked 3 nights at CBGBs in NYC.

oh yeah and of course they shouldn't have broken up after THR!! sheesh.

I would pay $70 to see their last show at a festival. I'm paying $130x2 just to see Gnarls Barkley at a festival which is crazier I'm sure.

Break up at "Dig Me Out" so they can be relegated to a riot-grrl footnote? No thanks.

I sorta agree w/ Alfred. The Hot Rock is sleek but there's some undercurrent of dread throughout - listening to it is like knowing your partner's keeping a secret from you. That tension is what makes the album their most interesting.

Critcally it was well-received, but my perception is that the general audience's reaction was "meh".

Break up at "Dig Me Out" so they can be relegated to a riot-grrl footnote? No thanks.

Well, that's one way of looking about it.

Break up at "Dig Me Out" so they can be relegated to a riot-grrl footnote? No thanks.

Well, that's one way of looking about it.

To expand on this point... A band which soldiers on past its expiration date increases the chances it will be remembered; growing audience base, more press, bigger catalog. On the other hand, by increasing the suck-to-sweet ratio of their catalog a band can make it more difficult for future generations to find a proper entry point for appreciation. Frankly, I don't think their post-Hot Rock material will age well (tho I'm probably a minority opinion on that one).

I am puzzled by the love for One Beat here. It's the only record of theirs I find too boring to listen to, although I like "Oxygen" and "Light Rail Coyote" well enough. And to those who say they can't remember a single song on All Hands, I say: You're no rock-and-roll fun.

Most days my favorite is Dig Me Out, but sometimes it's Hot Rock, or even The Woods or Doctor ("I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone" still probably being their single best song). And they have always, always brought it live. A band I love.

Or better still, Palmolive leaving both the Slits and the Raincoats.

Pixies?

If post-Janet S-K is as bad as post-Kim Pixies that's gonna be rough.

XP That's a good one! And kind of close to the S-K scenario of the band shrugging off the loss and continuing on.

yah, Pixies is great example. “just carrying on” without Kim doesn’t seem any big deal at all given how many versions on the Breeders there have been, too

friend of mine knows Jones and it sounds like he's doing OK

very glad (& not surprised) to hear it!

I mean, Bobby Keys was never a full member, despite being off and

sure, after the original sin of firing-but-keeping-and-hiding-in-the-wings Ian Stewart, The Stones can hardly sink lower. but afaik Jones has been as full-time a player as any band member since he first joined, not off and on

pixies without kim is a huge deal though

NO KIM NO DEAL

I mean, I personally have exactly no interest in anything after the two with-Kim reunion tracks, but it’s good that Joey and Lovering have satisfying day jobs, ihibidtae

(and I saw the with-Kim reformed Pixies twice & regretted it to varying degrees: seems like Paz has a good gig and Shattuck woulda been fun if the others hadn’t been huge weirdos)

Yeah, I saw the with-Kim reformed Pixies a couple of times and regretted it to such an extent that I've been dubious of just about every reunion since (despite a run of such awesome unlikely reunions I've enjoyed as Wire, Television, Soft Boys, Mission of Burma, dBs, Midnight Oil, Go-Betweens, Gang of Four, replaced Replacements ... ). I also saw the Pixies with that guy as Kim and the other Kim as Kim - incidentally, at festivals - and that's the end of that (sorry, Paz!).

The Eagles have been pretty ruthless about replacing people, but you could do worse than Vince Gill (and no one expects better of the Eagles). Springsteen has been solid with hiring replacements and integrating them into such an iconic band, it seems, but of course, neither of the guys he replaced left on bad terms or was fired. That's key, and why the S-K mess leaves a particularly bad taste.

i mean comparing the general ethos of SK to the Eagles is just absurd

...well yeah

what do Don 'n' Ghost of Glenn think of S-K?

Is there a female precedent?

The Pretenders spring to mind. Though TBF one member was fired, another died, and then the fired member died.

i mean comparing the general ethos of SK to the Eagles is just absurd

Generally, I would have said so, too, until that Janet interview. Like, “"The roles changed within the band, and they told me the roles changed,” Weiss said of her former band mates Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker. “I said, ‘Am I just the drummer now?’ They said yes. And I said, ‘Can you tell me if I am still a creative equal in the band?’ And they said no. So, I left.” That is totally corporate and asshole and Eagles to not fire her and just tell her she's not an equal and she's welcome to stay (apparently) but she's just the drummer. (I assume that means they were going to cut her pay, too.) That type of behavior was presumably against the SK ethos, too, but here we are.

This is how Janet should have handled it:

Leadon was disillusioned with the direction the band's music was taking and his loss of creative control as their sound was moving from his preferred country to rock and roll. His dissatisfaction, principally with Frey, boiled over one night when Frey was talking animatedly about the direction they should take next, and Leadon poured a beer over Frey's head, and said: "You need to chill out, man!"

i saw S-K in chicago a couple of months ago and mostly made me realize that while i consider myself a fan of the band, i never really listened extensively to any of their albums after "all hands on the bad one" and they have four albums since then that i barely know. so they would start playing some "old" song and everyone would get really excited and i would have no idea what it was because it was from "one beat." the weirdest was "modern girl" off "the woods" which is their most popular song on spotify and everyone was having a big sing-along and i had never heard it before. it doesn't sound like a sleater-kinney song to me. obviously this is on me.

Really this comparison conversation should be about bands whose drummer is central to the character of the band. I mean, all of them, obviously, but bands where the drummer was replaced and there was a big backlash from fans?

In the podcast Janet talks more about how important it is that their personal relationships reflect their ideals, which is probably key here (and she's a great drummer obv).

the shittier thing is that Wyman’s replacement Darryl Jones has now been in the band for 30 years on freelance fees, compared to Wood’s 14 or so on salary

― insecurity bear (sic), Wednesday, November 20, 2019 10:49 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

In a reverse of this, Zak Starkey has been playing with the Who since 1996, but when they offered to make him a permanent member of the band, he turned them down.

Really this comparison conversation should be about bands whose drummer is central to the character of the band. I mean, all of them, obviously, but bands where the drummer was replaced and there was a big backlash from fans?

This happened with Slayer. Dave Lombardo was crucial to their sound - he drove the band, basically - and when they replaced him with Paul Bostaph their music got a lot more monochromatic and generic and rhythmically bland, to my ear. (It didn't help that they started experimenting with groove metal and even nu-metal sounds during that period, too.) I don't know how much of a "fan backlash" there was, but there was a noticeable difference.

The Pretenders spring to mind. Though TBF one member was fired, another died, and then the fired member died.

― shared unit of analysis (unperson), Thursday, November 21, 2019 8:57 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Martin Chambers was also fired (in 1986) and rehired (around 1994).

haha when I saw SK a couple years ago I had the same experience with “Modern Girl” - the whole crowd sang along and I was like “...I don’t even know this one?”

Carrie used it to title her memoir which I imagine has lent it even greater significance to fans.

the woods was a popular album

It's the only S-K album I know well! It's really good. I gather the earlier albums have their proponents too

The tour for The Woods was phenomenal.

One of the main reason I felt content when they broke up. I think I saw three of those shows, the last from the side of the stage.

Slayer is a good example!

Jimmy Chamberlin

My thread from whenever:

Let's List Bands That Got Worse with the Departure of a Drummer