slint -- _spiderland_: classic or dud

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.