A lot of people love Slint, and
Spiderland, the breakout album from 1991 that spurned the hollow hair metal that dominated MTV and most teenagers’ bedroom posters. I was in sixth grade in 1991, had just fallen in love with Jane’s Addiction and was a few years away from spurning metal of any kind and discovering
Spiderland or the term post-rock for myself. Flash forward to 1997, my freshman year in college and a doomed relationship with a fellow rock nerd who preferred to listen to records rather than get it on. On many of th
ose sexually frustrated nights we listened to
Spiderland, strange bedfellows to be sure. The strangely off kilter drumming, the guitars all stretched out weirdness that hinted at darkness repressed, the vocals, barely intelligible, at times whispered and others straining over the night storms of sound. It was too pretty to be punk, to angled and strange to be straight up rock, it was a different animal, quietly stalking the fringes of indie and college radio friendly pop.
Spiderland is the album for music dorks of all stripes, the one that Rush fans and Superchunk die-hards both have on their list of most influential albums, an album that shows those two music fans aren’t necessarily at loggerheads. This is an important album, one that reaches back to hardcore punk and out to avant-garde music fans, one that confounded many listeners who wanted to know what the hell the big deal is, anyway. One that became accredited to shaping the landscape of current indie rock and post rock and math rock today. Some of this credit is, at the least, overly simplified and at the worst, kind of insulting. But ask anyone who loves nineties indie rock why they can’t get past this particular era in music and they will tell you to look to Kentucky, in the late eighties and early nineties and find five guys who put out a great record that accidentally changed rock music.
When the people who throw the All Tomorrow’s Parties festivals announced the line up for the cheekily named Don’t Look Back concert series, I and many of my rock nerd brethren and sistren creamed our pants. Nevermind the $20 ticket price, we didn’t get to see Slint play live b/c many of us were in grade school. Holy shit! It was our chance!
Three members of the original Slint: Brian McMahan, David Pajo and Britt Walford, were rounded out by two other players to perform Spiderland as a five piece at the Cradle on July 19th. The tension was palpable. There were a lot of serious Slint fans there, along with many younger kids who may have been turned on to Slint by older siblings or cool uncles or the wacky indie rock neighbor with so many eighties TV show lunchboxes. As long time Slint fan and man about town Jay Winfrey said "I don’t want to be that guy, but there are a lot of kids here who were probably born the year Slint broke up. Shit. I am that guy." Honestly, it was hard not to notice the demographics. It was also hard not to notice the gargantuan, shiny, silver tour bus out front. Also, hard not to notice the $18 price tags on tee shirts.
Raleigh’s very own and very awesome Strange were excellent as always though maybe a weird (notice I did not say strange) choice to open for Slint. Strange is really dynamic and the sound is huge and guitar-y in a good way layered with off beat instrumentation like trumpet. I’m glad they’re back, and looking forward to weirder and wilder outings from them. The pairing with Slint’s quiet quiet quiet LOUD quiet quiet syncopation was like watching Flava Flav get it on with that old blonde lady. Something. Seemed. Off.
What’s stranger than Strange? Watching hundreds of rock nerds queue up to watch a band perform an album that they listened to obsessively fifteen years ago and be disappointed by it. I’ll admit that I was underwhelmed. I’ve written before about music that is intensely private, the kind that you listen to alone, feel deeply connected to because it feels it is being performed for just you.
Spiderland is one of those records. It’s hard to listen to with other people, as they inevitably talk over your favorite guitar tremors or whispered lyrics. In my case it was an album I have always connected with deep and needless loneliness, not for any small reason because I too often listened with someone I desperately wanted to pay attention to me. At the show my case was not helped by a girl who was literally resting her can of PBR on my neck as she gyrated to "Breadcrumb trail". Don’t ask me how you dance to that song. I don’t know. I also don’t know how the most obnoxious/ drunkest/ loudest/ dumbest person at a show zeros I on where I will be standing and decides to be right next to me or behind me or in front of me. Said girl finally asked me if she could just stand in front of me as "I was supposed to be on the guest list. I know Dave. Dave Pajo. I was supposed to be on the guest list." She then proceeded to yell out his name and dance through the remainder of the show when she wasn’t going to the bar to refill two cans at a time. Seriously? Stay home. No one cares that you had sex with Dave Pajo or whatever.
After moving out of the vicinity of the ass and hips of the Dave Pajo groupie I was able to notice how much empty space there was. This was not a sold out show, and I was surprised. For an album that matters so much to so many people I was really shocked by how few came. The real surprise hit me as I tried to assimilate what I was hearing with what I had hoped to experience. I wanted to hear Slint play
Spiderland, right? Didn’t I? It turn out the answer was, not really. They played beautifully, flawlessly even, That’s when it started to bug me. I was talking to Dave Cantwell of the venerable Cantwell, Gomez and Jordan and he told me he was amazed by their precision, by the fact that "…all those things on the record, the smallest things you thought were mistakes, were recreated there." Exactly. As Art Sieg;eman said, "And that’s when my troubles began." Why do you go to see live music? When I go to see bands I already like I want to see them fuck around, surprise me. I want it to feel spontaneous and special. I was starting to realize that this was going to be the same show that they played in Brussles, in Chicago at Pitchfork, in Las Vegas. This was the album note for note. (They also played two songs from the untitled EP and a ten minute monster called "King’s Approach" which was my favorite moment in the show and the only time they got loud enough.) The show was disappointing because
Spiderland hasn’t changed at all, while the rest of us have. I want to make perfectly clear that these guys are excellent and the album is still important. But like a person who is forced into assuming a title he never asked for, I think these guys became something in the minds of fans they never asked to become. They wanted to play the album because they got to go back and learn old material, see how it felt, not deliver the missed opportunity of a lifetime to hundreds of die-hard fans. They never wanted to be the emperor and they sure as hell were not prepared to bring clothes. That being said, the emperor was not only naked he was splayed spread eagle on a stage before a quiet and confused crowd. As my friend Taylor said, "I forgot my policy of not seeing reunion shows, not ever, because they never fail to disappoint." It was good, it was not great. I let my expectations get the better of me, and that always brings out the worst in me. I think the Don’t Look Back series is not a bad idea, per se, I just don’t think it’s what we expected it to be. I’m glad I saw them, but seeing them didn’t matter. None of this matters, not really, not like when it did when you fell in love with the album the first time. And like all love affairs that are maligned by comparisons to that first, sweet and perfect love, this relationship started to feel hollow, empty, a mockery. I couldn’t help but notice that there was some Very Serious Nodding going on. Especially on break out track "Good Morning, Captain", the track that is the quintessential Slint song, the deadpan "Dude, I am loving this band so much, I’m gonna nod my head real slow and hard" track. It made me laugh. That’s when I started to enjoy myself. I had nothing to prove and most of all I realized that seeing Slint didn’t matter, I already had the best experience I was ever going to have falling in love with
Spiderland while my then boyfriend resisted falling in love with me. Now what would have been awesome is if they could have performed just for me, at my house, while I sat on my couch with no drunken bitches and no other people around. Because, when it come down to it, you don’t want to share, not really, not with those people.
