Slint Reunion Show

(a guest rave from our most esteemed correspondent, Ken Katkin)

I attended the first Slint reunion gig on Tuesday night, at the Brown Theater in Louisville KY, a seated venue somewhat similar to the Beacon Theater in NYC or the Tower Theater in Philly, though smaller. The show was sold out (as are most of the remaining Slint reunion gigs, I believe), and expectations ran high. Predictably, Slint’s presentation was both serious and mysterious. After a long recorded intro of some kind of vaudeville-sounding old tracks, four band members—with new bass player Todd Crook replacing original bassists Ethan Buckler (1987-88) and Todd Brashears (1989-90)—took the stage in darkness. They played through an instrumental number before the lights were turned up high enough to render the band members visible. After the first song, the band was joined by new fifth member Michael McMahan (Brian’s younger brother) on guitar. The band took very long breaks between each song, always in complete silence. In Louisville, this worked fine, because any potential pretentiousness or awkwardness was broken up by the high quality of local heckling (e.g. “More Rock, Less Talk!” or “Piss on us, you fucking bastards, please!” or hundreds of people in unison loudly shushing themselves and another). (At one point, Brian McMahan playfully departed from the band’s posture of total noncommunicativeness with the audience, when he responded to a heckler by smilingly exclaiming “Heh!”). I think the band’s silent treatment might have been a little oppressive if the audience had responded more respectfully.

As for the music: part of the magic of Slint was always that the band in its original incarnation was invariably loose and tight at the same time. As Gerard Cosloy once put it (albeit when describing the original lineup’s other incarnation as King Kong): Slint had “an almost unnatural understanding of the relationship between the various instruments, or, as the Frogs would say, ‘that was a good drum break.’” Fifteen years later, it was interesting to observe the extent to which that “unnatural” loose/tight combination still held true. Re tightness: time did not pass. Serious even when they were teenagers unburdened by high public expectations, the original Slint never created a large body of material, but instead practiced and practiced and practiced and practiced, striving (and sometimes succeeding) to perfect the handful of songs that they had. That winning formula was apparently repeated this past month, during which the band relentlessly practiced its existing twelve-song repertoire, honing arrangements to a precision that sometimes made it seem as though the band members could communicate with one another by telepathy.

Looseness was a little more difficult for Slint Mach 2 to obtain. Main singer Brian McMahan, in particular, seemed highly focused on getting all the original words and phrasings “right,” so much so that he seemed to lack some of the casual confidence to innovate that originally fostered Slint’s creativity and excitement. (Brian also apparently could no longer satisfy his own high standard for singing and playing guitar simultaneously, though his younger brother Michael—never introduced to the audience—did an excellent job playing Brian’s leads while Brian sang most of the songs guitar-free). If Brian had to struggle a little just to be tight, David Pajo had perhaps a little bit of the opposite problem. After fifteen years playing with Tortoise, King Kong, Will Oldham, the dreaded Zwan, and most recently as the awesome Papa M, David’s guitar-playing has grown so effortless that he now risked projecting a certain lack of intensity—or maybe, during the middle part of the set, a certain doubtfulness about the wisdom or purpose of a Slint reunion in 2005. (On the set’s final two songs, “Washer” and “Good Morning Captain,” however, David fully busted out of this dilemma, reinterpreting his original leads in those classic songs with novelty—including some highly unexpected but ingenious reggae inflections (!)—and also a scorching intensity that made clear that this reunion was not about coasting on any legacy). Britt Walford, alone among Slint’s members on Tuesday, needed no time at all to warm up, but instead erupted instantly with some of the most inventive, high-powered, and unremittingly exciting drumming I’ve ever heard. Never inclined to play anything the same way twice, Britt reinterpreted Slint’s material in an expansive way that seemed to open the songs up, and to make them rock harder, all at the same time. Immediately after the show, I ran into old-school Louisville H/C badass Brett Ralph (Fading Out, Malignant Growth), who couldn’t stop marveling about the stunning badassedness of Britt’s drumming. And who am I to disagree? (On one song, Britt got out from behind the drums, sang, and joined the rest of the band sitting in chairs with electric-acoustic guitars, MTV-Unplugged-style. It was a conceit that should have failed, but instead it succeeded because the song was so goddam good).

After twelve songs, Brian briefly spoke (“Thank you for coming”), and the band quickly left the stage. No encores, no covers, no new material. A few wags expressed disappointment at not hearing a cover of “Cortez The Killer,” but I think Slint was wise to remain uncompromising and pure. Few bands ever possessed Slint’s singularity of vision or intense ambition for aesthetic perfection. In recording “Spiderland,” Slint pulled off the rock-and-roll era equivalent of inventing haiku. It’s no wonder they had to break up after that: haiku is a perfect form, but no one can keep writing only haikus forever. But I’m certainly glad the band reuned just for one month, and I’m privileged to have seen this show. At a minimum, it was nice to hear some old favorite haikus performed with grace and badassedness. At the reuned band’s best (their performances of “Washer” and “Good Morning Captain”), Slint on Tuesday willingly accepted the high-stakes creative risk of reengineering its best and most famous haikus, never really breaking from the classic form, but ratcheting up the standard of quality incrementally closer to the perfection Slint always sought. They’re still not quite there (how could they be?), but like Rocket From The Tombs in 2003, the Slint reunion was way more than nostalgia; attendance at one or more of next month’s gigs is essential for all.

--KK

(Editor's note: I will be seeing the San Francisco show coming up in March. Needless to say, a less articulate write up will follow.)