Clarinette - Little Fluttery Screamy Thing 7"

Clocking in at a paltry 51 copies, you'd be hard pressed to find this record, tho it luckily appeared as a hand given thing of beauty to me not long ago. Lathe cut and pressed in the most transparent of vinyl, this 3 song 7" EP immediately bathed me in a warm drone on "A Minature Echo of the Birth of Time", that subtley transforms into both beauty and disturbance at the same time: quite an accomplishment over two minutes. It is transformative and digs down deep into you, ending like a catnap. The second track, "A Series of Rough Circles" was reminiscent of nodding off in metal shop, a lathe shooting softened shards of flying shrapnel conjuring up a dreamlike state. The title track on the flip, "Little Fluttery Screamy Thing" is a less focused and more noodley workout, but shows Vallor's mastery of his "instruments". Highly recommended.

Zolar X, The Blank Club, June 18 2005

With a member in jail (lead singer Zory Zenith), only remnants of their wardrobe (only one pair of antennae to share among the three of them, and a marked dearth of silver glitter), and 26 years after their last gig, a three piece Zolar X bravely drew in their spock brows, donned their platinum blond wigs, and took the stage at The Blank Club with equal parts spandex and wrinkles. I went not expecting much...but I was so wrong.

Slint at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, March 9

When Slint first made the scene back in the latter '80s, I was caught up in the whole Sub Pop and Amphetamine Reptile thing, with occasional forays into bands like Drunks with Guns and Lazy Cowgirls. Pavement was in my consciousness if only because Slay Tracks was being sold (for less than $2 !) through Blacklist (an MRR loosely affiliated mail order record thing) where I sometimes volunteered, but they were hardly a force of any sort at the time.

I sneezed when Tweez first came out on Jennifer Hartman. Even when Touch and Go reissued it, while I bought the CD, I hardly gave it the obligatory listen. Similar with Spiderland. They sat in my stacks for a pretty long time before their majesty ever graced my stereo. I never even made the Slint connection with Squirrel Bait or Ethan Buckler's band King Kong, both of whose records I had (tho again, never took the time at the time to absorb in any capacity other than enjoying their great cover art). I do remember, on my friend Ken Katkin's recommendation, buying 5 or so copies of the first King Kong 7" directly from Ethan (still got his handwritten letter) in its original pre-Drag City pressing.

I vaguely remember through the 90's when I finally gave the 2 Slint releases a spin or two, concluding only that Spiderland was better than Tweez and that the vocals were a little Albini-esque, but really that's about it.

Why did I not get it at the time? Or anytime after, at least for a long time? Ken tipped me off on this Slint reunion and so did my friend Dan, whose tastes in the pop domain always ran with mine (Sneakers, Big Star, Game Theory) but had a penchant for NZ Dead C-isms that we never explored together. However, since I pretty much only go to see band reunions (pre-past the point of no return) these days, I obliged to go check them out.

First, dragging out the old CD's I was instantly blown away by the crystalline and powerful Spiderland. While exhibiting some elements of what was happening at the time, it carried through some freshness.

It wasn't till the drive up to the city with Dan and Shannon that I heard Papa M for the first time, Dan playing me their wonderfully lowkey version of the Misfits' Last Caress. It was Wednesday night, the first of three Slint shows in SF. The Thurs and Friday shows sold out immediately, with the wednseday show subsequently prepended.

Unfortunately, Faun Fables were the opening band. How horrific this sister bad hippy duo were, with their bandanas and overalls and bad dancing and sprout-laden shite. This was a worse bill than the Carmaig De Forest/Television lineup a couple years ago at the same club. Carmaig was about as much a warmup for Television as the log lady is a prelude to sex. They should have been playing (Cafe) du Nord on Vegan Night. It's as if the Indigo girls were trying to go underground, but not deep enough so that you could no longer hear them.

Slint came on like a glint of light that shone infinitely. The unlikely frontman was drummer Britt Walford, while the rest of them took peripheral positions. But everyone was there in the mix pushing it up a notch.

CLE-OH!

The Picture Sleeve of the 45 containing the song whose title gave rise to the name of this Blog.
I originally got this 45 from Byron Coley as part of some trade back in mid 80's after having bit the CLE bug (this was pre any CLE hoopla mind you, for there was no Black To Comm or reformed Styrenes or any of that. It was simply me and my great friend Colin and our trial and error collecting ways thru the vast uncharted past of punk barely a decade old at that time...

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.)

The Evens: Ian Mackaye in 2005

Barely a mile away from my house, Ian Mackaye's new combo The Evens played last night at Terman Middle School in Palo Alto. It turns out Ian actually attended the school for 7th grade while his dad was on fellowship at Stanford, his only foray outside of the DC area as a kid. So he told a lot of funny stories like about how he attended his first dance right in that auditorium.

The Evens are just Ian on vocals and Danoelectric guitar, and Amy Farina on vocals and drums, therefore immediately reminiscent of similarly instrumented combos like k bands Kicking Giant or Lois, or the Portland band The Spinanes.

They played at audience level, just in front of the stage (stage diving was definitely out unless you wanted to land on the band), with a pretty simple setup, and a bunch of folding chairs around for the 50-75 that attended. Ian immediately made everybody feel at ease by talking to audience members and coaxing interaction by having people whistle or sing along. Apparently his dad was in the audience too, but I couldn't pick him out.

Since they don't have a CD out yet, I had never heard any of their songs before. In fact, I've been pretty much unfamiliar with any of Mackaye's work after the first Fugazi or two. While the Evens are hardly hardcore, or post hardcore in their approach, it's chock full of Ian's personal politics in it, his former rage tempered, it's sorta sit down emo for everyone, and it's great.

DEVO and the Grammy's

Early Flyer

I watched DEVO's Live in the Land of the Rising Sun DVD over the weekend. It was a 2003 show in Japan. Fun backstage stuff where Mark Mothersbaugh and Gerry Casale are sitting with their respective Pugs in their laps. The nice thing about the DEVO aesthetic is that it translates reasonably well to post middle age. The guys may all be much wider than they used to be, but they can still execute the jerky moves. Even their outfits age well. The Energy Domes are perfect for balding heads and the plastic suits cover up the flabby bodies. I think they must have thought this through a long time ago.

The show is great by the way. It's also cool to see one of the extras on the DVD which is a 1980 live performance of Gut Feeling. If not at their peak it'd have to have been damned close.

Meanwhile, I got invited to watch the Grammy's on Sunday. In some ways things are no different than what I remember (alicia keys = whitney houston, jennifer lopez = gloria estefan, etc). I felt like hardly a music fan, not knowing half or more than half the names and bands participating. I probably most liked seeing Green Day performing, Melissa Etheredge (in her post cancer baldness?) doing a Janis Joplin tribute, and Lynyrd Skynyrd.