Secret History of Rock. The Most Influential Bands You've Never Heard (61 page)

Krist Novoselic, Nirvana:

I listened to
Generic Flipper
and it was a revelation. It was art. It made me realize it was art. It was valid, it was beautiful. ‘Cause I gave things validity by going, like, “Is it as good as Physical Graffiti?” And flipper was suddenly, like, “Sure it is / If not better.” [from Route 666: On the Road to Nirvana, by Gina Arnold]

With their second album,
Gone Fishin’
, Flipper was clearly stretching itself. Still gleefully twisted and heavy, the record cut down the noise quotient – or at least directed it better – and added new instruments such as piano, clavinet, and congas. Neither as extreme nor as successful as the first record,
Gone Fishin’
was an interesting development for a band so resolutely sloppy. It pointed to real potential once the group gained full control of its talents.

Tim Gane, Stereolab:

Flipper were kind of punk but mixed with electronics and strange vocal effects. That to me was another key to something, mixing hardcore with electronics. They were my ideal band back then.

The original Flipper, however, would never return to the studio to produce a follow-up album and discover where it had been heading. Instead, the group toured through the mid-‘80s and attracted a following for their always-loud, always-fun live show. In 1987, Will Shatter – leaving a wife and unborn son behind – died of a heroin overdose. Though the remaining members would replace Shatter in the ‘90s and release their first new record in a decade, the new Flipper lacked the irreverence and looseness (despite Lose’s name change to Bruce Loose) that made them memorable in the beginning. In an early ‘90s music world where Flipper-inspired bands were topping the charts, the re-formed Flipper couldn’t compete.

DISCOGRAPHY

Album: Generic Flipper
(Subterranean, 1981; Def American, 1992)
; the essential debut album.

Gone Fishin’
(Subterranean, 1982)
; the more ambitious second studio record, that traded musical variety for sublime sludge.

Blow’n Chunks
[tape]
(ROIR, 1984; 1990)
; recorded live in 1983 at CBGB.

Public Flipper Limited Live 1980-1985
(Subterranean, 1986)
; a double album of live recordings, spanning the group’s career.

Sex Bomb Baby!
(Subterranean, 1987; Infinite Zero, 1995)
; a collection of singles and compilation tracks, including much of their most inspired material, with three tracks added on the reissue.

American Grafishy
(Def American, 1993)
; an uninspired ‘90s reunion record without Will Shatter.

SLINT

Jenny Toomey, Tsunami / Licorice:

Slint were the most name-dropped band of the ‘90s probably. I don’t know that anyone has done that style of music – which did become a style – as well as they did. Codeine, Karate, a million bands. They proved slow and quiet could be more powerful and earnest than fast rock songs.

Because Slint is the youngest band in this book, it’s not yet possible to gauge the influence, they’ve had and will continue to have on rock. By all accounts, though, they are destined to be one of the great underground reference points for generations of post-rock bands to come. During Slint’s brief career – 1987 to 1991 – the group released only two albums (plus a posthumous single). Their amalgam of avant hardcore and prog rock, though, has already been adopted by enough indie bands – Rodan, June of ‘44, Codeine, and so forth – to make “Slint-esque” a meaningful label. Even bands much older than Slint are likely to name the group as one of the truly inventive rock creations of the ‘90s. At this late hour in rock’s history, that’s quite an accomplishment.

Slint represents the artistic pinnacle of the small, closely intertwined punk scene in Louisville, Kentucky that has produced (or played some part in) indie bands as diverse as Palace, King Kong, Tortoise, and Gastr del Sol. The group was formed by guitarist Brian McMahon and drummer Britt Walford, who at the ripe old age of 17 had already made two highly regarded records as part of the hardcore band Squirrel Bait. When McMahon recruited guitarist David Pajo, and Pajo’s friend Ethan Buckler joined as bassist, the quartet was complete.

Bob Pollard, Guided by Voices:

I really appreciate Slint, because I think Brian McMahon was the least appreciated guy in Squirrel Bait, but he went on to do the most important stuff. There’s a lot of Slint copy bands.

Though they weren’t sure how they’d go about it, from the start Slint meant to be a reaction to the hardcore sound that by ‘87 was way past its prime. “Bands all started to sound the same. There wasn’t anything new and exciting,” Pajo remembers. “We talked about doing something out of frustration with what was around. It sounded pretty fun, so we just started playing.” Slint was primarily interested in exploring dynamics and textures as opposed to writing traditionally structured songs. Though they’d later add some words – often spoken rather than sung – the emphasis was always on crafting perfectly economical instrumentals.

Creating rock music as intricate as what they envisioned proved demanding, and it required the band to focus much more energy on practicing than would be prudent for a more informal punk band. But barely out of high school, the four members were content to live with their parents and work odd jobs while ironing out Slint’s sound. “We weren’t really driven to make lots of records or tour,” Pajo says. “We were serious but didn’t obsess over it. But we’d practice a lot compared to how much we played out or recorded. And I think it shows in how intricate the songs are.”

Anxious to document their initial material, Slint drove north to Chicago in the fall of 1987 to record with one of their biggest musical influences,
Big Black
’s Steve Albini. Though it wasn’t released until 1989 – and then only on the micro-indie Jennifer Hartman Records and Tapes – the band’s debut,
Tweez
, was an immediately distinctive statement of purpose. With songs named after band member’s parents (and pets) and album sides named after toilet manufacturers, it was clearly a record with a sense of humor. However, the music was surprisingly dramatic, with sudden leaps between its fractured song segments. Though the music was rarely melodic, it managed to stay more focused and fluid than most instrumental rock.

Buckler, who found his ideas on music didn’t fit with the other Slint members, disapproved of
Tweez
and left soon after to pursue more whimsical and groove-based music with King Kong. The addition of new bassist Todd Brashear, as well as the maturing of the others, changed Slint’s sound greatly in the two years before they recorded their follow-up,
Spiderland
. “Our taste in music started to change. We all started listening to a lot more Delta blues and old country music and Leonard Cohen. With
Tweez
there’s tons of inside jokes and weird noises, but with
Spiderland
it’s completely straight. We tried to keep it pure, which I think was part of us being into all this old music.”

Lou Barlow, Sebadoh / Folk Implosion:

Almost immediately after we heard
Spiderland
we made up an instrumental called “Slint.” It was kind of creepy and spare, similar to what I was doing but developed more. They were like these little eggheads who totally knew how to play, and had a real grasp on dynamics. That was really lost with ‘80s bands like Dinosaur and Pussy Galore, who were not about dynamics at all. But Slint would build these towering epics. Their influence is amazing, it absolutely makes sense with younger kids who hear them.

For
Spiderland
(which featured a cover photo taken by their friend, Will Oldham of Palace), Slint worked with producer Brian Paulson (who also worked with Wilco, Beck, and many others) to create something that took their ideas to an entirely different level. Songs were tighter and better executed, with even more subtlety to the instrumental dynamics. McMahon’s vocals – such as the quietly intoned narrative of
Breadcrumb Trail
– became more prominent, though never intruded on the primacy of the arrangements. Spiderland’s impact on certain segments of the indie rock world was, much to the band’s surprise, immediate and deep.

Jim O’Rourke, solo / Gastr del Sol:

I can’t heap enough praise on the second Slint record. They found something new. It’s an original representation of Americana, in its place and time. It couldn’t have been made elsewhere. It’s a very pure record, distilled to its essentials. It has a real articulateness that I had never heard before in music like that. Any time somebody falls upon something like that I’m very inspired, like, “Ah ha / Excellent / Let’s get back to work... ”

Slint, though, would not last long enough to capitalize on its notoriety. By the time
Spiderland
came out in 1991, McMahon had quit and the group effectively dissolved. Britt Walford had a short stint as the Breeders’ drummer (credited as “Mike Hunt”), then played with Evergreen; David Pajo joined Chicago’s Tortoise and also pursued M, his Louisville-based band; McMahon formed the For Carnation, and then worked for a record company in Los Angeles. Each member of Slint, at various points, has also taken part in Will Oldham’s Palace. And though Slint re-formed for a short time in 1993, no new recordings resulted and the group has no plans to play together again.

DISCOGRAPHY

Tweez
(Jennifer Hartman, 1989; Touch and Go, 1993)
; the Steve Albini-recorded debut, a lighthearted post-hardcore record that hinted what was to come.

Slint
[single]
(Touch and Go, 1994)
; two-song release featuring extended instrumentals recorded between the two albums.

Spiderland
(Touch and Go, 1991)
; the group’s masterpiece, a founding document of ‘90s indie rock.

INDEX

13
^th
Floor Elevators
66

Bad Brains
279

Barrett, Syd
73

Beat Happening
54

Big Black
221

Big Star
47

Birthday Party, The
218

Black Flag
265

Branca, Glenn
30

Buzzcocks
233

Cage, John
18

Cale, John
22

Can
124

Captain Beefheart
77

Chrome
215

Conrad, Tony
22

Cramps, The
116

Dead Kennedys
269

DNA
187

Drake, Nick
112

Dream Syndicate, The
22

Einstürzende Neubauten
212

Eno, Brian
146

Erickson, Roky
66

ESG
199

Fall, The
236

Faust
128

Feelies, The
183

Flipper
296

Gainsbourg, Serge
43

Gang of Four
240

Germs, The
262

Glass, Philip
26

Gun Club
120

Half Japanese
96

Hell, Richard
179

Hüsker Dü
276

Iceberg Slim
171

Johnston, Daniel
100

Kraftwerk
131

Last Poets
160

Liquid Liquid
202

Lydia Lunch
248

MC5
59

Minor Threat
283

Minutemen, The
272

Mission of Burma
292

Modern Lovers, The
103

Neu!
134

Parks, Van Dyke
35

Parsons, Gram
108

Pere Ubu
85

Perry, Lee “Scratch”
142

Public Image Limited
225

Raincoats, The
258

Red Krayola
88

Residents, The
81

Richman, Jonathan
103

Satie, Erik
12

Scott, Raymond
15

Scott-Heron, Gil
167

Shaggs, The
93

Sherwood, Adrian
151

Silver Apples
69

Slint
299

Slits, The
255

Stooges, The
62

Suicide
175

Swans
191

Swell Maps
244

Television
179

Theater of Eternal Music
22

Thompson, Mayo
88

Throbbing Gristle
208

Trouble Funk
196

Tubby, King
139

U-Roy
157

Voidoids, The
179

Walker, Scott
39

Watts Prophets
164

Wipers
288

Wire
229

X-Ray Spex
252

Young, LaMonte
22

Young Marble Giants
51