Lance Bangs may be better known for his work as music video director – there is a long list including Sonic Youth, Nirvana, Green Day, Arcade Fire, the Shins, The Thermals, Belle and Sebastian, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, R.E. M., Death Cab for Cutie, The Black Keys, Kanye West, Odd Future, Pavement… – or for being Sleater-Kinney’s Corin Tucker’s husband, but he also is a filmmaker who presented his last movie ‘Breadcrumb Trail’ at the Silent Movie theater this week in Los Angeles.
The film sold out quite fast, several nights in a row, which tells me how many people are into this band I knew nothing about: Slint. ‘Breadcrumb Trail’ explores the making of this legendary and underground band which even split before the release of their 1990 and second album ‘Spiderland’. The documentary, like many others of the genre, is built around interviews and old footage of rehearsals and concerts, but what struck me first was the age of these guys when they first met, began to play together and form bands. Brian McMahan and Britt Walford were kids, 13 or 14-year-old kids when they formed Languid and Flaccid! And they were still incredibly young when they formed Slint (with David Pajo, Ethan Buckler and later Todd Brashear), which is seen as essential in the music history that the theater’s webpage says: ‘Two definitive epochs mark underground rock of the last few decades: BS (Before Slint) and AS (After Slint)’… How come I knew nothing about them?
The movie follows the 11-12 year-old Brian and Britt developing a strong friendship in their native Louisville, and attending the most liberal school, where creativity was encouraged. They certainly had the coolest parents ever, since they let their kids rehearse and practice in the basement as much as they wanted and even go on tour at the very early age of 14,… who are these people? I had no idea this part of the country was engaged in such a liberal and creativity-nourishing culture, but this seemed to be the perfect niche for the birth of a band which is said to have embraced the post-rock, post-hardcore among many other genres. Many indie/punk luminaries and a bit more mainstream people are interviewed during the movie – I just knew a few of them (Ian McKaye, Steve Albini, the Jesus Lizard’s David Yow, James Murphy) but the audience was applauding and cheering each time a new head was popping up on the large screen, such a hipster crowd, I thought!
In the 80s, the future members of Slint were already touring, making friends with Glen Danzig, playing hardcore music as several bands, Maurice and Squirrel Bait, but it wasn’t so much hardcore than a satyr, even then these kids were cooler than that, they were rather making fun of hardcore. Then Walford and McMahan hooked up with bassist Ethan Buckler and guitarist David Pajo and Slint was born.
According to Albini, there was nothing like Slint’s sound, totally unique and game changing. They released their first album in 1989 on Jennifer Hartman Records’ label, and ‘Tweez’, which was engineered by Albini to the total dissatisfaction of Buckler who quitted the band just after, contained only songs named after people of the members’ families. Their second album ‘Spiderland’, released after their breakup in 1991 via Touch and Go Records has been declared as a landmark album, venerated by tons of indie musicians. McMahan left the band before the release of ‘Spiderland’ and checked himself into a hospital shortly after the recording sessions, but the event is not clearly explained which adds to the mystery and the obscurity surrounding the album.
I knew nothing about Slint before seeing ‘Breadcrumb Trail’ and was decidedly surrounded by a crowd of happy connoisseurs, getting all the inside jokes and enjoying the movie greatly. I did too despite being the outsider in the room, and Britt Walford’s way to look up in the air every time he was interviewed was precious and telling a lot about what a dreamer he was.
The movie shows lots of footage of concerts and makes you abundantly listen to their music, however I am not so sure I understood the importance of their work through these excerpts of soundscape, but may be it is because I have heard similar stuff since? They were first at the time, and first at being so eccentric: Their first performance was in a church after a service, they were known to have spend one hour and half tuning their instruments before shows attended by almost nobody… and I am not even mentioning these tapes of ‘anal breathing?’ Teenager geniuses goofing around? They did not want to elaborate during the Q&A but it wasn’t necessary.
One thing is sure, it is super impressive for guys so young to have come up with this super dark and depressive music, with dissonant guitars, abrupt rhythmic changes, outburst of emotions and shouted/spoken lyrics; at one point of the movie, someone says you couldn’t do anything to it, no dancing, no head banging… it was not shoegazing either, it was simply dark, innovative and surprising, with a nihilistic sound, and some part of their songs even reminded me the Scottish band Mogwai’s own work.
Despite the darkness, according to all these stories, these kids seemed to be in a good place, with the coolest teachers, parents and friends around and joking all the time. Lance Bangs and some Slint members (among them David Pajo) were present after the screening, and they seemed as laid back and funny as they were in the film. So where was this noirceur coming from? I don’t know, but when you are already bored of rock at 13, and have enough talent to reinvent music, why not taking the road of misfits? Misfits who had a nervous break down before releasing a massively influential album, misfits still venerated by a crowd of indie musicians while ignored by most people. You probably have to kiss too many asses to go mainstream and these guys were definitively not the type, they looked free, totally unconventional, and crazy (or intelligent) enough to refuse success.
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