March/April 2005, and heaven rolls through Los Angeles.
All sorts of personal shit going down for me this spring. Thankfully the indie Gods sent along, in rapid succession, four -- count 'em, four -- of my favorite bands of all time, to keep my soul safe and fueled. About once every two weeks there I was at another lovely venue, enjoying yet another musical hero kicking stunning amounts of ass. Mind if I elaborate?
SLINT - March 13th, 2005 - The Avalon
The first-ever L.A. appearance of probably the most obscure and unlikely band to ever become worthy of a big reunion tour. I can proudly count myself among the very few thousand dweebs in America who were obsessed with the mathrock progenitors' groundbreaking "Spiderland" LP when it was released back in '91, so I feel zero poseur guilt for tagging along on the current Slint-worship bandwagon.
The show was all about exploring noise and silence. It began with the bandmembers taking the nearly barren stage in shadowy semi-darkness, then sitting there for what seemed like ten minutes, playing not a note, as the audience went from screaming happiness to quiet expectation. Finally, after four unbelievably slow stick-clicks from drummer Britt Walford, they were blasting through their first batch of tension-and-release classics.
"Mathrock" is really an unfair genre classification for music this intensely emotional. Check out "Washer" -- "Listen to me, don't let go/Don't let this desperate moonlight leave me with your empty pillow/Promise me the sun will rise again" -- and tell me Slint is a purely intellectual exercise. Still, the band didn't go out of its way to be cuddly or anything. They spaced themselves far apart across the stage in a straight line, hardly interacting at all, nearly expressionless, focusing almost entirely on their own instruments. It was a strange kind of experiment: how rigidly precise can you be and still create something soulful?
As it happens, very precise. Song #2 was the soaring "Breadcrumb Trail," and it dawned on me that I had never, ever heard a band so perfectly tight, perfectly mixed... just... perfect. The sound was unimaginably clear, they were fucking flawless. And right around then I started headbanging, something I've never been known to do. Everyone else in the audience, all the bespectacled little hipsters, were doing it too. It was all you could do. The rhythms reached inside your head and neck and forced them to shake. How hard, you ask? My friend Holly has a recurring back problem and for the week after the show she literally had to wear a neckbrace. That's how hard.
About a third of the way through the evening, Brian McMahan wryly said the first of only four-or-so sentences he would direct at the audience all night: "I had no idea there were this many geeks in Los Angeles." The geeks cheered.
An hour or so later Slint had run through most of the good stuff off their debut LP "tweez," plus all of "Spiderland"... except for that album's universally-regarded Best Song Ever, "Good Morning Captain." They of course closed with that. If you've heard the tune, you know it's like a long lit fuse that hisses quietly along and sets off a series of increasingly larger powderkegs. By the time the last one detonated -- McMahan shrieking "I MISS YOU" over those massive chiming guitar chords -- my eyes were closed super-tight and the blood was rushing so fast to my head that my feet may have actually left the ground a little.
There's was no way to top it, and the band had no more songs anyway. They left the stage without a word. No encore. The lights came up and it took a while to find my jaw, which had dropped right off my face.
Decent recording of their March 3rd show in France streams here.
Next post: Kings of Convenience - El Rey Theater.
SLINT - March 13th, 2005 - The Avalon
The first-ever L.A. appearance of probably the most obscure and unlikely band to ever become worthy of a big reunion tour. I can proudly count myself among the very few thousand dweebs in America who were obsessed with the mathrock progenitors' groundbreaking "Spiderland" LP when it was released back in '91, so I feel zero poseur guilt for tagging along on the current Slint-worship bandwagon.
The show was all about exploring noise and silence. It began with the bandmembers taking the nearly barren stage in shadowy semi-darkness, then sitting there for what seemed like ten minutes, playing not a note, as the audience went from screaming happiness to quiet expectation. Finally, after four unbelievably slow stick-clicks from drummer Britt Walford, they were blasting through their first batch of tension-and-release classics.
"Mathrock" is really an unfair genre classification for music this intensely emotional. Check out "Washer" -- "Listen to me, don't let go/Don't let this desperate moonlight leave me with your empty pillow/Promise me the sun will rise again" -- and tell me Slint is a purely intellectual exercise. Still, the band didn't go out of its way to be cuddly or anything. They spaced themselves far apart across the stage in a straight line, hardly interacting at all, nearly expressionless, focusing almost entirely on their own instruments. It was a strange kind of experiment: how rigidly precise can you be and still create something soulful?
As it happens, very precise. Song #2 was the soaring "Breadcrumb Trail," and it dawned on me that I had never, ever heard a band so perfectly tight, perfectly mixed... just... perfect. The sound was unimaginably clear, they were fucking flawless. And right around then I started headbanging, something I've never been known to do. Everyone else in the audience, all the bespectacled little hipsters, were doing it too. It was all you could do. The rhythms reached inside your head and neck and forced them to shake. How hard, you ask? My friend Holly has a recurring back problem and for the week after the show she literally had to wear a neckbrace. That's how hard.
About a third of the way through the evening, Brian McMahan wryly said the first of only four-or-so sentences he would direct at the audience all night: "I had no idea there were this many geeks in Los Angeles." The geeks cheered.
An hour or so later Slint had run through most of the good stuff off their debut LP "tweez," plus all of "Spiderland"... except for that album's universally-regarded Best Song Ever, "Good Morning Captain." They of course closed with that. If you've heard the tune, you know it's like a long lit fuse that hisses quietly along and sets off a series of increasingly larger powderkegs. By the time the last one detonated -- McMahan shrieking "I MISS YOU" over those massive chiming guitar chords -- my eyes were closed super-tight and the blood was rushing so fast to my head that my feet may have actually left the ground a little.
There's was no way to top it, and the band had no more songs anyway. They left the stage without a word. No encore. The lights came up and it took a while to find my jaw, which had dropped right off my face.
Decent recording of their March 3rd show in France streams here.
Next post: Kings of Convenience - El Rey Theater.