Post by petrolino on Jun 8, 2019 23:20:43 GMT
SLINT
Todd Brashear – bass guitar
Ethan Buckler - bass guitar
Brian McMahan – guitar, vocals
David Pajo – guitar
Britt Walford – drums, vocals, guitar
Britt Walford – drums, vocals, guitar
"I think we always wanted our music to be the kind of thing that people found on their own, or, y’know, through friends. It never entered into our thoughts to do anything more publicised, I suppose. We just put music out, and then wondered if people might want to buy it."
- Britt Walford on Slint, Clash
"Although they were teenagers, Slint were musical veterans by the time they recorded Spiderland. Britt Walford and singer-guitarist Brian McMahan formed their first hardcore punk band, Languid and Flaccid, when they were just 11 and so small that their fathers had to carry their equipment. Their next band, Squirrel Bait, are still highly regarded, not least by Dave Grohl.
If loud music provided one means of letting off teenage steam beneath otherwise quiet exteriors, so did mischief. David Pajo – who first played with the pair in yet another hardcore band, Maurice – remembers a typical incident when McMahan laced brownies with laxatives and took them into school. "Everyone who had them was on the toilet all night."
Pajo remembers the young Walford as "an amazing drummer. He was so young and skinny, and played so hard. I'd been in bands since I was 14 but I'd never seen anyone play drums like that. Every moment of his life he was winding people up, but you couldn't tell, meeting him, because he was soft spoken and gentle. This dark side would come out, but in ways that couldn't make you mad at him."
When Walford and Pajo regrouped as Slint – initially featuring a different bassist, Ethan Buckler, who is on their first album, Tweez – they played their first gig in, of all places, a Unitarian church. "That was really funny," Pajo says. "My amp was taller than I was. I had to reach up just to adjust the volume. Our songs were mostly screaming feedback. It was pretty funny looking up and seeing old ladies walking out." McMahan, in the audience, was so impressed he joined the band.
When the young musicians recorded Tweez with Steve Albini, in 1987, the producer was greeted at his front door by a band member in boxer shorts wielding a shotgun. But they were jokey sessions – Albini says it contains a recording of Walford on the toilet, and a typical studio request would be Walford's demand that Albini "make the bass drum sound like a ham being slapped by a [baseball] catcher's mitt".
"Britt would say: 'It needs to sound wetter. The ham needs some more juice on it,'" says McMahan. "'Can you make it more watery? Can you make the sound more green?'"
If loud music provided one means of letting off teenage steam beneath otherwise quiet exteriors, so did mischief. David Pajo – who first played with the pair in yet another hardcore band, Maurice – remembers a typical incident when McMahan laced brownies with laxatives and took them into school. "Everyone who had them was on the toilet all night."
Pajo remembers the young Walford as "an amazing drummer. He was so young and skinny, and played so hard. I'd been in bands since I was 14 but I'd never seen anyone play drums like that. Every moment of his life he was winding people up, but you couldn't tell, meeting him, because he was soft spoken and gentle. This dark side would come out, but in ways that couldn't make you mad at him."
When Walford and Pajo regrouped as Slint – initially featuring a different bassist, Ethan Buckler, who is on their first album, Tweez – they played their first gig in, of all places, a Unitarian church. "That was really funny," Pajo says. "My amp was taller than I was. I had to reach up just to adjust the volume. Our songs were mostly screaming feedback. It was pretty funny looking up and seeing old ladies walking out." McMahan, in the audience, was so impressed he joined the band.
When the young musicians recorded Tweez with Steve Albini, in 1987, the producer was greeted at his front door by a band member in boxer shorts wielding a shotgun. But they were jokey sessions – Albini says it contains a recording of Walford on the toilet, and a typical studio request would be Walford's demand that Albini "make the bass drum sound like a ham being slapped by a [baseball] catcher's mitt".
"Britt would say: 'It needs to sound wetter. The ham needs some more juice on it,'" says McMahan. "'Can you make it more watery? Can you make the sound more green?'"
- Dave Simpson, The Guardian
'Britt Walford was the unnamed subject of The Jesus Lizard song "Mouth Breather" from the album Goat, which describes the outcome of an episode wherein producer Steve Albini asked Walford to house-sit for him.'
- Wikipedia
Slint
Slint DEMO
“I listened to hard rock and lots of AM radio music, so the only thing in particular was maybe AC/DC—Phil Rudd. And then, once we were listening to hardcore, Jeff Nelson of Minor Threat was a big influence. That’s the biggest step I ever took in drumming—in math class, trying to figure out the Minor Threat beat and how the foot was independent from the right hand.”
- Britt Walford, Modern Drummer
- Britt Walford, Modern Drummer
Britt Walford, Stephanie Karta, Ned Oldham, Brian McMahan, Paul Catlett prepare for Squirrel Bait
The Breeders
'When I Was A Painter' - The Breeders - 'Iris'
"Britt Walford, beautifully oblique and tenderly separated from reality, is an almost impenetrably mysterious man to interview. But should we have expected anything other than mystery from the co-architect of Spiderland?"
- John Calvert, Murder Ballads
"It's only been in the last few months that I've realized Spiderland is an enduring record. I kept waiting for it to be forgotten."
- David Pajo speaking in 2014, Under The Radar
"The towering performances of drummers like Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth), David Narcizo (Throwing Muses), David Lovering (Pixies) and Britt Walford paved the way for new styles of mathematical drumming in angular art rock."
- Alex Elkins, College Rock On The Radio
David Pajo, Britt Walford & Will Oldham
