Breadcrumb Trail—A Slint Documentary

Watched this rock doc the other night—an accounting of the band Slint, how they were a bunch of a weird teenagers doing their own damn thing and how one of my fave 90s albums Spiderland emerged from such unassuming locales as the Louisville, KY basement of Britt Walford's parents' house.

What I took away from the film is that where a band comes from means something. The town, the scene, the social climate, the streets themselves—it all flavors the music, for better or worse. I spent a night in Louisville once—sweated, ate a rotgut meal, and saw my first (only!) katydid creeping through the grass by the skatepark. But I wasn't there long enough to see what it was that makes "people in Louisville ... just fucking crazy" like Ian MacKaye says in this movie.

Anyway, these kids weren't just playing punk or garage like other teens in parents' basements across the country—they were masterminding disjointed, mathematical, sometimes kinda scary rock stuff—heading, formidably, in their own weird direction.  

The movie was made by a fellow Portlander, Lance Bangs—a lovely guy who was there at the screening shaking hands and answering questions on a man-to-man basis. So cool. Make seeing this movie happen, people!