Slint's Spiderland by Tennent Scott

Author:Tennent, Scott
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Continuum International Publishing
Published: 2011-08-02T16:00:00+00:00

River North

Corey Rusk paid for Slint to record Spiderland, but that didn’t mean that the recording budget was luxurious. The band still had to call in a few favors to make the album happen, and they had to be totally focused when it came time to work. They arranged to record at a studio in Chicago called River North, where McMahan had interned. “Brian somehow worked it out so we could record there, even though they didn’t do that kind of stuff,” Pajo said. “They didn’t do rock bands; they were a jingle studio. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of another band recording there.” Unable to afford the studio’s day rates, Slint were only permitted to record at night over two weekends in September. They recorded the basic tracks over the first weekend, then returned the following weekend to mix.

Behind the boards for the session was an engineer named Brian Paulson, a Minneapolis transplant who befriended McMahan and Walford through the Chicago music scene. Earlier that year he had recorded Bastro’s second and final full-length, Sing the Troubled Beast; he was also a friend of Steve Albini, who had turned Paulson onto Slint not long after Tweez was recorded — yet another instance of Albini proselytizing on Slint’s behalf.

Albini’s influence over whatever opportunities Slint had cannot be overstated. Going back to his first meeting McMahan in 1985, Albini was the one who first brought Squirrel Bait to Chicago and who put the bug in Gerard Cosloy’s ear at Homestead. When Squirrel Bait disbanded and McMahan joined Slint, Albini became even more of a booster. It seems like more people heard Slint not because they caught a live show but because Albini played them the then unreleased Tweez recording. Albini recorded the “Glenn”/“Rhoda” single for free. When McMahan and Walford moved to Chicago he introduced them to many of the major players in that city’s music scene. He arranged for Walford to record with the Breeders — in Scotland, no less! He was so close to Walford that he let him house-sit while Albini went on tour (the tale of which is recounted in the Jesus Lizard song “Mouth Breather”). Albini was Slint’s champion as well as their friend. And yet he did not record Spiderland.

Neither Pajo nor Brashear would answer why the band chose to go with Paulson over Albini, each claiming that it was a decision made by Walford and McMahan, both of whom declined to be interviewed for this book. It’s difficult to say whether they opted for a different engineer for aesthetic or personal reasons or simply due to a scheduling conflict — Albini was engineering the Jesus Lizard’s second album, Goat, at the exact same time, literally just a few blocks from River North. Pajo remembers Albini and the Jesus Lizard guys dropping in to the studio to see how the session was going. “I remember feeling like Steve was kind of bummed that we didn’t have him doing the record. He was the biggest Slint fan on the planet, and he did a lot for us.

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