Slint – Spiderland

This once mysterious gem has already been exhumed, widely rediscovered and dissected to the bone as the band has reunited, toured, released a deluxe Spiderland LP box set and become the subject of a full length documentary, all since 2005. Anyone who knows and loves Spiderland, has their own story with it. Here’s mine…1994/95, my singer/songwriter girlfriend at the time had managed to connect with Hayden and had become a semi-regular opening act for the soft spoken Sonic Unyon superstar. In turn, he and I would make small talk at shows and built a casual rapport. On one such evening, Hayden had included a new song in his set, which employed some intriguing major-third power chord phrasing that really caught my ear. I told him so later that evening, adding that it made me think of the ‘Jason Lowenstein side of Sebadoh’. Hayden replied, ‘You like that one? You like Sebadoh too, eh? You know what…You should really check out this one record called Spiderland by Slint…’ OK, thanks! Fast forward a few months…I’m assisting a friend on an all night recording session in our college’s studio facility. He was doing a favor for one of our teachers by providing audio post-production for the film project of a former female student. The tag-along boyfriend of said filmmaker was none other than Derek Madison, ‘the guy from Grasshopper’, cool! We casually discussed music as we worked through the night and sure enough, Slint came up. Derek made the same recommendation to me. “Check out Spiderland…they’ve got another record called Tweez, but you HAVE to start with Spiderland.” Huh, duly noted, indeed. So I took my student loan/line of credit card over to the cd store, found said cd, and sealed the deal. I prepped for my first listen, as I have so often through the years, by taking a quick stroll into the woods to discreetly inhale the smoke of God’s green truth. Upon returning to my rented bedroom, and getting situated in my listening chair, I eyed the enigmatic artwork, noting that they’d insisted that ‘this album is meant to be listened to on vinyl’ and the only other information parlayed was their interest in hiring a female vocalist. Once I hit play, I was pleased to let ‘Breadcrumb Trail’ casually ease by as I inspected the artwork and let the weed settle in. But, once the extended instrumental mid-section of Nosferatu Man was off and running, I suddenly found myself grinning madly and banging my head as if I was listening to Slayer’s South Of Heaven for the 666th time. It was truly one of those ‘HOLY SHIT!’ moments, approaching the same level of astonishment that I hadn’t felt since hearing ‘Master Of Puppets’ for the first time, several years earlier. And so began my keen interest in anything that the alternative press of the time was calling ‘post-rock’ or ‘math-rock’…shortly afterward, the much buzzed about film, ‘Kids’, was widely released, slightly unraveling the underground’s ‘best kept secret’ of Slint’s brilliance, as ‘Good Morning, Captain’ perfectly closed the film’s soundtrack LP. See also: June of 44’s ‘Tropics and Meridians’

Mr Bungle – Mr. Bungle

Despite all the ruckus and fuss being made over Nirvana in 1991, it was two years earlier that a very unique alt-rock band had already made a huge splash of their own, unexpectedly crossing over into the mainstream. Faith No More had been toiling around underground America since the early 80s when ‘Epic’ became a sleeper hit in 1989, propelling ‘The Real Thing’ into the top 40 album charts of various countries. Mike Patton had been recruited as FNM’s new vocalist, just as the rest of the band were completing instrumental tracks on what would become ‘The Real Thing’. He was scouted by FNM guitarist Jim Martin who had taken notice of his nutty little group called Mr. Bungle. Little did the senior members of FNM surely expect, that Patton would soon get his high school buddies back together and then use his new found fame to secure a deal with Warner Bros Records for themselves. The resulting self titled debut pretty much filled the generational ‘Frank Zappa’ hole that needed filling during the early Alt-90s. A frenetic mix of ska, metal, polka, jazz, pop and punk, with Pattons’ lyrical and theatrical acrobatics somehow tying it all together, it was a lot to take in but my dark-comedy loving, musician buddies and I were fully on board for the force feed. In-between-song sketches involving defecation, porn, puppet shows about manners and hygiene, and an extended recording of the guys jumping in and out of train cars somewhere around San Francisco, certainly added to the bizarro mood, not to mention some well placed audio snippets from David Lynch’s 1986 masterpiece, Blue Velvet. After being able to really let loose on Mr.Bungle, Mike Patton would then return to FNM, helping them to create the dark, twisted masterpiece that is Angel Dust. I like to think that the confidence he gained having risen to the top with FNM (The Real Thing) and then running around the mountain’s peak wearing a gimp mask and waving his dick around for a while (Mr Bungle), properly prepared him to go back into the studio to start REALLY fucking with the formula…hence, Angel Dust. Thank you, Mr Bungle. See Also: Fantomas

Ice Cube – Death Certificate

Despite being a pioneering figure in Gangster Rap, with Death Certificate, Ice Cube created what might be considered as the most vicious and vulgar take on ‘Conscious Hip-Hop’ ever produced. Though, to be clear, the Gangster factor was by no means lost on this one. As a young white boy, growing up comfortably out in the peaceful, Southern Ontario, working-class-fabulous countryside, it almost felt like I wasn’t really allowed to like this record. As if I was peaking into a Black Panther Party meeting that I really had no business being anywhere near. Of course, this hip-hop blockbuster was widely available and us white kids were actually welcomed into Ice Cube’s no bullshit universe unconditionally. Hell, I watched Cube perform on the Lollapalooza ’92 stage in Barrie ON, as he ripped through most of Death Certificate in front of approximately 20,000 citizens of the thriving, but mostly white washed, alternative nation. By 1991, Ice Cube was already infamous for not really having much of a ‘filter’ when it came to his lyrics. But Death Certificate really took it to the next level. To briefly summarize, he attacked the whites, the blacks, the cops, his ex-bandmates, and he REALLY let the Korean-Americans have it…He caught almost as much heat for ‘Black Korea’ as Ice-T did for ‘Cop Killer’ just one year later. He told his stories from the first person, but not always as his true self. On many songs, he adopted the character a young black man still struggling to survive in the ghetto. A young man who moves from LA to Missouri to sell drugs since his local market is over flooded; gets forcibly drafted; dies from a crossfire gun shot wound in a crowded, shoddy hospital; sells crack to feed his family as it’s the only job available in his hood with decent pay… Cube embraced his quickly growing white audience and wanted them to listen to these stories and listen good. He, just as his mentors in Public Enemy did, relished in the significance of getting the uncensored message of angry Black America onto the CD display racks of the white kids’ malls. He gave young white America a proper chance to hear how things were really going down on the other side, while also using his voice to hold a mirror up to the face of his beleaguered, self-sabotaging brethren…but on the lightest note possible, my friends and I often just skipped it up to ‘No Vaseline’ to vicariously enjoy the on-point ass-ripping that he dealt out to the remaining members of NWA and their manager, the now infamous Jerry Heller. Despite the vicious tone and heavy message that dominates Death Certificate, it’s still jam-packed with enough bouncing beats and hilariously clever punchlines to make it work as a great party record as well. Ice Cube’s first 4 records are all awesome. This was number 2, and is a long-reigning favourite among many hardcore Cube fans. See also: Public Enemy’s Apocalypse ’91: The Enemy Strikes Black

Red Hot Chili Peppers – BloodSugarSexMagik

Okay, while the title of this list names three of the biggest breakouts of 1991, mainly as an indicator that I’d be avoiding the most obvious choices, I have to include this one. Released on the very same day as Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind’, the Chili Pepper’s 5th full length is truly their masterpiece. RHCP has become a fairly divisive subject within the overall musical conversation. People seem to either love them or DESPISE them. In the years that followed the epic yet turbulent cycle of BSSM, I anxiously awaited ‘One Hot Minute’, only to be quickly disenchanted with the results. Then, I was thrilled to learn that John Frusciante was returning to the band and convinced myself that ‘Californication’ would be a triumphant return to form…meh, it was good, but not great. I pretty much stopped ‘trying’ to love them after that, but I still stand by BSSM to this day and I always will. I love it, dearly. The stars really did align for them at this point. Anthony Kiedis was clean, sober, and bursting with creativity. Flea and John had been able to work out the initial kinks in their musical chemistry on 1989’s Mother’s Milk and were now soul brothers, puffing weed, cranking out jam after jam after jam. Chad Smith also had a great warm up round on MM and so the unit had now become one of the tightest and grooviest outfits in alternative rock. Add Rick Rubin to the mix, who stripped everything down, as he does, and made the band sound just as they were, 4 talented guys making magic together in a nice big, but oh so clean sounding, jam room. That room of course, was found in the haunted mansion, perched up in the Hollywood hills, that the band had rented for the duration of the recording. Anthony’s autobiography ‘Scar Tissue’ details this magical time for the band nicely and I recommend the book on the merits of that chapter alone. It is their ‘Sgt Pepper’, their’ Dark Side of the Moon’, their ‘Master of Puppets’, their…’Nevermind’. While I was definitely on the Nirvana bandwagon upon ‘Nevermind’s breakthrough, once I had decided to give ‘that goofy band that did the Stevie Wonder cover’ a proper chance with this one, BSSM was just about the only thing I listened to for the rest of the year. There was just SO much there to digest and enjoy. I quickly procured the guitar/bass tabulature book for BSSM and it became my holy bible of bass licks. I learned so much about REAL bass playing from that record alone. RHCP was the first rock band that made me WANT to dance. Which is saying something when the only dance move that I’d been dabbling with up to that point was the art of headbanging, which I thought to be a sure sign of my masculinity, but alas, ’twas a courting ritual that really didn’t impress the girls…it actually scared them off a bit….RHCP’s merrily flamboyant mode of expression had a much stronger impact on me than all of the grumpier branding of Nirvana, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam. I’d already been around that block with my ‘take no shit’ thrash metal heroes. RHCP showed me another way: love, beauty, fat funky beats, happiness, girls, good times, garishly colorful fashion choices. They inspired within me a new fearlessness to let my freak flag fly…but they showed me that I could wave that flag without being a pretentious, uptight sourpuss about it. A true ‘alternative’, if you ask me. See also: Fishbone’s ‘Reality of My Surroundings’, another expansive 1991 soul-funk-rock classic.

Melvins – Bullhead

Ah, the Melvins…If you don’t already know the story, Kurt Cobain loved to name drop these guys and perpetually aspired to obtain a shred of the cred that the mighty King Buzz Osborne had already amassed among the American sludge/grunge underground by the time Bleach came out. Buzz introduced Kurt to Krist Novoselic. Drummer Dale Crover played in Nirvana for a spell. Kurt helped them get a major label deal and THEN hung around in the studio long enough, during the making of 1993’s Houdini, to get his name into the credits as a producer. A recent mini web series, produced by Vice, shows various icons of the New Orleans metal scene (members of Eyehategod, C.O.C., Crowbar, Goatwhore and, of course, Down) all confirming that the Melvins first-ever show in NOLA single handedly forged the future of the city’s signature sludge metal sound. So Buzz and Dale are THE SHIT. Period… This was the first Melvins record I ever heard. It was in the car of a fellow Media Arts student as we made our way to the CFNY offices in Brampton to submit our bands’ demos to the 1995 (or 6?) New Rock search. After hearing the very Helmet inspired song that I was submitting on behalf of Chore, he asked if I liked the Melvins. I’d heard plenty about them but had not yet delved into their world. Honestly, I’d presumed that they were probably a bit of a sloppy punk rock joke based on their name, their look and the fact that Kurt Cobain liked them so much. Sweet Lord, was I ever wrong. On ‘Bullhead’, the Melvins began their career long trajectory of sudden stylistic shifts, in this case, by mixing a much slower grind into their stop-start surprise attacks of tightly packed riff-outs. 1989’s ‘Ozma’ was comprised mostly of songs clocking in at just over a minute, all boasting intricate proto-math-grunge arrangements. Out of sheer creative restlessness, Buzz then decided to slow down and space things out a bit. ‘Bullhead’ was the result. Buzz howls and snarls in some bizarre half-English anti-language of his own creation. Blood curdling recitations of this verbal mutation, accompanied only by intentionally off-kilter drum patterns or a single note punctuated by his guitar, precede harrowing blasts of sludge/drone warfare, which are then followed by proggy punk-outs and shrieks of total menace. If there are any ’90s kids’ reading this who want to find the first testament of the 90s ‘grunge’ movement, I strongly recommend starting here…and for the record, Buzz would probably wanna kick me in the dick for uttering the ‘G’ word anywhere near a summary of his work…because he’d just call it MUSIC, and he’d be RIGHT. Man, ‘Bullhead’ is such a BEAST Ok, I really need to just finish writing this…I gotta go crank that shit right now…All praise to Buzz, Dale and every bassist that they’ve ever chewed up and spit out. God bless each and every one of them. See also: Ozma, Stoner Witch, Gluey Porch Treatments, Stag, Honky, Houdini etc. etc. etc.