The Six Songs of 'Spiderland' Trivia Quiz

Answer: Brian Paulson

Brian Paulson, whose credits also include Wilco's 'A.M.' and Beck's 'Odelay', produced 'Spiderland'. Slint chose him because of his 'documentarian' approach, and because they wanted a change of producer, one who didn't have a trademark sound. Paulson credited 'Spiderland' with giving him his big break as a producer. The music was recorded live and the vocals were recorded in a maximum of two takes.

Steve Albini produced 'Tweez', Slint's 1989 debut album, a collection of short songs named after the band's parents (and Britt Walford's dog Rhoda, in one case; the band themselves were named after one of Walford's pet fish). He raved about 'Spiderland' in a 'Melody Maker' review, giving it 10/10. Will Oldham, aka Bonnie Prince Billy, took the photo of the band members swimming in a quarry in Utica, Indiana, and got in the water with them, hence their surprised expressions.

Answer: Ethan Buckler

Ethan Buckler was a friend of David Pajo and one of the founding members of Slint, along with Britt Walford. Slint played their first gig in 1986 at his family's Unitarian church. Buckler played bass with Slint on 'Tweez', but left the band afterwards because he didn't like what Steve Albini had done with the recording, and felt that Albini had made the band sound harsh and abrasive instead of 'warm and delicate'.

He was replaced by Todd Brashear, although Brashear did not play with Slint on their 2005 reunion tour because he was focusing on his family and career.

Instead, they brought touring bassists Matt Jencik and Todd Cook with them.

Answer: A carnival/fair

'Breadcrumb Trail' is set at a carnival, and the narrator is looking for a pirate ship when he sees a tent. He jumps the queue, goes into the tent and meets a woman who offers to tell his fortune, but he asks her to come on the rollercoaster with him instead.

The fortune teller gets carsick as she gets off the rollercoaster and the ticket collector says, "Who told you that you could leave?" Eventually, the pair leave the fair as the sun is setting. Britt Walford got the idea for writing lyrics about a carnival while listening to the instrumental version of the song, which came first, as he thought it sounded like being on a rollercoaster due to its varying time signatures.

Answer: Vampire

'Nosferatu Man', which bears more than a few musical similarities to 'Breadcrumb Trail', is inspired by the German vampire film 'Nosferatu', and the narrator in the song is heavily implied to be a vampire. Allusions to vampirism include 'like a bat I flushed the girl/And I flew out the back door' and 'she offered me her hand/My teeth touched her skin'. Britt Walford, a big fan of the film, wrote most of the song, including the guitar parts.

As with 'Breadcrumb Trail', the lyrics came after the music and were written to fit the melody, such as a section that reminded Walford of a train ('I railed on through the night').

The song was also partly inspired by Hank Williams' 'Ramblin' Man'.

Answer: Don, Aman

'Don, Aman' was a late addition to 'Spiderland', and none of the band had heard it before recording the album, whereas they had rehearsed the other songs for some time. Britt Walford sang on it and played guitar, rather than drums, and based the song on a person he knew. David Pajo doubled Walford's guitar part, at Walford's request, so that the two guitars would give the song a 'fuller' sound; Pajo was also unable to write his own guitar part due to time constraints.

Despite the difficulty Pajo had in learning and mirroring the part, they managed to record the song in two takes.

It is also the only song on 'Spiderland' without drums.

Answer: Toes

A repeated line in 'Washer' is 'my head is empty/my toes are warm/I am safe from harm'. According to an interview with the magazine 'Under the Radar', the band's tour booker at the time 'Spiderland' was recorded transcribed the lyrics to 'Washer' as it was his favourite song on the album.

His girlfriend found the lyrics he had written down and panicked because she thought it was a suicide note. Brian McMahan wrote the majority of the song, including the lyrics; according to an interview in 'Rolling Stone', it was inspired by his and his girlfriend's struggles with depression.

Answer: It is an instrumental.

'For Dinner' is the only instrumental track on 'Spiderland'. When Slint toured 'Spiderland' in 2014, they opened with 'For Dinner'; David Pajo described it as a kind of musical 'cleanser' in preparation for what was to come. None of the tracks on 'Spiderland' are under five minutes in length, in stark contrast to the minimalist 'Tweez' tracks. Slint did briefly consider hiring a female vocalist after 'Spiderland' and included a message on the album sleeve asking 'interested female vocalists' to contact them. PJ Harvey - who was fairly early on in her own career at the time - was one of the applicants, although her letter arrived too late, but ultimately they decided against it and split up after 'Spiderland' was released.

Answer: I miss you!

Brian McMahan struggled with being Slint's frontman; according to Todd Bashear, he never wanted to be the frontman in the first place and only did it because none of the others wanted to. While recording the vocal for 'Good Morning, Captain', which David Pajo has stated is his favourite song on 'Spiderland', McMahan had the lights turned off in the studio, and the rest of the band couldn't see him. After finishing his vocal, he reportedly ran into the studio toilet. The lines leading up to the 'I miss you!' section at the climax (which McMahan dubbed 'the crybaby part') were improvised. Some fans have speculated that the lyrics are inspired by Coleridge's 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner', but McMahan denies this. The morning after the recording of 'Spiderland' finished, McMahan checked into a hospital, where he was diagnosed with depression.

Following what would be Slint's final gig in 1990, McMahan left the band; according to David Pajo, he was getting worried about his future and what he would do for a living. (The band were all at university while working on 'Spiderland'.) Slint subsequently split up. In hindsight, Pajo believed that splitting up was the right thing to do, as Slint were at their peak.

Answer: True

'Spiderland' may sound complex at times, but it was actually recorded in just four nights in August 1990, over two consecutive weekend sessions. Because of financial constraints, Slint were only able to afford out-of-hours sessions at the River North Recorders studio in Chicago and essentially had to squeeze in recording where they could. Brian Paulson described the hectic recording process as 'stay-up-all-night-until-you-can't-see-anymore'. Recording the album was a very difficult experience for the band, and rumours circulated about band members being institutionalised during those weekend sessions though Britt Walford denied this; however, he did admit that recording the album was 'kinda stressful'.

Two songs, 'Pam' and 'Glenn', also had to be cut from the album due to time constraints, though 'Glenn' was later released on an untitled EP in 1994. The EP also contained a reworked version of 'Rhoda' from 'Tweez'.

Answer: Lance Bangs

Lance Bangs, who was also the husband of Sleater-Kinney singer and guitarist Corin Tucker, produced 'Breadcrumb Trail'. As well as the 'Spiderland' line-up, 'Breadcrumb Trail' also features Ethan Buckler, Steve Albini, and other musicians such as the Jesus Lizard's David Yow and Fugazi's Ian McKaye. To celebrate the release of 'Breadcrumb Trail', Slint's label Touch and Go released a special anniversary version of 'Spiderland' as part of a box set, which also included four-track demo versions of the 'Spiderland' tracks and the scrapped tracks 'Glenn' and 'Pam', and a live cover of Neil Young's 'Cortez the Killer'.

After Slint's split, David Pajo formed Tortoise, another post-rock band, played with Billy Corgan's side project Zwan, and also released solo albums as Papa M and Aerial M. McMahan formed The For Carnation. Pajo, McMahan and Britt Walford also guested on 'Movie Star', the debut EP by Ethan Buckler's band King Kong.