Watch: Slint Documentary ‘Breadcrumb Trail’ (2014)

The story of Slint and the Louisville music culture they emerged from.

Recommended by a friend who heard skateboard legend Ray Barbee having an enthusiastic conversation about it on the street in Boyle Heights, Breadcrumb Trail is an independently produced documentary by Lance Bangs tracing the story of a group of young Louisville eccentrics who played in various bands including Languid and Flaccid, Maurice, and Squirrel Bait before coming together to form the influential post-rock group Slint.

While the group had remained shrouded in mystery after the release of their 1991 cult classic album Spiderland, Breadcrumb Trail includes rare up-close and intimate interviews with all the members of the band (often recorded in dimly lit rooms in their own homes) alongside musical luminaries in their extended orbit including Ian McKaye (Fugazi), Drew Daniel (Matmos), Steve Albini, David Yow (The Jesus Lizard), and James Murphy (LCD Soundsystem).

Crucial to the Slint story is the relationship between quiet, reserved singer Brian McMahan and the chaotic genius drummer Britt Walford. Fast friends since their days at the Brown School, a small experimental public school for students who thrived in a “Self Directed Learning environment,” the pair developed their own language and world of curiosities that quickly set them apart from their peers.

Like all great rock band documentaries, the film includes numerous stories and folklore about the band’s antics including pointing a shotgun at Steve Albini, playing at a church service, recording an “anal breathing tape,” shitting in cups, and various other tribalistic peculiarities that made the group a truly one-of-a-kind unit.

One of the most memorable quotes comes from Steve Albini, who recalls the origin of the lyrics of The Jesus Lizard’s song “Mouthbreather”: “Britt was housesitting for me. I lived in a bungalow on the North side. I don’t know if Britt had ever lived alone in a house before. I don’t know if he knew how a house worked… Don’t get me wrong, he’s a nice guy, I like him just fine, but he’s a mouth breather.”

Of course, the film also dives into the creative process behind the band: Walford playing Rachmaninoff on guitar in his college apartment, the group’s hypnotic writing process where ideas often materialized through hours of playing a lick on repeat, McMahan recording demo vocals inside a car in the quiet of his parents’ garage, Walford introducing guitar harmonics to Pajo, etc.

Most should know how the story ends by now… Soon after the recording of Spiderland, McMahan checked himself into a hospital. The band Slint would never enter a recording studio again. With the band broken up, no music videos, and a cancelled Europe tour, Spiderland was relegated to obscurity and essentially destined to become a cult classic.

At the time of its release, Steve Albini would write one of the only reviews for the album:

“Spiderland is, unfortunately, Slint’s swansong, the band having succumbed to the internal pressures which eventually punctuate all bands’ biographies. It’s an amazing record though, and no one still capable of being moved by rock music should miss it. In 10 years it will be a landmark and you’ll have to scramble to buy a copy then. Beat the rush.

Spiderland is flawless. The dry, unembellished recording is so revealing it sometimes feels like eavesdropping. The crystalline guitar of Brian McMahan and the glassy, fluid guitar of David Pajo seem to hover in space directly past the listener’s nose. The incredibly precise-yet-instinctive drumming has the same range and wallop it would in your living room.

Only two other bands have meant as much to me as Slint in the past few years and only one of them, The Jesus Lizard, have made a record this good. We are in a time of midgets: dance music, three varieties of simple-minded hard rock genre crap, soulless-crooning, infantile slogan-studded rap and ball-less balladeering. My instincts tell me the dry spell will continue for a while – possibly until the bands Slint will inspire reach maturity. Until then, play this record and kick yourself if you never got to see them live. In ten years, you’ll lie like the cocksucker you are and say you did anyway.

Ten fucking stars.”