Brashear, Walford, and Oldham treading water
 
Spiderland was that haunting and evocative bit of early-‘90s indie rock, the second (and final) album from Slint, four fellows from Louisville, Kentucky, the reconstituted shards of Squirrel Bait. It took a long while, but it has emerged as one of the profoundly influential albums of the post-classic era, contributing to the foundations of post-rock and inspiring acts as disparate as P.J. Harvey, Pavement, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Mogwai, and Sebadoh. No small part of the album’s appeal derives from the photograph that graces the cover, a black-and-white, ever-so-blurry pic of the band members bobbing in the waters of a quarry somewhere. The picture suggests the frolics of summer and youth, but the lack of color lends it a foreboding aura—a wholly apt introduction to the bracing, enervating music of the album. The picture was taken by Will Oldham, a buddy of the band’s who went on to record scads of music under the name Bonnie “Prince” Billy, among others.

In the following clip, filmmaker Lance Bangs brought Oldham and Slint members Britt Walford (drums) and Todd Brashear (bass) together to reminisce about the shooting of that cover. There’s some talk of Slint guitarist Brian McMahan cooking up some mayhem with a “sacrificial goat” and the entire band, save McMahan, getting arrested for trespassing. It’s evident that the quarry is the site of a tony residential community of some kind, we catch a glimpse of a billboard for a building development company from southern Indiana called Quarry Bluff, which bills itself as (initial caps and all) “A Unique Development Located on the Banks of the Ohio River in Utica, Indiana Just Across the New East End Bridge!” So it appears that the quarry isn’t in Kentucky at all but in Jefferson, Indiana.

This clip comes from Breadcrumb Trail, Bangs’ recent documentary on the band and the album. The clip ends with Oldham, Brashear, and Walford jumping into the water to re-create the album cover as best they can.
 

 
via Biblioklept