One band

Rifle Sport
Total votes: 2 (11%)
Breaking circus
Total votes: 2 (11%)
Brick layer cake
Total votes: 1 (5%)
Shellac
Total votes: 14 (74%)
Total votes: 19

Todd Trainer thunderdome

1
I like me some Toddtrainerisms from time to time. What a great drummer. Even in the slow and trancey BLC tracks his playing makes sense. Well, I always assumed he played in the studio versions of those tracks... if not, that band still rule.

At Action park... really listened to it A LoT back in the day. But somehow that Shellac stuff doesn't resonate with me that much nowadays.

I'd go with The Rifles, though that early Brick layer cake stuff is awesome. Close one between these two

Green cans is the kinda tribal rockin' shit I dig, love Boissy's guitarisms, Flour's basserisms.

Breaking circus are good but kinda meh. Must admit I didn't invested a lot of time on that band, didn't grab me from the beginning like the other 3 did.

Re: Todd Trainer thunderdome

4
I voted for Shellac. Rifle Sport might actually be a little more my thing music-wise, but his drumming and how the drums sound are so much more prominent (better?) in Shellac.

Breaking Circus and Brick Layer Cake are fine, but not as much my preference music-wise.
jason (he/him/his) from volo (illinois)

Re: Todd Trainer thunderdome

6
As much as I love Shellac and think his playing & aesthetic is obviously a crucial component, they are not Shellac without him, Brick Layer Cake remains his most wonderful creation.

Brick Layer Cake is to Todd Trainer what espresso is to coffee, the perfect, concentrated expression, smaller but bolder, more intense, without any of the distractions. The pure spirit.

Part goth torch song, part drag routine, part Quaalude comedy, part death blues, a Stadium Rock 'n' Roll show in miniature, the black, the sliver, the glitter, the sparklers, the one riff, the voice, the single spotlight. Amazing.

I love everything about all the records but "Tragedy-Tragedy" is where the BLC idea is crystalized into perfection. This is everything great about rock cut down to the droning bare essentials, the incessant repetitions are not minimalism exactly but a celebration of negative space. As heavy and doomy as any bearded stoner band sans bullshit. As heavy as the ice cracking under your feet.

Then "Whatchamacallit", a dark joke as black as coal. Now the process has been refined even further, no Flour, no Boissy, no Paulson pure unstepped on Trainer. I listened to this record for the first time in a long at the end of last summer during a stretch when even long after the sun went down it was still hot and humid and it still sounded perfect, esp in that setting, like that was what it was made for. I was alone and depressed and just wanted to play it without end. A record that begs to be played as loud as possible. A record I've used as a recording/mastering reference more than once.

I've been lucky enough to see Brick Layer Cake probably a couple dozen times between 1993 when I first saw them opening for Fugazi (Trainer & Boissy with a beat-up boom-box) until the mid-2000s when the idea seemed to go dormant. Every time they were riveting and hilarious. Almost every time it was just Trainer with a guitar, which was my preferred format. Once, memorably, he had a miniature amp strapped to his belt and played a gig in a dive bar walking around and serenading the audience with long icy stares. It was wonderful and unnerving.

When I was in a band every big show we played we always asked Brick Layer Cake to play (and once they did). Sometimes, especially toward the end, I got the sense he wasn't as into the idea of playing as much or maybe didn't think we took it seriously and he would always politely decline, though that never stopped us from asking again. Because we loved the music and the presentation unreservedly.

Breaking Circus and Rifle Sport are good too.

Re: Todd Trainer thunderdome

8
I feel like Todd was practically made to drum in Shellac. I enjoyed all his work leading up to it, but his playing with Shellac is fully formed, realized, developed... however you want to say it. It seems to me like a drummer who had hit his stride and honed/owned his sound. Unique parts, interesting kit, powerful performances. There's no denying the influence he's had on noise rock drummers ever since the 7 inches and At Action Park came out.
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