Pavement:Classic or Dud

I can sum up Pavement with a few words: run-on sentences, inside-jokes (which, unfortunately are never explained), sloppy jams hovering somewhere between self-mocking angst and slacker apathy culminating in complacency.

Something about them was unique at one time, but not terribly more unique than several other bands of the same era. And, is it just me, or does Steve have NO RANGE?!

That being said, I think Pavement are okay for summer music ("Summer babe"...) but Steve's starting to wear out his welcome in my eardrums.

I like the ballads, I think - "Here", "We Dance". Ask me in ten years.

I appreciate the Fall's virulence, to hark back to an obvious predecessor, to Pavement's mere quirkiness. Compared to the bile Mark E. can drop from his lips, the endlessly quoted putdowns from "Range Life" seem completely wimpy and pointless.

"Slanted.." is the only album that I play regularly, and I admit it's good, as is half of "Wowee Zowee". They CAN be almost great ("Summer Babe", "Here", "Father to a Sister of a Thought"), but seem content to pad out releases with half-arsed Pavement-by-numbers material. Or should that be Fall-by-numbers?

I lost interest by "Brighten the Corners" when it was clear that they could only do one thing, and we're probably going to do it for ever.

They make me bob my head and laugh and feel good - which is the whole of the point of Pavement (as far as I see it). And...job well-done.

'Crooked Rain, Crooken Rain' is simply brilliant in it's slackerisms. And is in my top 3 (maybe even THE) summer album list. Already have listened to it many times this very summer period and will surely listen to it many more times (as I have for past summers). It still hasn't lost it's charms on me (not come summer time, at least). Last summer, a younger cousin of mine got married. And...I played 'Crooked Rain' loud as I drove there and back as the perfect soundtrack to all that has been slacked in my young, but getting old, life. Worked perfectly for that "I'm 30. What do I have to show for it?" mood when you just want to say "Fuck it all. I'm going driving in search of some far off land of fairies and hot cocoa." (fine, maybe that's just me, but)

'Woowee Zowee' is good in many spots (nix the forced "punk" tracks). And Malkmus solo album is a solid summer album (for the most part). The rest...I don't care too much for, but. 'Crooked Rain' makes up for the rest alone.

It being Preston, Lancashire would have fitted Pavement's rather tiresome Anglophile image, I suppose.

well because your vitriol for the indie bands you don't like is so potent! but what people don't realize is that this is only because a True Indie Rock Player cannot tolerate impure visions, hangers-on, fake players in tha tr00 game! Why ride the Night Train to Butterglory when you can have the '97 California Cabernet of Trigger Cut! latecomers get a late pass, we been up in this game since the jump!

best song off S&E sounds least like the rest; i'd like them if all their songs sounded like that one.

With each Pavement album, there's like six good-to-great songs, and the rest is just absolute self-indulgent wankery garbage. It's shocking that their first couple records have achieved the status of Perfect Canonical Rock Classics That Everyone Should Buy. TRUST ME - THEY'RE NOT!

I completely agree with that, at least for S&E. I couldn't even listen to CRCR-- particularly that godawful single "Cut Your Hair"; Wowee Zowee and Brighten the Corners failed to make any impression on me whatsoever-- well, except that they seemed exceedingly mediocre. S&E has a few good songs, but "Here" is the standout tune, and it doesn't sound like the rest. I never feel inclined to listen to anything else by Pavement besides that song.

here?

also, classic!

xpost

the last song sounds a lot like "here." i'm blanking on the name. "i've been waiting. anticipating."

pavement are my favorite band ever. it makes me a little sad to know that some people don't like them; there's certainly some aspect of their music that everyone can love. a lot of people complain about malkmus' voice (especially early), but i think that he does some fantastic things with his voice that don't really fall under the "technical" category.
i've never really heard anyone say that the guy can't write a tune, mostly because that would be absurd to say. i can see why some people would be a bit put off by his (to them) excessive ennui and laid-back style, but for me that just enhanced what i loved about him. also, the more time you spend with the records, the more you can appreciate the songs which aren't as obvious at first. i know he first time i listened to S+E, i didnt really 'get' it besides "here", which i probably put on repeat for 5 hours straight. once you get adjusted to that particular style, the other stuff starts to make sense. what might ostensibly be "self-indulgent" are to me fruitful exercises in his singular, genius style. to each his own, though.

mr snrub, that's "our singer", S+E's closer

http://blogs.nashvillescene.com/nashvillecream/2009/02/the_spin_pavement_reunion_at_t.php

four-fifths of Pavement reunites (not really) for Bob N.'s wedding

was spiral stairs not invited? harsh.
i certainly wouldn't mind seeing Pavement play live again, but all of the hubbub and hype that would accompany a potential reunion would be dreadful, I'm sure.

Bob Nastanovich says:

... As far as Pavement goes, I'd have gladly played Pavement song(s). My parts were mostly easy as many of you know and require little practice. I'd love it if Pavement reunited. Gary Young and Scott Kannberg were not invited to the wedding as I have not kept up with either as well as I should have over the last 10-15 years. Our wedding was limited to 100 guests (with plenty of family involved (both sides)). In my opinion, there should not be a Pavement reunion without all six members involved. Anyways, for the record, I'm game...

Best, Bob N

p.s. The first toast goes to Tony Crow. BN

Posted On: Monday, Feb. 23 2009 @ 10:42PM

Ha, so Bob is suggesting that the Pavement reunion should have three drummers? Uhhh. Anyway, this is probably inevitable, since they've all been "game" since the band broke up! I assume all it would take is a phone call from Malkmus.

My favorite description of them is still from GQ's 1992 year end list: "The Knack meets Sonic Youth"

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/stckhlmcnd/YouTube-Pavement-MajorLeagues_12486.jpg

<3

terror twilight will have its proper due someday. it might take another ten years.

Well i'm sure we'll be getting one of those deluxe reissues sometime soon

can some kind soul seed the live LP that came with BtC reissue? thanks in advance if you can

http://theblackenedair.blogspot.com/2009/01/pavement-live-europaturnen-mcmxcvii.html
it's great, btw ...

how nice of you! happy holidays, friend!

classic

you know what was a killer pavement tune? 'robyn turned 26', from the grand royal groovebox comp a while back. it's like they decided to out-grand royal all the grand royal artists on their own album. brilliant.

― ethan padgett, Monday, February 26, 2001 1:00 AM (8 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I don't know if i've ever heard this song?

it is not very good
also, that blog has the *other* limited pave live lp up: http://theblackenedair.blogspot.com/2009/08/pavement-live-europaturnen-mcmxcvii.html
not as good as the first one, but pretty good!

also: so classic. slanted and enchanted just gets better as time goes on.

wait a minute, there are two diff live shows with the same title and cover? sorry, i am a little bleary, having just put my cat to sleep :(

yeah one came with the BtC reissue and one was released for record store day.

wow. that's diabolically great. the purple one doesn't seem to still be available on that blog site, i guess that's the better one that came with the pre-order cd

both are from the 1997 european tour. sorry about your cat.

maybe this works? http://chainedandperfumed.wordpress.com/2009/04/23/live-europaturnen-mcmxcvii-2/

got it. thanks so much

I don't know if i've ever heard this song?

it's pretty goofy. Malkmus white-boy-rapping over a drum machine, I don't think anyone from the band is on it.

kick it with the trustafarians, colorado college, are they sega or atarians

anyone ELSE from the band I meant. even though it's credited to pavement.

^^^ess-dog precursor?

and off came those awful toe rings

Terror Twilight > Wowee Zowee > Slanted and Enchanted > Brighten the Corners > Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain.

thx 4 da challops

http://i44.tinypic.com/34gskdl.gif

http://www.brooklynvegan.com/img/music2/pavementsetlist.jpg

i feel like they are going to hate each other by the time i see them.

yeah they probably should do more spiral songs to be safe

2 spiral songs is plenty

yes, more than enough. i'm hoping they're all pretty relaxed about the whole thing, just spending the year touring and getting paid, w/o all the baggage of being a "band" again.

yeah i hope they don't do anything too crazy like try to make a new record, hope they just enjoy playing their old songs

This is close to my dream Pavement set list. Now if we can just get them to add a couple from Watery Domestic....

Show/setlist tracker: http://home.comcast.net/~kguideau/pavement2010/

encoring with two late ones! good ones imo but still - weird to me they wouldn't save for example "rattled" for the encore

They actually ended the show with Conduit for Sale!, but it's cut off in the photo.

silence kit into range life is like such an awesome thing in my mind

yeah, man i'm looking forward to seeing them

Klosterman's GQ story.

Thank God for youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJHf80cDD6c

if i'm paying to see this live i really don't need to watch a ton of poor qual youtubes months in advance, but maybe that's just me

I know I an a mere down-channel fashion flunky with a BS in Physics+MBA but if GQ/Klosterman ever need an editor, I did a little bit of copy-editing for my college radio program and can pitch in:

"But there are no airs in central California."

*winces*

ahhahahahaha ^^AM^^

if i'm paying to see this live i really don't need to watch a ton of poor qual youtubes months in advance, but maybe that's just me

this is only a preview. sheesh.

down-channel fashion flunky with a BS in Physics+MBA

hey baby

it was an amazing show, thrilled that i was able to see them first. setlist is missing random rules (!), a very pleasant surprise

wow, they did "Random Rules"? nice!

I'd love to hear "We Dance" but I think I would absolutely DIE if they played "All My Friends" or "Fillmore Jive"

I mean, seriously, could you close a main set better than with "Fillmore Jive"?

I haven't been able to get interested in the Pavement reunion, probably because I saw them 3 times in the 90s and they were pretty awful all 3 times.

Kinda want to go to the show with the Clean supporting tho.

S-K sounds lost w/o pavemnt in that kloserman article; the last line is 100% malkmus

if i'm paying to see this live i really don't need to watch a ton of poor qual youtubes months in advance, but maybe that's just me

Great show in Tokyo last night. Loads of stuff from Enchanted.

Got my ticket for September in Broomfield ('burb of Denver)... own all their albums, so my bias is there: I like them.

hey, i'm going to the broomfield show, too! i'll be the 31-year-old guy w. a beard and glasses.

hey random question -- does anyone have a rip of the vinyl bonus trax from Brighten The Corners deluxe edition? In particular looking for that What Goes On cover ...

What goes on in your mind/I gotta love my baby from behind

Damn, that's a pretty fantastic cover!

is it on that page? i'm just getting a blank page ...

Really? Erm, check yr mail in a minute.

that what goes on cover is so horrible... ugh.

what's so horrible about it? love the droney synth backdrop for one.

heyo, thanks, willem! i liked this version when i heard it way back when ... not the band's finest hour or anything, but fun.

fun's definitely a big part of the appeal, but not just that. well, maybe being very tired/lack of sleep helps as well :)

isn't the version on the btc vinyl reish the one from kcrw, and not this version?

btc deluxe version is from kcrw yeah ... wish i could get it w/o buying an absurdly priced vinyl box set! it really isn't available for sale digitally anywhere?

Saw them in Glasgow tonight - pleasantly surprised by how excellent it was. Only rough spots were S&E cuts...not enough treble.

What was setlist? I'll be seeing them in....................................................................................................September.

Pretty much just most of Quarantine

Oh, and Silence Kit and Kennel District. Those didn't make it onto QTP did they

Great gig in Dublin the other night.

Classic. I'm fairly seriously blown away by the Jicks project too. Sweet acid fried guitar swirls there.

just heard a rumor that Beck is producing the new Jicks album? weird. don't really believe it.

Beck did a great job on last year's Charlotte Gainsbourg album.

according to the latest issue of mojo, beck is indeed producing the album, which they're saying should be out in september

Saw them in Dublin during the week. Got off to a bit of a shaky start i thought but by the end they had really picked up steam. Malkmus really didn't seem to be into it however. Apparently he and Mark Ibold did have to make something of an epic trip to circumvent the ash cloud though so he could have just been tired.

pitchfork also says that the jicks recorded with beck, but the pavement reunion will delay the release until next year.

it's a shame they left the between song banter off the kcrw parts of the brighten the corners reissue...really funny stuff

Hoping the next Jicks album is less produced, and further reminiscent of Pavement. Which obviously isn't what Malkmus is going for.

last jicks was pretty great

A few photos from the Pavement @ Barrowlands, Glasgow show...

http://krakow.zenfolio.com/img/v4/p768494433-2.jpg

http://krakow.zenfolio.com/img/v17/p492176709-2.jpg

http://krakow.zenfolio.com/img/v17/p851277676-2.jpg

Yesterday Pavement played a great show @ Paradiso, Amsterdam. Mostly songs from Quarantine The Past, with a few notable extras (The Hexx, Father To A Sister Of Thought, We Dance, Rattled By The Rush, Kennel District and Starlings Of The Slipstream). I'm seriously considering going to the other Dutch show in July.

Malkmus was really bratty and uncommitted in Glasgow as well. His playing and singing was fine, but he looked quite petulant at times, especially when Spiral did a song. He'd pull ironic shapes and dick around with his guitar held high. People have said this is what he's always been like, but that's no excuse. It was a very different Malkmus to the one who plays with the Jicks. With them he's relaxed and banters away. Ok, it's his project, but he could at least try to look interested. The rest of the band interacted well and looked as if they were having fun, Bob and Westy in particular. It was a good show once they got going, and I did find myself singing along, but it was hardly amazing. Maybe I just can't get that excited about 90s indie-rock anymore...

Sounds like SM is back to his old tricks

Count you're not the first person I've heard say that. I don't really understand how anyone could be a big enough Pavement fan to drop £25 to see them and not expect that from SM. I was more surprised at how genuine the rest of the guys were.

Actually considering Kannberg's recent releases maybe not.

Obviously I wasn't expecting Malkmus to be acting all sincere and impassioned like he's in Fugazi or something, but in most of the live footage from back in the day, the ironic tomfoolery is generally goodnatured and charming, whereas this time he seemed arrogant and sneering. I barely saw him crack a smile!

Yup. I was there and thought the same thing, but mainly ruminated on how this guy is 43 years now and still has to come across at petulant. I thought reforming the band after 11 years would mean he'd be enthused and generally happy to share the spotlight, but there y'go.

In this (terrible) Klosterman article he doesn't seem too excited about it. So I guess add that to his usual ennui

You'd have to figure he's feeling a little bit cynical about it all, what with purposefully staying underground in the 90s and mocking bands who made a lot of money and all and now here he is doing this fan-service/cash-grab.

Not that I'm complaining it was nice to see them but I guess I understand where he's coming from. But I was also laughing at him during the show, not feeling put off or anything, so perhaps we're coming from different places

WELL I WAS DRESSED FOR

that article makes me really, really hope that they release a new album and it's all about fantasy sports

dunno if playing lollapalooza, tons of late night shows, working w/ nigel godrich can be called "purposefully staying underground in the 90s" ... for an indie band they did a lot to make it big. But I dunno, I think that people are just reading too much into his onstage demeanor -- he's always like that. I think he's kind of fun in that way.

fair, but aren't they considered one of the first bands to choose to stay with an indie simply because they wanted to? they could've had more money elsewhere, you'd think

oh yeah, i'm sure they got major label offers, but were (rightfully) suspicious of that world -- don't think that was necessarily just a "we stay indie cuz we're indie" kind of thing. and obviously they felt like they could make a go of it on Matador. I mean, they were way more successful than a lot of major label rock bands of the 90s, right?

So went to the Brixton gigs on Tuesday and Weds nights. Tuesday was I thought pretty much flawless. Great setlist (obviously). SM did seem bored but in an amused way rather than a petulant way I thought so I wasn't bothered by it at all. More importantly his playing was phenomenal. Gold Soundz, The Hexx, Frontwards, and Fight This Generation were all incredible.

Weds night they started with Frontwards and Summer Babe but SM's amp crapped out for both of 'em although this led to Spiral compensating for it on Summer Babe so that still sounded great but Frontwards was pretty much ruined. Despite this SM seemed in a really really good mood and the rest of the gig was great. They mixed up the setlist so got to hear Box Elder, Here, Range Life, Date w/Ikea, Lions!!!, and Loretta's Scars none of which they played Tuesday. They also tried to play some of the stuff differently on occasion which led to really good versions of Fight This Generation and In The Mouth A Desert.

All in all I had a fantastic time and they were pretty much everything I hoped they'd be.

Went last night with low expectations - love them, but reunion seemed a bit grudging or cynical, & I found them p boring when I saw them last (Terror Twilight tour, I think). Made no effort to get tickets until I noticed there were a ton on eBay for half-face-price, so it seemed silly not to go.

V glad I did - they sounded terrific, & fun - not stiff, or bored (maybe this is because they're mixing up the set-list a lot?), & it was great to hear those songs again, loud, still a bit messy in places. Some dumb shouty stuff came over really well - Two States and Debris Slide made me happy, thought Unfair was a blast.

I just picked another ticket for tonight, £10 again - don't think there'll be so many gloomy desperate touts there tonight (since Broken Social Scene are more of a draw than Sic Alps), but might be worth dropping by if you're near Brixton & are bothered about Pavement.

can somebody please say these shows are bad because i can't go and am feeling sad about it

Yeah, I can't see them at Pitchfork and they aren't playing anywhere near Chicago after that.

Really enjoyed the Tuesday gig (though perhaps my favourite bit was Wooden Shjips alienating all the delicate indie fans). Like woof I almost didn't go, not really seeing the point of indie legend reunion tours in general. The band were clearly way inside their comfort zone, but that didn't bother me. I was suprised at how many songs I know all the words to and delighted they played Frontwards (my favourite Pavement song, ever since I paid £10 for Watery, Domestic and got home to find it was 8 minutes long). Now I know how boomers feel when they go see the Eagles and they play all the songs they loved in their distant youth - they feel good!

But for one date on their reunion tour, Young will rejoin the band, as the Matablog reports. On June 24, Young will play with Pavement at the Bob Hope Theatre in the band's hometown of Stockton, California. As previously reported, this is Pavement's first show ever in their hometown.

But for one date on their reunion tour, Young will rejoin the band, as the Matablog reports. On June 24, Young will play with Pavement at the Bob Hope Theatre in the band's hometown of Stockton, California. As previously reported, this is Pavement's first show ever in their hometown.

― mizzell, Thursday, June 10, 2010

O.M.GOD!!!!

Dud

yeah I realized that a) my elation was probably over the top and b) some too cool for school type would pee all over it. you're so blase, van smack!

But for one date on their reunion tour, Young will rejoin the band, as the Matablog reports. On June 24, Young will play with Pavement at the Bob Hope Theatre in the band's hometown of Stockton, California. As previously reported, this is Pavement's first show ever in their hometown.

― mizzell, Thursday, June 10, 2010

O.M.GOD!!!!

― iago g., Thursday, June 10, 2010 7:56 PM (54 minutes ago)

i did it again so imma let the beat drop

good one ksh! clever-er than the other guy!

yeah I realized that a) my elation was probably over the top and b) some too cool for school type would pee all over it. you're so blase, van smack!

― iago g., Thursday, June 10, 2010 5:48 PM (8 minutes ago)

I was saying Pavement is a DUD. It's not a reply to your post, which I didn't read in the first place.

then stfu and leave?

anyway the young news is pretty cool!

then stfu and leave?

― fman29.5 (k3vin k.),

The band is still a dud.

great point

van smack, laying down the van smack

"Pavement Called 'Duds', Cancel Tour"

irl lol

"Pavement: Classic or stfu and leave"

Maybe van smack really is Jim Rome.

Maybe Gary will make cinnamon toast for the crowd.

sounds fun!

so what up? these dudes broke?

gary must be getting on in years -- he was already 40-something when the band started out, right? wonder if he can still do those killer fills.

According to the pretty fascinating Mojo article about the reunion, Bob Nastanovich has major gambling debts (the section of the article about his marriage to a female jockey he worked with was really interesting) and Malkmus agreed to the reunion at least in part to help ease his (and maybe some of the other guys') financial situations.

By all accounts, though, Malkmus isn't having a lot of fun doing the shows.

Unrelated: Has he always played without using a guitar pick? I saw a couple of these reunion shows and he does some really interesting stuff mixing weird finger picking with kind of hitting the strings with his index finger. It was interesting to watch.

aw that's kind of sad re Bob

?is that mojo article online (sorry if this is an LOL query)?

maybe if they'd all gotten degrees in something useful like spiral stairs did they wouldn't have to be doing this humiliating tour, and maybe if spiral stairs hadn't wasted away his post-collegiate days playing electric guitars with a slacker rock group he could have a nice urban planning job right now

(sorry if this is an LOL query)

New board description?

Odd parallel with Blur's reformation, if there was any truth to the rumour that Dave Rowntree was in need of money.

god i wish i had some lol 90s band i could reform and scare up so dough with.

why is touring and playing music "humiliating"?

yeah i'm sure these guys are feeling so humiliated right now

(despite the glibness of my comments i should note that i don't think Pavement reuniting is in any way humiliating. hell, i'd pay good money to see them if they were coming even within a day's drive of my town.)

del the funky griffithsapien

just talkin out my ass here. don't know if it's actually humiliating for pavement themselves, but when bands reunite and tour seemingly just to pay off debts - not cause they love each other and love being musicians in each others company and want to record and share more new music with everyone - it's humiliating for me, at least somewhat. then again who knows i haven't seen pavement on this tour nor have i actually read the mojo article.

i guess i think of all the people with gambling debts, or just debts!, who don't have the benefit of having once been in a sort of popular band

right?

yeah yeah and that's fine, and i do not in any way have any sort of ethical objection to their tour, plus i'm in debt myself so i completely understand. but as a fan, and with all due respect to the pave, shouldn't i be allowed to feel somewhat humiliated by the circumstances under which they're doing this? let me note however i was in no way humiliated by the jesus lizard reunion tour last year, they seemed all about it but then again i don't recall yow ever handcuffing himself to a frickin mic stand "in the name of art"

why would you feel humiliated about something that has nothing to do with you?

cause i'm a fan and i have something emotionally invested in it, same reason r kelly fans who happened to have 14-year-old daughters might've felt a little humiliated, r's face with its devilish grin all staring back at them from their cd racks

i'm not a gambling man, but what are the odds that Bob can lay off the track for good? I wager someone around here has a chance at answering this or all bets are off!

i'm proud because of r. kelly

i think (hope) you're just being funny, del, because equating a band getting together and doing what a band does (playing shows, getting paid for those shows) with being accused of the stuff r kelly was accused of is uhhh

when i saw the pixies reunion i felt like joey santiago was literally pissing in my face (spiritually speaking)

lol
but for real, even the pixies -- those guys are seriously just letting their booker book a few money gigs a year and showing up and doing them ... but I'm not mad about it. i still love pixies records. and i don't have to go see them if i don't want to.

i mean, i'm glad that joey santiago doesn't have to worry about paying bills and can literally spiritually piss in people's faces now.

i hope the tour goes well but i'm not going because frankly they kinda sucked when i saw them back in the day

yeah but see that was back when they were existentialists - now they've got motivation!

slack motivation

i'm glad that people who never got a chance to see them in the 90s can do so now. i'm more glad that i saw two good shows (and one terrible one tbh) back in the day. malkmus seems in the live clips i've seen to be doing his petulant, too good for these guys routine, but whatever!

yeah I realized that a) my elation was probably over the top and b) some too cool for school type would pee all over it. you're so blase, van smack!
― iago g., Thursday, June 10, 2010 5:48 PM (8 minutes ago)
I was saying Pavement is a DUD. It's not a reply to your post, which I didn't read in the first place.
― van smack, Friday, June 11, 2010 12:58 AM (21 hours ago)

Sorry about that, van smack...

Is there any way to figure out what time they're playing at Pitchfork Music Festival?

I believe I saw a time lineup on something like metromix (blah) or something this week - maybe it was the pfork reader advertisement - but I believe they're at 9 pm - so no, you won't be able to fit in Iron Maiden on the same night (sad)...

Tyler, are you going to see them in Broomfield?

i am! you going?

hd vids of classic line-up from OG Noize Board deniz0r JenEcho:
http://www.youtube.com/user/jijifer#p/u

saw the pavemo at the greek (Berkeley) last friday. not only was SM not very grumpy, he actually seemed to be in fair humor. a buddy of mine ~hated~ Bob N., calling him the "indie rock Flavor Flav"; i thought he was more amusing than annoying. but holy flippin' crap the band sounded fantastic! they ended the night w/ "here", and then "summer babe" - 'miner was chuffed

i'm not a gambling man, but what are the odds that Bob can lay off the track for good? I wager someone around here has a chance at answering this or all bets are off!

Long odds. This has vanished from the Des Moines Register site proper, but suggests he has no intention whatsoever of giving up track life:

"I always prefer horse racing," he said. "Thankfully, the music is far more lucrative."

He was a jockey agent at one point, but said "the stress of being a jockey agent is the only thing I've ever done that I find to be more stressful than music. You can work 100 hours a week and make $100."

He had some success claiming horses, then tried his hand at breeding and it backfired.

"Breeding horses put me in massive debt," Nastanovich said. "You always think that one home run will pay for all the other ones, but I don't think I ever had a single."

He figures he'll pay those debts by the time the tour ends on Oct. 1. Meanwhile, he will visit every track he can during the world tour.

"Any time I get a day off, I'll take advantage and go to a nearby track," he said.

Berkeley show was sweet, good natured, generous, and hilarious to boot. Glad I got the chance to go.

I'd love to go to the Hollywood Bowl show but it is $$ and I hate big shows anyway

so has anyone been to the central park shows? i was there last night and they were great tbh

I was there too. It was absolutely phenomenal, and exceeded every expectation I had. I saw them a buttload of times back in the day, and this was the best they've ever sounded. And the setlist was just about perfection.

btw pavement were v. good last night, though spiral seems to have been replaced by a stephin merritt impersonator

― mookieproof, Wednesday, September 22, 2010 2:08 PM (Yesterday)

really? i am going tomorrow night...that really heartens me

Show in Milwaukee was superb -- certainly better than when they were touring for Terror Twilight, maybe about the same as the great show I saw around Wowee Zowee time.

great show. excellent lightning display.

(posted on another thread but) Tuesday = easily one of the best shows I've ever seen in my life and embodied everything I thought Pavement wd be like live. The *only* thing that could have made it better was a setlist addition of "Fillmore Jive" and "All My Friends" (both unlikely as fuck)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7IQFZ5R1TA

why spending money on shows when theres youtube lol

Show in Milwaukee was superb -- certainly better than when they were touring for Terror Twilight, maybe about the same as the great show I saw around Wowee Zowee time.

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Friday, September 24, 2010 1:56 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

i had the pleasure of attending this show myself. was sitting next to the gang of hollering jackasses in the starboard mezzanine, hooboy were they ever feeling their $3 tallboys, and yet despite that, probably the evening's principal mellow-harsher was malkmus playing the first bar of "old to begin," my favorite pavement song, before going into something else instead, like it was a stones greatest hits medley.

Dud.

they were most excellent on jimmy fallon, and the contest guy was not bad (alright, i couldn't pick out his guitar). so psyched to see them tonite!

i saw 'em wednesday night - great setlist and they sounded about as good as i could have expected. the thunderstorm was an awesome touch imo and the sky turned this weird ass green color for the majority of the show - i was right in front so stayed pretty dry considering. ibold came out an hour or so before the show and handed me a piece of cake, which was pretty cool. great cake, too.

we got some nice suprises - "spizzle trunk", "the hexx", "lions", "heckler spray"

they were most excellent on jimmy fallon, and the contest guy was not bad (alright, i couldn't pick out his guitar). so psyched to see them tonite!

― iago g., Friday, September 24, 2010 4:17 PM

dude's guitar was so just not there in the mix; it was inaudible

spiral seemed in pretty good spirits actually - seemed pissed off at one point, either at the end of "date w/ ikea" or "kennel district"

bob was predictably fuckin awesome

and malk was malk

ibold smiled a lot

nastanovich is wearing a lindon lions hat on the fallon clip

also, you ate a piece of cake from the ace of cakes!

it was v v good cake

the thunderstorm was an awesome touch imo and the sky turned this weird ass green color for the majority of the show

yeah! it was super weird out which made it fun.

spiral seemed in pretty good spirits actually - seemed pissed off at one point, either at the end of "date w/ ikea"

that makes sense because man did he mail in the vocal on ikea. worst part of the show because i actually like that song.

lol @ malk drumming during "kennel d" tho

he drummed on most of wowee zowee including kennel district iirc.

oh yeah i knew he did some drumming on record it's just funny to see him sling his guitar across his back and pound out a few bars from the wrong side of the kit

great show tonight--very good setlist. i definitely got the feeling we wouldn't be seeing them again, so it seemed poignant too

Enjoyed SFJ's critique in the New Yorker. He dates their decline too early for my liking - just after Slanted and Enchanted and Gary Young's departure - and the Cobain-suicide link is a bit of stretch but I agree with his general gist. Explains why my interest tailed off after Crooked Rain.

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/musical/2010/10/11/101011crmu_music_frerejones

wow that is indie guilt at its basest encapsulated.

Really? How so?

If Pavement’s songs were the air-conditioned stacks at the main library, Nirvana’s were the fight behind the bleachers: one set of problems was theoretical and subject to will; the other was entirely real and unmanageable.

*BARF*

lol

SFJ in 1 sentence: "They don't mean it, maaaaaaaaan"

Sasha Frere-Jones too often feels to me like rock music writing for people who don’t like rock music, or any other kind of music that ends up rocking.

I have this 45 of (I think) radio performances from around Wowee Zowee. One of the songs is "Brink of the Clouds/Candyland" (cuz it has that "orange! black! orange! black!" refrain). It has a black and white cover that looks like hand-drawn graph paper. I converted this to MP3 but I have no idea what the other songs are or what it's called or even where it's from.

anybody got any ideas?

it is not the Rattled By La Rush single

come on pavement nerds don't let me down

sounds like maybe it is a bootleg of a peel session from 94 or so?

http://www.discogs.com/Pavement--Peel-Session-February-1994-/release/1487130

yes that is it! Many thx

On my version the last song's called "The Sutcliffe Catering Song". Grow up and marry me.

Bob is covering the National Handicapping Championship in Las Vegas in a series of videos for Daily Racing Form (where I work)

Pretty funny

http://www.drf.com/news/nhc-xii-2011-national-handicapping-championship

Spin mag:
http://www.spin.com/articles/bob-nastanovich-talks-pavements-future

What have you been up to since the tour wrapped?
I'm trying to piece together employment opportunities for next year in the horse racing industry. I had a bunch of jobs, mostly here in Iowa, before I went on tour last year and I'm trying to get them back. I'm also pretty excited that in a few weeks I'm going to go to Las Vegas and start working for the Daily Racing Form, doing videos for their website. They're going to have me go to major racing events, interview people, and try to make it different than a regular sports show. Hopefully, we'll be able to pull off something entertaining and make it onto TV someday.

selected b-sides on spotify:
http://open.spotify.com/user/nick.douglas/playlist/4HQy0Dx2LN5PtrLrIerulV

I like the ballads, I think - "Here", "We Dance". Ask me in ten years.

― Tom, Monday, 26 February 2001 01:00 (10 years ago)

^ otm

The organism is sluggish.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQateJSGgAo

god bless that spleef in my mouth
or should I say Jah baby
Spin Doctors are crazy

June 4, 1993
Melbourne, Prince of Wales
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hc1JZ_IM4aI

In The Mouth A Desert
Ell Ess Two
Trigger Cut
Soiled Little Filly
???* [punk cover, anyone have any idea?]
Cut Yr Hair
Debris Slide
Canada [Silver Jews cover]
So Stark (You're A Skyscraper)
Angel Carver Blues/Mellow Jazz Docent
She Believes
All My Friends [clipped]

Pavement ist rad

i was watching the "Slow Century" doc a few nights ago and it made me kinda sad.

one of the best bands ever

is Pavement one of those bands that has zero appeal outside of the generation that experienced their initial popularity? I mean I like this stuff a lot but when I revisit it the inscrutable in-jokey lyrics and tossed off guitar noise make them seem like something that would be largely incomprehensible/not worth investigating to people who didn't cut their teeth on 90s indie rock. It reminds me of 80s hair metal, where it's popularity is very limited to a subset of people who were teens in the 80s.

oh i dunno hair metal brought us plenty of enduring pop hits

i'm sure there are plenty of millenials who dig pavement but if someone is doing the semi-annual "pavement sucks" meltdown my only response is "ya had to be there, man..."

oh i dunno hair metal brought us plenty of enduring pop hits

there's a few ("Pour Some Sugar On Me" springs to mind) but if you look at the crowds at Motley Crue or Poison shows or whatever, it's all just the people who were there the first time around.

anyway this thread is not about that, don't distract me!

as opposed to the wide variety of people at any other 80s act's concerts?

"80s act" is a very broad set of people, so yes

well i don't go to motley crue concerts or concerts of any other 80s acts so i bow to your experience re: the demographics that can be found

oh wait i did see the feelies. i was on the young end.

my point was some acts transcend their initial popularity and appeal to other generations - certainly plenty of boomer acts did this, the huge 80s acts (Prince, MJ, Springsteen, Madonna), etc. Pavement not so much.

yes the bigger the star, the more people from future generations know about them. pavement was always at a disadvantage compared to say, madonna.

i mean, i wouldn't necessarily pin pavement-digging on a generational wavelength. the most uptight people regarding their popularity tend to be people who hated them from the get-go.

those acts had hits!

xpost

also pavement was only a going concern IN the 90s, all those acts you mention were on the pop charts for 2 decades plus.

"Cut Your Hair" wasn't "Open Your Heart" or "When Doves Cry."

v true

surprised this thread was revived for some couchgazing when THIS is brewing

http://www.avclub.com/article/pavement-something-although-no-ones-sure-what-217912

I guess this revive is my way of wondering what non-Gen X Pavement fans make of Pavement, because to me they seem so inextricably tied to a particular era and its attending cultural concerns/baggage that I would think they require a lot of "explanation" for their output to make any sense at all

The kids at the college station know them well. They haven't disappeared from that demographic.

i know them but i don't really "get" them

i just assume young people who like terrible twee pseudo-indie think they're the beatles or something

yeah i'm such a crank about modern indie that i can't imagine pavement's deficits even make these little shits radar

if anything it's people my age checking out pavement after years of mild awareness that i can see being all "really? you nerds were making me feel bad about not being up with THIS?!"

i'm sure there are plenty of millenials who dig pavement but if someone is doing the semi-annual "pavement sucks" meltdown my only response is "ya had to be there, man..."
― da croupier, Monday, April 13, 2015 5:12 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm one of them. uhhhh but i had a 'cool' brother who was 10 yrs older than me who gave me a bunch of the music he liked when i was like 12?

an entire generation of aughts kids got raised on Pavement. they broke up in what... 2001? 2002? everyone was discovering those records afterwards. they soundtracked my highschool experience

so your point is wrong or maybe i'm just in the minority.

weirdo kids in their early 20s like pavement ime

idk anyone under 25 that like gbv tho fwiw

they broke up in 1999

i'm sure pitchfork's unending approval of their catalog had something to do with the fact that they remained such cult favorites into the 2000s. i mean they were never selling records or TV spots

an entire generation of aughts kids got raised on Pavement.

yup

my first girlfriend seemed to have spent 80% of high school (00-04) watching slow century w her bestie

every flimsy aughts indie band bared at least a little bit of their influence. Broken Social Scene, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah etc. it was huge talking point and a shared interest among friends

if you liked Pavement, we had something in common.

i'm 22 as well and this was happening in 2006 or 2007

There was really no time for Pavement to go away, because Matador starting releasing deluxe anniversary editions of their albums in 2002 and continued on until 2008 until the only one left was Terror Twilight, which they didn't bother with.

Pavement's the one band I adored that I can barely listen to now. I can't even listen to the Parquet Courts album that lots of people liked last year: the sloppy mamacita ethos.

huge nostalgia over the nineties is making sure some twenty/mid twenties persons are into Pavement. Once you get to know pitchfork, the pixies reunion tour and twin peaks, Pavement is really just a stone throw away.

xp and yeah the box sets have been pretty good at capturing the feeling of the era and why Pavement mattered.

i wouldn't even say it was nostalgia. more than it bled over into the next era

those records sounded fresh and undiscovered even in that time because everyone was already ripping them off

Now that I think about it, Pitchfork has been around now as long as Rolling Stone had been when I was old enough to start reading Rolling Stone. I wonder if Pitchfork seems like the old guard.

Pavement blows. No heart

As a Gen X-er who feels a special affinity for Pavement (I've been listening to them since 1992) and who has young impressionable music fan cousins, I've found that the kids dig Pavement and think they still sound relevant.

The band that has not aged well with the kids: REM. At least that's been my experience from a very small sample set.

Pavement blows. No heart

― Pentenema Karten, Monday, April 13, 2015

"No heart" LOL. And as Beavis and Butthead said, they're like, not even trying...

REM is much more of a you had to be there band...seriously, does anyone listen to that stuff anymore?

REM hung around way too long, so the kids remember them as this old lame band that old lame people enjoy.

my dad listens to REM!

of course people my age enjoy R.E.M. you'll find your way to to "Murmur" eventually. I thought they were a corny radio band for awhile though

xp
Yeah, kornrulesz, that's true...they stuck around.

is Pavement one of those bands that has zero appeal outside of the generation that experienced their initial popularity?

was talking a guy at one of the pavement reunions shows who was 19

How are we defining "Millennial" here? I'm a borderline [born late '82] and I know plenty of people who love them born between 1980 and '85. I discovered them sometime after buying the Spin Record Guide (1997 or '98), and they've remained among my three or four favorite bands ever since. What's weird is that even though Shakey's post in the thread revive makes perfect sense to me - I don't know why they would mean anything to someone who came of age ten years after their cultural moment, either - I find that they've diminished less with time than, say, Nirvana.

IOW, my experience is the near-opposite of Alfred's. ILM has rerouted my thinking about music enough that I barely listen to indie rock anymore, but Pavement still sounds as good to me as it ever did.

Pavement aren't exactly Truman's Water or whatever at this stage, plenty of scope outside of OG fanbase

they're a very clear starting point for "indie rock". just like joy division or whatever else. there will always be kids attracted to this type of music

it's not like everyone born in '95 is bumping PC Music and Drake

This is all v informative

Malkmus' career post-Pavment is pretty underrated and he is still touring the world at pretty decent sized venues. The Jicks do play Pavement songs in countries that did not get a chance to see Pavement more than 1-2x. I hear traces of Pavement in current acts like the Parkay Quartz and Speedy Ortiz.

it's not like everyone born in '95 is bumping PC Music and Drake

― hackshaw

phew!

Anyone young enough to have tindr do a quick search for # of results for Pavement?

kids still listen to Pavement like kids still listen to Nirvana

how is that?

i ask because afaict kids these days listen to nirvana the same way kids in my generation listen to bob dylan and i don't think pavement is quite there yet

People around my age who read Spin were pretty well acquainted with 90s indie rock, so even if we didn't cop Slanted and Enchanted when it was topping critics' polls we were on board a year or two before the group broke up. I suppose the reissues and Pitchfork appraisals would have acquainted '00s teenagers with the group, though their inspired, funkless amateurism was a pretty far cry from what U.S. indie rock sounded like after 2004 or so.

I once heard the comment "don't talk to anyone under 25 about guitar music" and shook my head so that's why i feel the need to clarify all this stuff

and Guided By Voices, and Sebadoh. and you name it. it's not some forgotten thing. nor will it ever be for a certain subsect of people

I didn't get Dylan at all until I wasn't a kid anymore

alright how about led zeppelin as a comparison then

Also, to state the obvious, Pavement never posted anywhere near Dylan's or Nirvana's sales numbers - kids in the early 90s didn't listen to Pavement like they listened to Nirvana, either!

Which answers your above question - only suitable comparison for Led Zep would be, like, AC/DC/Aerosmith/Guns N' Roses/Metallica. No one else even approaches that sales bracket

Pavement was the first indie rock band I got into. This was in 2002, when I was 13. I still like the records a lot (didn't catch the reunion tour).

My impression is that they're an indie rock staple of enduring cross-generational appeal. In short, hackshaw is right.

It reminds me of 80s hair metal, where it's popularity is very limited to a subset of people who were teens in the 80s.

have you already forgotten about Guitar Hero and Rock Band?

also: I Love the 80s, 100 Greatest One Hit Wonders, and 100 Most Shocking Moments in Rock & Roll, all on constant VH1 loop.

Yeah, I was in college when Pavement was as-big-as-they-ever-got and I was sort of shocked to find myself among the oldest people at the reunion show.

pavement obv aren't culturally entrenched like mj or the beatles or zep; they're culturally entrenched like the velvet underground

a close but cooler friend in high school whom some combination of mental illness and acid later made very different burned me a cd-r with "cut your hair" on it and i can hardly listen to it these days

I am 27, got super into Pavement in high school around 2003 or 2004, I get that they're a product of a past era (loose meandery goofy slackers with a wry sense of humor) but I can still appreciate them and I think they're musically really ultra great.

I wonder what is happening now that's SUPER rooted in the current era that 20 years from now I'll be like "really? What are you getting out of this in 2035??" All I can think of is PC Music

Diplo will probably be president in 2035.

Or his mother.

I dig Pavement, fell hard for them in high school, but man i don't begrudge anybody for not getting them or liking them, and indie rock these days seems partially detached from pavement style slacker steez anyway

Diplo travelling through time and being his own mother was the worst Star Trek episode

I hear traces of Pavement in current acts like the Parkay Quartz

I thought I'd read Parkay Quartz (who I like) deny it in an interview, but it's beyond traces - they sound like a tribute band half the time.
The last song on their last LP is called "Uncast Shadow of a Southern Myth" LOL

It seems like the Pavement influence is pretty big in the young indie rock scene even beyond Parquet Courts and Speedy Ortiz. Grooms, Twerps, Menace Beach etc. all remind me of them in some way.

yeah, if anything i think there's more Pavement echoing thru current indie rock than there has been in many years

I hear a lot of "90s" running through current indie rock, but only a little bit of Pavement here and there.

I've always thought of Pavement as sort of 90's continuity/evolution of what The Replacements for their time; I can totally see both bands having similar trajectories when it comes down to their appeal to subsequent generations.

I hear a lot of "90s" running through current indie rock, but only a little bit of Pavement here and there.
yeah i think malkmus is a pretty unique/unusual musician/lyricist when you get right down to it... parts of the pavement sound were easy to replicate perhaps, but he's hard to pin down. kind of like what big star worshipers miss about alex chilton, i think.

I hear a lot of Chilton in Pavement

yeah i do too, w/o it being particularly explicit

First time I heard Pavement I bought "Slanted and Enchanted" and "Mellow Gold" on the same trip to Media Play. Kind of sad that the slapdash atmosphere and lo-fi DIY spirit of those records hasn't really been revisited amidst all the 90s nostalgia. One thing I loved about both acts was they really didn't take themselves seriously at all. Beck's career has veered in the complete opposite direction but Pavement seemed to have kept its sense of fun up until the end.

yeah, seemed like terror twilight was a bit of a half-hearted attempt to make a "mature" record, but they blew it (typically). [i do like TT though]

yeah even with all the moroseness in TT they still made Carrot Rope the single

xp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ij9Tm5vewY4

xpost

yeah I guess the Pavement traces in a lot of contemporary indie bands could be attributed more to a general 90s-ness I'm hearing, because none of these bands have someone as distinctive as Malkmus on guitar or writing songs, which is why I'm not really feeling this current trend.

I liked Pavement in the 90s, but I didn't typically elevate them above all others (I saved that honor for Archers of Loaf), so hearing a little bit here and there in current indie pretty much mimics my experience with them back then.

What about the voice of Geddy Lee? How did it get so high? I wonder if he speaks like an ordinary guy.

I know him, and he does.

Then you're my fact-checkin' cuz.

[cue 90s lounge-Bossanova drum machine]

I was about to make the Chilton/Big Star comparison to Pavement. it's super cliche. but yeah the mystery, the sense of humor and the sense of commercial "failure" is part of what drove them from well-respected to canonical

the lyrics are also just something that have a huge impact on you at an impressionable age. they can be interpreted and studied over forever. they impacted my personality for sure

The slacker type is kinda coming back no? Mac DeMarco would represent that archetype.

Pavement evolved from a shroud of mythical obscurity which I think would be very hard to replicate in these times. They claimed they were from California to throw off the info seekers which led to the ascent of the band was fueled by the pseudonyms, the unlikely prog-burnout drummer, the revolving line-up changes, the obtuse liners. They were a moving target only achievable through the backpages of fanzines and midwestern mailorder catalogs.

Could a band today be as mysterious, obscure and obtuse?

yes but no one would care

As a mid/late millennial (26), Pavement was a huge part of my high school and early college music listening. They always felt before my time (my favorites of theirs were released when I was 3-7) but never "old"; the contemporary bands who were important to me drew from them more in ethos/vibe than they did in specific sound or style. They seemed less like something to revive or respect -- like the Velvet Underground or Television -- than they did a trailblazer for bands I was into. Although I didn't have a brother who got me into them like global tetrahedron mentioned upthread, that anecdote is fitting. They were a musical cool older brother; aloof and versed in things I could never quite get (The Fall, hardcore punk, etc.), and more interesting and daring than the music that was important to me at the time. (I remember the first time I listened to Conduit for Sale! and finding its atonal rambling skronk to be the most badass thing, just so much more idgaf and progressive than the milquetoast indie that otherwise populated my mix CDs.)

I've grown musically and personally since then; their arch remove and slacker talent-wasting don't speak to me as an adult comfortable with being genuine and wishing to do the best I can with what I have. (It doesn't help that I shared them most closely with a friend who succumbed to the depression I see lurking at the fringes of Pavement's ironic distance and nihilist disengagement.) But there was something unique to them as they fit in that moment of indie rock's last gasp, and the appeal they had to those of us who bought tickets to see Art Brut, Wolf Parade, No Age, etc. the day they went on sale and somehow got a ride to the city to jump around a few hours in a sweaty church basement. It makes sense, ten years on, that they're now being "revived" by Mac DeMarco, Parquet Courts, etc. -- and that those acts don't speak to me the way they seem to do to slightly younger crowds, who might view Pavement the way I used to see the Velvet Underground.

There's definitely some slacker lineage that starts with Big Star/Chilton, continues with the Mats and is passed onto Pavement in the 90's

otm cpl593h

I'd say all had a universal sense of emotion in their writing. it all had a bit of nihilism, a bit of romantic disarray, some snotty rebellion.

they all transcended their eras by writing incredible songs and continue to serve as a soundtrack for the loners of the world

xp - that was my bloodline through high school and college -- i'm the older brother only i don't have any younger siblings and i'm not a man.
i liked pavement back in the day -- they didn't write stupid love songs and were kinda funny and i liked how noisy they were. i barely remember caring about terror twilight but they were there for me when i needed them.

debris slide!

lol

Slacker lineage starts w Dylan.

that was my bloodline through high school and college -- i'm the older brother only i don't have any younger siblings and i'm not a man.
i liked pavement back in the day -- they didn't write stupid love songs and were kinda funny and i liked how noisy they were. i barely remember caring about terror twilight but they were there for me when i needed them.

I remember looking forward to buying TT on the day of release. In the 2000s though technical and vocal prowess started interesting me, so of course my affections was worn down. But I don't want Booker T and the MGs from them either..

the stuff Chilton is doing on his guitar here is proto-Pavement to the fullest. plus the ironic Jerry Lee Lewis jacket. the guy was ahead of his time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCyqODUveRI

!!! didn't even know that existed

Pavement evolved from a shroud of mythical obscurity which I think would be very hard to replicate in these times...

This is OTM. For that first couple years, even for a bit after Slanted and Enchanted, they were really obscure and hard to find any information on at all. I can't see how that can be replicated now that the Information Superhighway is here.

the same obscurity helped New Order.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra successfully pulled it off for a minute.

I love Chilton but the most obvious Big Star DNA on a Pavement record is the intro to "Silence Kit" which is an homage/lift of a Bell penned/played riff.

believe me it's super-easy to be obscure - the trick is to be obscure and still have people interested in you

obscurity isn't really interesting to people anymore

Shabazz Palaces first couple EPs did a pretty good job of stirring up interest under a veil of obscurity. Although I guess not really at the level of, like an S+E review on SPIN Magazine or w/e.

this is also how I would describe Grimes pre-Oblivion

I'm sure in SP's case various media outlets cooperated/assisted because of Butler's previous projects.

idk about Grimes

I love Chilton but the most obvious Big Star DNA on a Pavement record is the intro to "Silence Kit" which is an homage/lift of a Bell penned/played riff.

That's gotta be "Feel", right? The way Crooked rain kicks off has always reminded me of #1 Record.

people always talk about pavement as being so insincere and arch and ironic and stuff but i dunno a lot of their music conjured and conjures a real deep feeling of melancholy with me

they seemed to exist in the fading hours of a late summer day, the feeling suddenly in the air that fall was nearly here

yeah as a teenager i definitely related to them more than, say, pearl jam, who people would've probably pointed to (at the time anyway) as a band with "heart."
feel like pavement also communicated some of the simple pleasures of being in a band w/ your friends. what does it mean, a mistake or two?

people always talk about pavement as being so insincere and arch and ironic and stuff but i dunno a lot of their music conjured and conjures a real deep feeling of melancholy with me

they seemed to exist in the fading hours of a late summer day, the feeling suddenly in the air that fall was nearly here

― kurt kobaïan (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, April 14, 2015 3:32 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I agree but at the same time Pavement's front man could certainly read as distant and aloof, esp in a live setting, (lord knows that's what he seemed like when I saw them) and I think a lot of people keyed off of that.

I don't think they were insincere I just think they expressed genuine emotions in a prickly manner and that fucks with people.

esp in a live setting,

ain't that the truth. when they were on, they were ON, but there are only a couple people I can think of who I've seen display a greater contempt/disregard for their audience (and funnily enough one of those was Billy Corgan)

The Pavement show I saw was the start of a tour and it was clear they didn't know the songs and Malkmus was being very Malkmus-y and I just walked out and ignored their music for a long time.

Billy Corgan at least provoked some ice throwing ("Hey the next person who throws ice and we'll leave!" cue the entire room throwing everything that wasn't nailed down at them)

Like 90% of dudes in bands are aloof afaik

they seemed to exist in the fading hours of a late summer day

my feeling too

There's not one other group where I esteem one album SO highly (Slanted & Enchanted) and am SO indifferent to nearly all the rest of their output. For example, I tried to like Brighten the Corners and just found it dead. Didn't even give Wowie Zowie much of a chance, and I know that record is considered quirky and fun. I like but did not go crazy for the early ep stuff - forklift is pretty good

I don't know, maybe when it's all old it will all sound great, that kind of thing happened with the album Fear of Music, which changed my life for a time and then for years bored me whenever I tried it, but now it sounds great again (first side anyway).

I started by seeing Pavement in ABQ in 1994, having not heard one single song, going only on the hype in the village voice, and as a 30 year old I was one of the older people there (but only by five years or so). I enjoyed the show (ftr they were nice to the crowd at Golden West Saloon), and picked up Crooked Rain....played that album a lot that year (not as much as Mellow Gold however, which is still great). And then wow did that Crooked Rain lose its flavor! I think I'd still like 'range roving with the cinema stars' & heaven is a truck. The rest has sounded mannered to me since at least 1996, when I finally spent the bucks on the by-then-legendary Slanted Enchanted. Only song I liked the first listen was "Here."

S & E never never fails, that's a rock record man, & the sound on that record makes a mockery of the concept of "lo-fi" - it's FI all right, and what it is is FI-ing HIGH. "Jackals, False Grails", "Perfume-V", "Trigger Cut" probs my faves these days, but I don't even skip the filler. Sometimes I skip "Here".

A sentence such as "Zurich is stained and it's not my fault" is precisely the kind of sentence that sums up being stoned: grandiose and vulnerable.

I do love and consider absolutely first rate the song "Cream of Gold" though --- is there anything else that epic? Maybe I should listen to that whole album?

Dude you shoul definitely give Wowee Zowee another chance. That's their best besides Slanted and Enchanted. And the Watery, Domestic EP that came in between S+E and Crooked Rain is perfect.

If you want a Pavement epic, try Grounded on Wowee Zowee.

"I liked Pavement in the 90s, but I didn't typically elevate them above all others (I saved that honor for Archers of Loaf)..."

I'd agree except I would go with The Grifters as my favorite. I listened to plenty of Pavement, Sebadoh, Superchunk, Silkworm, Palace, Red Red Meat etc. back in those days.

super interesting revive

this band parallels some of my life experiences I guess, I grew up in the same town where Maklmus DJd in college, but I went to college elsewhere (he's just over 3 months older than me). post-college a mutual friend of ours told me to get Slay Tracks so I did, kept up with them through Slanted and then lost interest a bit until hearing Wowee Zowee (which imo is their best LP proper). Then I lost track again. But the run from Demolition Plot through the post-Slanted singles was one of the defining musical things of the early 90's to me. Crooked Rain seemed like a retread at the time, now I like it just fine. Still haven't heard the later ones although I have heard bits of Malkmus and Spiral over the years. The music feels like an old friend, yeah summer of '91 was a good time.

it's nice that they've stayed relevant. I think their unpredictable stylistic shifts and generally solid lyrics make up for the at times transparent influence-copping. when I used to throw Slanted on after its release, my GF would say "everything sounds like The Fall or The Velvet Underground" which might not be totally fair but was not an unheard criticism at the time iirc.

my personal indie pantheon of the early 90's would be these guys, Unrest, Sebadoh, and the Xpressway stuff.

I've never quite understood the comparison between Slanted and the Fall. And people make it so emphatically, like it's (or parts of it are) the most obvious Fall rip imaginable. Weird, since I like both bands.

they only really got good on CRCR in my book. before that it was just a mess.

xpost. It doesn't sound much like The Fall, but the cover art is Fall inspired, one song *is* a straight up Fall rip off (Conduit for Sale), and another takes the drums from Hip Priest (Our Singer). Two States is pretty Fall like. That's probably enough to justify the comparison. I also liked Archers of Loaf/Grifters/Unrest better than Pavement, but Pavement had a more wide-ranging set of influences so I think it's easier for people to find something to like.

I first heard about Pavement senior of high school in 1999, and I must admit Terror Twilight was the first thing I heard from them, and I loved it. I actually listened to it the other day and still enjoyed it, although I can't tell if it's just nostalgia. It's not my favorite Pavement record (probably Crooked Rain), but I feel Malmus' guitar is pretty on point throughout. Maybe it's better imagining it as a Malkmus solo record? that's all I got.

It's funny hearing about these 90s indie bands that feel through the cracks for me during that time, like Grifters, Unrest, Palace etc. I remember reading Spin frequently in the late 90s and getting a sense that the only indie bands that "mattered" according to them were Pavement, Sebadoh, and GBV.

The Pavement show I saw was the start of a tour and it was clear they didn't know the songs and Malkmus was being very Malkmus-y and I just walked out and ignored their music for a long time.

Billy Corgan at least provoked some ice throwing ("Hey the next person who throws ice and we'll leave!" cue the entire room throwing everything that wasn't nailed down at them)

― chr1sb3singer, Tuesday, April 14, 2015 8:53 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha where were the shows?

that was my bloodline through high school and college -- i'm the older brother only i don't have any younger siblings and i'm not a man.
i liked pavement back in the day -- they didn't write stupid love songs and were kinda funny and i liked how noisy they were. i barely remember caring about terror twilight but they were there for me when i needed them.

I remember looking forward to buying TT on the day of release. In the 2000s though technical and vocal prowess started interesting me, so of course my affections was worn down. But I don't want Booker T and the MGs from them either..

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 14 April 2015 18:11 (Yesterday) Permalink

Alfred, me too - I even remember the store, and who I was there with.

Franklin, thanks for that post.

thanks for the tip kornrulez I will give WZ a real chance, and I missed Watery Domestic altogether

With Pavement, I'd say some of the sensibility, humour, irony and so on is specifically 90s, but their best work transcends that. I think their appeal is probably less dependent on context than, say, Nirvana's is.

ehh i feel like they embody a really specific hot central valley california delta vibe but i have a hard time articulating why.

musically, anyway

feel like pavement also communicated some of the simple pleasures of being in a band w/ your friends. what does it mean, a mistake or two?

This needs to be quoted for emphasis. So true. A lack of interest in careerism endlessly mistaken for "slacker"-ness.

What a brilliant, one-of-a-kind band.

"Grounded" is the definitely the one song to me that elicits the strongest image of being stoned on a porch at 14 in love/hate with the world

it was more a romantic vision of suburbia then something tied specifically to California

They sold enough records and developed enough of a rep (and were forced onto many second-generation listeners) that they will likely always have a certain cache for uninitiated listeners. You might say the same thing About The Fall in that while "of" a particular generation they are arguably a far less accessible band. Like it or not, Pavement are a musical touchstone, and will likely remain so for several more decades. The did the noise and tip his shit but also some of the sweetest of melodies. Also, like Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli said above, Malkmus is still making records, and he remains a reliable and gratifying source of music.

The observation that Pavement were never really mainstream is only another bonus; not only do i NOT want to hear "Cut Your Hair" on the radio, his lack of mass appeal may force him to keep making fresh material just to pay the bills (as it were) - and i'll take that any day of the week.

Random thought: If anybody out there knows of or is a youngster who is getting into Radiohead for the first time, explore a bit of the impact of a producer and take a listen to what Nigel Godrich did with "The Hexx" --- more moodiness, less whinniness.

Used to wash dishes at the pizza place I worked in high school while listening to CRCR, and then later rollerbladed with my friends in the parking lot of the pizza place I worked in high school while listening to Wowee Zowee. Later albums lacked the immediacy of those two, presumably because I was no longer working at the pizza place I worked in high school, which felt like the ideal backdrop for Pavement songs.

first listen on npr, the early stuff, 30 absolutely gorgeous songs from before "cut your hair". this very secial band was really ingenious. how they melded abrasive guitars with meandering songs, brittle tunes and a great vocal delivery still leaves me speechless.
The Secret History Vol 1

This is super lazy of me but is there anything on there that isn't on Luxe & Redux?

nope it's all just the bonus stuff from that reish.

ty Tyler!

http://www.vulture.com/2015/08/kannberg-favorite-pavement-songs.html

Spiral picks his 10 favorites.

yeah i don't understand this reissue at all besides ~VINYL~ which i mean hey if it's an excuse for ppl to hear this for the first time, awesome!

I might get the Crooked Rain era one tbh - no way was I ever going to buy the reissues on CD cuz fuck CDs but it'd be nice to have the extras and on vinyl too. the only Pavement vinyl I have is Brighten the Corners and Terror Twilight.

dunno, those pavement CD reissues were great -- not super expensive and loaded w/ good-to-great bonus stuff.

I'm not buying albums I already own on CD again

but an album of extras that I don't own on vinyl, sure

tylerw otm. "CRCR" is, imo, the best of the lot. There's an unreleased track called "All My Friends" that's prob my #1 Pavement song of all time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6JK4p_vnqo

I'm not buying albums I already own on CD again
would generally agree, but paying $12 for almost 2 hrs of bonus material seemed worth the cash.

"All My Friends" is unusual in the sense that a snipped edit of the instrumental ending of it was released as a b-side to "Gold Soundz" as "Exit Theory (edit)"... I wonder why the full track was never released until the reissue?

I kind of like the idea of having this on one collection separated from another album

yeah it makes sense -- though i always thought they should do a complete BBC sessions double LP or something. those things are so fun.
friend just sent me a tape of this summer of 96 show they did during the brighten the corners sessions, where malkmus is just making up lyrics for all of their new songs. a total blast.

x-post

Exit Theory (Edit) is on the same single as my all time favourite Pavement song, Strings of Nashville.

that's a really good list that spiral chose. some of my very faves in there.

hmmm few too many spiral songs though

i'm aok with this existing and would def consider buying vol. 2 if vinyl was my primary mode of listening, but it's weird they're promoting this as a new album named THE SECRET HISTORY when its a reissue of widely available stuff

No reason to buy this, but man these are some great songs. Song for song, this band's B sides were almost as good as their album tracks

100% dud

This tweet from a couple of months ago hit too close to home.

http://i.imgur.com/o9tXyLo.png

O_____O

Fuk

Haha 13 yrs is what I think of the original "S & E" coming out

"Yeah came out in the early 90s dude, that was like, I dunno 13 yrs ago right?"

Knew most of these, and leaves some out, but pretty cool

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMaR6ljTK6c

Huh never noticed the croce or sly bits before lol

where's that video of Mark "E" Smith pissing his pants

Off the top of my head, missing are Raspberry Beret/Cut Your Hair and Hip Priest/Our Singer, but I'm curious about other ones....

Also, I'm guessing that "nyah nyah nya nya nya" predates the sly bit?

Ring around the rosie

Stop Breathin' =
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VmM8qRRLwU

No Tan Lines = And Your Bird Can Sing

Buddy Holly one is a stretch

the silence kit melody is almost note for note "Everyday," I thought everybody knew that

problem with things like the buddy holly is that it's just a really rote diatonic melody... bit like those youtube videos that point out how a whole bunch of I V vi IV songs are "copying" each other. there are the basic tools of pop music! focusing on tiny little melodic cells is kind of missing the point when all these people are using the same twelve notes. the bit i like about the silence kit melody is that nice little switch on "grandmothers advice" anyway :)

Silent kid, it's a-gettin' closer
Goin' faster than a rollercoaster
Love like yours will surely come my way
A-hey, a-hey-hey

― love is how's life tonight (how's life), Thursday, July 31, 2014 9:20 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

problem with things like the buddy holly is that it's just a really rote diatonic melody... bit like those youtube videos that point out how a whole bunch of I V vi IV songs are "copying" each other. there are the basic tools of pop music! focusing on tiny little melodic cells is kind of missing the point when all these people are using the same twelve notes. the bit i like about the silence kit melody is that nice little switch on "grandmothers advice" anyway :)

― linee,

I don't think we're meant to take the video seriously. I mean the Sly Stone bit is out of a nursery rhyme.

I love S Kit and never noticed this either.

Chewing
Screwing
Myself with my hand

Bob didn't seem to take too kindly to it on FB, but maybe I misread his reaction.
I have no problems with these borrowings if they are real. Makes the point that they are magpies of the classic rock era

And the Sly one is bogus, the Buddy Holly one is as clear to me as the Croce one

Sly and 'stereo' belong here:
Songs that incorporate the "nan nanny boo boo" melody
But the buddy holly one is an obvious rip, but also a canonical example of nicking a tune but making your own clearly distinct song from it.

I just hope no one gets sued over it.

what is the one at 1:35?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UU7vXN-2j3A

lol I even own that album duh

West and Nastanovich sit in with a Pavement cover band in Nashville: http://pitchfork.com/news/61813-pavement-members-perform-pavement-songs-with-pavement-covers-band/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5iDsc4pCc0

While Malkmus guested on a song with these folks for a song on an album (first publicized back in September):

Soldiers Of Fortune are a supergroup featuring Kid Millions (Man Forever, Oneida), Barry London (Oneida), Matt Sweeney (Chavez, Zwan), Jesper Eklow (Endless Boogie), Brad Truax (Interpol), and Mike Bones (Oneida). On November 6, Mexican Summer will release their new album Early Risers, which features contributions from Stephen Malkmus, Cass McCombs, Dan Melchior, Comets on Fire's Ethan Miller, and others

https://youtu.be/cyGbBCc8aU0

my 3rd wave coffee shop anthem

walked past a chipotle today; they were blasting harness your hopes.

https://youtu.be/LoqsS_DiU_A

enjoy this sweet Pavement ripoff that plays over the end credits of Kelly Reichardt's 1994 film River of Grass:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJOwsOfQgFs

Sammy has a thread re: Sammy - C/D? , but yeah no they are most notable for either being the best band to have a future C-level billionaire exec on lead guitar... or Gerard Cosloy's least favorite band of the 90s.

I think that's what Pavement sounds like to people who don't like Pavement.

I was able to convince some pals that Malkmus was recording new Pavement songs under a different name. Look at the freakin' artwork! Listen to the freakin' vocals!!! https://clearance.bandcamp.com/track/close-encounters

In another alternate world (that some call reality), Malkmus is recording new (Jicks?) material in the studio.

I didn't know abt the Sammy billionaire thing (and I bought their album, not that I can remember anything about it)

sad, tho, that "what Sammy is most famous for" is not and probably never has been "say, didn't one of them go on to call himself Laptop and record 'End Credits'"

(quit ripping off Pavement to rip off Future Bible Heroes as reimagined for the Marcy Playground generation? eh whatever, I love that song)

X-post

Jicks sounds like Malkmus started some other band. Clearance sounds exactly like Pavement.

Just getting home from a bar and the band played a “cut your hair” cover which was very low effort but if there is a band where low effort counts it’s this one. The looser the cover the closer to Pavement’s spirit it gets, I guess.

Is there any good biography or super long magazine article about Pavement? and specifically about their last days? This band still confounds me- I find all of S&E repellent, I like Crooked Rain, and a few songs here and there on other records... but "Grounded" is one of my favorite songs ever. And this performance is just stunning: their second to last show ever, first song of the set, as someone in the comments put it: "Malkmus's energy is so cool in this vid. It's like a mix of feeling it and pissed off frustration that culminates in jigging around with the guitar behind his head."

I want to know more about why Malkmus left Pavement... is it just personal animosity? Obviously wasn't sick of touring or recording. Also I would like to read more criticism and analysis because I've been trying to understand this band and why people love them so much for nearly 13 years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_i4C8axWBs

sounds like you need to relisten to S&E until you like it

I want to know more about why Malkmus left Pavement... is it just personal animosity? Obviously wasn't sick of touring or recording. Also I would like to read more criticism and analysis because I've been trying to understand this band and why people love them so much for n

Boredom: with slackness, not making enough dough, the usual.

listen to wowee zowee until it all clicks imo

flappy bird this could be a gateway S&E song and also function as a dirge eulogizing pavement

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5OeoVkTDLM

malkmus is a prickly ocd loner fwiu and grew increasingly disenchanted (ha!) with carrying the load of his college / post-college buds. the swerve into prog in his solo albums is heard by some as something of a rebuke to / growth beyond earlier chummy sloppiness

Surface take: SM outgrew Pavement. Aside from Ibold (& Gary Young), the other guys were just friends with marginal talent.

Behind the scenes: one of the other dudes was serially cheating on his then-wife, flirting with a shitty drug habit, all the while coattail-riding & making other questionable life choices.

so why is most of his solo output so boring while every single pavement album is good

^^^could be a collegiate mindset, I found as I've gotten older there are as many classic tracks (and duds!) on the Jicks stuff as the Pavement records (esp. the latter Pavement records which have aged terribly).

I'll just link this seemingly unrelated dating advice column here:

http://www.thebolditalic.rip/articles/3385-dating-in-your-40s

At 21, I gave up hope that my romantic life would ever morph into a John Hughes film, and I met my first boyfriend. After six years, he became my husband, and another eight years, my ex-husband. Initially all I thought I wanted was someone who played guitar, listened to the Replacements, and wore Sambas. And this pretty much describes my ex. He toured nine months of the year, liked bands on Touch and Go, and played soccer in college. But as I grew older, I realized our marriage had turned into a rock ’n’ roll cliché, including erstwhile drummers, band breakups, drugs, and hookups with groupies in Paris and London.

Ultimately, I couldn’t blame my ex since he did us both a favor – he behaved so badly that I didn’t have to feel guilty for wanting out (though inevitably I did) or take responsibility for my own mistakes. But I was still left shell-shocked. At 35, when most of my married friends were having kids and moving to the suburbs, I was single and struggling to make a living as a college instructor and freelance writer. I wondered if I’d completely wasted my 20s and a big chunk of my 30s.

I like the later Pavement records just fine, still. I tap out on the Jicks records at the dull half of RET. the new single is stunningly dull.

then again I never really understood the TT hate beyond godrich's fussy production

Surface take: SM outgrew Pavement. Aside from Ibold (& Gary Young), the other guys were just friends with marginal talent.

Behind the scenes: one of the other dudes was serially cheating on his then-wife, flirting with a shitty drug habit, all the while coattail-riding & making other questionable life choices.

― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli)

Very interesting...

listen to wowee zowee until it all clicks imo

― global tetrahedron, Wednesday, February 7, 2018 9:04 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

co-sign this

yeah i have, i like it, but so much on there that doesn't connect with me, even songs i like like 'rattled by the rush.' i can't stand stand any of the SS songs. but 'grounded' is like i said one of my favorite songs ever. i just feel one day it'll all make sense because i've been trying to understand this band for longer than any other and i know i wouldn't ruminate on or be perpetually pissed off by a band that wasn't interesting or compelling or moving. i love pretty much all of Crooked Rain but 'grounded' is on another level

Big Pavement fan here who also just doesn't like S&E very much

grounded is like the exact venn overlap of helium and polvo

flappy bird - you listened to the last two albums? common opinion is all 'the early, cool, sloppy Pavement was great; the later stuff where they could play their instruments and got fancy producers to make them sound like Radiohead is dud' and I pretty much disagree with that. Much as I love Crooked Rain, I think there's just as much to be enjoyed about Terror Twilight and Brighten the Corners as there is from S&E, probably more. They weren't the same band, but who wants the same band?

but this is how literally every Pavement thread in the history of the Internet goes

I wasted all my 20s and a good chunk of my 30s too, and I didn't even have to get married to Spiral Stairs.

life is a waste of time. been a pavement fan since crooked rain -- saw the tour as a very young chap. first two malkmus solo albums are his peak imho

Yeah not fighting against consensus at all but:

S/E - Fascinating debut
CR/CR - Near perfect ideal of an indie-rock album
WZ - Their best album
BTC - Their most underrated album
TT - accurately rated mild disappointment

But I think Brighten The Corners is the one most overdue for a reappraisal. It's a fantastic late '90s rock album with a character all its own, even if it's not exactly what I come to a Pavement album looking for.

Love love love Brighten the Corners

flappy IMO in order to "get" S&E you need to listen to Demolition Plot J-& and Perfect Sound Forever, both of which I prefer and both of which were a big factor in the massive hype for the debut album. then jam out to "No Life Singed Her" and see if it clicks.

co-sign that too- transport is arranged is one of my favorite pavement songs. the B-sides from around then are fun too

Gonna descent b/c I think if Flappy doesn't get S&E he's absolutely going to HATE 90% of that early stuff, which is really disjointed and not at all the "Grounded"-y songwriting fix he's looking for.

My suggestion is check out the live 1992 concert on the second disc of the S&E reissue, which dresses up a lot of those rough early songs with some alt-rock showmanship. This version of "Home" is so completely my shit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgJ4SSbSJ6o

Stick your fingers in my mouth / Pull my lips back WATCH ME SMILE

hmph "Debris Slide" is far from disjointed (again, imo, but come on)

I found S&E and CRCR a total letdown after those glorious EPs, the only other record I like as much the early stuff is WZ.

will not dispute the glory of "Debris Slide"

If you love “Grounded,” Brighten the Corners is certainly the closest thing to a whole album of Groundeds, and the expanded edition has more good stuff along the same lines. It’s my favorite Pavement album, though the almost invariably slow tempo takes some getting used to.

I for one also adore Transport Is Arranged. Listened to it last week and I still can't get it out of my head.

With recent events, the lyrics have changed in my head to "Praise the GAMMON police..."

What's weird is that I have internalized Standard Critical Discourse enough to think of S&E and Crooked as "the classic Pavement albums" but if I actually contemplate my listening habits, in the last 10 years I've played Wowee Zowee and Brighten the Corners 5x more than either of those. "Transport is Arranged," "Stereo," "We Are Underused" are three of their greatest songs.

But of course, yes, "Debris Slide," that is majesty.

(I don't care about "Box Elder" anymore though!)

I was always a little sad they didn't ever try to go the Perfect Depth route / style ever again. Wonderful noise rock.

I just find the early stuff a bit hard on the ears. I don't mind 'lo-fi' but I'm just not into harshness, and I just don't think the songs are as good. Crooked Rain has incredible songwriting, as does BTC. Might mean something that BTC was the first album I heard and the one that got me into them.

"Grounded" (in its original state) was left off of Crooked Rain, then rerecorded for BTC. There is nothing even close to it on BTC.

That said, I also think it's pretty overrated... 4+ minutes of 3 chords with a cool intro/outro and a weak chorus (?)... it's basically "Summer Babe pt. 2".

^^^...then rerecorded for BTC WZ

that post started so well...

it's not overrated, you just don't like it

also, it's 'fight this generation' that's "summer babe pt 2"

pavement threads on ILM are reliably weird.

whether or not you dig WZ (I also think it's their best) the whole thing just SOUNDS so good

sounds like fondue or an electric blanket

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azEy4OUeZs4

the Space Ghost Coast to Coast episode where Pavement is introduced as The Beatles is pretty classic

hell yea

The jam they do at the end is a bonus cut on the BTC reissue

Yeah not fighting against consensus at all but:

S/E - Fascinating debut
CR/CR - Near perfect ideal of an indie-rock album
WZ - Their best album
BTC - Their most underrated album
TT - accurately rated mild disappointment

But I think Brighten The Corners is the one most overdue for a reappraisal. It's a fantastic late '90s rock album with a character all its own, even if it's not exactly what I come to a Pavement album looking for.

― Evan R, Thursday, February 8, 2018 5:59 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^ This

New Malkmus & Jicks track sounds like a lovely lost Pavement B-side

https://open.spotify.com/album/2NSpjbEnOdNMJU9F2ELEgF

Just came here to post that. Think it's the best (or at least most acceptable) thing he's released in a very long time. Reminds me of Major Leagues, one of my favourite Pave ballads

I like Brighten The Corners, not really a TT fan though. Transport is Arranged is one of my favourite Pavement songs. I really don't like Shady Lane though which seems to be a fan favourite.

dang going through my old bookmarks has inspired me to listen to "Brighten the Corners" today. I always think of it as one of the albums I'm not as familiar with but then I put it on and know every song inside and out. I also COMPLETELY forgot how fucking good "Old To Begin" is.

Classic top to bottom

Brighten The Corners is probably my favourite Pavement album, its one of those albums that instantly reminds me of a specific time of my life. My girlfriend at the time had parents who owned an independent record store, so I got to tape a copy a few weeks pre-release and played it to death. Pavement did a UK tour about a week before the album actually came out and (being a cheeky twat) I took it with me and the whole band were happy to sign it, top geezers.

I was so underwhelmed by Brighten the Corners that I sold it—not usual, being a broke kid in the '90s meant constantly selling old CDs to buy new ones—but like half a year later I bought it back and it was one of my favs for years afterward. Been ages since I've listened to it start to finish though.

lol i have basically the same history with BTC. bought it around 98, listened to it several times and was bored.
slapped it on a couple years later and was like "ok wtf every song here is great"

Was my first Pavement album but would suggest it as an entry point due it's slow-medium tempos for much of it. Was there a reason given for Harness Your Hopes being a b-side? And even then, why did it wait until the following album releases for it to come out?

Now here are the best albums, ranked.

brighten the corners is fine. it's fine! it is not better than crooked rain

LOL – I’m not even clicking

me neither, not after mookie's comment

It's all the same album, dudes.

lol what

the #1 is otm though

great TT blurb

thanks

tough to get worked up about a ranking of.....five albums

That's the fun part. It's like arguing about Joy Division.

I wonder if someday I'll go back to Terror Twilight and really *feel* it the way I do the other four records.

BTC gone down and TT gone up in my estimation throughout the years.

Too much mid-paced torpor on BTC and I really like the shiny Godrich production on TT now.

Don't agree Alfred re your low ranking of Crooked Rain, nor your take on "Cut Your Hair."

It's Slanted And Enchanted. And Crooked Rain would be my #1, though I love Wowee Zowee, too.

alfred's rankings otm, btc over cr only by a hair

btc has the benefit of not having 'hit the plane down'

i prefer hit the plane down to the two spiral stinkers on btc

I quite like "Date With Ikea"

wowee zowie is obviously the best and TT is really good

crooked rain will always be my favorite. it came out on valentine's day 1994, a month and change before kurt cobain blew his head off. an uncannily timed meta-"rock" record, "unfair" as dorm eulogy 1, and then 'the elegant bachelors', and "there's no survivors", and "good night to the rock n roll era" . . .

btw I seem to be that rare Pavement stan who really likes the SS songs

I don't mind the SS songs at all.

Terror Twilight would've been at least 8 times better had Side 2 opened up with something like "For Sale: tPSoI" instead of "Ann Don't Cry".

I'm kind of Wowee Zowee>Everything Else.
I wonder if Watery, Domestic is still as great as I thought it was at the time.

it still has frontwards, texas never whispers and shoot the singer so yes /cif

huh Watery, Domestic (or the expanded Slanted and Enchanted) are not up on (UK) Spotify. Finally a reason it wasn't stupid to have spent £10 on 10 minutes of music at Zhivago Records in Galway in 1997.

anyway Alfred's ranking is OTM

uh... Watery, Domestic still remains the best 12 minutes of music ever released.

good mourning!

I quite like "Date With Ikea"

― Paul Ponzi, Monday, August 27, 2018

The sparkle of that twelve-string intro never fails to grab me. Then SS sings the non-chorus and I've flopped out of his arms.

The actress? She's always breaking things.

btc has the benefit of not having 'hit the plane down'

fair

I quite like the SS songs too!

uh... Watery, Domestic still remains the best 12 minutes of music ever released.

― Scam jam, thank you ma’am (Sparkle Motion)

Gary Young at his best. The entire Watery, Domestic recording session is insane:

Texas Never Whispers
Frontwards
Feed em to the Lions (Linden)
Shoot the Singer (1 Sick Verse)
Sue Me Jack
So Stark (You're A Skyscraper)
Greenlander

yeah I listened to “watery” a few days ago and it’s still as great as it was the first time. their best release maybe

def the best bang for your buck. SE/CR/WZ all have more quantity of quality, but also so-so spots. WD is perfect, but only for 4 tracks.

also, Albert R. Broccoli otm xxpost

Where are Malkmus' tax returns?

The way the river bends, etc.

Yep, still a beaut. If I had any time (or sense of where the issue is now) I'd dig out the copy of YOUR FLESH magazine that wrongly slammed this EP.

watery domestic is so so excellent

I was listening yesterday and noticed for the first time that the twangy bass (or guitar?) that opens Greenlander also shows up toward the end of Shoot The Singer

Great snapshot of pre-S&E Pavement -- summer 1991 show at the Middle East just popped up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6Cd56fHNFg

some good gary young content here

I saw a teenager this summer at a grocery store in my small, middle-of-nowhere home town wearing a red S&E t-shirt and it pleased me greatly.

Wonder where he found it. I don’t get why ‘90s indie bands haven’t been able to cash in on the retro T-shirt craze... I feel like there should be Sebadoh tees at Hot Topic.

(Also — I didn’t know that Bob was playing with them that early on.)

It's been so long since I listened to Pavement that when I was watching a bit of that I heard a song I half recognized and thought, hmm, where do I know that song from? And then instantly realized, oh yeah, it's a Pavement song.

google search shows that red s&e t shirts are available on the walmart website.

!!

(...it says "Out of Stock," but still!)

BandTees.com has a few classic designs (Another Pavement t-shirt that has been upgraded to a super soft fitted cotton t-shirt for an extremely comfortable and great fitting official Pavement experience.

over on walmart.com

https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/ab6b861c-51c5-4ebe-b7ab-630f38fd7d0c_1.e41e3a84c7f155a757b2ed966c4aad5d.jpeg?odnHeight=450&odnWidth=450&odnBg=FFFFFF

The Velvet Underground pose with their old pal Nico in Warhol-inspired color bar portraits on the front of this soft black t-shirt. Pairs nicely with shiny boots of leather. 100% cotton.

boooootleg band t-shirts are p easy to find

i mean it's also on amazon and pavement's merch site, but yeah walmart.

MorrisP Industries only supports officially licensed merchandise from which a 25% cut goes directly to Gerard Cosloy's bank acct.

I saw them in Glasgow a month prior to that video and I'm racking my brains trying to remember if Bob was in the band then.

I had a tan-colored tee with "Pavement" in cross stitch style, it was ugly af and I LIKED it

related to the t shirt discussion:

http://oi68.tinypic.com/2cwqzkm.jpg

I think I had the sunny side up tee as well, but in blue

is that a britpop dude?

I would love a tee w/just the Wowee Zowee cover art

"Pavement asked me to paint their album cover for Wowee Zowee and it was absolutely incredible to have that happen because I'm so into their music. A few days later, I painted a bunch of stuff on paper for them to pick out which one they wanted. They had been doing all sorts of funny scribbly drawings and stuff on their previous album covers so I thought they were just gonna take my art and kind of chop it up and make a collage out of it like their other albums. But they basically just straightforwardly took one of the things that I painted and then they stuck the words on top of it. I painted about 20 or 30 different covers. I can't remember. A bunch of stuff. One of our friends, she was very into Middle Eastern studies and she eventually started teaching Arabic literature at college. But she was a friend of Stephen's. There was a Middle East vibe in the air. Everybody ate falafels like crazy back then. I just thought, 'I'll try some of this out,' with an old-time, far-away Middle Eastern look. Back then Middle Eastern was less specific then it is now. Twenty years ago it was just exotic."

huh, no mention of this:

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51UaDPzpj1L.jpg

Well the painting is totally unrelated

Yeah he even says “they stuck the words on top of it.”

That self portrait of Sarah Lucas will be hot forever.

I went to Steve Keene's workspace once and he had loads and loads of paintings in bins that he was just giving away. We got a bunch of wood cuttings that oddly looked like me and my dude and gave him a couple of twenties.

rip if you were being serious, there's more info on the photo here: fried eggs

that live set was awesome.

thanks. i am either unfamilar or have forgotten about sarah lucas but i enjoyed learning about her

I went to Steve Keene's workspace once and he had loads and loads of paintings in bins that he was just giving away. We got a bunch of wood cuttings that oddly looked like me and my dude and gave him a couple of twenties.

About ten years ago I bought a set of five randomly selected paintings off his website for like $25, and he sent me twelve, all on wood. One of them was of Pavement at the Hollywood Bowl.

Just saw Mark on the street, he looked like he was showing some hipster reporter around the neighborhood, gesturing here and there

Any headz out there know what "Sebadope" was?

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SdaZgok0IH0/U5BwPPJVdQI/AAAAAAAAGCc/yFxaaJWPjQ0/s1600/img299.jpg

(I guess same q for "Living Excuse"...)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8-jXaABfHY

Ah yeah, I know that from "Stuff Up the Cracks"...

Def. a 1993 show... I saw them 2x on that leg, I'll try to find the recording!

Sweet!

Apparently "Living Excuse" was a working title for "Cut Yr Hair" from my source...

"Sleep" is Fillmore Jive

"MT" = In The Mouth A Des(s)ert

"Loretta's II" = "Elevate Me Later"

Interesting to know they were playing a few CR, CR songs in '93.

That was Gary's last tour, maybe even one of his last shows.

I didn't get to see him play with them until the reunion show in Berkeley... that was really cool, something I thought I'd never get to see.

"sebadoh" came out on the CR deluxe as "all my friends"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6JK4p_vnqo

That's a great song! I never made the connection w/the early version on Stuff Up the Cracks.

I'm gonna one up Tyler W (as this is a rare chance to) but "Sebadoh/Helen Stones" first showed up on the Gold Soundz b-side "Exit Theory":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag-C3_xQjW0

The unabridged version came out on the CR Deluxe as "All My Friends"

Wow! I have that 7"... and again, never noticed it was the same song.

I wonder why they originally called it "Sebadoh"... it doesn't really sound like Sebadoh? Or maybe it does a little, I dunno

Because...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3xqJ0O64Aw

xxp haha that's right! i remember hearing that snippet back in the day and thinking it was pretty cool sounding ...

xp -- !! Talk about another connection I would have never made...

holy shit, "All My Friends" is one of my top 5 Pavement songs and I still can't believe they didn't put it on the album
I would KILLLLLLL to hear them play it live

Great rehearsal/performance footage here (w/Gary). Anyone know what song they’re rehearsing?:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzTNs67OZEQ

it was listed on the setlist as "punk song".

There’s nothing like that early Pavement sound.

The best. Slanted and Enchanted remains my favorite record I ever bought the year it came out.

https://i.imgur.com/i0pU1FC.png

My dream is for one day my office phone to ring with a local investment broker on the other end. "Holy shit," she'll say before hanging up.

Arkansas Business: for when you need this corporation attitude

Anyone know Marty's connection to the band? Is he just a fan? (Talk about lolrandom...)

Dude looks like a 'head: https://www.arkansasbusiness.com/staff/marty-cook

man i wanna drive to Prairie Grove and high-five Marty in person

Someone send him an email

Please don't. :-)

Marty is very busy. I'll give him all your love at the next staff meeting.

I'll take the bait...

A fan of Social Dist...ortion

Perhaps my favorite song. The girls know it is against Cook Law to speak during Social Distortion

— Marty Cook (@TheCajunSloth) March 15, 2020

Like Malkmus, he has daughters who are into Billie "The Saint" Eillish, compare:

Thanks to my 12yo daughter I not only know who she is, I hear her songs approximately 500 times a day

— Marty Cook (@TheCajunSloth) December 3, 2019

(Kids redacted) pic.twitter.com/wRF6TSLrBn

— Stephen malkmus (@dronecoma) December 11, 2018

That's all I got, I leave further explorations to the more skilled internet detectives.

I WORK WITH THE GUY SO I CAN FIND OUT WHATEVER YOU WANT, PM ME.

Marty, not Malkmus.

Sorry to dox yr coworker, pplains...

That Billie pic reminds me of when Malk said in an interview that Lorde owes him a favor (in return for something unspecified).

Feel like I'm gonna owe Marty a favor.

Marty graduated Mizzou '93? Bet he was at that Big Star tent show.

He wasn't.

(I know this because I WaS ThErE ~!)

Can’t say I’ve seen much Pavement fan art, but hard to imagine it getting much worse than this: https://www.etsy.com/listing/783996565/pavement-inspired-illustration

https://www.etsy.com/listing/778280777/radiohead-inspired-watercolour-paintings?ref=shop_home_active_11&frs=1

Weeshed otm

pavement really does sound like that though

the other ones are pretty funny but I can't tell how much of it is intentional

the bob marley one, ohhhh

Thought this thread revival would be about Scott reviving the band's IG for quarantine-nostalgia:

https://www.instagram.com/pavementband/

sweet account. those 7"s look great

Hey, has anyone ever heard the song “David’s Gone,” which was on a cassette comp called Nostalgic Glimpse of a Victorian Country Childhood?

Around 20 years ago, I was in an eBay bidding war for the tape, and was kind of relieved to lose out at the last second (as the $$ had gotten pretty high). The winner was really cool – he mailed me a CD-R with the track burned as some kind of audio file, but I was never able to get it to play.

...guess not(?) Bueller?

Anyhoo - I never realized there was a diff btw. "Summer Babe" and "Summer Babe (Winter Version)" - or at least I figured the differences were too subtle to notice (and that this was kind of "the joke") - tho I'm listening to them back-to-back now (Drag City comp vs. S&E), and the vocal is definitely flatter on the LP mix. What's the story behind the different mixes, anyway (...and is this something I could figure out for myself if I got off my @ss & flipped back thru the Luxe & Reduxe booklet or the Jovanovic book)?

Hey, I never noticed the keyboard(?) deep in the mix under the "From now on..." section of "Loretta's Scars."(??)

I cannot get over how good this album still sounds.

"David's Gone" was passed around in the very early days of either alt.music.pavement or the pavement.listserv but yeah that's an almost 30yo relic that's essentially a silver jews rarity (dime map quality just less DCB). I can't remember a single thing about the song tbqh.