"We were just killers with the cold eyes of a sailor..." Yup, it's the Stephen Malkmus - Stephen Malkmus (debut, s/t) POLL

Heard this today for the first time in years, this guy is a really talented musician.

Not sure it's said enough.

mega Pavement stan here, and I like several tracks on this record, but Church On White is another level. maybe SM's best solo song.

Yeah, I think Church on White is going to win this in a walk.

man I loved this album in early 2001. I loved the first half, even stray bits like the organ and wah-wah in "Vague Space" and "I had a crap gin and tonic/It wounded me" in "Pink India." I might still vote for "Church on White" but there's still "Black Book" and "The Hook."

uh, "jenny and the ess-dog"

never understood the love for church on white personally.

but i do need to listen to this again. it has very few bad bits.

Jenny+Ess Dog is def second for me.

I remember liking Deado feel like i hsould revisit to confirm/deny

I like this album scores more than anything Pavement ever did. voted for "The Hook" since it's the one I sing around the house to scare my kids.

this album is just solid as hell

fyi Malkmus nerds the ongoing "worst SPIN album of the year" thread has turned into a thread mostly about Wowee Zowee

When this came out, I really enjoyed it, but I remember thinking it was really poorly sequenced. The three tracks before Jenny and the Ess-Dog seemed absolutely interminable to me...just dull and slow, with nothing really interesting going on. No idea if I'd feel the same today; I'll have to revisit it, as I haven't heard it in well over a decade.

jojo's jacket

essssss dog

God I just love the vibe of this whole record. Unlike anything he did before or since; as much as I love his guitar work he's at his best when he keeps the track times in check

I'm leaning "Vague Space." Super underrated. Hoping "Discretion Grove" gets a few votes, too, though. Such a wonderful, no-stakes single for a solo debut.

'church on white', his best solo track

yea, church on white. saw malkmus tour for this album in 2001 and church on white live was really spectacular, it's the only thing i remember from this show (apart from his girlfriend at the time bouncing everywhere on stage with a tambourine)

I'll readily admit my kneejerk would have been "Church On White" PRIOR to relistening to this album in full but afterwards, I'm not so sure.

I was surprised how strong this album stood up after a dozen years, except for "Black Book"... that song still stinks like a ripe fart.

Not sure Malkmus' playing has been this melodic and strong on any album since American Water.

"Discretion Grove" -- a single! -- goes nowhere though.

Deado 4eva! Divine divine divine divine

Side Two is really great sequencing, I cannot disagree more with the person upthread saying the songs before "Jenny" were a slog, wtf. Especially as my pick in this poll will probably be either "Trojan Curfew" or "Pink India"... and besides "Vague Space" is a great deep cut, it is the soul of the record ("Swedish Reggae" indeed... more of a cod-"Beast of Burden" at any rate).

i love lots of cuts on this alb but have to vote "church on white"

i think this is "Jenny and the Ess-Dog" but going to listen again before voting.

Just listened to it twice.

Duds:

Jo Jo's Jacket
Discretion Grove

OK:

Trojan Curfew
Phantasies
Troubbble
Deaddo

Good:

The Hook
Black Book
Vague Space
Jenny and the Ess-Dog

Great:

Church on White
Pink India

'Deado' was the song that first won me over but I think I'll vote for either 'Church on White' or 'Trojan Curfew'. This thread has reminded me to relisten to Mirror Traffic, I thought that was pretty good.

had a listen last night and it holds up pretty well. jenny & the ess dog stands out esp for its lyrical content, malkmus as ray davies in 90s SF tossing off deft little vignettes that lightly mock while also making you interested in this faintly cringeworthy couple. i love the way he's able to slyly criticise the toe rings at the end of the song, while maintaining ambiguity over whether it is in fact jenny who has cast off the awful toe rings as an embarrassing vestige of their relationship and phase in her life. it's like a short short story that draws you in with straight observation and allusions that may or may not mean anything, somehow memorable for the recognisability of its characters yet forgettable, seemingly more than the sum of its parts.

i also think discretion grove is a bit of a non-entity, the chorus almost has the air sucked out of it, but i like the verses. i liked pink india when i first heard it, but it drags on for too long, nothing more than pleasant.

"Deado" is awesome, save for the unnecessary false-ending/coda thing.

"The Hook" as Malkmus' career in music...
At 19: he joined Ectoslavia forging relationships with James McNew, Dave Berman, Gate Pratt and Bob Nastanovich.
At 25: Perfect Sound Forever then Slanted & Enchanted were released.
At 31: Brighten The Corners released, but more relevant: Pavement toured the world (2x?) that year.

i thought i posted this, but it must have gotten eaten or something. i found an old ipod recently with this album on it, and re-fell in love with "jenny", this time paying attention to the lyrics. kind of brutal -- the whole thing is basically about what a loser he is

"ess-dog" always struck me as an indie rock "scenes from an italian restaurant."

One of my favorite songs from this album's sessions was a b-side to the Discretion Grove single: "Sin Taxi"
(Horribly compressed YouTube version):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HchgLbkpCI

Yes! I was going to mention Sin Taxi. The other Discretion Grove b-side Leisurely Poison is worth a listen to, its a fun little oddity.

I think the first album some guy downloaded and burned for me before release, instead of just dubbing from a promo.

and yeah "Church on White" is the one.

If you travel along the information superhighway as I am wont to do, you may have found yourself upon a lyrics page with some puzzling interpretations of lyrics you'd been trying to figure out.

The page for "Phantasies" has the first line as:

"Wake up early in (Karakatu), Alaska"

According to google, there is no such place as Karakatu, Alaska. On an album stuffed with very specific references to locations ranging from Kreuzberg to Ios to Stoke-on-Trent to Boulder CO to Afghanistan, why would Malkmus just randomly make up a name for a place?

Maybe he didn't...

The furthest western point in the United States (parts of Guam are further west but Guam is technically a territory and not a state) is the final stone in the long chain of Aleutian Islands that shoot out across the Bering Strait a mere 750 miles from the Kamchatka peninsula of far eastern Russia... a modestly sized island named Attu.

There is a fascinating story of during WW2, less than a year after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese army invaded Attu (and neighboring island Kiska) and took several dozen prisoners of war (almost all native Aleuts) back to Japan. The US effort to reclaim the island was similar to many island battles in the Pacific: long, drawn-out and bloody. Over 6,000 US and Japanese soldiers perished in the battle. Worse yet, the battle was kept secret from the American people as the US Government feared paranoia may ensue after learning that the country had been attacked and invaded, albeit a remote island many hours from civilization.

...

There is a 2006 film that details after 60 years the return of two American soldiers to the island of Attu. It's called Red White Black & Blue, it's imdb page is here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0469169/

I was just looking around at the soundtrack and noticed that the film score was performed by Portland musicians Jay Clarke and Jeff Saltzman. Jeff Saltzman just so happened to be the engineer of Stephen Malkmus. Coincidence?

Anyone else want to take a stab at that lyric?

Wow, I had never heard of that battle at all, and had no idea that Japan and the U.S. fought in Alaska.

I voted that one my favourite, fwiw, but can't help with the identity of the mysterious Alaskan place. Another 'lyric' question: in Jo Jo's Jacket, what is the high-pitched 'chorus' bit? Is he just going "eeeeeeeee-eeeeee"? Or is it 'me'? Or neither of these?

wake up early and crockett [as in "crockett and tubbs"?] to alaska?

yul brynner

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

troubbble!

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Still don't get the love for Church on White, but Vague Space, Trojan Curfew and Deado are all really really good songs. Glad to rediscover this album thanks to this thread.

I'm surprised hardly anyone voted for Trojan Curfew

some lovely echoey piano motifs on that song.

Funny enough, that was the song that inspired this poll. It's really an amazing subtle deep cut.

Has Malkmus played slide guitar on any other songs?

(also, that was my vote!)

Shit, didn't see this until now

Would've voted S dog, hook, or Jo Jo's jacket

Haven't listened to this in a long time, but "Pink India" was my favorite back when.

Has Malkmus played slide guitar on any other songs?

― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Thursday, October 31, 2013 10:25 AM (10 hours ago)

Answering my own question: "Zurich Is Stained" has slide guitar, BUT not sure it that's SM or not. (Probably is fwiw)

Father To A Sister Of Thought

thought that was just pedal steel

Easily Fooled though
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jq82TB8fR58

I don't he played that pedal steel himself either

lol @ no one voting for the single. well done, all.

I have just spent four days in Venice with Trojan Curfew stuck on a loop in my head and no means of listening to the actual track

The pedal steel on Father To A Sister of Thought was played by Doug Easley.
Easily Fooled slide guitar is probably not Malkmus, sounds like a pretty incompetent player (i.e., Spiral)

Like going back to "Zurich is Stained" after hearing "Easily Fooled", I'm more willing to say that both guitars on this song were done by SM.

Could probably make a pretty sweet "Rough Guide to Solo SM" with just the choice tracks from each album. Lots of good stuff scattered amongst the dross.

^ please do this, I only know this album

(that's not sarcasm, btw)

love this record. there are 32 ilx threads with the word "malkmus" in the title btw

I think of the solo Malkmus I've heard, my favorite is the second, Pig Lib. Lately I've relistened to it a bit, and it holds up better than what came after, I think. I should give the debut a relisten.

pig lib is my favorite by far

think his best are the self titled, pig lib and real emotional trash, but i enjoy all of 'em. i like this guy! his solo career has been pleasantly low key, which sounds like faint praise, but i don't really mean it that way.

church on white guitar solo an absolute stonker.

20 years old tomorrow.

I can’t remember if I voted in this, but no truck with these results

https://www.stereogum.com/2115626/stephen-malkmus-debut-solo-album/reviews/the-anniversary/

glad "church on white" won this, top 10 malkmus tone, feels touching even though I have no concept of what it's about (if anything)

re: "Church On White"

Yield Curve Blues

Stephen Malkmus has an ego that weighs an ounce. He is effortlessly polite. He opens doors for you. He’ll spend a long time on the phone giving you directions to make sure you don’t get lost.

I’ve known him for several years, having first met him through a mutual friend, the novelist Rob Bingham, who had managed to convince Malkmus to publish some poetry in our journal, Open City. Malkmus played a show to a barnfull of people at Robert Bingham’s wedding, along with Silver Jew David Berman and some members of Pavement, in May, 1999. The following fall he was an usher at his funeral.

Malkmus and Bingham both traveled within the strange atmosphere of someone who knows there’s a huge conspiracy running the world, and the only way to resist it was to develop one’s own code, a secret system of resistance, to be random, dry, unpredictable, inscrutable, always sending out code, always receiving.

They both had an appetite for paranoia and the found poetry of the world of business, and used it as a creative force in their work.

“I was going to name a song for Rob called Yield Curve Blues,” he says. Instead he wrote “Church on White.” I couldn’t help but wonder if Bingham’s death had contributed to a feeling in Malkmus that it was time to turn a page.

I came through Portland last summer on a book tour, and Malkmus showed up at the reading (he was, in fact, the only person in attendance), after which he gave me a tour of Portland’s drinking establishments.

At the end of the night he drove me back to his place. He lives on a huge hill that rises up behind Portland. It’s the rich part of town, and Malkmus lives there like a hermit or some kind of fugitive in a tiny two room flat crammed with books and records and a plastic record player he got in Japan and dishes in the sink. He went a few blocks out of his way and stopped in front of a gigantic house. “Art Alexaksis, the guy from Everclear, lives here,” he said.

It was one of those classic Stephen Malkmus moments in which the simple banal fact he had stated was transformed, by the context of his voice and his droll matter of fact delivery, into something fascinating and ironic.

When we got to his place we just sat in the car and he played me a rough mix of the new record. One song stood out— it was the most unabashedly emotive song I’d heard from him, and as it went on it became clear it was about Rob. “All you ever wanted/was everything/ and everything/ plus the truth/ I only poured you/ half a life.”

It’s called Church on White, a pun on Bingham’s address, Church and White Street. It ends with a brooding lead that spirals upward into a pretty wild emotional pitch before trailing to a shrugging end. He chuckled at little at the end of it. “Such an emotional lead,” he said, as though he didn’t know what came over him.

That Stereogum piece is pretty good

it sucks!

(jk, raymond, it is very good)

haha! v good

an edit-suggestion for the stereogum piece:

there is no pedal-steel on "Trojan Curfew", it is slide guitar (run through a shit-ton of reverb).

also this "the Jicks’ lineup would prove to be more malleable than Pavement’s ever was" line is a bit rose-colored. There are so many lost members of Pavement: Jeff Doyle, Kelly Hensley, Jason Fawkes, Rob Chamberlin, uh... Gary Young. Spiral didn't play on many recordings post-WZ (not a single note on Terror Twilight, Pacific Trim and other releases), Westy was replaced a couple times in the studio (often by SM himself on faster/harder songs, but the High Llamas drummer on the trickier songs on Terror Twilight)... towards the end the band was kinda stapled together and SM was tired of dragging them around.

is that right — kannberg doesn't play at all on Terror Twilight?!

from the link in the stereogum article:

The relationship with Kannenberg [sic] seems to be the thing Malkmus wanted most to break free of; whatever positive chemistry had once existed was working no more. On Terror Twilight, Pavement’s last record, Kannenberg allegedly played not a single note on the record but got paid the same as the other band members. Kannenberg[sic], (perhaps given the nature of such arrangements as those outlined above? But then perhaps best not to assume too much about things you don’t really know about…) was not so eager to end the band.

this is nice though https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm_BsWO_jrQ

Wow, I was there for this but had no idea video existed.

This was the 1st of 2 nights, pretty insane setlist. The 2nd night was way more Jicks focused.

Kannenberg allegedly played not a single note on the record but got paid the same as the other band members.

“allegedly”(?) is anyone on record saying this?

Like that’s a pretty shitty paragraph, with that coy paranthetical suggestion that maybe Scott was just enjoying a free ride.

(And Pacific Trim is a different story—it was recorded by SM, Bob, & West after convening for an aborted Silver Jews session.)

this is nice though

very! thanks for sharing. looked like a lot of fun. I really hope they do a 20 year tour. i saw SM & Jicks several times but didn't get to see Pavement during the OG run or the 10 year.

i've heard the "spiral stairs didn't play on terror twilight" story before but can't find a source. the version i remember is something like "godrich just preferred to get malkmus to overdub stuff and didn't care about working with the rest of the band" or something like that

enjoyed that Raymond

The book says that “Godrich could be a hard taskmaster(...). Some mornings Malkmus and Kannberg would come in complaining of blisters and sore hands.” Later, Scott was in UK for the overdubbing/mixing (with Malk & Ibold). So you’d have to believe that Scott was ok with all his playing being erased.

happy 25th

Oh god no way

Funny, Church On White is probably my least favourite on here. It's just a bit bland compared to the rest

Listening again now for the first time in a while. What a fun album. Maybe his most fun album?

How did I miss that Stereogum piece five years ago, Raymond? Wonderful.

Terror Twilight is my favorite Pavement btw.

when are we going to get a jicks reunion tour anyway

jicks > pavement!!!

i would settle for some new malkmus project where he's indulging his jammy instincts i guess

i think the main problem with this album is the production is just a little flat & generic. everything else about it is really solid

How did I miss that Stereogum piece five years ago, Raymond? Wonderful.

Terror Twilight is my favorite Pavement btw.

― The Luda of Suburbia (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, February 14, 2026 4:35 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Thanks, Alfred!

As I’ve said elsewhere lately, 60-70% of Terror Twilight is actually really pretty strong, but then there’s the rest.

And since someone will ask me: I don’t like Billie, Ann Don’t Cry, or Carrot Rope, can do without Major Leagues.

oh, wait, sorry -- I meant BTC.

i love "carrot rope"

Agreed with ufo on the production of the s/t album, and in a way by Pig Lib Malkmus had overcome that problem.

I had the thought recently about Sonic Youth that it would be cool if someone went though all the live tapes to find ideal/gnarly versions of the songs and then put together “live” versions of the albums — “Stephen Malkmus” might especially benefit from this

Listening to a bit of Pig Lib as I worked out this morning, I thought, "Malkmus must really love Paul and Linda McCartney's Ram, huh."

I really shouldn’t be allowed on ILX first thing on a Saturday morning before coffee. I always tell myself I’ll NOT post about Terror Twilight; we all love Pavement, I don’t want to spark arguments. Sorry about that.

yeah pig lib was an improvement production-wise

even despite the production i think i like the s/t front-to-back more than any pavement album

What do you like most about the s/t?

(For me, if I had to express it, it’s a feeling of freedom, if not quite lightness.)

It's okay to spark argument, we're all men and women of leisure.

Terror Twilight has been going from underrated to overrated for a few years now

also the absolutely most vmic Alfred fav Pavement show album

“I take pleasure in your leisure”

If life ever slows down there’s an essay to be written about “Proud Mary”, “The Hook”, and “Be The Hook”.

also the absolutely most vmic Alfred fav Pavement show album

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown)

and sometimes it's WZ.