Crooked Rain Crooked Rain is the best album ever

(the worst being the goofy Dave Brubeck/Beatles homage (Take 5 - The Fab Four = Unity) or Spiral's song (about the fateful airplane crash in the Andes that ended Donner-esque?) despite Happy Mondays' references called in from the control booth.)

but yeah that outro to Stop Breathing is as good as anything on Spiderland. Newark Wilder is pure cabaret swagger and sleaze, dripping in its tremolo wash... a theme develops (cf, the first part of "fight this generation").

three of us it is enough (jix)

it's the simple stuff i need

um, i'll take Slanted though for best Pavement album, side 2, yeah.

I have NEVER understood the appeal of this album. No, not even when it first came out and it was all HIPSTER COOL round our squat to sit and listen to it obsessively.

"Do the alternarock references in 'Range Life' date it too much?"

They don't date it, as such, they just make me cringe. If they don't like the Pumpkins, they should concentrate on presenting us with an altrernative, rather than whingeing about it. Pretty obvious targets, to be honest. Never liked that song much, its quite thin in the melodic sense to begin with.

"...the first 9 songs are almost perfect - the last 3 are atrocious."

I beg to differ. Spiral's awesome stream-of-consciousness number "Hit the Plane Down" and Malkmus' aching, beautiful "Fillmore Jive" encapsulate what made Pavement great.

Anyone else notice that Silence Kit sounds like "Rollercoaster" by Buddy Holly? Except hit with some sort of American alterna-rock excellence stick?

"The jam kids on their Vespas, and glum looks on their faces..."

_CRCR_ probably could've been a better album with some weirder drumming. I also don't understand why everyone considers them the American Fall. The Fall was always about having a killer rhythm section and those three Rs.

Which is not to say they're not making fun of those two bands at the same time - of course they are.

"I/they don't have no function" is printed right there on the CD art, and I know Malkmus has explained it in at least one interview, so I'm not sure how its ambiguity got past so many people.

did pavement ever tour with STP? no, therefore it would be safe to say that "the speaker" may not be Malkmus, but instead a fictional character... therefore it's hard to draw any conclusions as to whether the "I" in the "I/They" actually represents Malkmus/Pavement's true thoughts.

I see at as more of the POV of a tourmate of STP/SP commenting on alt-rock rather than an indie-rocker commenting on alt-rock.

Now there's a reunion tour that I would pay top $ to see. Cantel Vs Malkums like Roth Vs Hagar.

Actually, that's what I meant to say - not that the STP/SP lines are Malkmus' own thoughts, but rather a more general commentary on the divide between the two strata. I think we agree on the main point, though. :)

1. Slanted and Enchanted
2. Brighten the Corners
3. Wowee Zowee
4. Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
5. Terror Twilight

I once made a short video called "Rabbit Fever" to the tune of "Unity= 5-4". I just filmed stuff around the house and hummed the tune in my head. When I put the music to what I had on the camera, it synched up pretty good.

The video for "Range Life" was wise for utilizing the underused technique of walking backwards through a crowd and was wise for not utilizing an attempted Evan Dando cameo. (The song is great, too. No more dated than "Garden Party".)

What you were supposed to do on a cold night roadtrip is to smoke your cigarette when "Hit the Plane Down" comes on. That comes at a good break, the cold air from your open window gives you that Alive feeling, and you can fell all cozy and warm from the defroster when you row the window back up and "Fillmore Jive" comes on.

Anyone else notice that Silence Kit sounds like "Rollercoaster" by Buddy Holly?

I always thought it sounded more like Holly's "Everyday". Another era that ended in Iowa.

But that's just me. The reissue coming out next month with 39 additional tracks? I'll buy it, but no bonus cut will come close to approximating that feeling I used to get ten years ago.

xpost

Thanks for saying "no more dated than 'Garden Party,' BTW. That makes my day. And CRCR is the seventh greatest album of all time.

Am I think only one who thought Malkmus was aboot to sing the wrong line and just made a quick recovery? The next line starts with "I".

CR is hardly the best album ever, as it's not even the best Pavement album. It's only on this blasted Internet that people seem to think of it so highly.

Crooked Rain Crooked Rain is the best album ever

This whole thread has gone by without a mention of "Unfair," which has GAINED in force over the last twenty years for me, until by now I think of it as the worldwide anthem of its era, though in fact it wasn't.

That said, the first 20 seconds of "Silence Kit" are the best 20 seconds Pavement ever recorded, and maybe the best opening 20 seconds of any album I can think of.

Good album but it's never been my fave Pave. At the time it came out, I preferred "Slanted and Enchanted". These days I prefer "Brighten the Corners".

"Unfair" def the high point of the album (well okay maybe "Gold Soundz"), such a norCal anthem. I have vivid memories of it being the last song they played at the last set they played in SF before the breakup, place went apeshit.

WOWEE ZOWEE PPL

obvs this album is amazing but probably their 3rd best

pretty good stereogum thing too, didn't know they actually did original reporting on that site

A friend of mine who knew them back then ran into them while they were recording CRCR and SM joked to him that they were going to call the new album "Stressed and Depressed".

man i need to listen to this right now. this basically soundtracked the whole of my uni life.

it's definitely their best. maybe not my favourite all the time, but consistently excellent.

somehow these reissues haven't done anything to reignite my interest in the albums. if anything they stopped me going back to them. i'd buy the reissue, listen to all the extra stuff maybe twice and then put the albums away forever. kind of sucks. in a way i wish they'd got rid of some of the crappy jams and demos and released em so they were one disc full album / second disc b-sides.

It is a great record but I was a little disappointed back when it was first released that they had lost the scuzz (and Gary Young) of S+E

this is the slow sick sucking part of me!!!!

what makes me laugh is that Young was an alleged Yes fan and the Pave-boys would rib him about it, all these years late Malky's sweating to remake The Yes Album in a slacker style.

wrong

OTM upthread about Unfair - never really struck me as a highlight at the time which is o_O to me now cos it's an amazing song.

pig lib is malkmus's fragile, and "1% of 1" is his "heart of the sunrise." i hope he gets around to pulling a relayer one of these years

when SM covered ege bamyasi, didn't he say that he listened to it every day for a year or something? i would like to know if that binge listening of can was before or after making the acquaintance of gary young. does anyone know?

WOWEE ZOWEE PPL

― Beatrix Kiddo (Raymond Cummings)

Yeah this is my favourite too.

1. Wowee Zowee
2. Slanted & Enchanted
3. Brighten the Corners
4. Crooked Rain
5. There are no other Pavement albums

he said it in this 1992 interview with simon reynolds, so if you take him at his word then yeah it has to be before he knew young, right?

http://reynoldsretro.blogspot.com/2008/04/pavement-interview-melody-maker-spring.html

xpost

ah, thanks! i was just wondering. at the time (way back when these records came out) i didn't really know about the before/after gary difference in sound, but i knew there was something different. and now all these years later, i thought maybe what i missed was gary young's sloppy jaki sound. just a passing thought when i realized it had been 20 years since this album came out. whoa.

xp Reynolds had some funny ideas about good and bad post-Nirvana bands, didn't he

I think that Malkmus' time spent in college at UVA listening to WTJU was probably his gateway to Can and German psych-prog of the 60s-70s. I don't think Gary knew who Can was before he met SM and Spiral.

really? huh. he totally sounds like a jaki doll that needs to have its string pulled again to me.

1. Wowee Zowee
2. Crooked Rain
3. Slanted & Enchanted
4. The BtC songs on those live in europe lps
5. "Major Leagues"

I think that Malkmus' time spent in college at UVA listening to WTJU was probably his gateway to Can and German psych-prog of the 60s-70s. I don't think Gary knew who Can was before he met SM and Spiral.

― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Friday, January 17, 2014

yeah I grew up with WTJU and it was all great all the time back then, still great now in fact.

my school sponsored local radio station was like 60% wonderstuff/20% replacements/20% nitzer ebb -- no can anywhere in sight! anyone who manages to hear can on the radio is a very fortunate person imo.

yeah i never heard can on kfai or w/e the other twin cities alterna station was, or from any punk rock friends or anywhere at all, just read about them repeatedly in OPtion until i was 20 and someone finally taped me cannibalism

my brother was fortunate enough to find a used copy of Tago Mago at the Rhino Records in Claremont sometime in the late 80s and that was the first I'd heard of it. I want to say that we had previously drawn some connection between them and Savage Republic but I can't remember if that's right or not. Definitely never heard CAN on the local college radio station (which was KSPC and was awesome)

<3 savage republic <3

the first time i ever saw tago mago was a CD in the glass case beneath the cash register at wuxtry in athens. it was like making it to mecca

CRCR4LIFE

Westy changed the band

SLOW SICK sucking part of me?

I need favors

The Gary version of Ell Ess Two is really good.

don't listen to your grandfather's advice about us, you're solid, kid

20 years later and we still don't know what their throats are filled with

is "pull out the plugs" a ref to poppers?

A case could be made for the thing In their throats being vomit

that doesn't rhyme though. i bet it's bugs

I only did poppers once (in the Chelsea Hotel, 1989, humblebrag) but don't really remember if there was like something you unpopped/plugged!

so drunk in the September moon

omg stfu

Inspired by Cut Your Hair being played as a lockdown anthem on 6 Music I have re-discovered this wonderful record and, whilst it's not my favourite album ever, it still sounds amazing to me.

https://devonrecordclub.com/2020/05/03/pavement-crooked-rain-crooked-rain-round-112-toms-selection/

Nice essay. FYI, there may be a misplaced word here (either “all” or “none”?): I’d stopped seeing it holistically and could only consume it as a set of twelve distinct morsels none all of which I had wrung dry.

Cheers, need to proof read my musings!

Not sure it has been discussed before on ILM but "5-4=Unity" is a mish-mash-up cover of "Take 5" + "She's So Heavy" (by The Fab 4)... but in 1987 (when Malkmus was DJ-ing at WTJU), SST records released a record by an obscure weirdo band named Lawndale where they covered "Take 5" + "Whole Lotta Love" in a similar mish-mash-up style:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j946Wsh7vNA

One odd thing that defines this album is that Steve West could not technically play above a certain tempo so Malkmus had to do the drumming on the faster songs (starting with "Unfair"), likewise Bob's live role went from supporting Gary (too drunk) to supporting Steve (too green) for a couple years (94-96).

Gary is always painted as this "hippy" or "prog-rock acid casualty" but Gary was (albeit briefly) a legit punk drummer in the early 80s. It's kinda funny that indie-darlings Pavement replaced Gary with this younger/"hipper' peer of theirs but in reality was more of a hippy/classic rock guy than the "old dude".

xp That’s interesting about Lawndale. Most the album after “Gold Soundz” has always felt like such a missed opportunity to me, though. I like “Heaven Is a Truck,” but the rest of those songs sounded like misses at the time, and never grew on me.

I can’t help think — what if they had made “5-4” a B-side, and promoted “Strings of Nashville” to the album instead? And maybe found room for “All My Friends” in that final stretch? etc. I don’t normally do “rock-band fanfic,” but it’s so tantalizing — instead of an amazing Side A and then “...,” CRCR could have been an even greater all-around album.

(But I’m also one of a select group of Pavement fans who can’t stand “Range Life,” which I admit doesn’t help the matter.)