Pavement:Classic or Dud

"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