Pavement:Classic or Dud

xp I think he actually is trying to sound like MES on “Fame Throwa” though!

Did you remembah
In Decembah

as a britisher, this is really amusing to me. like when Taylor Swift sang that song about "Jag-u-ars" and an American friend said she was appropriating the British accent. Maybe so, but it hadn't occured to me that Americans tend to say "Jag-wah", but to me the rhotic 'r' on the end of "jag-u-ar" is still very much a US thing unless you live in Norfolk or the West Country which is a different type of "r" anyway. The start of "Ann Don't Cry" doesn't sound anything other than a US accent other than there's a flatness to the last syllable of "I am not having fun any-mo'" which I hadn't noticed before at all. Quite a few US accents don't use a rhotic 'R' anyway.

Same with "ought to have a second chance", the "a" in "chance" sounds especially twangy and Southern-US to me. Absolutely can't hear that as either a Southern UK long-a ("charnce") or a Northern short-a ("chah-nce"). It sounds like "chay-nce" to to me, which is a very country music-style thing.

what a rhotter

Just listening to the Godrich sequence now for fun https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6zwpCdHkPFjK576gaci8ET?si=N-dLFnmuRLKoxh1GAaxqsA

Starting with Platform Blues does actually make sense - it's a good intro track, with a count-in, an extended guitar "fanfare" to introduce the track. Following it up with The Hexx is bold, but would have heralded quite a switch in style. The original sequence baby-steps its way into the new proggy-sound so it doesn't sound like so big a leap from BTC to this album.

godrich's touch on terror twilight is immediately apparent, just the way all the instruments sound you can very much tell it was produced by the same guy as the bends & ok computer

'We Dance' vocal style was him supposedly trying to imitate The Frogs' quasi-Irish thing

yes, Terror Twilgiht has a very nice, round, warm sound which I can see being at-odds with Pavement's former sound but not too disimilar from Malkmus's later stuff (especially Traditional Techniques). I really like the sound on The Bends etc though, and the warm Godrich production on those Radiohead albums stops them sounding like icy, wet misery-thons.

Didn’t Goodrich also produce the similarly polished sounding Beck snooze fest Sea Change?

The downside of the Godrich sequence frontloading the prog tracks is that side 2 seems abnormally light. Also, Spit on a Stranger could theoretically be a good closing track, but it doesn't work as a summing-up in this running order.

I still have the TT CD-Rom I won in the Pavement Poetry Contest back in the day. I wonder if that will be included in the Deluxe Edition.

Great The Hexx moment: at one of the reunion shows in 2010 in Central Park, they had to stop playing due to lightning and rain. We waited around a while but had to eventually leave to get back home. As we walked through Central Park in the dark, the band started back up with The Hexx booming through the night with lighting in the sky.

Listened to the Godrich order yesterday; it was interesting. It feels like a conceptual take on the title, where side A is "Terror" and side B is "Twilight." It's compelling, but it does make for a very imbalanced listen. It's also hard to imagine "Carrot Rope" anywhere but the final track.

PBKR tell us more about this CD-ROM?

I was also at that Central Park show! I stayed for most of it but had to leave for the encore. The song I heard them playing as I walked back to the train was "Lions"

xp The main menu was the album cover and when it started up it played the intro riff to Spit on a Stranger over and over again. I don't remember much else, just that it was kind of as slapdash as you would expect a Pavement CD-Rom to be.

Damn, Lions is one of my absolute favorites. I saw them again and for the entire show later in the week, but it wasn't as memorable as the partial show.

Was Carrot Rope tacked onto the album? the "...And Carrot Rope" titling always made it look like a bonus track. Also always thought the b-side was just called 'Then'?

god, the golden age of cdrom bonus content. it would be like "enter the CYBERWORLD of [whatever band]!" and the CDROM content would be a photo of the band that bounced around as a screensaver

Sometimes called And Then, sometimes a similar sounding song was called The Hexx

I prefer it when it was faster?

I feel like the . . . And part of Carrot Rope was a signal it was the last song?

There used to be a super hot and rad version of Speak See Remember on Youtube from their last tour, does not appear to be there anymore, bummer

At the time I read it as "oh yeah... and Carrot Rope" like "sure, it's on the album if you insist"

ha! it could be both!

The downside of the Godrich sequence frontloading the prog tracks is that side 2 seems abnormally light. Also, Spit on a Stranger could theoretically be a good closing track, but it doesn't work as a summing-up in this running order.

― Halfway there but for you, Friday, February 12, 2021 12:32 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yup, I started getting a bit bored by side 2 but then I'm so familiar with these tracks they do have a habit of drifting by.

Spit On A Stranger has a nice "singalong" style which could work as an ending.

If I were to drop any tracks they would be Billie and Ann Don't Cry. I'd forgotten about the brilliant second half of "Speak See Remember".

Thanks for putting that up, dog.

Nice thing about it starting off with Platform Blues is that, well, it gets it out of the way sooner.

I love Ann Don’t Cry

Sometimes called And Then, sometimes a similar sounding song was called The Hexx

posted Silkworm's cover of And Then upthread

Just listened to the Godrich order again, definitely prefer this and always thought the official sequence dragged, but it would really benefit from something much weightier in the spot occupied by Billie

has Malkmus ever talked about the Nickel Creek cover of "Spit on a Stranger"? I wonder if that's one of those things that's been a good earner for him?

if I had a nickel creek for every...

Ann Don't Cry is uncharacteristically repetitive in its lyrics for a Malkmus song: "Ann don't you cry, don't you cry Ann, don't you cry, don't you cry Ann, don't you cry, don't you cry Ann, don't you cry, Dear Ann, don't you cry... etc". Although I love the part that starts: "Well my heart is not a wide open thing..."

I don't mind the repetition there; I don't think it's that excessive. He does a good job with the delivery- feels meaningful and heartfelt.

Also I had an Aunt named Ann who had medical issues. She almost lost her life when her liver failed, but got a transplant just in time. She was able to live almost 10 more years with the new liver until another major complication with her stomach was too much. Song just automatically makes me think of her- honestly the name was enough but the solemn/pretty vibe makes it hit a little more.

I'm a sucker for that sort of twinkling guitar thing too.

“speak see remember” is the one that made me go “ugh no”

nah when it kicks in it's Wowee Zowee esque shred city

yeah when they go in it’s cool but the actual “song” part I’m not so into

The pretty jam part in that song is really nice, but I really don’t dig how they resolve it with that loud, repeating, descending riff thing... feels like a Pave cliche.

(I feel the same way about the similar part in “Transport is Arranged,” on the previous alb)

Unfortunately I've never once heard the whispered part without thinking of Marilyn Manson's 'The Beautiful People'

Aw man don't bring that guy into the Pave thread

They were different times

The main menu was the album cover and when it started up it played the intro riff to Spit on a Stranger over and over again.

This sounds really familiar, but I don’t remember owning the CD-ROM (and I definitely didn’t win the poetry contest).

I still remember one of those poems that was funny... it was about a guy taking a girl on a date, and ended with something like:

She came back to my room
And I put on something to please her
Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
The date’s in vain; she said, “Hey, this sounds like Weezer”

Bonus Enhanced CD
2-1 Audio Introduction By The Band (CD Audio) 3:45
Multimedia Section
2-2 Track By Track Commentary (Video)
2-3 Home Video Section (Video)
2-4 ...And Carrot Rope (Video)
2-5 Stereo (Video)
2-6 Shady Lane (Video)

...in very late 90s digital technology (think realplayer codecs while your CDROM drive was absolutely drowning out your computer speakers with its whining spinrate)

Do you guys remember the “Pavement Chat” on the Matador website in like ‘95 or ‘96?

The only time we used a producer was with Nigel Godrich, who all engineers and studio people rightfully are in awe of. He’s pretty much the alpha of new-generation producers. He was interested in Pavement. He and Radiohead were fans of [Pavement] and Wowee Zowee. He told us he had time off and would like to do [Terror Twilight]. He also did Beck’s Mutations which he was really proud of. He played me some of that. So that’s when we used one and I didn’t know what that was going to entail. But he was cool. He was like “I just want my percentage points, you don’t even have to pay me a fee. I’m free and I’ve already made a lot of money and I want to work with you guys, so we’ll carry this to the end.” We paid for the studio time of course, which started to get expensive. Because he had his own, uh, standards.

First we started at the Sonic Youth studio. They also had a nice Neve board. When we got there the faders were upside down. We recorded three days and Nigel was losing his mind trying to figure this out. He couldn’t get the “Nigel” sound so we had to stop. The headphone mixes were dubious at best. There were a lot of reasons why we left [the studio]. Then we went to this place by Washington Square Park where the Beastie Boys recorded. It was on the 14th floor of this really nice apartment building. It was a small room because it was New York, but it was really nice. Super fancy. Nigel said “We’re going to do it here.” A few thousand dollars later we had 7/10 of the album. Then we still had to do overdubs. We went to England where he lives, and we went to RAK where he started. RAK is a great historical studio that Mickie Most owned. He was a hit-maker with Hot Chocolate. He knew the Yardbirds and Jimmy Page. There were three studios there, and we were in the cheaper one.

We had to get a new drummer for a couple of songs. Steve West couldn’t play these songs in time that needed to be in time. So we got the High Llamas drummer. And I drummed on one song too, but that wasn’t the one that needed to be out of time - in the right way. That was a real, classic rock, overproduced, $100,000 record. With that much money you should be able to make something good. We made some things that weren’t as good as they could’ve been. There was a big argument about the order of the songs. No one really cares about this album that much. [Nigel] had a certain order that was with a difficult song first, like Radiohead’s OK Computer that had a longer more challenging song to set the tempo. Scott in our band, and the other ones, not only did they not like that song, but they barely played on it. They wanted this easier song first, like the hit song. So Nigel was like “I’m done with this. This is the wrong move. We made a stoner album and you’re going halfway.” He’s right probably.

Haha the whispered part is SO "The Beautiful People", I'm assuming it's parody. Never noticed that before

xp Wasn’t that the podcast Interview that started that weird flap, where Nigel tweeted like “I slept on floors” etc.

funny thing, they had already made their stoner album 2 albums before

there's nothing really stonery about major leagues

worst pavement album track!! (okay maybe 'cept some spiral songs)

Kennel D
Date w/IKEA
Passat Dream

Worst SM track in Pavement?

For me maybe Newark Wilder

re: Albert's post, that's from a Pitchfork story that had the headline Stephen Malkmus Opens Up About Recording “Overproduced” Terror Twilight With Nigel Godrich

Godrich saw it and responded with this.

Stephen Malkmus saw Godrich's tweet and responded with this, and Godrich replied.