Pavement:Classic or Dud

I've been revisiting Pavement's B-sides in their original context rather than grouped together as bonuses on a deluxe set or a compilation of rarities, and they do seem to play better that way. The B-sides in particular work better coming after the single/A-side - like it really does feel like a cohesive mini-album where they build and expand on that lead-off A-side. I'm not sure how much of this is by design since the tracks themselves are often impromptu recordings, but that could be irrelevant - the fact is, someone, maybe Malkmus, still chose to take that performance or fragment and mix it down and sequence it properly. I think Malkmus has even called these releases "shadow albums"?

say sue me's "elevate me later" is so good! i posted it in a thread called "pavement covers" but apparently it's for covers by pavement, not of pavement

Wow, listening to it now... yeah, that's quite a cover!

I actually prefer their cover of "Honk If You're Lonely" (listening to the whole album now)... very cool

How are the UK/Europe shows going, anyone who is seeing them?

I got curious and was able to find audio of my second Pavement show ever here, though haven’t listened just yet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f5_Pk_jVyE

I was at the first London show last night & yeah it was joyous - band and audience very up, the kind of full-floor shoutalongs I'm not used to seeing at middle-aged London gigs, just a really really fun evening.

I think I would have worried if you'd shown me the setlist going in - too much BtC and TT for my taste - but they're in great shape as a band so even the things i don't really like sounded great.

(Going again Tuesday.)

I'll be there on Tuesday!

The setlists seem to be swinging all over the place - I definitely wanted more WZ in DC but was happy we got as much as we did, but the early early cuts.

Plus not but

By chance I listened to Slanted and Enchanted recently and was struck by how the singer is so deliberately imitating MES and how American the band sounds and how I didn't have the (same) context when I first the album and how much this reminds me of the early 90s.

heard the album

I was never a mega fan or anything but I was very happy seeing them on Thursday in Manchester. All my three faves were played within the opening half (Here, Spit.., Major Leagues) and it was a much more emotional gig than I was expecting. Sounded great, particularly the vocals, the playing was fantastic, the crowd were incredibly receptive and I had a 2-pint glass of beer. Best gig atmosphere for a long old time.

the singer

btw ledge me and my pavement buddy will be in the Lansdowne from about 6:30 Tuesday if you fancy a pint before.

thanks, probably will be a stretch with the other things i have to squeeze in but will see.

sounded great tonight. weird setlist, tho lots of slanted tracks so not complaining. malkmus seemed really out of it even though he was killing it.

The UK crowds look awesome from the IG stories the band has been reposting… pit action!

I was there last night too. I liked the fact that Malkmus's daughter and her friends were in the gallery and he wished her a happy birthday.

Thought the setlist was great with plenty of surprises. Was unfamiliar with Witchi Tai To, the cover they finished the encore with. Do they commonly include that these days?

Glad we got there early to see the awesome LOS BITCHOS!

How was it from where you were ledge? We could not get back through!

(Background: my friend and I had positioned ourselves perfectly, with ledge. But someone nearby collapsed exactly as Pavement were starting, so we helped carry him out and got GLARES at any attempt to make our way back to our perfect spot.

The collapsed guy was fine once he was with first aid - a young person fainting, not an old person having a heart attack, surprisingly. And we ended up somewhere okayish towards the side after a bit of work)

After carrying the guy out you'd have thought people would let you back through, the buggers. Well done for helping him out though.

I didn't squeeze through any further to where people were heartily jumping up and down if not quite actually moshing, just did a bit of bouncing on the spot. I think the set could scarcely have been better, plenty from slanted & crooked & wowee, not quite sure about stop breathin' as the closer though. No idea who the guy who joined them for range life was.

I did stick around a bit outside but was dead tired so had to leave, was good to see you though.

to my mind last nights setlist looks like the best of the ldn dates

Yeah, if they hadn't started we could have been a bit more vocal about having just carried that guy out but I think people thought we were just chancers pushing in during the first song.

It was a great setlist - very happy about Grave Architecture in particular. Apparently AT&T was meant to be in there but they skipped it, shame shame. Bit more subdued than Saturday where we ended up but it was still a joy.

And no worries - we took forever getting out so assumed you'd gone. Good to see you!

Thought the setlist was great with plenty of surprises. Was unfamiliar with Witchi Tai To, the cover they finished the encore with. Do they commonly include that these days?

They closed the encore with that song at the show I saw in Chicago

work has been mental and it was half-term and I am so bummed I didn't manage to catch any of these shows

I made a dropbox with the four London gigs (taken from D1mead0zen) and the BBC Live Session/interview, I'll leave it up for a week, have at it.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/vwv7eueijqc48nlistbi2/h?dl=0&rlkey=zhpsac95luls5z3avb973kzgr

Thanks for the uploads!

Thanks for the uploads!

(sorry - iPhone was slow to update)

Thank you so much - this is amazing

yeah thanks, just took the opportunity to listen to half a canyon from the night before i went, maybe the only track i really missed. couldn't quite hear 'oh my god i can't believe i'm still going', either it didn't come through or steve was giving his voice a rest.

Pavement: The Musical

Something I can’t quite put into words; something extremely Brooklyn Heights about all that.

Three years ago, Pavement’s label, Matador Records, approached Perry about a collaboration. The band wanted a movie, but Stephen Malkmus, the front man, said he wasn’t interested in hiring a documentary filmmaker. He wanted to hire a screenwriter. But he didn’t want a screenplay. “No one knew what that meant,” Perry said.

WT…?

Feels like the only way this could be even more Pavement would be if it were performed by puppets.

slightly offtopic, but morrisp - do you still have that david's gone file from the burned cd? wondering if i could do something to decode/convert it somehow - no promises though

― dietpepsi, Sunday, May 1, 2022 7:37 PM (nine months ago)

Sorry, I don’t!

― Hops: Mosaic, Citra, Simcoe (morrisp), Sunday, May 1, 2022 7:50 PM (nine months ago)

ah well, was worth asking... have been on the hunt for that track and have gotten close to finding it a million times, no luck yet unfortunately

another copy of the tape just sold on ebay today though, so who knows

― dietpepsi, Sunday, May 1, 2022 8:02 PM (nine months ago)

Turns out it was finally posted to YT six days later:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VD40Eu9FaKw

'elevate me later' reminds me to 'the classical'

they put on a pretty good show tonight, never really expected i'd ever have the opportunity to see them. malkmus was in good spirits, dancing about during all of spiral's songs

they played for nearly two hours, and the setlist was decent but i probably would have preferred more wowee zowee deep cuts over brighten the corners ones (although them jamming out "type slowly" was a big improvement over the album version). they have the problem of having too many classics so no "frontwards", "in the mouth a desert", "trigger cut", "silence kit" etc. really left me wanting more before you even get to the tracks they haven't been playing at all this tour

i knew spiral stairs had lived in australia for a while (& recently moved back to melbourne i think?) but i didn't know he'd actually lived about an hour away from here for quite a few years, so there was lots of banter about that, and his family was in the crowd. nastanovich threw ping pong balls into the crowd a bunch of times and i think he might have said that had something to do with spiral stairs' family???

was a little weird what the crowd did & didn't respond to - they didn't care that much about "summer babe" and "here" somehow? seeing them live certainly makes me appreciate the throwaway punk tracks like "serpentine pad" more, they really have a purpose in the live show

i was thinking the other day about how streaming and bonus-track-packed reissues are working together to more or less erase original track lists. many new-ish Pavement fans just think of "Harness" as a Brighten track, for example. no big deal, i guess, but the old man in me has to resist correcting them.

i bought tickets for the three-night residency in Iceland thinking (a) it'd be nice to visit Iceland, and (b) that venue looks incredible, and (c) since they're playing so many songs *and* because of the circumstances of the gig, they probably won't repeat anything all three nights. right? makes sense to repeat some in NYC / LA, but not for the hardcore nuts who flew to Reykjavik ... right?

thanks for the report, btw, ufo

That Iceland fest definitely sounds like a blast. They repeated songs during multi-night runs in NYC and LA, but they seemed to making an effort to mix things up considerably anyway.

Every set seems to be slightly different, so you’re probably guaranteed *some* variety.

yeah i doubt they wouldn't repeat any songs at all across the three-night residency (idk that they have quite enough tracks rehearsed) but they seem to play pretty different sets each night, you should get to hear nearly everything they have rehearsed, maybe even everything. iirc nastanovich is the one who obsesses over setlist details and tries to balance the hits/deep cuts/songs they've never played in that city before etc. and keep it fresh every night

As of a few months ago, they had played 50ish songs, with "more to come," they said. (I don't know if they've added 2 or 3 or 5 or whatever. If they have added any, it can't be *too* many.)

That's 16-17 per night over three nights ... enough to sustain 3 different sets, I think.

But playing in Iceland is different from playing three nights in a big city where you're going to have significant turnover between the nights. I think the vast majority of people at those shows will be at all 3 ... maybe with the exception of a handful of Icelanders. Who's going to Reykjavik to see 1 of the 3 Pavement shows? That seems unlikely to me.

To me, it's a no-brainer to do no repeats. They ought to. If I were in the band, I'd be marketing it that way, because last I looked, they had sold about 20-25% of the seats.

they've got about 60 in the rotation and they're playing 25+ a night

Well OK, then. I saw 'em in Portland but I wouldn't have guessed that many per night, but I suppose I could've looked at one of the 7 million setlist photos that have been posted to the internet over the past few months.

Iceland venue still looks much emptier than I would've imagined. Meanwhile, my own vacation there is a bit on the rocks...

Woah ufo, both 95'ers, both at Pavement last night. I thought the show was alright, though it did feel a little lifeless-going through the motions at some points. I think I'm just not for farewell - playing the discography kind of tours. Crowd was a mix of people really into it, mix of people looking like they were watching a documentary. I thought the crowd definitely got into summer babe, but yeah no one seemed like they were really there for "here". Spiral Stairs wrote a song about Caboolture, pretty sure that's where his family is. For all the flack steve west gets/got, I thought he was fantastic on the kit. Ibold was my favourite to look at, seemed to be appreciating playing the most out of all of them. Their slanted songs (bar here) were the best live. Twilight and Brighten don't translate to live as well I think, though yeah type slowly jam was a highlight and exception to that rule. Needed way more Wowee. Grounded let me down, didn't have any oomph or energy behind it.

I'm sounding very jaded. It was a good show, glad I got to see them, but I think I will press pause on seeing older/cannonical bands live.

If I'm seeing pavement I want to see Malkmus in bad spirits damnit. That's the main event!

“Needed more Wowee” has been the complaint I keep hearing from friends who saw this tour (and my experience when I saw them in DC)

Also I love these guys and am happy that they’re getting this collective victory lap … but am ready to get back to Malkmus’ solo career