Pavement:Classic or Dud

(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

spiral spent five years in beachmere, a small rural town just off caboolture where his in-laws lived at the time (idk if they're back there now or elsewhere in the area, the family all moved to mexico for a while, spiral seems to keep moving all over the place), but it's easier to just say caboolture because people actually know where that is

"starlings of the slipstream" and "spit on a stranger" were good and i liked that they emphasised the 'jam' in "folk jam", but i was underwhelmed by "the hexx". could easily have done without "transport is arranged" and "blue hawaiian" too, they're far from my favourite deep cuts and didn't translate particularly well live or anything. i thought "grounded" was very good though idk

i was close to the front near malkmus and it was definitely a chiller part of the crowd from what i could see. unfortunately that meant bob's kit was nearly completely hidden behind the bass amp from my pov. it was cool to see malkmus goofing around rather than being grumpy and just going through the motions.

they have actually been playing a lot of wowee on this tour, just got relatively unlucky there last night.

Such a strange place to end up. This is the song I was referring to: https://coolinbysound.bandcamp.com/album/pig-city

Biggest surprise was that the spiral stairs songs were actually GOOD. Translates much better live than on record, the opposite of transport and blue hawaain (one of my favs, but very underwhelming live, especially for an encore). Starlings of the slipstream was great.
I was with the rowdy bunch dead centre. Glasses fell off my head and got stomped on. Expensive night.

I should be more truthful, I was the rowdy bunch in the middle, the glasses were my fault lol. Probably had one too many drinks in me. But it was a very fun night

Gary Young documentary is streamable via the SF documentary festival (1-week engagement):
https://watch.eventive.org/sfdocfest2023/play/64005c66f26f1d004b3cda0b

:((

https://www.brooklynvegan.com/gary-young-pavements-original-drummer-has-died/

Drums in the chorus of "Loretta's Scars" are maybe my favorite ever. R.I.P., man

great drummer, great tone

rip. love the story in the deluxe slanted liner notes about barbecuing “mutant” vegetables from Gary’s garden in his fireplace

Randomly (literally on random) listened to both "Greenlander" & "Texas Never Whispers" today which I think are 2 of Gary's best performances.

RIP, an unlikely story in this zany world. Go check out his documentary if you can.

I thought the rhythm section was heavier and grooves than what I'd heard on CD.
Hadn't seen them before last month so didn't have a live comparison to make.
I was impressed by the show I saw anyway.

Rhythm section quite cooking. I.e. groovier than I was aware of.

:(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pPlos2i7Ys

^^^ I don’t know if I’ve ever locked into those opening drums before, really locked in

Grateful I got to see him play a few songs with Pavement at the 2010 Berkeley show (since I didn’t see them way back in the day). I also saw him do the Plant Man thing in NYC, opening for RTX I think.

huge band for me, one degree of connection away, RIP you crazy wild card

I love this story:

https://i.imgur.io/a7RkDa2_d.webp?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&fidelity=medium
https://i.imgur.io/kixpsGt_d.webp?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&fidelity=medium

nothing about his drumming on the early pavement stuff made any sense, as it should be. rip.

nothing about his drumming on the early pavement stuff made any sense

exactly, the whole thing is perfect pre-internet serendipity, like Malkmus didn't even know there was buzz abt the debut because he was backpacking in Europe

Sorry Steve West, but Pavement was a completely different (and worse) band without Gary’s legitimate unhinged influence. Rest in Peace. Our Singer will be playing tonight in memory. One of my favourite drum performances ever

Teaching drums in an hour. It’s going to be a Gary tribute afternoon for all my students <3

I am sure I have told this story here before but I made this music-geek friend (Ken) in Charlottesville after I had left for college, I met him on my trips back home b/c he worked at record stores and had the same weird tastes and also smoked weed. He used to jam w/Malkmus and James McNew (who I actually did know in HS) and D Berman in some basement but it was all during my own midwest college years. Ken and I became penpals and he insisted I buy Slay Tracks ("it's this guy I know from the radio station"), the rest is history. Gary's story is sad but also essential to the early version of the band.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drlJ6WxtqWA

Great performance.
I know how great a guitarist Malkmus is, but I am always shocked by this fact again everytime I watch a live video. So effortless, pure talent

Also great story sleeve

this book has all the background on that scene:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/regarding-charlottesville-music-rich-tarbell/1136620597

see also:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Parking_Lot_Movie

RIP. Pavement's Pigpen that got to live a longer and fuller alcoholic's life.

wow that is very true and a good analogy (except that Pig was sorta the lead singer not the drummer)