Meeting Malkmus - a Pavement podcast

Latest Episodes:

MMT50 - 225 Jul 08, 2024

Show notes

This week on the podcast jD welcomes David Fieni to the show to discuss his Pavement origin story and then they crack the top 25 with song number 25 on the countdown!Transcript: Track 2:[0:00] Previously on the pavement top 50.Track 1:[0:02] This week we are celebrating song number 26 fight this generation what do you think of this one jeremy from the falls this is probably it bridges like the the best run i think that pavement has on any album.Track 2:[0:21] Hey this is westy from the rock and roll band pavement and you're listening to the countdown countdown.Track 3:[0:29] Hey, it's JD here back for another episode of our top 50 countdown for seminal indie rock band, Pavement. Week over week, we're going to count down the 50 essential Pavement tracks that you selected with your very own top 20 ballots. I then tabulated the results using an abacus and a bong made out of a kumquat. How will your favorite song fare in the rankings? Rankings you'll need to tune in to find out so there's that this week i'm joined by a pavement super fan david from new york dude how the fuck are you i'm fucking great i'm psyched to be here chatting with jd oh that's cool another uh pavement super fan yeah yeah absolutely are you uh are you did you make your pre-order for the box set or are you going to i'm going to i'm just like Like, it's crazy because it's like one of those things, I think a little bit like you, I've started, I sort of came to Pavement when, that was like my shift to CDs. And I got all of their stuff on CDs. And then I only started getting the vinyl in the last couple of years. Yeah. And so literally just before this, I ordered my last piece, which was Watery Domestic. What a cool, yeah, Watery Domestic. And then the singles thing looks just freaking amazing.Track 3:[1:50] It does yeah i'll order it uh the shipping to canada is obscene though it's like 60 bucks u.s to ship to canada which is like that's not right that's probably 80 bucks uh a canadian you know so it's like it's like half the cost of the product yeesh i don't know so david let's uh not beat around the bush here let's get right into things you mentioned compact discs and your collection. Tell us about your Pavement Origins story and getting those compact discs. Well, J.D., when I was four years old, Billy Corgan murdered my parents.Track 3:[2:31] Actually, that's not true. So I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, and I was right in the – I would have been – if I wasn't such a prick and, like, took myself too seriously, I would have been right in the midst of, like, the beginnings of pavement. Wow. But all the people around me were, like, saying, you know, I was reading stuff, how great pavement was. And I was like, oh, fuck that shit. I'm not going to jump on the bandwagon, the indie bandwagon. And so I didn't really get into them until maybe 1996. Okay. Which is, you know, they're still – they're peaking as they usually did. And so I don't remember if it was Bright in the – no, it was Crooked Rain was definitely the thing that kind of just sucked me in for life.Track 3:[3:19] And then Bright in the Corners. And I'll tell you a quick story about in 1997, I went to Rolling Stones concert. Pearl Jam opened up the Oakland Coliseum. And I drink a lot. And I got about an hour of sleep. And the next day I had, because of lack of sleep, I asked the girl out in my class that I had a hard crush on to go out for coffee. We talked for like three hours. And then I actually ended up marrying her. I've been married for 24 years with her, to her. But after that coffee, I rode my bike over to my friend Walter's house, and he was playing some records, and he put on Slanted and Enchanted. And I have like the strongest memory of listening to here on his little dinky turntable. So I got into the band like 96 and 97. I saw them at – where was it? The Warfield.Track 3:[4:16] Where's that? And that's in San Francisco, yeah. And then I saw them in 99 for Terror of Twilight. And I've seen Jicks and Pavement and stuff since then. And I did see them in Philadelphia this last time around with my friend Seth. So that was freaking amazing. Loved that. So, yeah, I mean, they're kind of like a second wave band for me because I was into stuff like R.E.M. and The Replacements and Husker Du and all of this stuff. And then I got into Pavement and it's kind of like a, you know, it's something that stuck with me. And it's definitely a pretty hardcore relationship. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. I know exactly what you mean. So talk to me about your first real-time record then was Bright in the Corners, right? If you got in in 96, Bright in the Corners comes out in 97. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's funny. I think, yeah, it must have been Bright in the Corners.Track 3:[5:20] And that's still... I mean, the thing is about the records is like I think that each of them has been a favorite at a different time, including including Terror Twilight, which when it came out, I just I love that record. It's obviously it's like a shift in a different direction in some ways, but it's it's so fucking brilliant. And I just can't, you know, I love all of the all of the records. I'll tell you, I'll come back to that later, but there was an interesting hole in my collection until fairly recently that I'll tell you about. All right. Yeah. So you saw them in Philadelphia on the reunion tour. What did you think this time out? Dude, it was like bliss for me. I was just, I was like smiling the whole time, which is probably exactly the opposite of what I did the first times I saw them when I was, you know.Track 3:[6:20] I thought I was fucking cool or something. But this time I was just grinning the whole time. And, you know, I know you've seen a bunch of the shows. People are singing along, which is like not a super pavement-y thing, but it totally was great. And also a cool thing was that my friend Seth, he has his son and some friends of his. They're all into pavement, and they're like this new generation coming up. And so they were there. And that's obviously so cool because it makes me think of like, oh, when I was growing up and I was into like the bands from the 60s or something, you know? Yeah. Like it's like a cycle, you know, that goes on. What do you think pulled him in? Was it osmosis from his old man or was it Harness Your Hopes or what's the deal? Yeah. Yeah, well, you know, I think it's people who want music that doesn't suck, that's not corporate music, that is just fucking cool and original. And it just, you know, there's a thing that Malcolm has said in this, I think recently, someone asked him, like, why are you going to make another record? And he's all, no.Track 3:[7:33] He said, the songs exist in the present, which I love that. I mean, it's such an obvious, simple statement, but it's also true, right? The songs exist in the present. And so each time you sing it, that song is going back out. Each time you play a record, it's existing right in that very moment. So it's like, I just think there's the music just, the music stands out. Maybe, you know, maybe the whole Harness Your Hopes thing kind of brought in a few people. But, you know, it's just, it's a good, it definitely made me slightly hopeful for the future.Track 3:[8:10] Harness Your Hopes definitely harnessed my girls, my two girls. Oh, yeah. They're both big TikTokers, and I guess that's where they saw it. But my daughter will brag to me that she's got Pavement in her playlist. I think she's got one other song, but I don't know the song. Yeah. I'm guessing it's something like Major Leagues or something. That one, I guess. Yeah, my 12-year-old daughter loves Harness Your Hopes, but she listens to Pavement. I put stuff on. I make playlists for her, and so she gets into that stuff. You raised her well. I know, at least in that respect. Yeah. So what is your go-to record at this point? I know you said that they're all, you know, they've all taken a turn as your favorite, but if you're feeling nostalgic and you want to hear something, which one do you go to?Track 3:[9:02] Um, I don't know. You know, I think maybe Crooked Rain is going to be the one. Crooked, both Crooked Rain and Bright in the Corners. Fellow Bright in the Corners lover. Is this right? Yeah. There's not that many of us.Track 3:[9:18] It's a great record. it is a great record but you're right crooked rain is what is it it's it's almost like it feels timeless like it doesn't feel of the 90s yeah to me uh production wise the low the low fineness of it um it just doesn't have that same 90s production you know that we're that we were so inundated with uh from seattle you know yeah that's right i mean the whole issue of production is is like such an interesting thing to going from like gary yeah as the producer yeah and um and then through the different iterations of different folks and obviously terror twilight has its own story but yeah i mean i think that's part of it like and you and you go back to those early like demos and stuff and it's just they are just fucking around with sound a lot of the time right and um yeah i was listening to i was listening to the because they're streaming the the singles collections you know they are yeah yeah i was listening to that today and so i was just like a song like a song i don't like just put on is it the k dart song or internal k dart internal k dart yeah which is like It's like.Track 3:[10:38] It's not like a fully formed human, you know, being, it's like a sonogram, but it's still beautiful, because you can hear spiral and SM, like kind of experimenting with sounds and how they're going to play off each other and just textures and stuff. And so, you know, that stuff is, is, is really important, obviously.Track 3:[11:03] I love your analogy. It's a sonogram. That's brilliant. It will be fully formed at some point, slanted and enchanted. But early on, on Demolition Plot, it wasn't necessarily. You're right. It was more foggy, primordial ooze, I call it. I like your sonogram-ness. That's very cool. So is there a single in the box set, one of the seven inches that you're looking most forward to?Track 3:[11:34] I don't know. I have to look at it again. But I think it'll be, you know, the singles have a number of songs on each side, as far as I understand. So I'm looking forward to kind of just having a different, because it gives you like a different entry point into the catalog, right? Yeah. Because you're listening to these singles, and then some of the B-sides, and then some of these other tunes. And so, yeah, it was interesting listening to the Summer Babe. It sounds like the vocal is mixed differently from what I'm used to. I mean, the whole thing. I guess they're all remastered, aren't they? Well, I think they are. But on the Summer Babe 7-inch, that's the one with Baptist Black and Mercy Snack, I think. I think so. It's not the winter version. That's the designation. On Slanted, it's the winter version. This is the original, you know, the original. As far as I understand. Right, that makes sense, because it was the single that came out right before. Yeah. Yeah. So it might have had a little bit more work on it on the winter version. So good ear. Good ear on you. Do you want to get into this and flip the record and talk about the song number 25? Let's do it. All right. right let's do this we'll be back right after this hey.Track 2:[13:04] This is bob nastanovich from payment thanks for listening and now on with a countdown 25.Track 3:[16:28] Song number 25 is our first entrant from the masterpiece, Watery Domestic. It's Shoot the Singer, One Sick Verse. David from New York, what are your initial thoughts about this song?Track 3:[16:43] Shoot the Singer, I think it's probably one of Pavement's most perfect songs. If you just listen to it, the textures, it's such a beautifully textured song. And the production is pretty unique, I think, for them. It has this really, I think it must be, this is the Water Domestic is where Ibold and Bob join the Spiral One SM and Gary. And I don't know exactly who's playing on what and all that, but I'd like to think it's Mark. And that bass, it kind of has this kind of cool buzzing sound. It reminded me of Us from Piglib, but then I listened to it, and it doesn't really play out. But it's just a cool kind of – the bass is kind of – has a beautiful sound. It also has – and I don't think I even noticed this until listening to the song a bunch in prep for this. It has a really – what sounds very much like a really perfectly kind of mixed acoustic guitar in the back, but really kind of mixed in just so and you know and that's just like one of the things so like and they have the the verses that have this beautiful kind of more kind of relaxed mellow.Track 3:[18:08] Tone and you hear again like really nice interplay with spiral and and malchmus and then you get to i don't know if they're really choruses but it's like slow it down song is sacred and you know Those two – and then the distorted guitar comes in, and it's really such a cool contrast with the –, and then it goes back to the sort of more little chill verses. And then it has that outro, which is freaking – it's so good. It's just – it's a cool thing because it –.Track 3:[18:45] So, again, one of the lines that stands out in the song is, slow it down, song is sacred. And you hear Malkmus sing, and his vocalization is super, it's really beautiful on this song. I think it's one of his best, really, performances in some way. And it's really kind of, there's like an urgency to it that is not always there, but that's not what you want for every song. And in the end, it kind of is like, it doesn't technically slow down, but it kind of is like he's slowing it down and trying to get more out of the song. And he wants to stay in the music and there's the la da da da da da da and um which made me think about so this is shoot the singer it's a song that has references to music in its title and, maybe a little bit in the song and then it made me think of other songs like cut your hair has that kind of you know the non non words but vocalization right right so a lot of the and And that's another song that's about music. So it's like I feel like there's a few others that I can't remember now that have. So Pavement songs that sort of have like music themes or songs about songs or whatever, they seem to often go into that, you know, la, la, la kind of shit, which is really cool. It's kind of like pure music without, you know, without words or something.Track 3:[20:02] I don't know. This song, I just, it's such a beautiful song. And obviously Water Domestic is, you know, such a, like, masterpiece. And I, dude, I owe you, like, a massive, I owe you massively because I, super fan that I am, you know, I've seen them a bunch. And I had everything. And I was into, I had gotten, like, Westing and all of that stuff and listened to that stuff before I discovered in the last, like, five years. Don't fucking mock me, dude. Watery Domestic. And it was because listening to Meeting Malkmus. So somehow I had seen that fucking rooster, right? I had seen that rooster, but I had never, I had ne…

Full show notes at the publisher

MMPL IV.V Jul 01, 2024

Show notes

We're taking a brief break from counting down the Top 50 Pavement songs this week. Instead, we offer you PodList IV.V thanks for all of submissions and a special hat tip to Tim from Portland for coming up with the track listing,

Track Listing:

Shady Lane - Lonely Penguin

Painted Soldiers - Malkralph

Passat Dream - CARP Recordings

Zurich is Stained - Sam Lambson

Perfect Depth - Scouting for Cuppas

Shoot the Singer - Copeto

Haunt you Down

Heaven is a Truck - Dark Shandy

Shady Lane - Strong Computer

Summer Babe - Forearms

Type Slowly - Marchica

My Radio - Negative Players

Box Elder - Christopher Catin

Fin - S.W.

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

MMT50 - 226 Jun 24, 2024

Show notes

This week on the pod. jD welcomes his buddy, Jeremy from Niagara Falls on to discuss his Pavement origin story and reveal song 26!Transcript:Track 2:[0:00] Previously on the Pavement Top 50.Track 1:[0:02] Stephen, what are your initial thoughts about this song, The Hex? The Hex, well, it's a really cool song. I think it's completely different to anything else that Pavement does. I think it's very unique. It's got a style which isn't really there in any... I can't think of any other song that looks like it.Track 2:[0:19] Hey, this is Westy from the Rock and Roll Band Pavement, and you're listening to The Countdown.Track 4:[0:25] Hey, it's JD here, back for another episode of our Top 50 Countdown. For seminal indie rock band, Pavement. Week over week, we're going to count down the 50 essential Pavement tracks that you selected with your very own top 20 ballads. I then tabulated the results using an abacus and a girl named Shannon that might have played bass in an indie rock band. Sigh. So there's that. This week, I'm joined by Pavement superfan, Jeremy from Niagara Falls. How's it going, motherfucker?Track 3:[0:54] It's hot. It's hot.Track 4:[0:56] It's really hot.Track 3:[0:58] It's been hot all week. Yeah. So sorry if there's fan noises in the background. They're here to cheer me on.Track 4:[1:04] Yes, of course they are. And that's very good that they are doing that for you because it will give you adrenaline and strength that you need and require to get through this next question. Jeremy, from the Falls, what is your pavement origin story?Track 3:[1:20] Story um my origin story for the band pavement is a little um stranger than most i i did not come to them by way of their music i i came to them by way of uh discussions about just how cool their uh their albums the the song names were, so i before i ever heard a pavement track which was years uh uh it was it was uh i had a friend who was in a band named uh cindy and they before they were called cindy they they were racking their brains about what they wanted to call themselves and we just got in this deep discussion one night i have heard we started talking about i don't think i've heard of king cobb steely, There's probably a good, I bet a good amount of this audience would really dig King Cub Steely because it's kind of in the same vein. But they had awesome song names.Track 3:[2:21] Luckily, I keep my feathers numbered for just such an emergency. That's a song name, Time Equals Money and Money Equals Pizza and Therefore Time Equals Pizza. Just stuff like that. And we got talking about it. And I was like, yeah, that's really cool. and we're talking about the band Head. Lowercase and an uppercase. Head with a lowercase h. That's right. And an uppercase, yeah, just because it was the 90s. And then my friend turned to me, he's like, I just wish that I could have an album title as good as Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain. And he just, he went on for like half an hour on that. I was like, that is a really cool album title and who is this band? And he's like, Pavement, check them out. And of course, being the 90s, I mean, being dirt poor, I couldn't. That's right. That's the only way you could do it. I couldn't purchase an album. Because they weren't being played on the radio.Track 3:[3:15] Well. That's right. And it was pre-internet. And yeah, they weren't being played on the radio. But, and this is, I like hearing the stories of people out here saying like, yeah, my first experience was like I got onto a torrent site and I ripped all their albums over the course of like a week or however long it used to take. But before that we used to have this thing and it doesn't exist anymore rarely does that's right of uh compilations you remember yeah and there was a big one in the 90s it was really big because of the secret hidden track that i think everyone only bought it for the secret hidden track it was called no alternative and nirvana did uh of uh at the very end wasn't listed everyone who was there It wasn't listed, but they did – it's sappy, but it's also called Verse Course Verse. It was an unreleased track, and it kicked. It was so good. But also on that album was Matthew Sweet, Goo Goo Dolls, and Pavement did Unseen Power and Picket Fence. And who was the second one you named? Goo Goo Dolls. Yeah. Goo Goo Dolls? You know, like rather funky band until, you know, Twister. No, it's not Twister. Until that Twister song.Track 3:[4:41] They did a song on the Twister set. No, it was the Asteroid one. No, it wasn't the Asteroid one. Fuck. Oh, yeah. Dude. It's called Angel or something like that. No, they did a song on the Twister set. It's like Alanis Morissette did a song. On the record, you came uninvited. Yeah, anyway, this is riveting conversation for somebody who tuned in for Pavement. I know.Track 3:[5:13] Beastie boys was also on the alternate and breeders did a really good live live track but but really it was like you could get uh like that was if you did not have a lot of money and you wanted to hear and this is backwards thinking because nowadays you'd be like why would you buy a whole album for one song well everybody did everybody bought it for that nirvana song and uh and then you got a little a little sampler of all these other bands that you could get into And that was my first. Hold on, let's talk about this for a second. So what did you think of On Scene Power? Yeah. It was good. And in comparison to everything else on the album, it's like, oh, this is top ten. This is really fresh and inviting. And I dig the sound. It was kind of rare. It wasn't overproduced. and it didn't have that, you know, that pastina. Am I using that word correctly? You know, patina. Sorry, patina. It's fucking boiling. It's hot. Did I mention it's hot? It's like 55 degrees in Canadian. 55? Celsius. But yeah, I think it's like 40. I was like 55. Your skin would be melting.Track 3:[6:35] Anything after 35, I'm like, it's all the same. I like the heat, but it's not like this muddiness. Yeah. I can't handle it. Really? Yeah, it's the thing. It's not the heat, it's the humidity. No, oven's dry heat. Anyway. Yeah. Again. But yeah, no, I really, I like the sound. And I was also big into Sonic Youth, but I had a bit of a bone to pick with Sonic Youth because their stuff never really seemed to get me to the place where I was like, yeah. Yeah and it felt like pavement was like they got it it was it was kind of this it's like a visceral, sort of song yeah but it's it's it rocks i totally know what you mean you know i mean yeah i've been i've been uh nose deep in in pavement's catalog for almost five years now so, like i mean obviously i enjoyed it prior to that but you know just looking at it week after week week after week you know it's it's been asked me to name a fucking song um title though and i'm usually stumped or or where it falls on a record and there's people that will be able to do oh yes it's right after this and before this and it's like i just can't do that i'm just because that's part of the culture though that's part of like the like we when we lost physical media, like it's like remembering your best friend's phone number do you even know it now i don't Oh, I know my wife's. I don't know my wife's. I don't know my kids.Track 3:[8:03] Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, so that, like that compilation. And then you'd think I would have rushed out and I would have bought, you know, a pavement album, but I didn't because a scant few years later, the Brain Candy soundtrack came out and being the massive kids of all fan I was. Okay. All right. Is R. I was and I still am. Yeah. And will continue to be. And you know who was on that soundtrack oh matthew sweet fuck me really, he followed yeah he follows you around doesn't he yeah but pavement like painted soldiers is, like it's in my top five songs it's in my top 15 for sure no my top 10 and it's the best spiral There is. Other than the unreleased Preston School of Industry. For sale, the Preston School of Industry. But yeah.Track 3:[9:09] And another breakout track on a soundtrack album that has like... They are? Yeah. They play Butts Wiglin'. Yeah. They might be Giants, I think, did a track. Uh, stereo lab and like a real, Oh, and of course the odds were on there, but yeah, it's kind of five. I think there was even a GBV guy by voices song on there. I think that might, it was by first exposure to guided by voices. I got into a lot of music through compilations, something that does not exist. And I wonder how we can rectify this. Yeah.Track 3:[9:57] Well, we have to change the industry one person at a time. Starting at this moment in time. And this is the... It's 66 degrees. Good things are forged in heat. This is... Hey, listen. This is the closest I've ever recorded an episode to drop date. Like, most everything else is done. Oh, yeah? I did it in the spring. You know? So, this is... What is the date? It's June 20th. And this goes out on the 28th. Yeah. Or whatever next Monday is. Wow. Look at me. Look at me knowing fucking calendars. 24th. Okay. Fair enough. Yeah. Yeah. Sure is. Yeah. It's sooner than you think. That's right. No. Into that editing bay. This one doesn't get edited. This podcast doesn't. But yeah. Oh no. All my secrets. Okay. Back to the matter at hand here. There's a lot of... So if you haven't noticed, Jeremy and I are buddies and we're doing some catch up at the same time that we're um that we're doing this so that's why we're getting a little distracted i apologize for that and i hope this is acceptable for your pavement listening uh enjoyment yeah it's a forgiving crowd have you ever listened to the episode of meeting malchus called uh hate mail.Track 3:[11:17] Oh you should look that i haven't heard that one i got a hate mail letter oh yeah i just decided to do an episode on it because it is like a screed it is like it is like martin luther knocked you know nailed something to my door you know and it was like it was like oh deep cut wow yeah now it was type was it written or was it typed oh then you know it's serious yeah listen to that one oh wow if you're just getting into to this because of the top 10. There's a whole other podcast out there where I go through each of the songs. It's called Meeting Malchmus. That's the feed that you're on right now. And there's lots of good... I can only hope that this generates at least one more hit. It might. So from there, you finally buy a record? Or do you get into the torrents?Track 3:[12:11] I bought, oh, and this is shameful, and now I wish you do edit it. I bought Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain through another form of dead media, the Columbia House Records Club. Dude, Columbia House was money. It was so good. It was so good. It was. 12 CDs for a penny? You're paying 30 bucks afterwards, but hey. And it was one of those auto ship deals. That's where they got you. That's where they got you on the lazy. It just shows up, right? Because it was $30 a hit, and you would be like, fuck. But if you played your cards right, you won. The house did not always win, but they must have won enough.Track 3:[12:51] Yeah. I mean, and you could send them back and say, you know what? Liz Fair just isn't my cup of tea. I'm going to exile Guyville. Yeah, this one, I think it was her follow-up. I was like, eh. Never sent me Matthew Sweet. So Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain. Do you know where the title comes from? It comes from, apparently, it comes from Purple Rain, Purple Rain. And Stephen just liked the rhythm of that. Or it may have even been David Berman who suggested it. And, yeah.Track 3:[13:26] If I'm wrong, shoot me an email. JD at meetingmalchmas.com. Would love to hear from you. So you put that one on the old CD player, I'm guessing. Not a turntable. about this point and yeah it starts with silent and that song just melts your brain like right off the bat it is i i that album for me is like a textbook like this is how you start an album like this series of songs like this is how you do it this is how you you break it in so you lay the frown the foundation for the listening experience you're about to undertake and man i yeah i listened to that album a lot. It's a masterpiece for sure. I will fully admit, I thought he was saying Silent Kit for the longest time. I thought it was about drummers. Well, nobody really knows. It's got multiple titles. People will say Silence Kid, and people will say Silent Kid. People will say Silent Kit, and people will say Silence Kit. So I think on the liner notes, it's Silence Kid. So, yeah. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Did you ever get a chance to see them live?Track 3:[14:45] So, jury's out on that. It was the 90s. I was young. I got around a lot. And a friend of mine was like, no, I don't think we do. We did see them. And I was like, I distinctly remember being at, like, the Cool House. Did you go to Lollapalooza in 95? At one point.Track 3:[15:08] Okay. No, I've never been to a Lollapalooza. I was just going to say, because they played that, and that might be something that you saw and forgot. Because I can't imagine, you are going to generate some hate mail. That you saw them live and you don't fucking know that you saw them live? What kind of fucking planet is this? This is so different than the other interviews I've done for this program. I know. I know. But you know what? If I did, I enjoyed it. Well, there's that. that and if i didn't then you know so there's that i i guess i never will do we want i mean somebody had to somebody had to remind me that i've seen wean like several times and somebody was like you know i was like oh i wish i could i wish i could see wean and they're like you've seen like eight times like oh that's oh yeah that's a really shitty superpower to have dude, i know i know i have a very bad short-term memory but my long-term memory is near You're fucking impeccable still. Well, see, my short-term memory was bad at the time. You didn't, yeah. See, I don't create new memories. Yeah. I have a very difficult time creating new memories. Yeah. I still have them, but yeah. Oh. Yeah. It's ever since I got zapped. Okay. What do you say we flip the record over and start talking about song number 26? You up for that? Yeah. Let's do it. We'll be right back after this.Track 2:[16:34] Hey, this is Bob Mustanovich from Pavement. Thanks for listening, and now on with a countdown. 26!Track 3:[21:05] This week, we are celebrating song number 26, Fight This Generation. What do you think of this one, Jeremy from the Falls? This is probably, it bridges the best run, I think, that Pavement has on any album, starting with AT&T, going right through to the end of Wowie Zowie. I started AT&T, I just listen to these tracks over and over again. And Fight This Generation is definitely a staple in that run. Yeah, I think so. And it's a staple of their live show as well at this point. Even when I saw Malcolm on the Traditional Techniques tour, he played a guitar and computer version of it. And it was really quite fucking cool. Oh, really? Oh, I would have loved to have seen that. There's got to be a video of that. I'm sure there is on the old YouTubes. Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised. Yeah.…

Full show notes at the publisher

MMT50 - 227 Jun 17, 2024

Show notes

jD hangs with Stephen on today's episode of the Top 50 Countdown. First, as usual, he shares his Pavement origin story and then reveals song 27!TranscriptTrack 1:[0:00] Previously on the Pavement Top 50. You can exhale now because track 28 is Stop Breathing. Amir, what are your initial thoughts about this song? I love this song. It appears in my Top 20 that I sent you. I think it's number 14 there. So it's half of your number. Hey, this is Westy from the Rock and.Track 3:[0:22] Roll Band Pavement, and you're listening to The Countdown. Hey it's jd here back for another episode of our top 50 countdown featuring seminal indie rock band pavement week over week we're going to count down the 50 essential pavement tracks that you selected with your very own top 20 ballots i then tabulated the results using an abacus and some fucker named gene how will your favorite song fare in the ratings well you'll have to tune in to find out. So there's that. This week, I'm joined by Pavement superfan, Stephen. Stephen, how the fuck are you? I'm very good, JD. How are you? I'm doing quite stellar, in fact. It's a good day to be breathing and upright, you know? It is. It is. Spring's in the air. You know, winter's gone. Things are looking up. Funny enough, it's snowing here today. First, you know, we've passed spring. We didn't get any snow at all. And then, you know, it turns into spring and all of a sudden we've got snow. So, you know, who can fucking tell?Track 3:[1:30] No, no, but yeah, thanks for having me on. It's like we said before, just before we started, I've been listening to the whole countdown so far. And, you know, it's been great. It's a nice little pick me up on the Monday morning when it drops. And it's a good feeling to think that, you know, there's going to be one a week for the whole year pretty much. So, yeah, I've been really enjoying it. Well, thank you so much. That means a lot. So let's get, you know, let's make this about you now and let's get right into your Pavement Origins story. Yeah, okay, yeah. So, I mean, I'm 42 now and I got into Pavement when I was about... Sort of 15 16 so it was basically when uh terror twilight came out.Track 3:[2:19] When i was a teenager i was really into radiohead at the time i mean i still am but uh, they were they were my band at the moment so i was obsessively into everything that they did and i would read all the interviews and you know get every release and bootleg and ep and thing that came out uh from that band and i remember i was on holiday once and uh i picked up a music magazine in the airport on the way over and there was a a big article in there about pavement and the terror twilight release um and i'd kind of heard of them a little bit uh i kind of knew off them but it was always but they were always sort of mentioned in the same breath as um, the fall and john peel and things like that and so yeah in my mind i kind of built them up as a kind of scary alternative loud punky i don't know abrasive sort of band that was sort of unlistenable, um and i kind of remember at the time also around that time in the 90s um blur brought out their uh.Track 3:[3:27] Self-titled album the one that has song two on right graham graham coxson was going around on the interview circuit and saying oh yeah this this this album's influenced by you know really really hard understandable american bands like like pavement and i was like oh okay yeah so this in my head i kind of built them up as um something a bit difficult and then i read this saw this article in um this music magazine it must be key magazine or enemy or something and they just came across like a really nice bunch of guys and i thought right when i get back from holiday i'm going to buy that record it sounds really good also so yeah the other thing was that the main draw at that time was uh the radio head rich sort of connection godrich yeah so he he nigel godrich produced it they had johnny greenwood playing harmonica for some reason on uh platform blues and on billy and so i bought the album purely on that uh that sort of thought really i'd never heard any of their songs didn't know anything about them and i remember getting home putting putting the CD on, and the first song is Spit on the Stranger. So that was the first Pavement song I'd ever heard. Wow. And it's got such a lovely, warm introduction, and those sort of synth pops, and the vocal, and the melody. I thought, wow, this is great. This isn't what I was expecting at all. I was expecting something really hard, and almost the kind of stuff that you hear on Westing.Track 3:[4:51] Yes, yes. And so, no, I loved it. I got really into that album. them i loved uh every track on it really um uh especially carrot rope loved carrot rope but i don't i don't quite i don't quite get the kind of uh the sort of online hate that that song gets i think that's a great song um but yeah from terror twilight i then kind of worked backwards and picked up all the cds in kind of reverse order i got i think bright in the corners next, text uh and i kind of worked backwards uh crooked rain wowie zowie was hard to find i think in those days i couldn't find it so it took me it took me about a year or so to track that that cd down.Track 3:[5:33] Um so yeah i wonder why that is i don't know i think it it was in the 90s it was kind of like, you know there wasn't the internet wasn't so prominent you couldn't you almost didn't know what a band's back catalogue was. You had to kind of track it down and search it out in record stores and read about them in magazines and, uh yeah so for whatever reason that that record was hard to hard to track down but uh yeah so it's by the time i went to university i think i had all the albums, uh but then unfortunately they broke up yeah so i kind of missed the boat on the on the sort of original incarnation uh uh but then the the sm debut came out which is absolutely, that is my absolute favorite album by anybody of all time. It's really fucking good. Yeah, it's so good. I mean, I still listen to that album now. Like it's, what was it, 24 years old, is it? 23 years old or something, as we speak. Yeah, pretty close. I think I listened to it last week. I still get something from that album. Me too. I do. I listened to it for like three days in a row, Les, two weeks ago. Listened to it for like three days in a row, just straight. It's still got it, hasn't it? Every song on there is fantastic.Track 3:[7:00] The sort of guitar work, the melody. And I think sometimes with... It's quite a poppy, immediate album. And sometimes those sorts of albums don't really have the longevity. But for whatever reason, this one does. It's really got a lot going on. Um so so yeah so then so from that i i kind of so from 2001 onwards i kind of picked up all the, mountainous solar stuff as it came out uh uh but none of them really grabbed me like the debut did um up until um traditional techniques so yeah that that that's another one that's really got under my skin that album it's a great one um i think it came out i think it came out just at the beginning of lockdown yeah it was 2018 yeah and it might it might be something to do with that you know sort of being trapped in the house with this with this new record and i listened to it every day for for a long time over over lockdown uh but yeah that that's that's a really good one as well yeah um and it was around that sort of time that um.Track 3:[8:14] That i uh found your podcast and uh yeah oh wow it was it was kind of the traditional techniques album that made me kind of think oh i need to get a bit more into to revisiting some of the other mountainous stuff that i've not really got into the first time around and i found your podcast and the uh uh the mountainous conundrum podcast yes yes the guys did yeah that was great so uh yeah kind of that that period that lockdown period for me is kind of synonymous with listening to a lot of pavement podcasts, listening to traditional techniques, and sort of going back and re-exploring some of the other Mount Masolo stuff.Track 3:[8:55] But yeah, so yeah, I didn't catch them live. Well, I saw Mount Masolo a few times when he was touring the first album at festivals and little venues, and that was really cool. Here's one for you. I saw Radiohead, and opening for Radiohead was SM and the Jicks. Oh, really? What year was that? Yeah, that was Hail to the Thief, when they were touring for Hail to the Thief. Yeah, 2004, something like that. Oh, that'd be cool. That's about right, yeah. So they were doing, were they doing Real Emotional Trash or something at that time? What were the Jicks doing?Track 3:[9:40] Whatever came after Pig Lib. uh pig lip okay cool yeah no the one after pig lip uh shit i can't i can't think of what it was face the truth i've got it up here somewhere uh face the truth, Or Real Emotional Trash, one of those two. That's pretty cool. Yeah. So did you get a chance to see Pavement live ever? I did. Well, when they regrouped in 2010, I seem to remember. Yeah. And they did a series of shows down in London. But it was the week I was getting married.Track 3:[10:19] Tough to escape that. So I didn't go, but I thought about it. It was almost like you know travel down to london come back get married the next day and i thought no it's not that's not gonna work so i'll uh i'll skip that but then i thought yeah wise uh but then i caught them on the um on the most recent tour and that that tour was fantastic that really.Track 3:[10:40] You know i was completely obsessed with that tour it was so good where did you where did you see the manchester uh yeah so i saw them in leeds um and manchester uh and then the following year, they played a little one-off uh festival in the uk called blue dot and they were headlining right yeah yeah and that was really cool um yeah you got some of the uk gigs didn't you yeah i saw every every stop except for leeds oh no that's a shame yeah oh so you're at manchester yeah yeah that was a good one i thought yeah too yeah that i remember on that one they, they opened with major leagues didn't they which i think which is a bit i always think that's a bit of an odd uh odd intro song it doesn't really get things going in the same way it sort of set the mood for the night like it was a more mellow show for sure definitely definitely it's but still great still a great song yeah, but yeah no but then so the funny thing about the Leeds gig was um.Track 3:[11:52] I went with my brother and we went for some food beforehand and a couple of drinks. And we're in this Indian restaurant. And the waiter comes over and says, oh, are you guys going to the pavement gig later? Because he must have seen our T-shirts and things like that. Well, oh, yeah, yeah. And he goes, oh, the band ate next door just an hour ago. So there was another slightly more upper class Indian restaurant next door. And he's like, oh, no, they just ate there recently. and so i was like really really buzzing from that i was like oh yeah we've eaten in the restaurant next to the one that pavement ate in so we finished up there and we're walking up to the venue and the doors opened i think at seven and it was probably about you know one or two minutes to seven o'clock and we're walking up through the town center and as we're walking, we kind of notice that we're kind of walking in step with this other group that are kind of walking in this at the same speed and in the same direction you know it's a bit awkward when you're kind of trying to overtake each other and uh i thought hang on they've got they sound like american accent and um so i look over and it's uh it's bob and spiral walking up walking up to the venue um and bear in mind that the doors are just about to open so they're just like strolling up through the city center like they've got all the time in the world.Track 3:[13:15] And I was like, oh, you know, I don't normally, you know, don't normally do this but i'll have to i've got to say something you know and i've had a couple of pints by this point so i was feeling a bit more uh confident but uh so so as we got to the traffic lights i stopped them and said oh sorry guys you know just got to say hello you know you're a big fan and they were really really nice guys just stopped and we sort of stood there by the road and chatted for about five minutes or so and you know they were in no rush at all to to get to the venue or start the gig or anything like that um yeah so really really nice um, really nice guys uh and then and from that point yeah it was just a great gig uh yeah yeah oh that's so fun that you got to meet them they're so gracious right yeah no really good guys and just yeah just chatting like you know like it was like it was nothing you know yeah and you know asking where we were from and you know uh they were talking about how they'd played at the same venue with sonic youth like back in the 90s and you know and stuff like that just really yeah it's really nice little little moment um and then managed to to meet them a second time um at the blue dot festival uh the year after wow uh because they and i don't think this was really.Track 3:[14:40] Picked up online that much but on the first event of the day at the festival it was on the poster described as a listening party, And I thought a listening party with pavement and it was a sort of event curated by Tim Burgess from the charlatans. Okay. He does these sort of online listening parties where he plays an album and people listen along live and, you know, that sort of thing. And so I thought, okay, that's probably just, you know, in a tent somewhere, they're probably playing a pavement album and maybe talking about it on stage, that sort of thing. So I thought, well, I'll head over to that before, you know.Track 3:[15:20] Before we go and see any bands. And so I head over to this tent, turn the corner, and the entire band are in this tent, up on this little stage. And it's probably about, I don't know, maybe 200 people on sort of chairs. It's like a sort of wedding tent, you know, like chairs. And they're playing Wari Zari through the speakers. And they've got this interviewer on stage, and she's just talking to them about the album as they play it through, like track by track.Track 3:[15:50] Um and you know so you got like a sort of track by track rundown of every wow it's like it's so surreal to sort of turn the corner step into this tent and you know mount merson the rest of them were all on stage and they're doing that kind of track by track blow by blow rundown of every every you know every song on the rise alley i was just i was just like i wish i wish i had a bit of paper to write some of this stuff down or to remember what they're saying because it was it was really good really good sort of um director's commentary yeah exactly it's like you know those sort of um uh on tv here on say like you know on like a friday night we might get, a sort of behind the scenes documentary on some 80s band or something and they're sitting at the mixing desk and they're talking about how they recorded this album years ago it was like that but for a band you actually like and for an album you know um an album you're actually really invested in um yeah so that was really cool, uh and then yeah s…

Full show notes at the publisher

MMT50 - 228 Jun 10, 2024

Show notes

This week on the ole Pavement top 50 podcast, jD welcomes Amir from Providence to talk all about his Pavement origin story and to breakdown song 28!Transcript:Track 1:[0:00] Previously on the Pavement Top 50. Oh, I love this song so much. It's a song, I hadn't, it wasn't on my first wave of songs to study, even though I knew we were going to play it. But it wasn't, like, you know, there were other songs I felt like I had to nail more. So this was towards the end. I said, okay, let me get into this type slow jam. Hey, this is Westy from the Rock and Roll Band.Track 3:[0:24] And you're listening to The Countdown. Hey it's shay d here back for another episode of our top 50 countdown for seminal indie rock band pavement week over week we're going to count down the 50 essential pavement tracks that you selected with your very own top 20 ballots i then tabulated the results using an abacus and the kid from the sixth sense wait a minute am i dead how will your favorite song fare in the rankings. You'll need to tune in to find out. So there's that. This week, I'm joined by pavement superfan Amir from Providence. Amir, how the fuck are you? Hello, I'm calling from Providence, Rhode Island, and I'm very fine. Life is good. Excellent. That is good news. It's great to have you here. Let's just not beat around the bush. Let's get right into this. What is your Or pavement origin story. So that's a long origin story. So I live in Providence, Rhode Island, as I mentioned. By the way, cheers. This is local. Cheers. Watery domestic beer from Rhode Island. Narragansett Atlantic-like lager. So...Track 3:[1:37] A little plug for Atlantic Light Lager. Yeah. But anyway, yeah, that's very watery. Anyway, so I was not born here. I was born in Moscow, not Moscow, Idaho. Moscow, Soviet Union, which is more or less the same thing as Russia. And I grew up there in the 80s. And I loved music since I was, I don't know, since I remember myself. I started playing piano when I was four. So I listened to a lot of music it was also the 1980s were an exciting time for rock music in Russia because Russia was like after many decades of like complete censorship it was starting to open up and, rock music suddenly became legal so it was possible to listen to that, if you if this makes you curious I recommend everybody listen to the Wind of Change podcast It's just an amazing story. Oh, it's amazing. I've listened to it. Yes, it's brilliant. So, but, yeah, so I started, like, loving rock music when I was, like, a child. But we are a Jewish family, so we moved to Israel in 1991.Track 3:[2:52] And even though Russia was opening up back then, Israel was, like, always a very open country, open to everything. So we had MTV, or more precisely, we had MTV Europe, which is not exactly the same thing. Uh mtv like in the united states and mtv europe it's not exactly the same thing mtv europe has a lot of uh uk uh bias and uh like because it broadcasted from the uk uh and uh it's it also tried to incorporate some other european music like italian or german but it was mostly like very uk biased so that's when i was growing up mtv was uh important it was like there was no youtube YouTube kind of replaced MTV now but MTV was important culturally like hugely important not just for myself but for a lot of other people, but initially when I started like watching it it was kind of boring at least during the day but then during the night it got much more exciting because they started like after midnight, they started playing much more interesting stuff and there was a show called Alternative Nation I think it was every Tuesday on MTV Europe and they played stuff like Sonic Youth and Pavement and European what you would say alternative bands, like whatever alternative even means.Track 3:[4:18] I tried to figure out what does it even mean that it's alternative? Is it a certain guitar sound? It actually doesn't mean much at all. It's just rock music that is cooler than Bon Jovi. Well, what's funny, it was alternative to the mainstream and then it became the mainstream. Exactly. Like, if you look back at this, like, it was totally the mainstream. Like, Nirvana was alternative, but it was already quite the mainstream back in 1992. And by now, it's completely mainstream. But, you know, whatever. Names of things are sometimes funny. So, yeah. And they mentioned pavement occasionally. Now, initially, they mentioned, I didn't really dig it. Like I remember, I definitely remember they showed Cut Your Hair, of course. They never showed it during the day. They showed it late at night.Track 3:[5:12] I didn't really understand it. I was like, it just looked weird. And these days, I look at the Cut Your Hair video, and now I'm a Dan and I have children, and they look at it and they just think it's funny with the gorilla and the lizard. Yes. And I was just overthinking it totally. Like I was 15 years old. why what does what does this mean i was totally overthinking it um but yeah they should cut your hair and they i remember they showed the gold sounds video um maybe also yeah rattled by the rush like the weird the weird version with the bathtub okay didn't really understand like what's the deal with that so i did love like i did love a lot of other alternative bands like i loved sonic youth i loved therapy if you if you heard that's a band from northern ireland uh i love the, alternative, rock band, whatever that means.Track 3:[6:03] Anyway, so then I graduated high school. And as pretty much everybody else in Israel, I got drafted to the military. Now, what you don't hear, you often hear about the Israeli military on the news. What you don't hear about the Israeli military is that most people there, they don't do combat and wars and stuff like that. It's just, I work with computers And that's like what most people do. They work with, you know, cars, equipment, computers, whatever. I worked with computers. And I had a friend there. And that friend was much cooler than I am. He's probably still to this day much cooler than I am. And he had many more CDs than I had. And he knew alternative music like way better than I had. I did know Sonic Youth. Sonic Youth, which is another Samuel band. I did know Sonic Youth much better than he did. But other than that, he was like the huge expert. He taught me about cool bands like Mogwai and Mercury Rev and a bunch of others. And he taught me about pavement.Track 3:[7:08] And he gave me the Wowie Zowie CD to listen. Interesting. And I was immediately hooked. That was just incredible. So like from the first seconds of We Dance, oh my God, how did I miss that? We Dance is such a brilliant song. I'm just thinking about this. I will make this really weird comparison, but it kind of makes sense to me. Because like I mentioned that I play piano. I played piano for many years, like almost 40 years now. Oh my God. I'm old. And I...Track 3:[7:43] There's another band called Guns N' Roses. There is. Which is nowhere near as cool as Pavement. Nowhere near. But that's like the not-alternative thing that they were showing a lot on MTV. And I couldn't feel like, why are so many people excited about this band? And then I saw November Rain, which, ooh, it has piano. Piano is classy. So it's classy. It doesn't... No, I'm not comparing. I'm not comparing Guns N' Roses to Pavement, but We Dance had the piano, piano is classy. And so I heard like, Ooh, that's a much like, that's such an interesting song. And I absolutely loved it. And I loved the rest of the album as hectic and eclectic as it is and extremely long. I saw it described somewhere as three six-song EPs or six three-song EPs. That's probably the... That's an interesting way to look at it. Yeah, I saw it described like that somewhere. It's a very weird album, but it's so great. It's absolutely like all of it. I love it. And then I heard the rest of it from that friend. And he gave me like Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, and Brighten the Corners.Track 3:[9:10] And later I just bought them all myself. So slanted, of course. So I have them all twice because they released them with the usual version and then the Lux and Redux and all those. LA Desert, they expanded. So I have them all twice.Track 3:[9:27] Yeah. And yeah, so that's kind of my pavement origin story. And yeah, and I became a super fan, I guess, around 98 or 99. Wow. So you got to experience Terror Twilight when it came out. That one you got to experience, right? In real time? Yep. What did you think of that at the time? It was very different. I did love it. I loved all the songs. I listened to it a lot back then.Track 3:[9:57] It's very different it's very different from if I really have I don't want to but if I really have to pick a favorite album it would probably be Crooked Rain Crooked Rain I really love them all but Terror Twilight is very different, has its own style unlike Wawizawi which has like 20 different styles but yeah, Terror Twilight definitely has a certain and particular.Track 3:[10:25] Integrated feel to it. Yeah, I would agree. So did you ever get a chance to see them live? Yeah. So first time I saw something related to Pavement, it was not Pavement. And it was not Malcolm's solo. It was a show in Israel, in Tel Aviv, in 2004. It was a tribute show, like a bunch of local Israeli bands played a tribute show to Pavement and Malcolm's. Really? It was pretty brilliant. Yeah. Israel has like a very varied music scene. Okay. Rock of all kinds of styles and jazz. I know nothing about it. It's not that known around the world, but it has a very rich, vibrant music scene. Mostly sang in Hebrew, but occasionally in English. So that show had bands singing mostly in English. Like I remember a band that I really loved, they performed Gold Sounds.Track 3:[11:27] And here, I think, uh, that's like, that, that's how I, that's how I found out about that show that like, there was a band that I, that I love. They, they, that band used to be called blush and lure back then. And they sang in English later. They changed the name of the band and they started singing in Hebrew, but, but back then they were singing in English and, uh, yeah. So they performed two songs there. I think it's definitely gold sounds and probably here. Here and uh yeah there was a bunch of other bands and like some of them did like very similar versions to the original some of them completely reworked them as like punk songs some of them translated the lyrics to hebrew like there was a i think it was father to a sister of thought they completely translated it to hebrew that was that was fun so anyway uh yeah that was a cool show. The second time I saw something pavement related was in 2010.Track 3:[12:23] 2010, that was the first big reunion in New York, in Central Park. That was a brilliant show. It's actually possible that you and I went to the same show. Yes, I know. Yeah. And yeah, I absolutely loved it. I think, like you mentioned a couple of times on your podcast, that, how did you describe it? That they seemed tired or something like that?Track 3:[12:48] Yeah, they just didn't seem into it. You know, the same way they did on this newer tour. Maybe, um, maybe I, I was absolutely excited about this. Oh, me too. At least, at least the part, they also seemed like very excited. Uh, the Stanowich was like ecstatic, uh, eyeballed, uh, who is like, usually very like quiet and, uh, serious. He was actually quite chatty on the stage. I remember, like, I remember him speaking to New York and how cool, like he's, he's from New York and how cool New York is and how cool Queens is. He, he mentioned Queens. I don't remember what he's, what did he say exactly, but like, he's like, are there people from Queens or something like that? Like he looked. I don't remember that. Yeah. And he's, he mentioned something like that. So anyway, um, yeah, it was, it was a fantastic show. Such a fantastic show.Track 3:[13:43] Heckler Spray, Summer Babe. Oh, wow. In the Mountain Desert. Uh, just a fantastic, fantastic show. So is the record that you go back to now, like, is it Wowie Zowie when you have a hankering for Pavement, or is it your favorite, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain? I would probably say, it's so hard to say, I would probably say Crooked Rain and Slanted, but I love them all. I love them all. I listen to them all. There was a third Pavement-related thing I saw, and that was Malkmus.Track 3:[14:18] Malcolm's solo I think it was in 2012 or 13 it was the it was it was.Track 3:[14:26] Oh, I'm, I'm blacking out. Which, uh, which, uh, the album with, uh, uh, Senator, uh, which, which album is that? Mirror Traffic? Yes, that one. Uh, yeah. So that was, that was a brilliant show. Uh, that was a really brilliant show. Towards, towards the end, he did, uh, uh, something like, uh, funny, uh, Faith No More impersonation. Really? yeah like towards the end of the show he played he played a couple of famous so he played here and i think uh speaks he remember and uh at one of the songs towards the end they were like the jigs were getting all uh uh in a good mood and uh jamming and at some point they just started started playing um what's the famous faith no more song epic yeah yeah they just I started playing that. That's so cool. Yeah. Anyway, it was a brilliant rock and roll show. So yeah, so these are the three Pavement-related shows I attended. Nice. Well, what do you say we take a quick break and come back and talk about song number 28? Let's do that. Let's do that. Hey, this is Bob Mustanovich from Pavement.Track 1:[15:43] Thanks listening. And now on with a countdown. 28.Track 3:[20:18] Song number 28 on the countdown comes from Crooked Rain. Crooked Rain, amazingly, it's the first song from their sophomore effort to appear on this list. You can exhale now because track 28 is Stop Breathing. Amir. Yeah. What are your initial thoughts about this song? I love this song. It appears in my top 20 that I sent you. I think it's number 14 there. so it's, half of your number I know maybe I should have rated it even higher it's like it's a brilliant song it's kind of special I made a bit of homework so it has the, it has if I'm not mistaken I learned music for many years but maybe I'm mistaken about something but almost all Pavement songs have the quadruple rhythm 1, 2, 3, 4 okay this one is Because the correct term here is probably the six-eighths rhythm. Oh, okay. One, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three.Track 3:[21:27] So there are not a lot of pavement songs in this rhythm. On the studio albums, it's just Our Singer and Stop Breathing. And half of Fight This Generation, the beginning of Fight This Generation. Oh, okay. The rest, and well, there's also 5-4 equals Unity, which begins in 5-4ths. And then I think actually the chorus is also in 3-4ths or 6-8ths. And the rest of the pavement, well, in all the kinds of B-sides and bonus tracks, tracks uh there are a bunch of uh um six eighths uh songs uh mercy snack kentucky cocktail so stark sagano stray fire um and yeah that's about it you did do your homework i did do my homework there's also kneeling bus uh also known as rugrat which is a very weird beat that i couldn't completely understand a very very cool one uh but it's like it's neither four neither three but yeah so that's so it's pretty.Track 3:[22:36] It's pretty unique relatively unique in that regard it's beautifully placed in the…

Full show notes at the publisher

MMT50 - 229 Jun 03, 2024

Show notes

This week on the pod I'm thrilled to be joined by Rebecca Clay Cole motherfuckers! We talk about her Pavement origin story, to joining the band on key, and breaking down song number 29!Transcript:Track 2:[0:00] Previously on the Pavement Top 50.Track 1:[0:02] At track 30, we have Spit on a Stranger. What the hell do you make of this song, Devin? I'm really glad I got this song because I love this song. And the thing about this song is that there's a real tension within the song that truly appeals to me. because I believe that musically and in the verses, this is the most romantic song that Pavement has ever recorded.Track 2:[0:31] Hey, this is Westy from the Rock and Roll Band, Pavement, and you're listening to The Countdown.Track 3:[0:39] Hey, it's JD here, back for another episode of our Top 50 Countdown for Seminole Indie Rock Band, Pavement. Week over week, we're going to count down the 50 essential Pavement tracks that you selected with your very own top 20 ballads. I then tabulated the results using an abacus and all my fingers on my left hand, except for my thumb. Fuck you, thumb. How will your favorite songs fare in the rankings? Well, you'll need to tune in to find out. So there's that.Track 2:[1:06] This week, we're joined by Pavement superfan, well, not Pavement superfan, Pavement superstar, Rebecca fucking Clay Cole. Rebecca, how the hell are you?Track 4:[1:17] Hello, I actually, I'm a fan. I don't know if I'm a super fan, because I've met some super fans. And I don't know if I have the level of technical knowledge. But I'm a fan and in the band. So nice to meet you.Track 3:[1:30] Nice to meet you as well. You definitely have the technical knowledge. I saw you guys play on the 22 reunion tour eight times, I think. And it was tremendous. I had so much fun. I was at the Fonda show. I saw two shows in Toronto and then like six shows in London.Track 4:[1:48] Oh, great.Track 3:[1:49] Or not London, but UK.Track 4:[1:51] Cool.Track 3:[1:52] So very, a lot of fun.Track 4:[1:54] A good range of shows there.Track 3:[1:55] Yeah, I think so. I was pleased. I wanted to go to Iceland really bad, but that didn't fall on the cards.Track 4:[2:02] Well, maybe we'll be in Iceland again someday.Track 3:[2:04] That would be cool.Track 4:[2:05] Join us if that happens.Track 3:[2:07] I will do that. So let's get right to the punch here and talk about, this is sort of funny to be talking about something, Sort of funny to be talking with somebody in the band about their Pavement Origins story, but obviously you came late to the band, and we'll talk about that. I really want to know what it's like to join a band that's an established band, but hasn't been on the road in a while. I want to know that as well, but I really want to know your Pavement Origins story.Track 4:[2:36] My Pavement Origins story. Well, I think the first time I was aware of Pavement was when they were opening for Sonic Youth. It was maybe Sonic Youth Mudhoney Pavement at Red Rocks.Track 3:[2:52] Oh, really?Track 4:[2:53] They were the first band to play and I had never heard of them. I hadn't heard of much because at this point I think I was six months in Denver. And before that I'd lived like on a farm and on an island. So I had no cultural touchstones at all for a teenager. I was really, I wouldn't say ignorant, but I just sort of formed my own musical education. I'd never been to a punk show. There were no punk shows in the Virgin Islands, you know, or in the farm in Kentucky. So all of that is to say some friends took me to Red Rocks to see this show. And Pavement was the first band. So that was my first introduction to Pavement.Track 3:[3:29] And what did you think?Track 4:[3:31] I did not understand it. I didn't understand it at all. But Gary was in fine form, and I remember not spending a lot of time behind his kit. And I just was confused what the performance was. I didn't understand it. I didn't have the language to understand it at the time.Track 3:[3:49] That's phenomenal. And Red Rocks, to boot. I've never been, but it's supposed to be just a fantastic venue, right?Track 4:[3:59] Maybe Pavement can play it again with me.Track 3:[4:02] Oh, that's awesome.Track 4:[4:04] I'll just plant that seed out there to the universe.Track 3:[4:06] Yeah.Track 4:[4:07] We'd like it to grow.Track 3:[4:08] So where did it go from there? Did you... At what point did you click? Did it go, oh, yeah, I get this?Track 4:[4:17] You know, not much later. Maybe a year or two later, I was... I found myself joined into an indie band. And this was 90... 94 maybe okay um 93 94 95 for sure um and so pavement was of course i should maybe it's not and of course but it was just like a touchstone you know it was like they were one of the coolest bands doing it and someone that everyone in my scene looked up to very very greatly and so i saw them touring wawi zawi they had my friends the apples and stereo opening for them for a section of that tour and so I got to see that show with Apple's opening which was great um so yeah I would say Wowie Zowie was that era where I like I definitely remember thrifting for my first set of stage clothes for the Minders like listening to that cassette going to the thrift store with my friend Tammy oh.Track 3:[5:12] That's a cool memory.Track 4:[5:13] Getting ready for our first gig yeah.Track 3:[5:15] That's so cool what What was the name.Track 4:[5:17] Of the band? The Minders.Track 3:[5:19] The Minders. Is there anything out there that people can find?Track 4:[5:24] Yeah. Check it out.Track 3:[5:26] Yeah, I will definitely check that out. Yeah. So from there, we fast forward a number of years, and it's now 2021, I'm guessing, when you got the call, or was it early in 2022?Track 4:[5:43] I actually, Steven had asked me in 2020, 19.Track 3:[5:50] Oh, right. Because they were going to go on the road in 2020.Track 4:[5:54] Because the Jicks were at Primavera, I think.Track 3:[5:59] Okay.Track 4:[5:59] If I'm not mistaken. This is how I remember it in my time. I'm friends with Joanna. She played briefly in The Minders. And we're just really close in addition to that. And the rest of the Jicks. I'm friends with all the Jicks. But anyway, Stephen had asked me about 2020 and not to tell anyone. And so I hadn't. And so then somehow, because they were in Barcelona, he must have mentioned that I was doing it or that it was happening or someone in Barcelona. I don't know. But I got a lot of angry texts from the jigs like, why didn't you tell us?Track 3:[6:30] Oh, man.Track 4:[6:31] It's like, well, I was asked not to say anything to anyone. It was really hard. I'm glad someone knows now.Track 3:[6:37] You're a person of your word. That's great.Track 4:[6:39] In this one case, I was, yeah. Usually I'm that terrible gossip. it so.Track 3:[6:45] That happens and then obviously covet happens so that doesn't that doesn't you know pan out but 2022 comes around and you guys all assemble in portland to um to jam and to rehearse like a shitload of songs.Track 4:[7:04] What was what.Track 3:[7:06] Was that like for you how much prep work did you have to do going into that.Track 4:[7:11] Um I took it pretty seriously and I did a lot of prep work I pretty much took the three months before those rehearsals were just me rehearsing for rehearsals and I set up my my rig basically the same rig I use live I set up a version of that in my living room, with a mixer and an amp and like you know tried all sorts of different keyboard configurations and tried to figure out what I wanted to use live. And then from there, sort of figuring out, you know, there was programming a lot of sounds. It was important for me to learn the catalog in such a way that, that my goal was like if steven just played any riff like kind of randomly started noodling it that i would be able to know like the song its title where to find it in my notes like does it have keyboard and do i have that part ready to go or percussion or vocals or anything so that was sort of the level i wanted to be prepared for practice the first full band rehearsal which i I think, actually, I think I met my goal. I took, I had extensive notes.Track 3:[8:16] You posted them on social, right?Track 4:[8:18] I think Bob posted that picture first.Track 3:[8:21] Yeah, yeah.Track 4:[8:22] I was surprised you wanted to, like, but yeah. Those were the distilled notes. I mean, like, some songs have pages and pages where I've just painstakingly, like, transcribed, you know, using music notation, like, how the part looks on the sheet so I could read it and understand it that way. Other notes are a little more esoteric and squiggly. So yeah, that was the prep, three months of that. And I got, of course, by the end thought I wasn't ready at all. And then I showed up to practice and realized I was pretty ready.Track 3:[9:00] So you walk into the room. I'm sorry to keep painting these pictures. But you walk into the room, and this is an established group of people. Although they haven't seen each other in 10 years probably or close to or some of them haven't seen each other. How difficult is that to insert yourself or be inserted in something that is already established like that?Track 4:[9:25] And something I love. Not just like something that it's established for me in that way.Track 3:[9:32] Yeah.Track 4:[9:33] It was sort of heavy actually. I made it heavy in the preparation I guess. Like, I was nervous. I was very nervous about, uh... I mean, it sounds silly to say now that I've spent some years with them, but I was just hoping everyone would like me. Not like personally, necessarily, but what I'm bringing to the songs. Was everyone in the band equally on board with having a keyboard player? Am I stepping on any parts? At first, I was concerned, does Bob still want to play some keyboard lines?Track 3:[10:06] Oh, yeah.Track 4:[10:07] I wasn't quite sure how it had all come to be. And so I just, I, I, I walked in to not timidly, but just like trying to get a read before I really started asserting myself. But I, but then I forget my filter only lasts for a little bit. And then it's like within an hour or two, I think it was fine.Track 3:[10:27] Oh, that's so cool to hear. Yeah.Track 4:[10:29] I forget to be nervous. And then I'm just myself for better or for worse.Track 3:[10:33] No, that's great. great so from there we go to LA and we go to the Fonda show which I gotta tell you that show like kicked all sorts of ass that was so good you guys played so long and such a varied like we didn't know going into it that the set list was going to be as varied as it was um you know we We knew that you guys had practiced a lot of songs, but it just, it was surreal. What was it like for you?Track 4:[11:06] Surreal.Track 3:[11:07] Surreal as well.Track 4:[11:08] I mean, we'd done all, we'd done the rehearsal in Portland and, you know, the team, you know, for musical building, but also for me, some team building, like who are these guys exactly? And like, and then we did some practice in LA on a soundstage before the Fonda as well. And I was nervous. It wasn't even like I was nervous. I was just unsure. I was really unsure what to expect. I now had practiced with them for like eight days, and I had watched so much YouTube of them live. But I hadn't been on stage to feel, like I wasn't sure what I was going to feel on stage, if that makes sense, like how it was actually going to feel to perform the music.Track 4:[11:48] And like rehearsal and performance are two different energies. Strategies, just wasn't sure what I was going to get from the five guys as far as all that went.Track 4:[11:56] And I also was really unsure what I was going to get from the crowd. It's like, I was like, yeah, I have eight days of practice with them. Like, I feel pretty good that they like my contribution. But now the question is, like, does anyone else like the contribution? Is it going to work?Track 4:[12:12] Will it be unfavorably compared? I had a lot a lot of that swirling in my head i was and it was uh yeah i wouldn't say nerves both under and overstates the situation it wasn't like i was shaking in my boots but it felt heavier than that it was like too heavy to be shaken in my boots but then steven did this really cool thing and maybe he could tell i was nervous i i will also say i don't think i was the only one with jitters i think they also hadn't played out in over a decade together so a lot of those questions maybe they're asking themselves as well um but steven rallied us really classic but and maybe like a little maybe it seemed pat to say it now but at the time it felt really good but he was just reminded us all that we practiced hard and it was going to be fun um and it's the strangest thing jd because as we walked on stage all of that tension left and that's really gifts that's been the hugest gift for me of playing in this band I got it on the first show and it's no fear it was just like this is fun these guys are fun the energy is fun and that is how it feels on stage to play with them I learned that night the reason the tension goes away is because it's about something.Track 4:[13:34] More important than And like, did you execute your part properly?Track 3:[13:37] Right.Track 4:[13:38] You know, it's like, are you in the right head and heart space? And they probably don't use these words for it. This is how I'm describing it. You know, to make the music matter, there has to be a feeling there. And they all excel at that. It turns out I had nothing to be worried about. Pure joy being on stage with those guys.Track 3:[13:54] Okay, I'm curious about your favorite songs to play. What are some that you had a lot of fun with?Track 4:[14:02] I mean, they're all so fun. And I'm not just saying that, I mean.Track 3:[14:06] No, that's cool.Track 4:[14:07] They're all pretty fun to play. Even when I'm just shaking a tambourine half of one chorus or something of a song, it's like, I can't believe I get to play the tambourine on this part. They didn't just invite me up. They're paying me to come up here and play this tambourine part.Track 3:[14:26] That's so cool.Track 4:[14:27] It's just like, what a dream gig.Track 3:[14:29] Yeah. I love how you did Trigger Cut, like how you did the sha-la-la-la-las in Trigger Cut.Track 4:[14:35] Oh, yeah. So cool. That's so fun. That's really fun. And that is a fun one to play. Like, obviously, like, anything that finds just me and Bob, like, in a tambourine party is fun. Like, any, you know, the more tambourines, the better. It's always good. It's always fun. That's just, there's never a night where I look up and see Bob playing tambourine and don't immediately get completely lifted.Track 3:[14:57] Oh, that's so cool.Track 4:[14:59] So anything where I'm doing that is fun. Working out something like Embassy Row was kind of fun because we, like, practiced the beginning part and, you know, then it rocks at the end. It's sort of like seeing those songs kind of work out in practice and then singing.Track 2:[15:13] Yeah, yeah, I get that. So what do you think? Should we get into the track, song 29?Track 4:[15:24] Let's do it. So it ranks 29 of 50?Track 2:[15:27] That's right, yeah. We'll be back on the other side with Rebecca Clay Cole. Hey, this is Bob Mastandovich from Pavement. Thanks for listening, and now on with a countdown. 29!Track 3:[21:05] Ther…

Full show notes at the publisher

MMT50 - 230 May 27, 2024

Show notes

Devin Faraci joins jD today on the podcast. Beyond listening in on Devin's Pavement origin story, you'll hear him wax nostalgic about song 30.Transcript:Track 2:[1:00] Previously on the Pavement Top 50.Track 1:[1:02] At 31, give it a day. What do you think, Scott from North Dakota?This is a gem, and I love it so much. I love the whole EP.This would have been something I did not discover until well after I knew all of Wowie Zowie, all of Bright in the Corners, and it wasn't something I easily could have. have it.Track 2:[1:27] Hey, this is Westy from the Rock and Roll Band Pavement, and you're listening to the Countdown.Track 3:[1:34] Hey, it's JD here, back for another episode of our Top 50 Countdown for Seminole Indie Rock Band Pavement.Week over week, we're going to count down the 50 essential pavement tracks that you selected with your very own Top 20 ballads.I then tabulated the results using using an abacus and 28 grams of the best weed you've ever smoked, along with some drifter named Larry.How will your favorite songs fare in the rankings? Well, you'll need to tune in to find out. So there's that.This week I'm joined by Pavement superfan Devin from LA.Devin, how the fuck are you? I'm doing pretty good. I'm doing pretty good. Really glad to be here.Amazing to be on the World Wide Web talking about Pavement so many decades after I first started listening to them. Well, let's get right into that then.Let's go back a few decades and get your Pavement Origins story.You know, I have a lot of Pavement history. I started in around 92.Oh, wow. Yeah, so Slanted and Enchanted.And I'm pretty sure it was Summer Babe Winter Version that was the first song that I heard, I have to guess.Track 3:[2:50] And it was a weird time in my life I was a college student, I had been kicked out of college. Oh, shit. I had earned a 0.0 GPA.And not for cool reasons, mind you.I think that it was 1992, and my college had what they called a VAX computer system, which was the early internet.And I was on the early internet all night playing multi-user dungeon games and did not go to school.Track 3:[3:24] So I got kicked out of college for playing video games. Really ahead of my time.It's like big Gen Z energy, I feel like.And I was living with my dad in Illinois, who was living in the suburbs, and it was the most miserable year of my life because the alternative rock world that I had been in back when I was living in New York City had exploded.And I was stuck in the Chicago suburbs and I couldn't drive.And all of these amazing things were happening and I was not part of any of it.But there was a cool record store. And so I discovered Pavement and I have loved that band ever since.And, um, yes, that's my original pavement experience trapped in the suburbs of Chicago, New York city kid trapped in the suburbs of Chicago, uh, watching the world explode into cool alternative rock shit all around me, but so, so far away.Track 3:[4:24] So what was it like when you walked into that record store? Was it the album cover that got you?Had you heard of the band through like zines or anything like that?Or was it just like a random purchase? I probably had heard it from a magazine, probably Alternative Press, if I had to guess back then. I read that shit religiously.And I might have already heard the song, but I'll tell you, man, when I heard that album, it was like somebody had finally recorded music that was aimed directly at my particular personal brain.Wow. You know, just sort of the discordant, weird lo-fi sound they had on that first record, especially back in the day.But with melodic pop sensibilities, it was incredible to me.It really was incredible.And Malkmus' voice just really was, I mean, just got me, just nailed me.Track 3:[5:15] Yeah, it's very, I mean, they're very unique in a, in a world at the time where things were not yet starting to sound the same, but, and our guys were signing everybody out of Seattle.They could, you know, this bright beacon of hope from Stockton, California, um, really shone a light for a lot of people.I wish I could have been there at the time, but I didn't catch on until the late nineties.So yeah no i was pretty happy to be there which means that i got to experience some pretty cool pavement stuff in real time um you know the greatest t-shirt i ever owned was a pavement t-shirt it had two fried eggs on the tits yes uh it's one of the great t-shirts of all time but i also have two really memorable i've seen pavement a few times but i have two very memorable pavement concert experiences all right share them uh so one of them was at the tibetan freedom Freedom concert in New York City.And there were two stages. And I forget who was up against Pavement on the other stage at the time, but nobody came to see Pavement.And so it was this big stage at Randall Island in New York City and Pavement playing.And it was like me and 30 guys.Track 3:[6:30] Are you serious? There was nobody there. I got right to the front. Like it was incredible.They were really playing to like the sparsest crowd you could imagine.It was, I honestly forget who was up against them, but that was packed.Um, and, and, and the pavement was, it was dead. It was just incredible.Um, which I'm sure wasn't great for the band, but for me, uh, was a delight.I mean, just an absolute delight, but the greatest pavement concert experience I've ever had.Track 3:[7:00] They did a secret show at CBGB, which is a very small venue and also disgusting and very historic.And so I got tickets to this secret CBGB show, and I honestly forget what album this is, so I don't remember what they were playing.But the big memory of the secret CBGB show is the band had been on for a minute.And then Keanu Reeves entered CBGB wearing a tuxedo with a woman in a evening dress, evening gown of some kind, like they had just come from an award show or something. It looked like.And every time the band finished a song, Keanu Reeves would yell, Freebird, which is something I know.Track 3:[7:52] Uh, for maybe the younger listeners don't realize that there was a period in rock music history where people would go to concerts and yell free bird at the bands in between every single song.And I will tell you that shit did not fly with a pavement crowd.Uh, the pavement crowd was not excited to hear this.And so that was a very strange experience, but what it made it even stranger was years later reading an interview with the band.And they talked about that night. And they talked about how Keanu Reeves had tried to come backstage and meet them. And they turned him away.Because the other thing people have to remember is that in the 90s, Keanu Reeves before The Matrix was not cool.He had started making a bunch of like really crummy movies and sort of for Gen X, Keanu Reeves sort of had crossed a boundary that we did not necessarily like.And so he was not cool at the time.That's why when he was cast in The Matrix, it was kind of a joke.Like, you know, you couldn't believe that that guy was going to be in this movie.So they didn't let him come backstage.Track 3:[8:54] And then they talked about, after the show, they were leaving the venue and they were walking somewhere and they walked past this very famous downtown restaurant, Veselka, which is like the heart of the village.There's a documentary out about it right now, actually. But anyway, they were walking past Veselka and there by himself sitting in a window, sadly eating Ukrainian food, was Keanu Reeves.And they felt terrible that they had turned him away from backstage.Oh, that's a fantastic story.Yeah. Jesus.Keanu Reeves yelling Freebird. I can't believe it. It was unreal.And a friend of mine, who's actually now a music executive, heckled Keanu at the show.As Keanu was leaving CB, my friend yelled, Dogstar, love that band, which was Keanu's band at the time, his bad band at the time. So, yeah. Yeah.So are there any records that you cleave to now, or do you go back, for nostalgia's sake, to Slanted?Track 3:[10:11] Man, you know, it's a great... I mean, I gotta say, for me, Crooked Rain.Crooked Rain is the peak, I think. And I love every Pavement record.But Crooked Rain is the one that I just find myself drawn to again and again and again and again.Again um you know and that was the album you know where they started getting like videos on mtv which was a truly bizarre experience too uh you know when cut your hair debuted on 120 minutes and made its way into regular mtv programming uh was very strange because this was such an odd band uh for the time you know and and and crooked yeah crooked rain is i mean i love all of them Wowie zowie's amazing, bright in the corners.But it's crooked rain.Track 3:[10:59] Yeah, I think so. I just went for a walk earlier this morning.It's unseasonably warm here in Toronto.And I went for a walk and I just had a hankering to listen to Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain.So I threw it on and walked until it was over.And I just forgot, even though I know deep in my bones that it's a great album, like I had forgot just how cohesive it is and how big it sounds.And really it sounds completely different than slanted right yeah i know it's a total step forward but i think what's amazing you know so in the 90s i was a real diehard flannel guy you know i had my real deep opinions on selling out and for crooked rain they went much more rock oriented slanted than they had been on, on, uh, slanted.And, um, but it worked like there was no sense of selling out.Uh, it was more like a band fulfilling its promise.Um, even though I love the lo-fi stuff, you know, uh, you know, Westing by Musket and Sexton. I love that. Like that, love that noise. Give it to me.Uh, but, uh, but yeah, I mean, Crooked Rain, it just, it feels like a band blossoming into what they can be.Track 3:[12:18] Oh that's nice i like it yeah is there anything else you want to share about your pavement origins i mean i guess just that.Track 3:[12:33] Pavement is a really special band to me you know partially because of um, Where I was when I found them, you know, I was so trapped in the suburban hell that I just didn't understand and I was not part of, you know, this was the era when I had, um, like a blue undercut.Like I had like that top knot thing going on the sides and back of my head shaved and my hair was dyed a little blue and I wore ripped jeans and flannels.And when I was walking to work in the suburbs along the side of the road where they had no sidewalks, I had a car drive past me and throw a beer can at me and shout the F slur at me as they drove by.So I'm not saying that I'm an oppressed person, but I'm saying that I was living in an environment that was not friendly to me and my kind of people.Track 3:[13:27] And I heard this band and it was like somebody talking directly to me.And so as a result, it has always been just an important band to me.And because I am still partially that Gen X, quote unquote, hardcore, never sell out kind of a guy, I love that Pavement never sold out.I love that Pavement never ended up becoming some kind of a big, massive band that like the worst people you know got into. to.Pavement has gotten more well-known and it has a great legacy, but it's closer to the way that the Velvet Underground used to be.The Velvet Underground has sort of crossed over.People know the Velvet Underground now, but there was a very long time where you could say to somebody that you love the Velvet Underground and if they got it, you knew they were a cool person that you were going to like.Pavement has that right now.If I tell somebody I love Pavement and they They actually know Pavement.They don't just know two songs or something.Track 3:[14:35] Then I know, oh, that's a person who I can be friends with. That's a person who gets me. Because part of the deal is that Pavement...It's not just this amazing music, but there's a thing I love about Pavement, which is that the kind of brain that I think it takes to really appreciate Pavement, because so many of the lyrics are close to nonsense, but not nonsense.And it requires a brain that's willing to engage with that.And I think it's sort of like really fun and smart at the same time that it can be incredibly dumb sometimes.But, you know, that's, I think, the defining line for Pavement for me.Those lyrics that, like, have silly things in them and have nonsensical things in them, but very often they add up to something that is emotionally true that you can really understand, even if you can't understand it as language necessarily.And also every now and again drops in bizarre stuff that's like smart people stuff, you know?You know, how many bands have songs about how the kids that made acid couldn't get laid?I mean, like, you know, that's like an amazing thing to drop into the middle of a song out of nowhere.So, you know, yeah, so that's my Pavement, yeah.That's nice. I like it. Well, what do you say we take a quick break and come back to the other side and talk about song number 30?Sounds good. All right, let's do that.Track 2:[16:01] Hey, this is Bob Mustanovich from Pavement. Thanks for listening.And now on with a countdown.Track 1:[16:09] 30.Track 3:[19:08] Song number 30 on the countdown comes from Pavement's fifth and final album, Terror Twilight.It's also the third song from this album to make the top 50 thus far.At track 30, we have Spit on a Stranger.What the hell do you make of this song, Devin?Track 3:[19:29] I'm really glad I got this song because I love this song.And the thing about this song is that there's a real tension within the song that truly appeals to me, because I believe that musically and in the verses, this is the most romantic song that Pavement has ever recorded.100%. Like some of these verses are things that you would say at a wedding.Track 3:[19:58] And then you get to the chorus and there's the you're a bitter stranger.And it's obvious that it's about a breakup of some kind, but it has those that tinge of love in the verses.And again, musically that I think make it really beautiful and really melancholic in a really incredible way.The song, you know, you're a bitter stranger, but the song is not bitter.Uh which i think is amazing and i just tender yeah i love the the the the tension within it i just it's it's so good because it's not an obvious tension like if you just listen to this song and don't pay attention to the lyrics it's just a beautiful lovely song that uh if you catch a couple of the verse lyrics you go that's really gorgeous you know um and then and then we listen to the whole thing there's like a lot more going on i i i adore this song yeah it's a it's a it's a standout on terror twilight for sure not just because it's a single it it just i don't know it just pops off that record um what's your relationship with the song do you remember hearing it for the first time or do you remember what that was like.Track 3:[21:10] I don't remember hearing it for the first time. I can't remember if this was a single before the album came out or not. I don't recall.I believe it was. So I probably heard it as a single.I'm sure I heard it on the radio or I bought the single before the album came out. But I don't really recall.I remember when this came out and this album came out that this was a song that I fixated on pretty intensely at the time. This was kind of a track I kept going back to again and again and again and again.And I just I just fell immediately in love with it.It's funny, because now, wi…

Full show notes at the publisher

MMT50 - 231 May 20, 2024

Show notes

Today on the show Scott joins jD to talk all about song number 31, don't worry we get to his origin story too! Transcript: Track 1[1:02] At track 32, we have the song, Grave Architecture. Come on in. Sorry.I was trying to stick that in, yeah. Oh, damn. I stepped on it.That's okay. I should have prepared you.What are your initial thoughts of Grave Architecture? This was a funny one thatwhen you said it to me, I have a long,like I think I said before, I think the album that I really kind of really feltlike really grabbed me was was wowie zowie and um and yeah this song is likethe come on in like right away like oh yeah,hey this is westy from the rock and roll.Track 3[1:41] Band pavement and you're listening to the countdown,hey it's jd here back for another episode ofour top 50 countdown for seminal indie rockband pavement week over weekwe're going to count down the 50 essential pavement tracks that youselected with your very own top 20 ballots ithen tabulated the results using an abacus and an old pair of socks you knowthe kind that have toes in them how will your favorite song fare in the rankingyou will need to tune in to find out so there's that this week i'm joined bypavement Pavement superfan, Scott from North Dakota.Track 3[2:19] Scott, how are you doing, motherfucker? I'm doing well, and you, sir?I am excellent. I'm always excellent when I get to talk Pavement with somebody. Absolutely.Track 3[2:29] So tell me a little bit about yourself. So, you know, grew up in Minnesota,a small town, but not that far from the Twin Cities.And it's small towns. You don't things come slowly.And I was I don't want to say a late adopter to pavement, but I graduated in1996 from high school and I was all about the grunge movement.You know, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, all of that. And I didn't know much about indierock at all or any indie anything until I went to college.I had heard of Pavement when I was in high school. I had friends who were intothem, but I was so set on grunge that it's like, this is what we're going to listen to.And I kind of wrote them off at first without hearing them because I for whateverreason, I was like, oh, Pavement.It's like going to be heavy, more industrial, you know, maybe like East GermanKMFDM or, you know, something really that I might not enjoy.Yeah. And then I was completely wrong about that.A friend, a friend had, I was just riding with a friend and he had,it was right when Brighton the Corners came out and we were just riding in hiscar and I was like, what is this?And he's like, this is pavement. And I was like, no.Track 3[3:46] And I was like, this is not what Pavement sounds like. And it literally fromthere was just a beeline to the store to pick up everything I could get my hands on.And, you know, it was, it was, would have been my last, you know,two years of college, give or take.Track 3[4:01] And it was obviously Pavement was up there. And then right at that same time,Built to Spill, Modest Mouse, all these, you know, other indie bands.But Pavement was the one that I was just like, oh my God, where has this been my whole life? Oh, yeah.Track 3[4:45] On the internet so you just had to go and buy andsee what happened and i picked upterror twilight which divisive record you know for some people for me absolutelyloved it there's so much same stuff in there that was just jangly and interestingand different and fun but also i mean,It's hard to explain, but I remember growing up as a kid, and radio was all we had.And every song was about love, and it was just straight up hitting you over the head with it.And here was something that you had to go decipher these lyrics,and you could decipher them in a thousand different ways.And if you got sick of the lyrics, you could just go and listen to the music itself.Track 3[5:35] And that was just something that I had been looking for forever.So that would have been roughly like 1998, 99.And I was living in Minneapolis. I got an internship and I got to see them on that last tour.So the first time- In 99? Yeah. I got to, I saw them.I remember this too, because they played two dates and I only could go to onebecause the other date I was seeing Slater Kinney.They were like back to back nights. So I was an intern at the time.So, you know, I was working during the day and then as much as I can,I'd go to First Avenue where the show was.And I remember very little because it was, again, 1999.Track 3[6:17] But I remember they opened with Here, which I thought was just such an odd openerbecause it's just such a chill, just laid back, you know, didn't come out with a big punch.And it just set the tone.And i i remember um what i remember about that gig is steven or malchmus haduh like uh christmas lights but they weren't around his microphone stand andthat was that was just about it for,stage presence and again this is the first time i've seen this band uh wheni'd only seen pictures before that i actually when i looked at them i didn'tknow who the singer was and i thought i I thought, uh, I thought Mark was the singer.Cause he stands in the center. Yeah. I was like, oh yeah, that he's gotta bethe singer and nope. You get there and I'm like, oh, okay.Track 3[7:08] And you know, I, I remember, you know, buying after that, you know,the, the major league EP or the single with, with the additional ones.And, you know, I got very into them and then they went away and I was like,oh, well, this sucks, you know?And they never were far from my playlist.They were always there. And...Track 3[7:35] It was the first band that I really remember going, oh, I won't get to see these guys again.And that was frustrating because I had felt like I had only gotten into thema year or a year and a half before.And yes, could I have gotten to them earlier? Sure. If I had been born in abigger town with better radio, with better, you know, a college town,maybe where that could have been a lot, a lot more easily found.But, uh, you know, growing up in rural Minnesota, you got AM radio,you got farm reports, and then you got pop radio.So it was very difficult to find those, but yeah, that's, that's kind of mybeginning with the band and, uh, just becoming infatuated with them.Track 3[8:16] So question yeah um oh shit it slipped my mind oh no what was the question ohthe question was so did that lead you to sm solo work or psoi or anything likethat yeah uh i was and and that's,what we'll get to that uh we'll get to i have some linkage there but that'sokay um yeah i i I immediately went out and followed the solo work,which again, the first record just blew me away.And I listened to it on just repeat forever.And I would say at least with the solo stuff, the first four albums, I just ate up.Um, and after that, it wasn't because I thought the music was any different.It's more that I just got older and I was listening to less new music.And that's something I've been. Weird how that happens. I hate it though.You know, I, I, I'm finally, I finally figured out that if, you know,and it took me till here that if you keep listening to new music,if you make time for it, it comes right back the enjoyment,you know, and I've tried to set aside and, you know, just shut the TV off andlisten to music for an hour and it's really helped.Track 3[9:30] I do that every morning, every morning I get up around five 30 and I listenedto at least one record, um, you know, or a playlist or whatnot.And that sort of sets the tone for my day.Yeah. See it. And I'm, uh, I'm an accountant and a teacher by, by trade.So I teach at a local community college, but I do taxes on the side and thisis busiest time of year for me,but I can can pour through you knowsix seven albums in a sitting youknow just having the music on while i work and justpound away and pound away and work work work work work and themusic will still just kind of seep in and upon youknow second or third listenings all of a sudden i'm going back and i'm like igotta hear this song particularly again because there's something inthere and that that's really helped but long storylonger uh yeah those solo records were and andwhether it was you know technically him or him with the jicksand i saw him i don't knowa couple times on those tours when he would come throughminneapolis and again loved it loved itabsolutely loved it um yeah and you know he did it in store uh at the electricfetus in minneapolis a pretty famous record store for minneapolis and uh i rememberbeing intimidated because that just the stuff you read oh he's he's He's aloof.He's kind of standoffish, you know, but he's, he's very intelligent.Track 3[10:55] And he played, I don't know, three or four songs off whatever record that was.And then you sign up and you shake hands.And he talked to me for like fiveminutes and he couldn't have been more gracious with everyone in line.And I was like, Oh, this is, this is great. You know, they say,don't meet your heroes. And I'm like, well, no, this was, this was fantastic.This was a really nice situation so yeah i've only ever had good experiencesbut i'm like you very nervous because he's just so goddamn cool you know likethat's like you can't you can't plan for that intangible right the coolness factor you know.Track 3[11:35] It's it's difficult to relate to especially forme i'm cool and underqualified oh yeah i didn't andi'm just like like grew up southern californiayou know playing tennis and you know doing doing all these things and you knowbut also with skateboarding and then you know he was in bands like still whenhe was in high school and stuff and it's all these stuff that you know i hadkids like that in high school too but i felt the same way i'm like ah theseguys are cool and i mean i I took piano lessons forever,but I never translated that into,you know, thinking about, oh, you could be in a band or you could do something.And it was just like, nope, it's piano.It's nerdy. It's never going to work. And it's like, eh, you know.Ben Volz would argue with you. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. That's very true.So what's your go-to record at this point? Is it Brighton still?Like, because that was your first or.No. Obviously it changes over the years. Uh, for, for the longest, for the longest time.It was crooked rain, crooked rain, just because it is a masterpiece.Yeah. It, it, and again, just out the, out the gate, just how,just how the shambling start of that record and then, you know,the, the, the cowbell kicks in and just.Track 3[12:51] Yeah i stillget goosebumps from that and for a long time that was it andmy least favorite not least favorite but i thoughtwowie zowie for the longest time was there'sso many weird songs on there like you takeyou take a song like half a canyon which i adore but.Track 3[13:11] It is weird it is out there and he'sjust you know screaming and it's kind of nonsense andi find myself now going to wowiezowie um because it is so imean just starting off with we dancewhich is again just this kind of slow burning kindof almost ballady at points yes andthen just the rest of that record with you know gravearchitecture and pueblo and and grounded anduh you know those are just the ones off the top of myhead but again uh at&t andit's top to bottom and it's a little bitlonger record which i like as wellum yeah when you've only got five lps tosort of satiate yourself now there's lots of epstoo but yes five main lps along isnice right right right which againjust to i always have liked that in in uh i'm a modest mouse fan as well notthat you know we need to get into that but their first modest mouse's firsttwo albums were like both 74 minutes and wow this is also back yeah this isalso back when like a cd would cost 15 to 18 dollars and.Track 3[14:26] I didn't have a lot of money so you knowi would buy these records that had so much music on itum when i could and i just appreciated thatbut that longer album uh and it really ebbsand flows as well which which i love and it can gofrom just something that's really simple and straightforward forward to somethingthat other bands it might endup as a b-side or on the cutting room floor because it isthat different but absolutely love thatrecord now that's that's my go-to yeah yeah it'sa good one and it harkens back to those original three eps with some of themore you know minute and a half uh like noise art sort of um gems that are onthere which which again um,You know, getting into watery domestic and all of that, you know,like the first time I heard like forklift, I'm like, what is this?And you compare that to, you know.Track 3[15:27] Anything off the later stuff and it's a weird transition butyou know a lot of bands do that uh you knowthey're they start off you know either fast and punky orweird or they don't know what they're doing and the songs are likea minute and a half but you can still sense the structurethere you can sense that this could be you know building tosomething and like a lot of thosefirst i don't go back to a ton of thestuff prior to slanted i think becauseof that because i didn't find out about a lot ofthese i didn't have access to them you know you couldn't downloadthem most of it was out of print uh you'd belucky if you could find it in a second hand bin um andif you did hooray you know uh really hunting for records and uh yeah i don'tthose are the ones i don't revisit a ton but there are also so many gems inthere as well that i'm like you really need to do give that give that a betterchance it's nice that it's on vinyl now too yes the westing compilation is onvinyl that's a treat absolutely yeah.Track 3[16:30] Because those eps are especially sight tracks is tough to get your hands onyeah yeah and i i i don't i don't buy as much vinyl as i used to but i usedto have a big problem of going on to ebay and just any seven inch i could getmy hands on you know know,um, like anything that I could really, really knock down.And, you know, if it's a reasonable price, I bought it because why not?And I've, I've, I've tapered that a little bit, but I have, I don't know ifI'm missing like at least a U S single.I'm not sure. I can't, I can't remember. I haven't looked in a while,but, um, I, I grabbed as many of those as I could, uh, just because I couldn'tget them anywhere else. Right. Right.Track 3[17:15] Yeah. Did you, did you go to any of the reunion shows like in 2010 or in 2022?Yep. Uh, in 2010, um, they played at a terrible venue in Minneapolis calledthe Roy Wilkins auditorium, which is, um, it's an auditorium that was built,I don't know, in the twenties or thirties.It's, it's just concrete. The sound is miserable.Track 3[17:38] Um, it has a huge main floor, which givesyou room to spread out which was fun and theyopened with cut your hair which i waslike yep perfect perfect you know just get itlet not get it out of the way but so tongue-in-cheek that i i just loved itand i got to see them there and then i went to pitchfork fest that year as welluh to see them so i got to see them to twice there where was the pitchfork festin chicago yep Yep. Yep. In Chicago.And I'd been to that a couple of times. Well, I lived in Minneapolis and I hadmy, uh, I was, I was seeing someone whose brother, uh, lived,he was going to grad school down there.So we had a free place to stay, which makes, oh, look, yeah,Chicago is reasonable now. Yeah.We can drive down, we can take the L and…

Full show notes at the publisher

MMT50 - 232 May 13, 2024

Show notes

On this episode of the Pavement Top 50, jD has a lovely conversation with Zac from Amhearst about his Pavement Origin Story and song number 32Transcript: [1:02] Bob, what do you think about Transport as Arranged? Jamie.I just think that, I think Transport as Arranged, when the record was made inKernersville, North Carolina with Mitch Easter,was just kind of viewed and the feel around it was that, okay,that's another song that definitely should be on the record.But isn't the kind of song that it you know maybe should be a single or somethinglike that it was just it was just a song that was like really solid and goodhey this is westy from the rock and.Track 3[1:41] Roll band pavement and you're listening to the countdown hey it's jd here backfor another episode of our top 50 countdown for seminal indie rock band pavementweek over week we're we're going to count down the 50 essential pavement tracksthat you selected with your very own top 20 ballots.I then tabulated the results using an abacus and gluten.Just joking, there's absolutely no gluten. Zero.How will your favorite song fare in the rankings? Well, you'll need to tunein to find out. So there's that.This week, I'm joined by pavement superfan man, Zach from Amherst.Dude, how the fuck are you?Track 3[2:21] I'm okay. How are you? I'm great. Thanks for asking.It's good to be here with you. No, it's great to be here.Yeah, I'm excited to be a part of this. Well, let's not dilly-dally.Let's get right to it and go to your pavement origin story.Yeah, I've listened to a few and sometimes they have really good stories,but But mine's like, I think I was home from break from college or something.And, uh, my brother and sister were like playing a mixed tape of things and,and, uh, cut your hair came on and, uh, yeah.And, um, and it was apparently it was being played on their radio station all the time.So, uh, you know, and so at the time we would just constantly make copies ofwhatever. So I had like crooked rain, uh, just sort of stuck in my car forever and just wore it out.Track 3[3:16] Um, but you know, it was kind of in the mix and then it was really more,uh, wowies, always when it kind of took off, um, for me, um,that was the first tour I saw them like that was, uh, you know,but, um, so you got to experience it in real time.Yeah. A little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Not quite slanted. And so I'm not,I'm not that. No, but, but wowies alley. That's, that's pretty cool. Yeah, yeah.Um, so, so, um, on that tour, when you went to that tour, what, what were you thinking?Track 3[3:48] Well, I, so I, you know, I was, I was just obsessed with going to shows and seeing bands.Um, and, uh, I was pretty psyched to get a ticket from Ohio originally.Okay. And, uh, so I was pretty psyched to get a ticket in Cleveland,which was still like two hours away from where I lived.Um, and I was taking my little sister and, uh, yeah, it was just,we were really excited. My dad even went along because he was worried abouttaking my, I don't know, 14-year-old sister to the big city.So yeah, I got to see them with Come and Dirty 3 in the Algorra Theater or AlgorraBallroom, one of those in Cleveland.Track 3[4:34] But yeah, I just listened to Pavement nonstopat at the time and um yes yeahjust it's like one of those like that's howi always picture them they're just that's that night um andi've seen them plenty of times since but uh yeah whatother shows have you seen uh so i you know i saw that one and then like thatsummer i saw him at lollapalooza um it was before the infamous west virginiamud fight um but But it was like when they came on right after Sinead O'Connor,she was still on the tour at the time.And then I saw them like, you know, so what was after that? Like Bright in theCorners. I saw him a couple times on that tour.Dude. Yeah. And then I saw him.Track 3[5:22] There's like one or two other times in there. And then I, like,I remember that I did the one that really sticks out to me.That was, uh, I saw their last North American show before they,well, when they sort of, we thought they split up the first time. Right.Um, for terror twilight in Cincinnati, Ohio at Bogart's.Yeah. So yeah, I saw that. And then we thought, Oh, is this the end?And you know, and then it was like maybe a couple of weeks later,he did that infamous show somewhere in England where he's like,Yeah, the Burstyn Academy. Yeah, he had handcuffs and everything.So I saw him right before all that. And then I've seen him, like I saw him twiceon their first reunion tour.And then I saw him once, like the year before last.And I haven't been able to make any of the others since, but yeah.So I've seen him a few times. Oh, yeah, you've seen him a lot.That's great. And different eras as well.Yeah, yeah. Very cool. My first time was the first reunion, right?So that was my first time seeing them. Well, their reunion shows were like,they're just so tight and so together.Track 3[6:28] Some of the early shows, they were sort of a mess. Like, I remember once watchingStephen kicking Steve West off the kit and to show him how the part was supposed to be played.What? Because they kept starting the song, and he kept screwing it up.So he's like, no, no, no, no. And he went back there, and he played the part.And then he went back behind his mic and got his guitar. And then I guess Steve played it.The right way holy shit i've neverheard that story yeah that was uh incolumbus ohio that i think that was a brighton the corners tour i think yeahdamn so what are your what are your go-to uh tracks these days go-to recordsrather so it always kind of like changes but i i tend tobe like between crooked rain and wowie zowie back and forth um i just uh likei crooked rain is like a perfect album like perfectly see well i think pavementsecret is that they sequence every album perfectly.Track 3[7:33] Sometimes the songs, like sometimes there's weird stuff in between and sometimesthe songs are hits, but like, it's just perfectly sequenced.And Crooked Rain is just a perfect record.I think Wowie Zowie is just like bizarre and all over the place,but still like well sequenced.And then the only, my only issue with Wowie Zowie is that I think it finisheswith like three or four closers.So it's like you hit one of those like last three or four tracks and you'relike, oh yeah, that was great.Oh here's you know well that's a great way to close and then they have another so yeah.Track 3[8:07] That's awesome was there anything else you want to share about your pavement origin story,oh um i don't like i just think you know this was like pavement was a band thatlike like sort of binded my brother and sister and i together um we just uhthat's sort of weird sets of humor summer they're sort of strange like sportsfans um we all have like weird interactions,with them here and there that we just kind of um idon't know we're all awkward socially awkward and so like it soyou know i don't know we just kind of like um this isoddball group that just always spoke to all of us andsort of held us all together that's really cool thatyou're into it with your brother and sister are theyboth younger than you or yeah they areyeah my brother's like a year and a half younger my sister'slike uh five five and a half years younger so you got to show them the way wellthey i mean like i said they introduced me at first but then um this was a bandwe kind of all like became obsessed with kind of together um so yeah that wasfun yeah Yeah, that's a lot of fun. Cool.Well, shall we take a quick break and come back and talk about track number 32?That sounds great. All right. Well, we'll do that. We'll see you on the other side.Hey, this is Bob Mustanovich from Pavement. Thanks for listening.Track 1[9:33] And now on with a countdown. 32.Track 3[13:53] Song number 32 on the countdown comes from Pavement's masterpiece,well, one of them, Wowie Zowie.Track 3[14:37] At track 32 we have the song grave architecture come on in yeah sorry let'stry to stick that in yeah oh damn i stepped on it that's okay i I should have prepared you.What are your initial thoughts of grave architecture? This was a funny one that,that when you said it to me, I have a long, like, I think I said before,I think the album that I really kind of really felt like really grabbed me was, was wow.And yeah, this song is like the come on in like right away. Like, Oh yeah.Humanity. So it always sticks with me that way. Yeah. Yeah.It's always very cool when you can bring something cool into school right yeah,well and actually um i i didn't mention this before but i'm actually a fourthgrade teacher ah and periodically i'll have pavement playing when the kids comein but um like what's this i'm like don't worry about it's pavement,um but i guess back to the song uh so it'sit's kind of that um it's kind of like ialways felt the song was kind of jazzy kind of like the.Track 3[15:48] Uh five minus four equals unity fromcrooked rain like it has a bit of that you knowyou kind of like groove to it um and then almost from the beginning he's goingyou know saying grave architecture and that whole like the jerky uh sort ofsegmented way um mouth like uh sort of phrases things and songs especially whenhe's He's live and he's playing around with it.You know, that's always like, that's how I sing half the songs I sing along to.So I just, that one always, that always touched me. But yeah,I don't know. I just love the song. It just grooves.Like, yeah, you can just kind of sway back and forth and just kind of take it in.Track 3[16:34] Yeah. And then I thought a lot about what it meant.And a lot of these songs, I kind of put my own. I'm sure this is not what they think.But I always think of when I hear this grave architecture and walk the marblemalls, I think of the monuments and the buildings in our world that were builtby the, say, super rich in their name and are sort of left there as their monument.And the rest of us sad folk don't have anything like that.And so, they sort of left their imprint everywhere.And so, you walk through it and it's imposing everywhere.And they're almost like graves, literally, only to maybe their money, to their wealth.Um you know he even says likestiff the crypt so i'm like already it's like still gravesare in my head um yeah there'sjust a bunch of like little things like that in the song umthat i really appreciate yeah little breadcrumbs rightyeah yeah yeah yeah because nothing is ever straightforward with that soundoh no no and that's i think it's probably why we all love them i think so tooyeah you have to do a little bit of digging a little bit of investigative workum not the first song I don't think it's a song that he mentions architecture either,which is interesting.Yeah. Oh, what was that? Oh, it was that, I'm terrible at song names.You're just going to have to name it. Oh, shit.Track 3[18:02] I thought I'd written it down, but I guess I hadn't. I'm so bad at song names.With an itch they cannot scratch.Track 3[18:11] God, what song is it? Is it The Hex? Oh, yeah.When I was trying to research a little bit, I read that same line.I'm like, oh, yeah, that's right.But yeah, he mentions art throughout, art and architecture and all these sorts of things.He's married to an artist.It's a huge piece of him or part of him.And then I think the history, I believe he was like, was he like a history majorat Virginia or something?I'm not sure. Okay. Uncool and underqualified to the bitter end.No, that's all right. Half the stuff, like I said, talk out my ass still.Track 3[18:52] But, you know, but then there's like later there's lines, you know,you know, it's like, you know, found on shady ground.And I sort of, that's reminding me of hollowed ground and sort of like as opposed.Like there's a little bit of critique in here.You know, I always hear her too. There's like, um, and needs the talent to breathe.Um, I always said that I still sing it this way as breed needs the talent tobreathe, which I'm sure it was breathed, but I also know that sometimes MalcolmS plays with words that way.And so I always just think like, oh yeah. Okay. So you could breed,there's more of you pass on your wealth when you're not building,you know, or whatever it is. Oh, I like that. Yeah.So yeah. Yeah. So it was, it was fun to, to be able to kind of revisit a songthat actually does, I have thought about and have loved for a long time.Yeah, I always get worried when I do these that, you know, somebody's goingto get matched up with a song that they just don't vibe or resonate with.But that's so cool to think that you took this one, you know,and talked about it in class.Yeah, I won't tell you how old I am, But yeah, when I was in college, sure.Track 3[20:11] And yeah, I remember my girlfriend at the time was just like,I don't know how he knows all this stuff.And I'm talking about Sonic Youth and Velvet Underground and trying to like make it all connect.And somehow I thought Pavement was important. I mean, they are in retrospect,they're super important in all this.But at the time, they probably, I mean, they could have not been important. They just were. Yeah.Well, they're important to a lot of us. Oh, for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.Yeah. So where do you think this song lands on the countdown? It comes in at 32.Is it properly rated? Is it overrated? Is it underrated? What do you think?I mean, you know, I think somewhere in the middle makes sense.Because I think once you start naming other songs, you're like,oh, yeah, I like that one better.So I think somewhere here in the middle makes sense.Yeah. Yeah, it seems about right to me. Honestly, I have to confess, I did not submit a list.Well, that's fine. I know, I got really busy, and so I felt bad.And also, if I rated them, if I ranked them, I would just change my mind the next day.Ah, I think so, too. So I think 32 just sounds great.Track 3[21:28] Yeah. Well, is there anything else you want to mention about grave architecture?Texture any memorable live performances of it or i mean you know i.Track 3[21:40] Honestly, I go back to that first show. I remember these kids made the band t-shirts.They ironed on pavement.They were wearing homemade t-shirts.Every song in that set was just perfectly placed. Grave Architecture had its spot.I remember just even fans were out. We were all shouting out what we thought would come next.It just all made sense. And Grave Architecture is just like,I just think it fits perfectly on Wowie Zowie.If there's one thing, like, I know it's all over the place, but there's a fewtracks that really tie it together.And I think Grave Architecture is like, and I think it's right in the middleof the album, if I remember correctly.And so it's just, it just fits and it just works.Um i think even when i look at the the imageof the album cover like just something screams to me like grave like this wholealbum is grave architecture i think in a lot of ways even if it's not maybemy favorite or the best song in the album it just it just is the album it iswowie zowie interesting yeah i notice over your over your left shoulder you've got that,wowie zowie oh and you've got the bright in the corners and crooked rain aswell yeah and i've got to slant it over there i only have like four the steveking the guy who did the painting yeah um he did like like recently well hestarted se…

Full show notes at the publisher

MMT50 - 233 May 06, 2024

Show notes

This is so fucking cool. Bob Nastanovich joins me this week to talk about a whack of shit including song 33!!!!Transcript:1:00] Loretta Scars. Alex from Portland, how are you feeling about Loretta Scars?It's a great song. I've got all kinds of thoughts on it, but it's on Flannidand Enchanted, which is a great album. it's,Slanted and Enchanted is the least varied album in my opinion like,most of the songs on it are kind of of one vibe and this is definitely no exceptionI think it's a great vibe I enjoy it Hey this is Westy from the Rock and Roll Band.Track 3[1:40] Pavement and you're listening to The Countdown Hey it's It's JD here back foranother episode of our top 50 countdown for Seminole indie rock band Pavement.Week over week we're going to count down the 50 essential Pavement tracks thatyou selected with your very own top 20 ballads.I then tabulated the results using an abacus, a bicycle pump,lotion, and some biscuits for Kevin, my homemade from uni.How will your favorite songs fare in the rankings? Well, you'll need to tune in to find out.So there's that. This week we're joined bypavement superstar bob fucking nastanovichbob what is up nookay cool and you're aren't you a toronto personsure am yeah how are thingsthere bright blue sunny skies todayabout five degrees celsius so that'slike spring weather for us especially yeah that's niceyeah we've got I don'tmean to show you up Jamie but it's 63degrees Fahrenheit here with a light breeze and a bright sunshine oh man herein Paris Tennessee you know like a typical winter day here is kind of gray and44 but it's especially nice.Track 3[3:03] Today which is pretty awesome that sounds about rightthat sounds like good you know good walking weatherso yeah how are you doing all right with thisproject so far so good i'm likelike people are lining up to do it uh likei'm caught up through march uh i'vegot to do some interviews this week with people sobasically people seem to be like iwas like i don't know how people respond to a top 50 thatthey have to listen to every week but idon't know my numbers are good and um like goodfor me you know yeah they'll get into it yeah ithink so and like just a little bit of water cooler debate rightwhat's that bud just a littlebit of water cooler debate yeah exactly youknow like what if what are you fucking thinking greenlanders likegreenlander was 46 six andyou know people were really pleased thatit made the top 50 but then there's another cohort that are like that's crazyit should be at least in the top 30 you know or whatever so no that is so weirdi mean i don't um i do know people that love greenlander and i um ineffectively insisted.Track 3[4:18] On trying to getit played live in iceland and that would have been cool yeah and um he we soundchecked it and it sounded just fine for about 70 seconds and malchus was.Track 3[4:43] Like i don't want to do that one you know and then um with him you know his attitude was so.Track 3[4:53] Sterling in 2022 and 2023 that um you don't and he was willing to play so many,different songs because in the past like specifically in 2010 um i just thinkit's uh i mean i remember his attitude back then was sort of uh.Track 3[5:18] It's going back to a more juvenile style of songwriting for him, which is more direct,but I guess maybe it kind of reminded him of certain aspects of his life.I mean, especially the earlier stuff, pre-Steve West, seems to give him a certainamount of actual PTSD, which is a word I never use.Track 3[5:48] Self-reference um just because of umthe stress caused by gary likei sat next to him when we watched the screening of gary's documentary andum it he didnot i mean it's a great documentary have you seen iti did yeah it's a great documentary andi don't think they really could have done a better job and umi mean i would have been wildly pleasedwith it i know gary was um so coolthat he got to see it before he passed at least right ican't i can't believe he lived that long i mean noway you know i mean i mean forhim to make it to 70 um should give us all belief that we can do it too um buthe comes from really supremely great genes in terms of longevity his parentslived well into their 90s and uh for some reason despite.Track 3[6:49] Every possible attempt without actually attempting suicide he basically triedto shorten his life um man imean he was just what was it like when you first met him bob what was thatsituation exactly like every other time i methim um he uhi mean at first he was kind of suspicious of me because he i mean you know verybriefly he was suspicious of me because he thought that i was like a friendof malchmas's who could probably drum and was there to replace him so So for the first,until a day or two in, we practiced in his parents'house the first time we went on tour in 1990.And when I say practice, I think we only had 12 songs and we only played six or seven shows, I think.And when he realized that I couldn't play drums, he...He relaxed a little bit. I mean, I think he realized that I was there to,like, kind of carry gear and make things happen and drive and then...You do more than that, dude. You do. I mean, back then, I actually did verylittle. There's this je ne sais quoi that you bring.Well, yeah. I mean, I developed my role over the years.Track 3[8:09] It's hard for me to really accept my overall importance. But back then,there were some shows, you know, shows back then were 45 minutes or whatever.And there were some shows where if he was on, I really didn't have to do a thingbut sort of stand there. I mean, it was, it was strange.I mean, there was a few, there's like, there were times where I would actually be like, um,pretty embarrassed because people in the audience must've thought,you know, why does the, why does the guy who doesn't do anything have to stand on the stage?And um and then also after the first time we toured europe in 92 and it waswe played like maybe 28 shows in 31 days or something and we we finished inbelgium somewhere and remco,was doing our sound for the first time that far back he goes i didn't realize that He goes back.The very first night we met him was about five o'clock on the day that we openedfor My Buddy Valentine and Super Chunk at the Old Ritz in New York. What a lineup.Track 3[9:27] Yeah. And he, uh, we played for 25 minutes and we played seven songs and, but whatever.So we met Remco outside the old Ritz. Um, we were on a, um.Track 3[9:46] On a label called Big Cat, which was run by this rather scurrilous fellow namedAbbo, Stephen Abbott, who was in a band called UKDK.And as it turned out, he was actually kind of a thief, but he knew Remco becauseRemco had worked with the band Copshoot Cop.And so he kindof figured that this young Dutch kid should do sound for us because we neededa sound man because we would turn up in a lot of places and we'd be so disheveledand disorganized and unprofessional that local sound staffs would be like,who are these assholes?You know what i mean like back then in the 90s if you didn't sort of show up.Track 3[10:41] I mean if you showed up at least in the manner thatpavement did a lot of these people you know youwere really at the mercy ofpeople um whoyou know hypothetically wereinto sound garden started and if youdidn't sound like them then you couldfuck right off um and if you didn't bringthat some level of professionalism or panache um then you could really get theshaft because people would just be like really annoyed that they had to workwith you and that's and and that's really what it's like when you have to dependon the house unless you've got one of of those rare situations where they give a crap.Right. So from that point on, you guys were on the road with Remco.Yeah, pretty much.Ninety seven percent of the time, like in 2010, like those one off things inNorth America, we wouldn't fly them over.Bob Weston did set them sound for us a few times.Now we've got this guy named Aaron Mullen.Track 3[11:54] Who did a few shows this year. I mean, it's just if it makes no sense.Financially for Remco to come over for a short stint. I mean,obviously doing sound for pavements, not rocket science,but Remco was proved his effectiveness generally at festivals.Festivals um he's prettypassionate about making sure the bands he works forsound good because it's big timeego gratification for him um iflike if people go around and say you guys sounded really great you know youknow and so he's he's very competitive in that regard which worked in our favoryeah sure did you guys sounded great at the festival i went to the Primavera in Porto.That was a fantastic show.Yeah. I'm happy that I see Barcelona didn't sound very good.Um, cause Remco didn't come to the practices, um, had trouble getting his visa.So he was completely unprepared for Barcelona.He didn't really even have Rebecca turned up.Track 3[13:08] And then a lot of the stuff that I'd learned because she's in the band now,um, Which I hadn't done before, weren't even turned on in Barcelona.And then in Porto, I'm not sure if you're aware of it,but I showed up for sound check and the bright blue case that had all of mybits and bobs of percussion,some of which I'd had since the early 90s, got stolen.Are you fucking kidding me? No, I didn't know that. No, I had no gear.I had no gear. I didn't even have anything to mount.I didn't have a tambourine that you can hit, and I didn't have anything to mount it on.And I had no tambourine maracas, cowbells, whistles, all my tricks, and claves.And thank goodness that Rebecca...Track 3[14:16] Was in the band because at first rebecca was just going to kind of come out there,and do keyboard parts and either comeand go or just kind of sit there and she's areally good i mean she's a great drummer and she'sa really good percussionist um so i said no you'regonna do something on every song andthen we you know quickly find out found out that she cando background vocals on anything and that'sgreat she can scream and obviously andshe's also very joyful performer um and she was you know she's a good very goodpercussionist so thankfully i was able to use some of her stuff um that nightbut it was still was not my stuff i I mean, it was very,very, it would be like if.Track 3[15:11] Well, actually, I think it kind of, I mean, it would be like if,like, guitars got stolen from a guitar player.I mean, that actually, it happened to Dinosaur, I think maybe in Porto,Dinosaur Jr., all their guitars got lost and they were still in Italy when they played.Oh my god yeah so theyhad to play i think they bought guitars um youknow that's so whatever i meani'm happy that it was me because if ithad been like anybody elsethen they probably would have had a harder time i mean i was able to just youkept it cool i'll just wing it you know what what i mean like it was funny becausenobody you know people you kind of realize the level of.Track 3[16:07] How, uh, you know, the, the immense level, you know, of your bandmates,they're kind of focused on their own deal.Like they couldn't deal with that.My bad news. Um, only Rebecca could like only Rebecca could like,you know, I mean, she's great.She's great. she was really a neat addition likereally uh from the fondashow i mean i went to the fonda show that was justit was mind-blowing that was a that was my favoriteshow of the tour like that was the first i can see why i mean it was long ifyou're a big fan i mean we played tons of songs and it sounded fine and it wassmall and the atmosphere was good and i mean at least 90 90% of the people inthere were way into the band. Oh, yeah.So, I mean, it was kind of an ideal time to see Pavement because we were freshoff the shelf and in a mode where we kind of had to give everything a go.Yeah, it was tremendous to be a part of it and experience it.One thing I wanted to talk to you about was Rebecca Clay Cole and you know, her, um.Track 3[17:29] Her contributions, I suppose, to the overall pavement experience,like, um, is she sort of a permanent member at this point? Is she coming to South America?I mean, of course she's coming to South America, right?Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. No, that's it. And that's it. I mean, right now that's it. Sure. Sure.It's 2024. You guys have been on the road for two years, man.Yeah we haven't done anything those for a long time we haven't done anything since um cincinnati,and um it's going to kind of be interesting because one good thing about southamerica is we don't obviously haven't played there um a couple of the places we've never played and,and we've only played three shows down there ever so we can just you know basicallyplay we don't have to learn 70 pavements to relearn 70 payment songs you know not that,not that they're immensely challenging but at the same time.Track 3[18:35] You know i basically could make the four set lists nowand um you knowwe're you know it's not going to be you won'tbe hearing um greenlander no butuh you go with the uh you go with theessentials not the deep cuts yeah and i think we've got i think i'm in a listof 32 that i sent out to them about six six weeks ago oh that's good yeah soundsall right well if i come into any money i'll see you in uh i'll see you in southamerica but let us know yeah yeah let us know i But,you know, times are tough.Well, should we talk about track number, what is it? Track number 33 on thecountdown? Okay, that's pretty good.All right, let's do it. Yeah, that's pretty good.Hey, this is Bob Mustanovich from Pavement.Track 1[19:32] Thanks for listening, and now on with a countdown. 33!Track 3[23:28] Okay, that was Transport is Arranged from the fourth record released February11th, 1997, Bright in the Corners.It's the third track on the album, and it's the sixth song from Bright in theCorners that is on the countdown at this point.So Bright in the Corners is representing the bottom portion of this top 50 so far.Bob, what do you think about Transport is Arranged? Jamie.I just think that, first of all, it's cool to hear that Bright in the Cornersgot a lot of action, having a lot of love.It is a very listenable pavement record. I love it.And I think Transport is Arranged, when the record was made in Kernersville,North Carolina with Mitch Easter,was just kind of viewed and the feel around it was that, okay,that's another song that definitely should be on the record.Track 3[24:33] Um but isn't the kindof song that um it youknow maybe should be a single or something like that it was just it was justa song that was like really solid and good and then as the song got played overand over again on tour and over the years um i think it's become rather clear to me that,you know, aside from kind of the more bubblegum-y songs on the record like Stereo and Shady Lane,that it would have stood up as a truly special pavement song.And I just think that it's, for the most part, an outstanding example of,Of not only Stephen's songwriting ability and composing, but I just think it'san unusually good set of lyrics.I'm with you. When I think about like verse three, I swung my fiery sword,I vent my spleen at the Lord.He is abstract and bored, too much milk and honey.Well, I'll walk through the wilderness with nothing but a compass and a canteensetting the scenes. I mean, it just got this certain depth.Track 3[25:57] Of course, you know, I am the worst of my…

Full show notes at the publisher

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Meeting Malkmus – a Pavement podcast

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected