|
Lo-fi conversationalist Steve Malkmus tries to brighten Pavement's mysterious corners by CHRIS YURKIW
"Yeah, I think you're right," says Malkmus. "To get me to talk about that kinda stuff over the phone is not going to be good. If you're lucky you might catch me drunk in a bar sometime, but in an interview it's just not going to work. It's too bad." So I ask him some boring shit about songwriting and he tells me how he has about 40 songs heading into a Pavement album, and that's because he has a lot to say. But in fact, Malkmus is having problems saying anything to me right now because he lost his voice somewhere on tour. This is fine with me, though, because trying to discern his faint croaks on the more pedestrian aspects of Pavement is just like listening to him sing: you have to work to figure out what he's saying, and that's one kind of work I don't mind. "Reinforce your literal ass," cracks Malkmus on the new album, where sarcasm and self-consciousness are only slightly more in check than in the past, "Hit it on the first or second pass/Frozen images/Respected few/Type slowly." Pavement are the preeminent indie rock band of the '90s and that means that they are conspicuously of the '90s indie rock experience. They came in with Slanted and Enchanted as lo-fi godz even before lo-fi became indie rock's first (if doomed) response to grunge's commercial breakthrough. Then on Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain they set about chronicling the crisis of alt rock's appropriation--of being rattled by the rush. That album's tempered edges and high melodicism (and maybe the demi-hit "Cut Your Hair") almost made them stars on par with the Smashed Pumpkins and Stoned Pilots they dissed, and the story goes that the quick follow-up Wowee Zowee was meant to defuse all of that with tuneage so oblique as to calm down even the critics. Not true, says Malkmus. But remember, I can't be sure of what he's saying. Alright Stephen, so Wowee Zowee wasn't done to get the industry off your back. But are you wary of the star thing, regardless? "Weary or wary?" Wary. "Not particularly. I just don't consider myself to be one. But if people are in search of guidance or a role model, I'm not going to be a bad one. You know, I'm probably a better one than Billy Corgan or Trent Reznor, and I'm not even trying." Which brings us to the new album Brighten The Corners (Matador). It's being hailed as a return to form, but with their warbly guitars, Malkmus's Peter Brady vocal delivery and the group's arresting ability to pull hooks out of a hat, Pavement come off like they've come up with their own form, making the pronouncement moot. If you listen to them too much you won't want to listen to anything else except old R.E.M. albums, and in a way Pavement are an R.E.M. for the '90s--even if their penchant for country rock is self-reflexive and their arty frontguy actually sings about R.E.M. as if he's taking the piss ("Unseen Power of the Picket Fence," on the No Alternative comp). You can't miss the jangly intro of "Date with IKEA" (one of two non-Malkmus songs on Corners, written by co-founder Scott Kannberg), and you certainly can't miss the fact that Mitch "Murmur" Easter co-produced the album. Or co-engineered it. Or co-recorded it. Wait, I think Malkmus is saying that the band just wanted to use Easter's studio because it was close to where they had been rehearsing at drummer Steve West's home in Virginia. Pavement rehearsing? Yeah, they're becoming more of a band these days. The album might be called Brighten The Corners, but don't worry: there's still a load of mystery in there. Pavement and Shudder To Think play an all-ages show at the Spectrum next Thursday, May 8 |
Pavement are a wonderfully mysterious band, and that means I just can't bring myself to ask Stephen Malkmus anything deep, meaningful or probing. You know: I want to keep it all mysterious.