MMT50 - 239

Meeting Malkmus - a Pavement podcast

jD is back and he's with Dan from Rochester to discuss track 39!

Transcript:

[0:00] Hey, it's JD here, and I just wanted to throw something down, somewhat of a challenge to all you musically inclined folks out there.

We are going to be doing a pod list again this year, and a pod list is simply a podcast playlist.

It's a pod list. The previous four pod lists have consisted of talented members of our Pavement community submitting songs that they have covered from the Pavement Ouvra.

Pavement adjacent songs are also welcome. So you could do PSOI, you could do Jicks, you could do Malcolm is Solo.

Anything is fair game, truly. So get your band together or grab an acoustic guitar and just play your fucking guts out.

From there, submit the song to me by email and we'll go from there.

So please submit those songs, jd at meetingmalkmus.com, or even better, use wetransfer.com if it's a big WAV file. And WAV files are what I prefer.

That will work out just magnificently. That's what she said.

Podlist 5 coming July 8th, so get those songs in and be a part of something special. Thanks so much.

Now, on with the show. Previously on the.

Track 2:

[1:26] Pavement Top 50 So Cam from Toronto What do you think Of Starlings of the Slipstream This is a great little song I love I love this song just as a stand alone item I love this songGoing right into the song Finn To wrap up that album But those might actually be My two favorite songs Right in the corners What a great one to punch to close things out Finn isprobably actually my favorite song on that album.

Track 4:

[2:05] 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 six boxes of M&Ms.

How will your favorite song fare in this ranking? Well, you'll need to tune in to find out. So there's that.

[2:31] This week, we're joined by Pavement superfan, Dan from Rochester.

[2:35] I can see you right across the lake dan hey toronto oh do you remember when there was the ferry for a couple years i heard tales of that yeah yeah people were more interested ingoing to toronto from rochester and i don't think the torontans were very interested in coming here unfortunately i thought it was a cool i thought that's that's what i heard yeah yeah iwould have uh i would love if that was still a thing because uh driving to toronto you have to go all around the lake so yeah exactly it's the shortcut you know it was it was totally perfect inever used it but it was totally yeah yeah so let's talk let's talk about pavement yes let's this is this is why we're all here why we're all gathered around the fire to listen to rochester regale uswith his pavement origin story yeah so take us set the scene yeah set the scene so the scene was the the mid-90s and uh you know i was in high school and uh getting into into music anduh basically you know the internet was new um you couldn't really download songs you know if i needed if i had to if i wanted to hear a song i had to buy the cd so it was kind of uh youknow i had limited funds and limited accessibility to get to a cd store you know we had the one um one place it It was called Media Play.

It was like a chain that sold CDs, you know, so it's kind of like a Best Buy or whatever.

[4:02] Okay. So, you know, that was, you know, that was what I had to do.

So I would sometimes take a chance on bands or CDs that I'd heard about.

[4:12] And I had gotten really into R.E.M.

And they were like my favorite band during that time. And so I heard about this band called Pavement that had a song about R.E.M., which I thought was so cool.

[4:27] So I ended up getting that CD, the No Alternative compilation.

I remember that one. Yeah, and it had Nirvana on it, and it had Smashing Pumpkins and a bunch of big bands from that time, and it had Pavement.

And so yeah, I got that. So that was the first Pavement song I heard. Yeah.

[4:47] And, you know, it was cool. I just loved the novelty because of, you know, a band singing about another band. I just thought it was funny, you know.

Sort of meta in a way now. out yeah yeah it was so cool and that really put them on my on the map for me because i was like i was seeking out all the rem stuff all the b-sides you knowand i had a book and stuff so yeah just hearing about that i was like i have to hear that so you know and it was cool you know i loved the song i was starting to move kind of from that likealt rock um kind of scene to getting getting into the more indie stuff and, uh, whatever it was about, uh, pavement, what I had read about, you know, really piqued my interest.

And then hearing that song, you know, and it wasn't, I would say like, it's not my favorite pavement song, but like, you know, it's, it's cool.

It was fun. I liked it probably now. Yeah. Oh yeah, totally. Yeah. Yeah.

So, um, and then, uh, and then this was probably in, I I'm guessing just cause of the release date.

Yeah. 99. So So probably like months before Pavement broke up, I was doing this.

[5:57] And I went to the media play and I bought one of the cheaper CDs that I could find, which I have right here, which is the Spit on a Stranger single EP. Nice.

Because it was cost effective, you know? It had five songs and it was pretty cheap.

So I don't remember what else they had available at the time, but I took a shot on this and I took it home.

I listened to Spit on a Stranger. I loved it.

[6:22] I skipped to the porpoise and the hand grenade because I liked the title and you know that song I thought it was good didn't blow me away I don't think but then I went back to tracktwo harness your hopes and that was that was really the one that that cemented it for me that song really yeah which is is awesome because as we know it's a big Spotify hit now in thestreaming era.

[6:44] And uh it was back in in 99 that was the hit for me and my friends too we we all really love that that song so uh so that was the one that did it for me and then i started uh startedcollecting them all so and here we are i guess you got into it too right at the right at the point where they started to do the reissues so you were yeah able to get those yeah it was greattiming because yeah that's a good point even though like the band had broken up by that point you know a few years later i was in college and uh for the first time in my life hanging outwith people who also knew who pavement were and the slanted reissue was coming out and it was like a big deal and everyone you know some people were new to pavement so i got tobe like oh you got to hear this you know and so yeah we were it was good times for sure it's it's always cool when you get to be somebody's sherpa you know yeah right that's exactly justguiding them through this you know this mountainous uh region of songs that they don't know exactly yeah yeah and um you know i I had a, I had a radio show at school, so it was fun,uh, digging up all the, all the weird stuff to play and, uh, everyone hanging out.

What was your playlist like on, on the radio?

Um, you know, uh, let's see, Guided by Voices, of course, big one.

[8:09] Um, I, I was into bands like, uh, there's this band, Idlewild, who had just released a record that I thought was really cool.

Okay. You know, just all the class, you know, Matador stuff, Yola Tango, of course.

Yeah. And, you know, I would get into some weirder stuff, too.

Like, you know, I'd play the shags or like, you know, Captain Beepart or, you know, eclectic stuff.

Pretty classic. Oh, that must have been fun. Freeform, like college radio.

Yeah. Yeah. It was super fun.

All my friends were music nerds, you know, so it was just it was a big party every week week hanging out on people's shows and just coming up with cool creative weird uh musicalthings to do so and you know pavement was like the the guiding light you know it was like the the band that united everyone.

[8:58] That's so cool because that's i didn't get that experience at all i still you know that was one of the reasons i started the show initially was just i didn't get people to i didn't have peoplein my life to really talk about pavement with so yeah i was like i'll talk about i'll stand on my soapbox and talk into the ether sometimes yeah sometimes it's rare you know to to get tointeract with yeah people like like that you know i met lots of cool people doing it like including it It seems like you have.

Yeah. Yeah, man.

So if you had to rank the records, you came to Terror Twilight.

That would have been your first record that was released in your fandom.

Right, right. Where does it rank for you? You know, I always say to myself, like, they're all pretty much more or less equal, equal ranked.

I mean, they're all like five star records to me. Agreed. Um, I went through a phase where, um, brighten the corners was my favorite.

That was definitely my favorite. And I would say it's not anymore.

[10:03] Um, I, I don't know if terror twilight has spent too much time on the top, like the, you know, the, yeah, the personal top slot, but, uh.

[10:11] It, it, it deserves, it deserves a spot.

You know, I've, um, I've talked to, you know, I have friends who consider that their pavement pavement record and i always say i respect that because some people some people uh viewthat one as maybe like slightly less for some reason and i don't i don't get that at all yeah i don't get that at all and uh yeah i mean we we need terror twilight you know it's just uh the factthat pavement made that record with uh nigel godrich and had that kind of cool uh shiny production production um yeah i mean that's that's so crazy to go from slanted to the back rightand then you have everything in between so it's just yeah it's all it's all good it's all great yeah yeah terror twilight spent some time at the top for me yeah um not not that much but uhbreak the corners is currently my favorite oh nice yeah yeah uh beside watery like i mean i think watery deserves a spot.

[11:08] On the mantle all to itself like that's kind of like a very perfect release you know it's like isn't it yeah it's so crazy how good that fucking thing is yeah and then even the even the thesession tracks that didn't make it to the sumi jack greenland greenlander so right like they're all stone cold classics it's bonkers it is it's absolutely bonkers yeah and having those allcollected on on that reissue was just it's so great um i would always listen to those peel session things you know yeah like kentucky cocktail and all that and.

[11:48] Back when they were just bootlegs you know just like a tape someone made off the radio so it's it's really nice that um they released proper you know nice sounding quality versionsof those because because westing is on final now right yeah yep yeah i don't have it but uh i i should probably get it because i've got the eps but i've got them built into my wall is likeartwork work you know oh yeah uh like um here i'll show you how cool yeah i have never i've never encountered uh one of those in the flesh um one of those actual eps you know so that'spretty cool yeah it's fun i'll turn on my light for some somehow there we go i'm an old man when it comes to this technology jesus yes right you're doing great i used to do so well i used toknow know at all internet wise and shit but now it's uh well enough about me it happens is there anything else you want to tell us about your pavement origin story should we uh take abreak and you know that pretty much covers it i got you know this again it was early internet so i was i was rocking like the uh the pavement message board back in the day there was alittle community yeah um and uh it it was it was cool it was good times you know i i met some people there that But later on, I actually got to meet in person.

And for a few years, that was a pretty cool scene.

[13:13] I remember the message board got bought out by another band somehow.

I don't even know how that was possible. What? Yeah.

So one day, you show up to the message board URL.

It was like ProBoards or something where it was like, anyone can start a message board. but I think some other band somehow had the clout or the money or whatever to buy the URL.

And, uh, it's like, yeah.

Oh man.

[13:44] How about shows have you seen any shows oh i knew this was going to come up i have never seen pavement oh that's that's fine i i have seen mulchmas um but yeah you know imissed them uh in the 90s just a little too young coming in late i missed them in the 2010s i don't know really what i was up to but i was kind of um just not in the right area like i mean ilive in rochester i i always have to drive and sometimes i'm just not not up for it and then the newest one i was i was kind of eyeing uh toronto but yeah i didn't make it so oh man i knowbut i've listened to so many live pavement uh bootlegs and shows and stuff uh but yeah my first time seeing mulchmas was on piglib tour oh right you know this is back in college erathat's really when i started going to shows a lot so yeah we went and saw him at the knitting knitting factory i think it was in new york yeah yeah and i saw him open for radiohead i sawhim open for radiohead too in montreal yeah oh sweet yeah yeah mine was uh where was it i think i want to say uh like baltimore area oh cool dc yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah well if you getthe chance i mean it seems like Like, they're on the clock.

[15:06] You know? Like, I don't know that we're going to get many more.

Yeah, I really should. I know it's, you know, I know it'll be amazing.

Next time you get the opportunity, right? You have to pull the ripcord.

Yeah, I need to. That'll be so cathartic.

Well, let's take a quick break here, and we'll come back, and we'll talk about track number 39.

Okay Alright Hey this is Bob Nastanovich from Pavement Thanks for listening and now on With a countdown 39.

[19:08] Okay, we are back, and that was, of course, Pueblo, the 16th track on Wowie's Alley. It sits between Kennel District and Half a Canyon in a nice little sandwich there toward theback end of the record.

This is the fourth Wowie's Alley song on the countdown after Best Friend's Arm at 49.

Motion suggests itself at 48, and We Dance at 46.

So this is so far the highest ranking Wowie's Alley track at 39.

And uh what do you have to say Dan from Rochester about Pueblo?

Oh man so um first of all when I I listened to this a lot this week and there's three versions so.

[19:46] I did some some deep diving into comparing the different like studio versions that are out there but the first thing that surprised me was the length is relatively short it's slightly lessthan three and a half minutes And to me, that song always felt like very epic to me, maybe just because it's sandwiched toward the end of like, you know, the end of a long, epic record.

It's right by like half a canyon and it kind of it vibes with that song.

But I would have if you had asked me before how long it was, I would have said like five minutes or something just because it's it has a very languid pace in it.

It kind of just sprawls all over the place of language. Thank you. Yes.

[20:30] Yeah. So, you know, it felt bigger, I guess, longer than it really is.

But, you know, it does what it does in a relatively short time. So that's cool.

That really led me on the path to kind of figuring out like, hey, what's going on with the song structure, you know? And it's a simple song, but it has a kind of like spacey jam in the center.Sure does.

And that's like, to steal your word, epic. Those guitar swells?

Swells yeah you know they make this song so epic and then that blistering blistering is the wrong word because it's not blistering it's it's it's not languid anymore but yeah it's it's crushingit's heavy fucking great so yeah right yeah oh yeah you know um yeah so i i love that that's good mix of, you know, that's the wowie zowie like archetypal sound.

It's like the noise, the, the beauty, the catharsis, the kind of surreal, you know, you don't even know really what the song's about until I listened to your earlier episode, which was geez,like three years ago when you first talked about the song on your show and you were, you told a story about how it was about like a hanging thing.

[21:48] And remember this at all. Yeah. So I think it was something Malkmus said.

It was like, uh, like a story about some, a guy, like a mayor of some Southern California town.

And, you know, there was a, there was a guy getting, getting hung or hanged, I guess it is. And, uh, like a love interest.

And he, I guess Malkmus had some, you know, story behind it, which I thought was interesting.

Which is rare for him really yeah it yeah it it kind of reminds me of a song like pink india you know which he would write much later it's kind of that story song kind of vibe and the songshave similar vibes too in the sense that they're kind of slow and have this guitar part that's kind of lyrical you know and so it it lends itself to telling like some sort of narrative um but alsoSo, like, at that point, Malkmus wasn't really writing narratives that you could, like, parse just by, you know, they might not have defined words or anything.

You know, he kind of has, he had a way of just singing stuff and it would be evocative without really, you know, without you being able to tell what he was really trying to communicate.

[23:03] So, you know, that's Malkmus' like big talent, I think, or one of them.

I do too. like just mashing phrases together that just work rhythmically and from a cadence perspective yeah but they're so obtuse you know yeah yeah um this song i love the dynamicslike i i love that like how it does go from those guitar swells to that again i'm going to use your word again that those you know the the i i called it chill guitar to start and then you go intothe main verse verse with with very slowed down lyrics it takes him almost you know 30 seconds to get the first two lines out you know before you before you get into the thick of thingsquestion for you yes you as soon as you listen to the episode and i did not uh and i have a very poor short-term memory yeah it's very funny i was with some friends yesterday and wewere talking about work uh from 15 years ago and i was naming people's first and last names that you know know we haven't seen in 15 years yeah very good long term but short term boydoes it suck it's uh.

[24:10] It's uh i have a difficult time making new memories so yeah it's uh it's a shitty thing but my question here is um who is jacob right right so uh i was pondering this because of coursea few songs earlier on the album he's talking about jacob javits so i'm like you know know that's like a new york city landmark or something like that or that's right yeah um so i was likewell is that connected i don't think so um i mean pueblo so it's on the i mean, Maybe in some subliminal way, but I don't think it's supposed to be the same guy.

You've also got this Spanos County, I think that he says.

Right. And in the thing you quoted on the other episode, he referred to Spanos as like a person.

Like it was a, you know, like this mayor of this town. Oh, okay.

Yeah. So, yeah, I really don't know. No, but I think, you know, Jacob, I guess, is the protagonist of the song who's getting ceremonially or unceremoniously murdered.

I, you know, I think. But again, in the context, you're not really sure.

Is he like pleading? He's saying, you know, Jacob, you move, you don't move.

Like, so. It sounds like, doesn't it? Like, if you move, you don't move.

Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah.

[25:36] And Jacob is also mentioned in the Pueblo Domain version of the song, which is the Peel version of the song.

Okay. I was comparing these two.

So, you know, that one was recorded.

[25:55] Uh in february 94 like a few days before crooked rain came out so you know this song we know has been kicking around for a while uh before it was eventually released and it kindof went through some some changes so the peel session version is it's he's saying like jacob you glow you you know you won't go and um but the the lyrics in there are so very abstracteven you know more so than the album version uh really yeah and it's hard to the the song the the early version is really different too it's it's longer the chorus repeats more times the umand you know there's kind of like more more to the meat of the song and less jam oh okay version yeah so i i always i always thought that version the peel version was was like thesuperior one um but i i never really realized how different they are like they really are um so i kind of i'll send you if you want or i don't know if i can do a screen share here but istructured them out it's probably not too interesting for a podcast but you know i i wrote down like you know verse one chorus one you know and mapped out the two different songs tocompare and they're pretty different they're pretty different yeah the um the wowie zowie version basically does verse chorus chorus, jam, verse, chorus, and then outro.

[27:20] And then the Pueblo Domain actually repeats each of the choruses twice. It's twice as long.

And then it does verse, two choruses, verse, two choruses, then a little jam, and then it ends on an instrumental version of the chorus.

And it's a little louder and more boisterous and energetic. energetic so i uh.

[27:48] It's on the Sordid Sentinels. It's on the Crooked Reign. It's on the Crooked Reign? Yeah, so check that one out for sure.

Especially, yeah, and just anyone, if you haven't heard that, it's worth checking out the Peel session at the end.

Tucked way at the end of that Crooked Reign reissue.

They do also Brink of the Clouds, which ended up as a Wauwizawi B-side.

[28:14] But it has a section at the end, like the kind of rocket and uh part of the song that's not on the studio version and yeah it's good you know it's cool i just you know pavement doinglike the unreleased songs on the radio sessions was just such a so cool and it's so cool it really lent to their mythos you know the yeah the mythology of the band like what you know theyhave all these songs like where where's all this stuff coming from why why does Malkmus just essentially just throw these gems away kind of thing?

So, you know, which goes back to Hold on Hope and all that stuff.

You know, he's just, he was so productive around this time, you know, and if you look at those reissues, you know, all the B-sides, all the stray tracks, it's just, it's amazing.

[29:03] Yeah. Oh, like from 89 to 93, they were so prolific, right? right? Yeah.

And there's so many songs on that Crooked Rain reissue that ended up on Wowie Zowie.

So it's almost like right after Slandered and Enchanted was a huge burst of songs that ended up going out into the next two or three albums.

Yeah. That's far out. Yeah.

So what do you think about where this song is rated?

Are you a fan of this song? I am a big fan of the song, but I think it's probably properly rated.

It feels right. It feels like a song where...

[29:48] Like i do really like it but i think it works best in the context of the album or at least it really shines as as a kind of almost penultimate track on wowie zowie you know it it's almostlike the climax of that album um like the emotional climax along with half a canyon you know just like i can see that yeah you know um and i also i i don't know for sure but i kind offigured that like a lot of pavement fans might not know like it by the title or something because it's not you don't really hear the title in the song no i don't think he sings it in the song hedoes on the peel version oh he does in the first line yeah i didn't realize it for a while but i was just listening and he said something about pueblo right right in like the first line but uh butyou know regardless like it seems like a song that's a deep cut but also well worthy to be a fan favorite you know because it it it's very pavementy it's almost like you couldn't really getmore.

[30:50] In a certain like pavement mode of this kind of like it's almost a little countryish but it's just noisy and crunchy it's a little jammy and spacey it's just it's pure pavement yeah i thinkit would fit on watery like i i think you know i think it could like it yeah it's that good you Yeah, oh yeah.

And if you hear the other version of the song on Crooked Rain, not the Peel version, but the, they call it the Beach Boys version.

Right, yes, yeah. And all that is, is an instrumental. It's that pretty guitar intro and verse melody and everything.

And Malkma's doing some just kind of wordless harmonies.

[31:34] But just listening to that version, the way the guitar sounds is less twangy and is more sounds like, you know, In the Mouth of Desert or that kind of slanted style.

Okay. And you can kind of hear how it fits into that kind of zone and how it kind of changed and fits into the wowie zowie zone where the guitar is more like a little slidey or a little liketwangy.

It's really clean, right? Yeah. Like there's no distortion coming through it.

Yeah. It's very clean sounding.

Yeah. I would guess that, you know, the sound of the song kind of influenced the lyrical direction a little bit.

It feels just like a, it feels a little country-ish, a little like desert-y or something.

Yeah. There's a lot of that on Wowie Sowie, isn't there? Yeah.

But yeah, and to me, that sounds like, I would connect that to sounds from the watery era too.

Too, like even like Greenlander is kind of this almost like kind of stark and almost like these desolate songs he was doing around this time, like Rain Ammunition's another other one.Right.

I don't know if you talk. Did you talk about like Rain Ammunition on the year first?

Didn't get to it. You didn't do like the B-side stuff.

Well, the initial thing was to use the bonus feed as B-sides.

I think I got through 35 of them.

Yeah. there's like 40 episodes on the bonus feed. Now there's the bottom 100 or the bottom 50 of this top 100 as well.

[33:02] So I think, well, I can't give it away. I can't tell you that.

Don't give anything away.

Rain ammunition is on that bottom 50 or not.

You know, I don't know. I'm just, I love all those stray songs around this era.

So yeah, you know, there's a very defined vibe.

Also kind of similar to like the early Silver Juice stuff that Malkmus was on I think you could connect stylistically that kind of like.

[33:33] Deserty uh watery domestic slanted vibe and see how it kind of morphed into like the more country, tinged uh wowie zowie thing yeah and that's around the same time that davidwas doing starting to get a bit more twangy as well yeah yeah and i know i talked to bob recently and he you know he talked about how david pushed steve a little bit um well not a littlebit probably a lot lot right like lyrically like there was a lot of competition between those guys you have to think they pushed each other yeah yeah to like i mean how cool is it that thesetwo like amazingly talented guys got to meet and work together in their lives you know it's fucking insane this is really converged yeah and i i get the impression that you know mulchmiss everything kind of came easy to him and i think berman was someone who had to really push himself a little little more, like, you know, maybe like a little more dedication to craft orwhatever.

I think he would look at Malkmus as like, you know, what, you know, like, how does he do it kind of guy, you know, just had to kind of like, you know, they had to like one up each othera little bit, you know, like a friendly, competitive kind of thing, you know?

Well, I think Bob says, you know, he feels fortunate. I think I've heard him say that he feels fortunate to have worked with one of the best songwriters to ever live and one of the bestlyricists.

Yeah, totally. It's so, so cool.

[34:58] Yeah, Bob's had a great, lucky, you know, it's awesome for him to be able to work with those guys, I'm sure.

Yeah. I can't even imagine. Nope, me neither. Yeah.

So, that's what I've got for you this week. Is there anything else that you want to tie up?

Is there anything that people can plug or anything that you can plug for people to look up?

Sure, yeah, actually. That you're doing? doing uh i uh i'm in a band called rectangle creep and rectangle creep yeah we're pretty um pretty guided by voices influenced and there'spavement and we have 10 000 songs we have we do we have a lot of albums and stuff but if anyone you do have albums oh yeah like you know check check the band camp check theband camp and i do some i have a lot of different projects so So maybe I'll just mention that one, but it's a whole universe of bands and stuff like that. But yeah, it's fun. That's great.

[36:00] You know, music is awesome. So go to Bandcamp and search for Rectangle Creep.

Yeah, Rectangle Creep. And yeah.

[36:08] Cool. Well, it's been great talking to you, man. Yeah, definitely.

Thanks for letting me be a part of this project. It's really cool what you do.

Yeah, well, thank you very much. Of course. We'll be back next... Oh, sorry to interrupt.

I was just going to say how much I really love your interviews with Spiral.

And it's really cool how generous he's been with talking to you.

And all the other guys too but I mean I love how accessible he is and it's so cool learning about that stuff so I'm looking forward to you know whatever new pavement stuff comes out ifyou know whatever news and projects you know I appreciate that you help bring this stuff to light I'll fly the flag forever man do it yeah well, great talking to you again Dan yep thanks alot wash your god damn Sam Hance.

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