Grounded

The rumors of this blog's death have been greatly exaggerated.

A friend popped up on Twitter this evening and suggested that "Grounded" is "[T]he soundtrack to the perfect dusk drive. Windows down, natch..." I couldn't agree more.

This song makes me want to swerve back and forth on a lonely country road, crickets chirping, a warm breeze in my face...

The life of a doctor is so slow, so mundane. He goes through his days like any working other working stiff, except he holds someone's life in his hands. If you make a mistake at your job, your workplace loses some money or a client. A doctor fucks up and someone's dead.

But it's a business. The doctor comes in to work everyday. At the end of the day, he calls home and drives off in his sedan. His day ends when he leaves the hospital.

Funny how this song came to my attention at the height of the health care reform in this country. Folks arguing over letting the government take care of our health needs or to just allow things to stay as they are. I won't take sides here. The fact is that people are suffering, even dying while we figure this mess out.

It's a business. There will be profits and there will be losses. Boys are dying on these streets.

Painted Soldiers

If Spiral Stairs, aka Scott Kannberg, had written this post-Pavement, one could easily make the argument that the song's about Stephen Malkmus. It's no secret that Malkmus ruled the roost when he fronted Pavement. SM dominated the songwriting duties throughout the catalog. Kannberg, the other songwriter in Pavement, was relegated to the occasional track and soundtrack submission.

The opening line explains Kannberg's place in the band perfectly: "That's all you're singing now?" Spiral Stairs contributed very little to the Pavement oeuvre, but as this song demonstrates, it wasn't due to his inability to write a good song.

From there, you get the feeling that the song is a tongue-in-cheek jab at SM and his perceived ego. Kannberg wonders aloud why "he" has to be so mean and hurtful. Then, he takes his own shot at the antagonist: "I knew he liked to talk about himself/but he wanted the whole world to know./It made me sick inside/I just gotta hold back."

However good "Painted Soldiers" is or where it ranks on your all-time best Pavement tracks list, it is hard to deny its eerie resemblance to several of SM's best songs. The woohoo-hoos alone remind me of "Cut Your Hair" and the dead-pan delivery is quintessential SM.

The video is classic. Kannberg fires the rest of the band and inserts Veruca Salt as the new Pavement. Highlights of the video include: Nasty at the horse track, Mark Ibold as a pimp, Steve West at home with his 10+ children, and SM in his Mustang with built-in fax machine.

Old to Begin

At first listen, I take "Old to Begin" as a warning to a younger lover to back off in case she doesn't want to stagnate. Then, I sort of feel as though the idea of "old" in this song has more to do with that stagnation than a May-December romance. Besides, how many Pavement songs are actually about romance?

There always seems to be some celebrated old (white) guy coming up with "new" ways of doing the same, old thing. Just as Al Gore invented the internets, these guys claim everything as their own, thinking that it makes them young and vibrant again to "reinvent the wheel." Meanwhile, they ignore the accomplishments of those who did all the work and really just come off as pompous blowhards stealing yet another idea. Then, we're all supposed to marvel at how great these men are.

It doesn't matter to these re-inventors that their ignorance of true ingenuity sets us all back a few years while they catch up. Their self-importance and legacy depend on their name being attached to someone else's invention.

In the end, their legacy is a fraud. All these men are left with are excuses and a gaping hole in their narratives.

Conduit for Sale

There is no other Pavement song that annoyed the women in my life more than "Conduit for Sale." That's OK. I love this song. Angry, like that feeling one gets when something is taken away.

The House of Savoy ruled a chunk of Italy for a long, long time. It was not a happy day when the heir proctor had to give in to interests from France and the Italian nationalist movement. Unless I have butchered the history, it seems to me that the conduit for sale was the road through Turin, possibly to the port of Nice. There was also some strange love triangles involving a guy named Ray, but I could be mistaken.

Either way, you should know that SM likes his history. There's a little history to this song that I don't have time to learn from Wikipedia or share with you through this post. It does make me think "Embassy Row" is somehow connected, but that's a post for another day.

What you should know about "Conduit..." is that it is an angry punk rock romp with a smart undercurrent. Listen...

Pavement-conduit for sale (live san diego)
by jar0

Curt Your Hair

If Pavement ever had a "hit," this was it. "Cut Your Hair" was Buzzworthy on MTV and even received decent radio play from commercial stations. If there was a quintessential Pavement song, I'd also argue that "Cut Your Hair" earns that title as well. Honestly, this was the song that introduced me to the band.

Lyrically, the song is on the silly side, but there is an underlying punk ethos there that drives the sentiment home. Pavement was coming along at a time when underground bands were being scooped up and marketed to the masses. Lost was any of the energy or originality that made these bands so sought after by the majors in the first place. Pavement saw this going on around them and responded in song.

Each of the three verses address a movement away from music toward image. The first verse comes across as harmless, but it addresses image over content in the form of a haircut, the song's main theme. The haircut won't suddenly make a mediocre band great or a crummy album go platinum. However, tell that to all the bands posing as "emo" nowadays. Emo bands used to look like the guys in Pavement, not dudes with black eye make-up and silly haircuts.

The second verse becomes clearer as it addresses the over-saturation of bands to the market. Of course, the dilution of good music through the overabundance of bands has only worsened over the years, but the early nineties was the beginning. Another great song from the era that addresses this issue is Archers of Loaf's "Greatest of All-Time."

The third verse comes with a full-on attack on sell-outs. Buying songs and legitimacy is bashed. Image is pummeled by superior songwriting while the song unravels into rants of careerism. ("Career, career, Korea...")

Besides being one of Pavement's catchiest tunes, it is higlighted by several aesthetics that make it so memorable. First of all, the whoo-ooh-ooh's that fill the space between the verses are as memorable, if not more, than the lyrics or music or band itself. Also earmarking the song as a significant part of the ouvre, the guitar solo winds and whirls out of control, clearly setting Pavement apart from the hair-metal wannabe's of the grunge era. Finally, the song had a string of lines about drummers that either referenced those who hit the skins for Spinal Tap or former drummer, Gary Young.

The song has had an extra emotional tie for me as of late. My daughter, Lucia, was born three weeks ago, and this seems to be her favorite song...so far. Or at least my slower, twangier version sooths her like no other mid-nineties song I sing to her.

Two States

According to Wikipedia, there have been 27 separate attempts to split California into multiple states since 1850, the year California earned statehood. Most of these actions attempted to split the state in half, dividing the Golden State between the north and south.

Two states!
We want two states!
North and south
Two, two states

A couple of times, the northern portions of the state were nearly renamed the Colorado, either as a territory or another state entirely. Portions of other states were also considered in California secession plans, like Oregon and Arizona. Mountain Ranges were often considered when determining where to draw the borders. In the late 19th century, the building of the Ridge Route as a way to cross the Tehachapi Mountains helped thwart talk of splitting the state.

The last attempt to split the state came in 1992. State Senator Stan Statham was able to pass a proposal in the House to put the issue of state secession on the ballot in 58 counties. The proposal didn't survive the Senate.

Forty million daggers
Two states
We want two states
There's no culture
There's no spies

When one travels to California, it becomes rather apparent that the state is already very divided. The southern portion is sunny and generally very conservative, especially in Orange County. The north has the very liberal bay area and touches California's hippie cousin, Oregon. The temperatures also tend to be cooler and rainier than the south.

Date w/ IKEA

Jingle-jangle goes the opening guitar chords of "Date w/IKEA," one of two contributions by Scott Kannberg to Brighten the Corners. This might be the poppiest song Spiral Stairs ever wrote. It's certainly the jangliest.

This was something new for Kannberg. He was generally shut out in previous Pavement albums. He'd fool around on the guitar before the band met to record, and Malkmus would show up with demos and nearly complete songs ready to go. Kannberg came prepared to the BtC sessions with some songs ready for production. Of course, by this time, it was Malkmus' show. Kannberg was somehow able to sneak in two songs. This was one of them.

Even though he was unable to contribute many songs to the catalog, Pavement was good to Kannberg. Much like the situation he describes in the song, Kannberg realized he needed to stay around and stick it out. The song specifically describes a guy staying with his overly dramatic girlfriend despite her wild outbursts. He just joins her on a trip to IKEA for some new furniture when things go awry. It's easier that way.

The jangle mentioned before is something different for the band. The pep of the song actually picks up the album full of mid-tempo SM laments. This track, as well as "Passat Dream," kept BtC from wallowing in the mid-tempo mire. These songs gave the album some balance, cementing Kannberg's value to the band as a secondary songwriter.