Fillmore Jive

One night benders - no matter the drug - used to be a ton of fun, but I was never really sure why. You would eventually hit a point where all you want to do is pass out, be left alone, and wake up in your bed as if nothing had happened.

Of course, you know exactly how you arrived at this point. The night was electric. "The jam kids on the Vespas" and all of that. Crowded streets. Even more crowded bars or house parties. You felt alive. You grabbed the bottle for another swig, a pill there, a toke here. The night was going to be memorable one way or the other.

Then, it all hit you like a ton of bricks. You shouldn't have had that last drink or eaten that mushroom. This rock 'n roll lifestyle is old and not really that rewarding. So, you want out. You wanted to pass out on the couch.

Maybe you did pass out on the couch or in the kitchen or by the toilet or in the back of a car. No matter. If you could have just laid there with no distractions, you could have slept it off.

However, this was the night that would never end. Some late-comers entered with fresh cases of beer, a bag of weed, and some blow. You probably couldn't pick yourself up to join them at that moment, but you also couldn't drag yourself out of the room. You weren't just fucked, you were fucked and had to suffer while these douche-bags turned up the stereo and started the whole night over for you.

At this point in the evening (or morning) the room was spinning and you had lost complete and utter control. At best, you eventually passed out and snuck in a couple hours of sleep before slipping out without anyone noticing. At worst, and most likely, you puked all over the place. Someone cleaned you up and arranged for a ride home. Hopefully, you were just able to sleep in your own bed.

That's the Fillmore Jive.

Gold Soundz

"Gold Soundz" is a relationship song. The relationship is new and fun in the beginning. He trusts her with secrets and likes how she laughs at the ignorance of others. He gives her space, but he likes that she's empty like him, etc.

Alas, it can't last. Remembering past transgressions drums up some hurt feelings, possibly even revealing new deceptions. There's a quick about-face. Secrets are taken back.

Luckily, it's a young love. The kind that's fleeting. The affairs that last a summer or a semester. The memories and experience are worth it if for nothing else other than the short-lived passions.

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A couple of other thoughts...

Does SM sing "that I won't eat you when I'm gone" or does he sing "need" where "eat" goes? Eat doesn't make much sense. Need makes a ton of sense. However, it certainly sounds like he says "eat" in either a nonsensical manner or crass one. I sort of suspect the lyric is meant to be "need" and Malk plays around a little in the studio and changes it to "eat".

The phrase "quarantine the past" appears in this track. Interestingly, it's also the title of the band's greatest "hits" collection released earlier this year. The implication is that the collection attempts to quarantine the past, but in actuality, one can't quarantine Pavement's past, at least not from the alt rock reunion circuit.

OK. Make it three thoughts. The accompanying video is absurd. The band in Santa costumes go bow hunting for a dead chicken in an outdoor shopping center in order to gain the keys to a convertible...Well, you just have to watch it.

In the Mouth a Desert

Why bother to enter into a relationship? It will just end. There will be sadness and heartache. Why even begin?

Such is the philosophy of "In a Mouth a Desert". Of course, looking back with those 20/20 goggles. one can't help but apply this song's message to the band itself. The band (we) always knew it wouldn't last. Stephen Malkmus was too good to be held back by the rest of his band mates.

Well, they did make it last. Pavement went on to record four more albums after Slanted and Enchanted and have now successfully sought out a reunion tour. For both, we are grateful.

Can you treat like an oil well?
When it's underground, out of sight?
And if the sight is just a whore sign,
Can it make enough sense to me?

Sometimes it's cool to get into a relationship as long as no one knows about it. Of course, the best part of being in a relationship is that everyone knows about it. So, is the relationship worth the investment just to hide it? Does this even make sense?

"In the Mouth a Desert" continues on with references to trust and commitment, using analogies of knots, twine, and faith. Of course, as any believer of entropy would attest, these relationships falter and unravel over time. In this track, the unraveling appears to be one-sided as one half (or even one-fifth) of the relationship has doubts that the other parts are equal to his.

I've been crowned the king of it and it's all that we have
So, wait to hear my words and they're diamond sharp
I can open it up and it's up and down

In the band's relationship, the "king of it" is Stephen Malkmus. His songs are what made Pavement possible and lasting. Sure, it was always a group effort, but without SM's vision of the "Pavement sound" and ability to create the oddest hooks, there would have been no Pavement. It was never an equal relationship.

Of course, these were SM's friends. And even from the beginning of the band's run, it was apparent SM would struggle with his loyalties versus his ambitions...

I've been down, the king of it and it's all that we have
I've been down and I could wait to hear the words
They're diamond sharp today

I always suspect that SM's friendships with the rest of Pavement is what kept them together for so long and possibly fueled the reunion. Malk didn't want to be the center of attention. He wanted his friends to be able to play the parts as he envisioned them. On the same token, the rest of the band could see their limitations and didn't want to hold SM back. The inequality happened as it became apparent the other four members didn't have the chops to take Pavement to another level, to Malk's level.

A lot happens after "In the Mouth...", but the words are prophetic, even if they weren't intended that way.

Frontwards

Well, I've got style
Miles and miles
So much style that it's wasted

Where is style most wasted? Where is individualism crushed? A place with empty homes and plastic cones. Kids sitting on the curb at the 7-11 smoking the cigarettes they stole from their mother's purse. Discussions revolve around stolen hub caps and an endless dance around revealing anything real or personal. Patterns of generations broken in hopes continuing in a sterile, benign environment, free of crime (aside from stolen rims) and worry. A place where the biggest concern is the nightly weather report.

Yep. I'm talking about the suburbs. Any distinction between families, homes, personalities is squelched in the conformity of good schools, tract housing, and SUV's.

Unbeknown to those who escaped to the suburbs is how it kills their kids. Such a white-washed existence is absent any inspiration. Bored suburban kids make do with whatever they can get their hands and their parents' disposable incomes on in hopes of filling that creative void. There's a reason why you can get way more drugs in communities with street named for the trees they've cut down. Petty theft and date rape fills their time as they wait to become their parents.

Conversely, some of those kids use these dire situations as inspiration to get out, mentally and spiritually if not physically. They write or learn to play guitar. Some of them form bands and make a living at that. Thankfully, Stephen Malkmus and Scott Kannberg hopped off their skateboards and returned from their studies out of state record a few songs.

Speak, See, Remember

Breaking up is hard to do. You avoid it. You try to paint the breakup as a chance for new opportunities. No matter how you dance around it, it's inevitable. It will suck for one or both of you. There are no such things as good breakups.

Pavement had their breakup over Terror Twilight. Sure, there was a tour following, but it was a goodbye tour and TT was their goodbye album. I don't know how it affected the band members, but I know it was rough on the fans.

To cope, we turned to the things that got us through. We remembered the good times. We focused on future opportunities to make the best of these hard times. Pavement opened us up to many new bands. The breakup would at least leave us with a better perspective on the music landscape than we had before Pavement.

That and we waited for the reunion.

We've talked about this reunion for years, at least since the Pixies reunited (the first time). Soon, we'll see Pavement at Lollapalooza, in Central Park, at Coachella, or wherever they land. Then, we'll remember what those days in the mid-nineties were like.

"Speak, See, Remember" may not have intentionally been about Pavement's breakup, but it was about a breakup in a general sense. The album's title is mentioned. "Terror twilight" has been described as that ominous moment right before the sun sets. This track may very well have been that ghastly moment. Luckily, SM is there to assure us that it will be OK. I mean, he had a new album out in just over 18 months.

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.

Newark Wilder

Cryptic is a love song for polygamists. Malkmus begins the story with a passionate courtship. A brand new era is about to commence for our hero. However, there's the sticky situation with the spouse already in place and not willing to give up her partner...

She won't let you know that I need a right to touch her
She won't let you wait for me
For me to touch you

A once happy marriage is tangled in the mire of a threesome and possible divorce.

Crowds of the people and voices and steeples and wedding rings
Wild are the horses and break-up divorces and separate rooms from

In the end, compromise is found. The first wife keeps the new one hidden, cut out of pictures. The man's needs are met. He's satisfied.

Three of us is enough.

The song, despite the strange, jazzy rhythms, would fit nicely in an episode of Big Love. Its groove is sleepy, almost lazy, but it fills in the slot right behind the radio-ready poppiness of "Cut Your Hair" just before it leads into the raucous "Unfair." "Newark Wilder" is the perfect segue on a perfect album.

Black Out

The saying "Ignorance is bliss" holds a lot of truth. If you're not aware that anything is wrong, about what you have to worry? If you're in the dark, you don't see imperfections.

Take a hole-in-the-wall bar for instance. The lights are mostly turned off. The only thing you're thinking about is getting plowed and hooking up with the young lady next to you. Then the bartender turns on the light and tells everyone to go home. You look around and see that this dingy little place is not where you want to spend the rest of your evening. The woman you were just chatting up doesn't look so great either. (She's probably thinking the same thing about you.)

Ignorance truly is bliss. There is no worrying about the world if you're not aware it has any problems. It's almost freeing to be so worry-free.

Though it's ultra-cryptic, "Black Out" plays with this idea. After rather confusing verses, Malkmus repeats, "No one has a clue." And the song closes with the repeated lines of "fun fun fun, fun for the summertime blues" and "it's gonna set you free."

What could ever have Pavement so carefree, without worldly worry? Pot. It's been well-documented that band succumbed to a lot of pot smoking during the recording of Wowee Zowee, and "Black Out" does little to dispel this fact.

(Crappy live footage of "Black Out")

You Are a Light

"You Are a Light" is a love song. Pavement is not known for too many love songs, but this is certainly one, and the song is as Pavement a love song as there is.

The first verse describes a life in chaos. Anxiety is abundant thanks to our impending dependency on technology. (It was recorded in 1999.) The technology frustrates and confuses, making a return to the good old days and suicide our only options. At least SM has his light or to whomever he's singing.

Another scenario is described in the second verse where SM finds himself studying abroad, in Spain. Silly American/middle-class phobias of gypsy children and mortuary feasting consume him. Luckily, he has his love to shine the light to lead him home.

Things get downright sexual as the third verse begins. References to driving sticks and a lot of hollering close out the song.

SM repeats that he is "the isolator." An isolator is usually a switch that does what its name suggests: it isolates electrical current. The current in this case could be fro his light or in hopes of powering his light. Either way, this is as passionate as the usually monotone singer gets.

The music of the song is easy and jazzy through the first two verses, but rocks and breaks out after the second chorus with a typical Pavement-esque solo. This switch in intensity is carried into the third verse. Overall, besides the jazzy undertones, the arrangement is rather minimalist. The simplicity of the band's performance is augmented by various blips and electronic flourishes here and there, never more clearly heard than at the very end.

(Th performance below contains alternate lyrics from the track I reviewed. SM was known to mess with lyrics now and again.)

No Life Singed Her

Every band writes about mortality at some point. Zeppelin had "Stairway to Heaven", and Blue Oyster Cult had "(Don't Fear) the Reaper". However, as with most Pavement tracks, "No Life Singed Her" takes a totally different angle than the traditional mortality song.

First of all, there's this laissez faire attitude about the final hours. Then there's the imagery of slicing up a symbol of faith. Now the angel won't have to suffer from life the way we do. Eventually, we just float up to heaven or wherever we go, and that's it.

The song itself is way more acidic than that. SM's screaming and the harsh tones of the guitars make it a much more abrasive song than the lyrics or choral delivery would suggest.

But maybe that's life. We do what we want with our time, despite its fragility and value. Our faith is cut down time and time again. Before long, we accept death and move on.

(Sorry for the silly video, but it did have the track in question.)

Spizzle Trunk

An old school punk rocker measuring just over one minute and complete with unintelligible lyrics and piano banging, "Spizzle Trunk" demonstrates the inner-rocker within Stephen Malkmus. SM would go on to a solo career where he'd experiment with a similar aesthetic in his live shows...and throughout his most recent album, sans the youthful punk ethos.

The spizzle is for the sound. The trunk describes the curmudgeon.

The lyrics describe a middle-aged man living a miserable life with his cat and his detestable neighbors, family, and friends. You can picture the grump sitting at the kitchen table, shoveling cornflakes down his throat just before he sneezes them out his nose. He's got male-pattern baldness and nasty disposition.

"Spizzle Trunk" is punk rock for the balding, forty-year-old grump in all of us.

Elevate Me Later

The Left is a mess. I'm talking about the left of the political spectrum, the Left Coast, whatever else is left. I don't know that SM was speaking directly to the problems of anything "left", but I do get the sense that's the resulting message of "Elevate Me Later".

Somewhere it's written that Crooked Rain Crooked Rain is Pavement's Hotel California, hence the never-ending Cali references and that sunny, SoCal sound made so famous by the Eagles. Of course, SM and Spiral Stairs grew up in the depressingly NoCal town they forgot to name (Stockton). So, maybe that's why they're somewhat critical of the "The Golden State".

California's reputation as leftist or the "Left Coast" only makes it the perfect locale for ridicule. Political correctness sometimes goes overboard on the political left where the so-called right stays the course and takes down a road from which we might never return. Look at the Democratic primary. Two minority candidates beat up each other over who will best represent the left while the old white guy on the right sits back and waits patiently.

I don't think Pavement is/was anti-left. I just think they, like many progressive thinkers grow weary of the constant battles that occur within the ranks of liberal, leftist, whatever thinkers. Instead of finding answers, the left continues to tear itself down with hypocrisy and a fastidious intolerance of ideas that veer in other directions. California embodies this sentiment with its hippies, punks, and wannabe actors and all the ways in which they miss the point.

Shady Lane

"A shady lane/Everybody wants one"

"A shady lane/Everybody needs one"

All we ever want is a shady lane, right? No matter the complexities or difficulties in our lives, all we really want is an ideal home, independent of the world's troubles.

A shady lane is a metaphor for the ideal life. Imagine a perfect, tree-lined neighborhood with kids on bikes and dogs barking. The white picket fences separate the homes while neighbors mow their lawns or enjoy a glass of lemonade on their front porch. The street is possibly even named "Shady Lane".

Of course, this neighborhood is only ideal if we ignore the racist across the street, the Bible-thumping lady next door, and the child-molester on the corner. But it looks pleasant and serene, doesn't it?

While literally this may not be everyone's (or even SM's) ideal life, but it's the iconic, stereotypical one that is perpetuated in popular culture, especially here in the states. The point is that the metaphor of the perfectly peaceful existence is there for all of us. Whether it's Shady Lane, Missoula, or Williamsburg, we all have a place we would like to live that is free of the problems of the world.

"The worlds collide, but all that I want is a shady lane."

Trigger Cut/Wounded-Kite At :17

"Trigger Cut/Wounded-Kite At :17" begins with an ominous tone much like a scene in a horror film.

The process a filmmaker undergoes when piecing together a narrative is chronicled in this Pavement cut. With every scene and edit, the filmmaker considers the conflict (lies and betrayals), striking images (fruit-covered nails), and urgency (electricity and lust...). And in creating the film, truth and success are discovered.

The wounded kite scene (possible a play on Wounded Knee) is that piece about 28 seconds left in the track that seems to come from nowhere. I figure that the kite begins to tear and finally tumble to the ground around the 17th second.