Pavement Reunion?

[mixed cats]

My copy of Brighten is fucked up, and "Type Slowly" won't play without 34895743 skips
Tomorrow project: go to the Record Exchange and buy the reissue

[davy]

Hell yes, "Type Slowly" is ESSENTIAL.

And even more essential is the live version of "Type Slowly" from the Tibetan Freedom Concert compilation, included on the reissue. I've often thought that might be their finest recorded moment.

[ieatrats]

I was bummed when someone pointed out to me it was "leather terrarium" and not "lovely terrarium."

But I still love that tune to bits.  For some reason I think I've said this here before, but the day Brighten came out I ran home and played it and taped it to a tape.  Spent the evening, an unusually warm and melty February evening in Montreal walking around Old Montreal listening to it again and again.  It was one of the better birthday weeks in memory, one of my favorite days I spent in that city (that I was new to at the time) and man was I taken with that record, even the tunes I didn't like that much.

Fuck now I have to put on Brighten.

[mixed cats]

oh man remember taping off CD on the first play because you were convinced it would sound best? awww, memories.

[davy]

Brighten the Corners was officially the first album I ever anticipated prior to its release. I stopped at the mall on the way home from school that day to buy it. Awesome drive home.

And hell yeah it's "leather terrarium!" That line is awesome! I did a poetry analysis on the lyrics to that song for a paper in high school english. It introduced me to the term "liberal."

[ieatrats]

oh man remember taping off CD on the first play because you were convinced it would sound best? awww, memories.

Heh it was because at the time cd walkmans at the time were too expensive or too unreliable or both.  I have never been a media snob, though I will admit the look of a worn and beat up hand-labeled tape, or a label-pressed one with all the words nearly worn off looks better to me than any piece of vinyl I've ever seen.

However, that reminds me that music used to sound best to me just walking around town at night with no destination with as many tapes as could be jammed into a back pocket without them slipping out as I walked.  I don't even know how long I haven't been doing that.

As hippy-dippy as it sounds davy, I liked the fallen optimism of not a lot of room to grow inside this lovely terrarium, as if mourning the idea that we're bound by something as small as the Earth, but thankful it's still a thing that's so vast we could never know even a corner of it well. 

The real way sounds despairing to me with the nooooooooooot and the image of being trapped inside your skin.  Though I have forever been traumatized by a poem I read as a kid that had a line whose gist was "it's not possible to escape from or even to reach the outside of your fingertips" heh so I could use a new reading if you got one.

[davy]

Nothing that would make you feel any better, sorry. 

I've always sensed a cautious optimism in the song, though. "Echelon your dreams and they'll come true" has long been a favorite line of mine.

[ieatrats]

See that just widens the bummer gulf for me now, that line.

And a good line it is.

[donblood]

I put 5:2 that if this is their first reunited show they will be super happy and psyched to play to a huge adoring crowd and play an awesome show.

Ibold may well pass out from the happiness.

Also West and Nastanovich and to a somewhat lesser degree Kannberg.  Basically all the band members except the whiner.

[davy]

The last time I saw any of them together was a Jicks show in 01 or 02. Westie's band, Marble Valley, was opening, and Bob was on board as the tour manager. During the Jicks' encore, SM brought them on stage to play along, and they were all having the time of their lives, passing around a bottle of Maker's Mark and laughing and making music together. It was a beautiful thing to see.

[ieatrats]

I think I never really got what Nasty did at all (at least playing live) but how can all not be forgiven with the screaming of it's wrong, IT'S WRONG about taxation without representation?

Also, having read interviews with the guy you just gotta like 'im.  And Ibold that friggin' smiler.

I should listen to that album again, just heard Chavez's contribution today which is also great.

[mixed cats]

I made my coworkers listen to it (and Saturday Morning Cartoons' Greatest Hits) on Monday, it ruled

[reebty]

I saw Spiral Stairs as a guest player with Broken Social Scene, 'cause you know there aren't enough people in that band. I couldn't hear his individual contributions over the 8000 other things going on and I had to literally jump in the air to see him, but I saw him, damnit. But seeing Pavement would be a tradeup, even if they sucked.

[elpollodiablo]

So I'm seriously considering grabbing a handful of these tickets tomorrow morning (assuming I can). Figure even if I for some reason can't make it in a year's time, I could still make a fortune on em.

[Snarfyguy]

I put 5:2 that if this is their first reunited show they will be super happy and psyched to play to a huge adoring crowd and play an awesome show.

Ibold may well pass out from the happiness.

Well he certainly deserves to. I used to be friendly with him back when he worked at Cafe Orlin in the East Village and he's a really sweet guy. He would write postcards to the stepdaughter of a friend of mine when he was off on his first tour with the band. She was just in high school then, so we thought it was really nice of him to keep in touch with a fan like that.

He used to put on one of my band's songs on the house p.a. and come by and give me a big wink. That may not constitute success, but it didn't suck either. I almost plotzed when he wound up in everyone's favorite band. It couldn't have happened to nicer guy.

[davy]

 

You continue to impress, Snarfyguy!

[davy]

I think I never really got what Nasty did at all (at least playing live) but how can all not be forgiven with the screaming of it's wrong, IT'S WRONG about taxation without representation?

Also, having read interviews with the guy you just gotta like 'im.  And Ibold that friggin' smiler.

I should listen to that album again, just heard Chavez's contribution today which is also great.

Bob was essential. A) He was the personality of the band. He was the nice guy, had his head on straight. He was talkative, funny, excitable, well-spoken. He had insane stage presence. B) He usually played the keyboard parts. C) Sometimes, he kept the tempo steady. D) He was the best on-stage screamer.

And hey! Schoolhouse Rock Rocks! was my introduction to Pavement, believe it or not. I was 16 when my friend bought it (not because he knew any of the bands, but because he was an awesome nerd). We were listening to it on the ride to school one day, and man, all of a sudden, "No More Kings" struck me as just the best fucking music, the best sound...that I had ever heard. I was floored by that fucking song. Within days I had gone to the nearest record store and bought the only Pavement album they carried--Westing. I was not ready for Westing. I exchanged it for a My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult album. A week or so later, I took advantage of Media Play's listening station to give Pavement one more chance to impress me. The album was Wowee Zowee and my life was changed.

And yes, that Chavez song fucking slays. Can you believe the drumming on that motherfucker?

[Ignatius]

No More Kings was the first Pavement song that got me interested.

[Andrew_TSKS]

I'm old AND from Charlottesville. I have a radio tape somewhere with the DJ saying "Pavement have a new EP out called 'Demolition Plot J-7.' This is the first song on it, it's called 'Forklift.'" Then, the loudest tape hiss I've ever heard.

But I'd already heard "You're Killing Me" and "Box Elder" by that point.

[Snarfyguy]

You continue to impress, Snarfyguy!

Well I don't want to come across as a name dropper. It's just that when you spend 25 years in NYC in (admittedly the periphery of) the music scene, you tend to accumulate certain experiences and acquaintences. And some of them are kind of interesting.

Don't make me tell the story of auditioning for Yo La Tengo!    (it was a long time ago.) (if anybody cares, I'm happy to tell it.)

[reebty]

My friend Lou Reed said namedropping isn't cool.

[elpollodiablo]

lulz

[Greg Nog]

Now that this has become a general discussion about Pavement, let me just say that show me a word that rhymes with Pavement, and I won't kill your parents

blavement

[elpollodiablo]

So I forgot about this until 10:03 and all the tickets were sold. My bad!

[mixed cats]

they added a show the next day. the password is zowee. i just bought two, after being totally indecisive. crap!