pavement

  dylangt7 said:

  LUDD said:

  dylangt7 said:

box elder

 

great tune but i can't quite remember - is that pavement covering the wedding present or vice versa?

 

the wedding present covered it, which brought it to the attention of the late great John Peel and the rest is history....

really really really strange that this should be bumped on the night that i (completely out of the blue) dj'd a random "peelesque" eclectic set in a pub.... a set that included box elder (wedding present version) .. and when asked who was covering pavement i answered that the wedding present version was in fact the original .... it seems i am wrong .. but it has been 20 YEARS since it came out

:(

edit:

someone took in these pants

Every time I drive through Stockton I think to myself, "This is where Pavement started out. Well, kind of." I also think, "I wonder if my friend Brian still lives here." But I digress.

To have been in college in California and a Pavement fan during the '90s is something I get deeply nostalgic about.

i swear people either don't read or can't. i said, maybe seven posts up, when i bumped this two year old topic, that wowee zowee is their best album. i don't like the last two albums they recorded. this is an improvement on my original post, where i said i didn't like anything they'd done. jesus.

fame throwa

wowee zowee -- although maybe not the most consistent album of theirs -- has four or five of the best songs they've ever recorded. i have no idea why 'pueblo' is rarely mentioned among pavement favorites.

the watery domestic EP is essential listening. nearly flawless, really. you can find it on the second disc of S&E luxe and reduxe edition.

I'm glad you like Gold Soundz zaphod, because I think there would be no hope for you if you didn't. Gold Soundz, Unfair, Range Life....jesus what a great album.

  zaphod said:

still don't like sonic youth, though.

I don't either -- their music just annoys me. But I admit I'm probably just missing something.

sledge edit: Brighten the Corners is my favorite bc it's the first one I heard, and the most poppy

*barfs on thread*

*wipes mouth*

*smiles at a job well done*

*leaves*

This is retarded ADD hipster music, has been and will always be....

listen to some Brian Jonestown Massacre for some loose non-committal rock....

it's better...

so is Guided by Voices....

so is Sonic Youth....

but I don't really like anything I just mentioned very much...

I just think Pavement sounds like guitars being played with overcooked spaghetti for strings, a mentally handicapped monkey on drums and a prepubescent boy singing........and a bass guitar just sitting there

Opinions are opinions...

I like brighten the corners but not much else I have heard of theirs.

yes, I should have typed 'imho'...oops!

the 1,000,000th poster on WATMM speaks the truth

TROOPH!

  zaphod said:

i was driving around today listening to "gold soundz" and crooked rain kind of clicked for me and now i seem to like pavement. although i've listened to everything else they've done since making this topic and i don't care for their last two albums. then wowee zowee is very good, sort of like the white album, plenty of variation and the tracks play off each other even when they don't work individually and create a kind of weird logic to the album. i really like "grounded", that's probably my favorite pavement song.

 

still don't like sonic youth, though.

it took me eight years to get into pavement, seriously, but eventually you just realize that malkmus is a songwriting genius.

and sonic youth are the most overrated band ever

  playbynumbers said:

  zaphod said:

i was driving around today listening to "gold soundz" and crooked rain kind of clicked for me and now i seem to like pavement. although i've listened to everything else they've done since making this topic and i don't care for their last two albums. then wowee zowee is very good, sort of like the white album, plenty of variation and the tracks play off each other even when they don't work individually and create a kind of weird logic to the album. i really like "grounded", that's probably my favorite pavement song.

 

still don't like sonic youth, though.

 

 

 

it took me eight years to get into pavement, seriously, but eventually you just realize that malkmus is a songwriting genius.

 

and sonic youth are the most overrated band ever

8 years? Really?

What exactly is so deep about it that makes it take so long to digest?

Seems more like you just heard it long enough that eventually you made memories based off it... thats what I see there music as... great nostalgia maybe... but I don't get much inspiration from their music... seems pretty emo honestly. maybe not on the surface.

what? it isn't even remotely emo. i'd say it's almost the exact opposite. it's playful, wry, never ironic really, which is what i thought they were when i first heard this band. and of course the songs are emotional; stop breathing is a good example of one of pavement's sadder songs, but there's an intelligence to the songwriting and instrumentation that keeps them interesting. i do think the band got a little soft on the last two albums though, but then they were starting to enter middle age, probably tired of being a band, etc. although major leagues is a really good song.

  zaphod said:

what? it isn't even remotely emo. i'd say it's almost the exact opposite. it's playful, wry, never ironic really, which is what i thought they were when i first heard this band. and of course the songs are emotional; stop breathing is a good example of one of pavement's sadder songs, but there's an intelligence to the songwriting and instrumentation that keeps them interesting. i do think the band got a little soft on the last two albums though, but then they were starting to enter middle age, probably tired of being a band, etc. although major leagues is a really good song.

as I said maybe not on the surface... but it seems like most people who are into pavement are chasing their childhood in a very emo way...

not that there is anything wrong with that... some of the best music reminds me of my childhood... it just seems more of a focal point for them if there was one... I am not into them like some of you though so forgive any ignorance... just speaking my mind.

what album was the cut your hair song from? I like that song

  marf said:

what album was the cut your hair song from? I like that song

Crooked Rain Crooked Rain

That's my favorite album by them.

  ieafs said:

  karmakramer said:

as I said maybe not on the surface... but it seems like most people who are into pavement are chasing their childhood in a very emo way...

 

not that there is anything wrong with that... some of the best music reminds me of my childhood... it just seems more of a focal point for them if there was one... I am not into them like some of you though so forgive any ignorance... just speaking my mind.

that's a very strange thing to say... what about the people who were into them at the time? i got into them my early teens i guess but i don't really associate them with that time whatsoever. ok, you don't like them - but for the people who like their stuff, the reason they like them so much is that they have so many good songs and were just really consistent.

how can you not associate them with the time you got into them? I find all music that I listen to for awhile stays in my memories, and I vividly can go back to the time and place I seriously got into it.

not saying they aren't good either... really not saying anything at all I guess other then... just expressing my feelings towards the band. I feel that the band makes excellent music but unlike most music I listen to, I don't create entirely new ideas/visuals with new listens... its always a nostalgic look back with pavement for me... maybe thats the genius with them.... and maybe that was their goal... if it was then its just not for me I guess...

I can listen to say something by bob dylan and gain completely new images/feelings from his lyrics... with pavement it seems a bit flatter/two-dimensional

Kurt Cobain killed himself because he had a Pavement song stuck in his head....

Blew that sucker right out of there....

This Heat is great, not Pavement....

IMHO

  ieafs said:

  karmakramer said:

  ieafs said:

  karmakramer said:

as I said maybe not on the surface... but it seems like most people who are into pavement are chasing their childhood in a very emo way...

 

not that there is anything wrong with that... some of the best music reminds me of my childhood... it just seems more of a focal point for them if there was one... I am not into them like some of you though so forgive any ignorance... just speaking my mind.

that's a very strange thing to say... what about the people who were into them at the time? i got into them my early teens i guess but i don't really associate them with that time whatsoever. ok, you don't like them - but for the people who like their stuff, the reason they like them so much is that they have so many good songs and were just really consistent.

how can you not associate them with the time you got into them? I find all music that I listen to for awhile stays in my memories, and I vividly can go back to the time and place I seriously got into it.

 

not saying they aren't good either... really not saying anything at all I guess other then... just expressing my feelings towards the band. I feel that the band makes excellent music but unlike most music I listen to, I don't create entirely new ideas/visuals with new listens... its always a nostalgic look back with pavement for me... maybe thats the genius with them.... and maybe that was their goal... if it was then its just not for me I guess...

 

I can listen to say something by bob dylan and gain completely new images/feelings from his lyrics... with pavement it seems a bit flatter/two-dimensional

well i do, but i more saying that if i got into them yesterday i would still like them as much... i don't really associate them with any good times or anything like that. to be honest i didn't really have a great time at school when i got into them in the first place, so if anything i'd associate them with that and be completely put off... :laughing:

 

i quite like pavement lyrics for that reason that i always find new things in there. things that seemed very obtuse to me when i first got into them, i get the references and new jokes and things in there all the time. very much like fall lyrics, but again, there's a different perspective on them. i just like them because he comes up with great phrases, very colourful, and they're usually quite non-linear. but not linear in terms of random opaque 'arty' sounds-good lyrics.

 

i dunno, what you're saying seems like a perfectly valid, but personal conclusion. i don't really think think the emphasis on pavement in the lyrics anyway - they're just great hooky songs.

yeah, I agree with your last conclusion... they are great hooky songs... I just find it a bit dull in the end.

opinions... lol

  Mesh Gear Fox said:

Atop, I don't think that your opinion is entirely justified.

No, no it isn't....

  ieafs said:

  Atop said:

Kurt Cobain killed himself because he had a Pavement song stuck in his head....

 

Blew that sucker right out of there....

 

This Heat is great, not Pavement....

 

IMHO

what?

 

i actually read an interview with stephen malkmus in which he was told that kurt cobain had actually wanted pavement to open for them for some tour before he died. i just remember it because he seemed very dismissive and "well finally, if pavement are remembered for anything we'll be remembered for that... great".

 

this heat and pavement have absolutely nothing to do with each other.

Cobain felt sorry for Pavement....

and This Heat was around so that there could be indie rock, period!

i don't associate them with anything. i guess crooked rain clicked with me on a particularly nice, california kind of day, and then the guitars on gold soundz are really beautiful.

i like the lyrics; they rarely make sense, but the trick is in how malkmus can give meaning to something that inherently doesn't have any by placing it at a certain point in a song, a certain melody or note that he hits (or doesn't lol). and then the really messy guitar playing is great, as encey said early in the thread, he mixes really great playing with lots of sloppy stuff and it sounds accidental, which is how the band works as well. my whole purpose in bumping this was that my original dismissal was unfounded and completely uninformed. i had only heard s&e which all of my hipster friends at the time were saying was the greatest indie rock album ever. and then it wasn't, and i still don't think it is. but the two albums that come after it are both very good.

  Atop said:

This Heat was around so that there could be indie rock, period!

As much as I love this heat, they were one of a large number of bands in both the uk and the usa that gave birth to it.