{"id":746,"date":"2007-07-31T09:06:00","date_gmt":"2007-07-31T13:06:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2007-08-02T22:46:29","modified_gmt":"2007-08-02T22:46:29","slug":"why-is-pavement-thought-of-more-highly-t","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/why-is-pavement-thought-of-more-highly-t\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Is Pavement Thought of More Highly Than Solo Malkmus?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/NUrEHWROgl4?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nGranted, the way this question is asked can easily be dismissed as &#8220;ridiculous&#8221; (or worse), but think of it this way: <em>Can Malkmus&#8217; work in Pavement be seen as a training ground for what he&#8217;s begun to do with his solo career?<\/em><br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nIf you haven&#8217;t been subjected to my ravings over the past couple of years for Malkmus&#8217; <em><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/overlookedgems.blogspot.com\/2006\/11\/stephen-malkmus-face-truth.html\" title=\"http:\/\/overlookedgems.blogspot.com\/2006\/11\/stephen-malkmus-face-truth.html\" target=\"_blank\">Face the Truth<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, you may still be scratching your head. &#8220;We&#8217;re talkin&#8217; about Pavement,&#8221; one of our indie-rock friends might say, &#8220;<em>Pavement<\/em>! We&#8217;re not talkin&#8217; about Polvo; we&#8217;re talkin&#8217; about <em>Pavement<\/em>!&#8221; I like some Pavement, especially the <em>Wowee Zowee<\/em> album, but they&#8217;ve always sounded scattered and rickety. Let&#8217;s face the truth: they often sounded like they were dicking around. Maybe I had to be their age and dicking around in a like manner, but I don&#8217;t recall fully digging some equivalent to Pavement during my dicking-around days. (<em>I spell M&#8230;A, child&#8230;!<\/em>)<\/p>\n<p>On his own, maybe more comfortable in his skin, playing most of the instruments himself, Malkmus&#8217; sly, stoner strengths come to the fore without as many self-conscious displays of silliness. In other words, there&#8217;s not so much dicking around. We often like our rock &#8216;n rollers pimply and sporting a 24-hour hard on, as my friend E. Pluribus Gergely might put it, but I&#8217;m all right with an artist learning how to <em>make love<\/em> to the music.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s a song on <em>Face the Truth<\/em> called <strong>&#8220;Post-Paint Boy&#8221;<\/strong>, and it sure sounds like a commentary on his own younger career &#8211; and maybe what he&#8217;s pushing againt in his present works as well. It&#8217;s good stuff, put forth at just the right tone. I&#8217;m going to say it verifies what I&#8217;ve been thinking about this guy&#8217;s career trajectory. <\/p>\n<p>As points of comparison, look at <strong>Frank Black<\/strong> and <strong>Paul Simon<\/strong>. I feel like Black has been pushing to fulfill whatever he could barely do in The Pixies all those years ago, although Black&#8217;s not yet near the master of his mature self. An example of an artist who was strong in his pimply days but grew stronger as he entered MANhood is Paul Simon. Hold hands with your high school sweetheart and listen to &#8220;Homeward Bound&#8221;, but grab the keys, pop in &#8220;50 Ways to Leave Your Lover&#8221;, and head directly for the heart of highway traffic while you make the long drive to the office. I&#8217;d be willing to bet Townsman Mwall has an inkling of what I&#8217;m talking about.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Granted, the way this question is asked can easily be dismissed as &#8220;ridiculous&#8221; (or worse), but think of it this way: Can Malkmus&#8217; work in Pavement be seen as a training ground for what he&#8217;s begun to do with his solo career?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}