Search Results
3/8/10
Southern Boys Just Like You And Me
My (10.0!) review of Quarantine the Past, the new Pavement retrospective compilation, is up on Pitchfork today. As a supplement to that piece, I’m re-running one of my favorite posts from my R.E.M. catalog review site in which I wrote about Pavement writing about R.E.M.. For yet more Pavement, here is my in-depth interview with [...]
12/11/09
A State Without A Hero
BOAT “Lately”
Near the start of this song, David Crane says that New Jersey is a “state without a hero,” which strikes me as a rather weird thing to say, since I can’t think of a state in the country without a greater desire for a pantheon of its own homegrown cultural heroes. For one thing, [...]
4/27/09
A Specialized Thing I Would Like To Know About
Pavement “Cataracts”
There is a part of me that is incredibly frustrated by the fact that this song is an incomplete sketch, and will likely remain so for all time. I find it hard to understand why anyone, even someone so overflowing with high quality music as Stephen Malkmus, could throw this away without even finishing [...]
2/9/09
Alone In This Vortex
Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks “Walk Into The Mirror”
“Walk Into The Mirror” is essentially a post-modern hippie song, but it is not especially snarky or ironic. Instead, the song finds Stephen Malkmus paying tribute to a particular strain of idealistic, optimistic, inclusive sort of rock and roll from the 60s, adapting its language to fit [...]
7/21/08
A Weak Stone’s Throw From Sheepshead Bay
Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks @ Siren Music Festival, Coney Island 7/19/2008
Baby C’mon / Gardenia / Dragonfly Pie / Jenny and the Ess-Dog / Phantasies / Hopscotch Willie / Elmo Delmo / Cold Son / Baltimore / Astral Facial / We Can’t Help You / Real Emotional Trash // All Over Gently / Pencil Rot [...]
4/3/08
The World’s Stuffed With Feathers, Table-Bottom Gum Holding It Together
John Vanderslice “White Dove” - John Vanderslice and his band are very sharp and precise, and through their set, they do a fine job of translating the careful sound of his studio recordings into performances that live and breathe in the moment. Nevertheless, the best part of his show comes at the end, when he [...]
4/1/08
It’s The Old Fruit That Makes Wine
Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks @ Bowery Ballroom 3/31/08Dragonfly Pie / Gardenia / Baby C’mon / We Can’t Help You / Hopscotch Willie / Real Emotional Trash / Cold Son / Post-Paint Boy / Oyster / Elmo Delmo / Baltimore / Church On White // Out Of Reaches / I Don’t Care About You (Fear [...]
3/31/08
Sometimes Music and Sometimes Thought
James Rabbit @ Arlene’s Grocery 3/28/2008Lions Of Love –> “The Fucking Universe” and “Light Green Light” / George Gershwin / Red, Blue, Violet / Monsoon / Did You Tie Me Up Or Down? / Welcome Back / In Love With The Idea / Count On Me / Lions Of Love –> Options
James Rabbit “George Gershwin” [...]
3/4/08
He Is No Less Lost
Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks “Elmo Delmo” - There’s something in Stephen Malkmus’ voice that keeps him from sounding morose, depressed, or even angry. His songs approach those feelings, but there’s something about his personality and the very sound of his voice that downsizes negative emotions or dilutes them, leaving just an insidious trace of [...]
11/23/07
Something Is Happening Here But You Don’t Know What It Is
Stephen Malkmus and the Million Dollar Bashers “Ballad of a Thin Man” - David Edelstein’s review of Todd Haynes’ new film I’m Not There in the most recent issue of New York Magazine may be positive, but in complaining that Haynes is more concerned with deconstructing Bob Dylan than getting inside his head, he [...]
