Warpaint “Undertow”

Warpaint’s “Undertow” is like a granddaughter to Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams,” both in sound and substance. In the music, you can hear Stevie and Lindsey filtered through years of indie and alt rock — languid chords and plaintive vocals picked apart and reconfigured with a stoned haze and a vague post-post twitchiness. Lyrically, it’s the same sort of song — someone at the end of a relationship, addressing this person they still love, but from a distance. It’s the thing you do when you’re having a serious discussion with someone inside your head, saying everything you need to say, running through ideas, practicing for the time you actually have to communicate these things to them directly. “Undertow” may be more direct, but that only makes it more sad to me. There’s not much hope in this song, it doesn’t sound like there’s much room for forgiveness and change. The bad patterns emerge, they don’t really go away — not any time soon, anyway.

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Deerhunter @ Webster Hall 10/15/2010

Desire Lines / Hazel Street / Never Stops / Memory Boy / Rainwater Cassette Exchange / Don’t Cry / Revival / Little Kids / Fountain Stairs / Nothing Ever Happened / Helicopter / He Would Have Laughed // Basement Scene / Spring Hall Convert / Fluorescent Grey

I should have written about this show after I saw it, rather than waiting a few days. I don’t remember enough of the specifics — there was a lot of awful things on my mind during the event, and the following days were busy and off on a different tangent. I can tell you that Deerhunter played very well, and that I think the live arrangements for the newer songs are quite good, particularly “Rainwater Cassette Exchange,” “Helicopter,” and “Revival.” I remember the audience being kinda lame — a lot of dickish young NYU guys spoiling the crowd, basically — and the energy level for “Nothing Ever Happened,” a song I’ve seen inspire actual moshing, being low to virtually non-existent. I didn’t mind that so much, I wasn’t in the mood for it either. I connected with the songs that were on my wavelength at that moment — “He Would Have Laughed,” “Helicopter,” “Memory Boy,” “Rainwater,” “Never Stops.” The sad songs, the mournful songs, the songs about endless frustration.

Deerhunter “Helicopter”

The liner notes of Halcyon Digest preface the lyrics of “Helicopter” with an excerpt written by Dennis Cooper that provides context for the words. Basically, the song is about a young gay Russian boy named Dima who fell into pornography and prostitution, and eventually was sold into sexual slavery to an organized crime figure. His ultimate fate is unknown, but one account had him dying after being pushed out of a helicopter over a remote forest in northern Russia. Anyway, it’s very hard to unlearn that context — suddenly every line of the song becomes unbearably sad, even the bits that were already painfully melancholy. The music is gorgeous, one of the most brilliantly crafted pieces of Bradford Cox’s career to date, and it perfectly conveys this feeling of frailty and powerlessness, and total doom. When Cox sings “now they are through with me,” it’s sweet and fragile and utterly devoid of hope. It’s terminal passivity.

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Belle & Sebastian @ DAR Constitution Hall, Washington, DC 10/14/2010

I Didn’t See It Coming / I’m A Cuckoo / Step Into My Office, Baby / Like Dylan In The Movies / I’m Not Living In The Real World / Piazza, New York Catcher / I Want The World To Stop / Lord Anthony / Sukie In The Graveyard / Green Onions / Read The Blessed Pages / I Fought In A War / Write About Love / Dog On Wheels / The Boy With The Arab Strap / Dirty Dream Number Two / Simple Things / Sleep The Clock Around // If You Find Yourself Caught In Love / Judy And The Dream Of Horses

Belle & Sebastian “I Want the World to Stop”

Ahhh, another great Belle & Sebastian concert in support of their fantastic new album Dear Catastrophe Waitress! Oh, no, sorry, the new one is called Write About Love. Maybe you can see why a person could get confused about that. I guess they just really like that album these days? Obviously, a lot more than The Life Pursuit, which is my favorite.

Anyway, this was a fine set, even if some of the more energetic moments seemed a bit forced/overly staged. I like the way Belle & Sebastian have evolved into this very professional, very charming bunch of entertainers, right on down to including silly rituals like tossing autographed (American) footballs into the audience at every gig. The downside to the group’s professionalism and eagerness to please is that they’ve come to the point of nearly apologizing for playing new material, which they really shouldn’t be so bashful about given that “I Want the World To Stop” and “I’m Not Living in the Real World” were obvious crowd-pleasers and Write About Love is now available in stores. I would’ve enjoyed a few more songs from that record — “Come On Sister” and “The Ghost of Rockschool” might have been great additions to the set. Nevertheless, aside from “Lord Anthony,” which I’ve never particularly cared for, it’s hard to argue against anything they did play. Such a great catalog.

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Belle & Sebastian “Judy and the Dream of Horses” [BBC session version]

I was very glad to hear “Judy and the Dream of Horses,” which was a song I listened to all the time when I lived in DC for a spell about fourteen years ago. Earlier in the day, I visited where I used to live and retraced some familiar paths from back then, and so the nostalgia was fresh in mind. “Judy” will always remind me of someone very specific, and so I thought of her too — the star upon her shoulder lighting up the path as she walked the street from morning to night, falling asleep with ants in her pants, worrying about the best-looking boys, giving herself to books and learning. I wondered about where she was now, what her life has become, who she might be. I’m kinda glad that I don’t know, though.

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Veruca Salt “Number One Blind”

Almost inevitably, this new decade will bring us a large crop of bands recycling ’90s guitar rock. Of all the various strains of ’90s rock, I think the most quintessential and commercial is “alt-rock,” an aesthetic I think is best connected to the bands on the DGC label — Nirvana, Weezer, Hole, Elastica, Sloan, Sonic Youth, Teenage Fanclub, Veruca Salt — as well as other major label acts like Bush who were running with a similar formula and aesthetic. But what is that formula? What is that aesthetic? I think “Number One Blind” is a very good answer to those questions. In my mind, this song is a perfect example of the archetype, and just hearing it takes me back to the era of actually-pretty-great mainstream rock radio and suburban malls full of alterna-teens.

I’ll break it down for you.

* Gently rolling, thick bass line. Kim Deal has so much to answer for, and even the worst of it is pretty decent. (Like, say, “Good” by Better Than Ezra.) I think Krist Novoselic’s approximation of Deal’s style was itself extremely influential. I would argue that even ahead of fuzzy guitar tone, this is the most essential and recognizable element of ’90s alt-rock, especially when contrasted with a simple, pretty guitar figure as it is on the verse of “Number One Blind.”

* Strict verse/chorus/verse construction. I find that archetypal ’90s alt-rock very seldom includes pre-choruses, and bridges are generally quite brief. The bridge in “Number One Blind” takes us from a chorus into a solo, but it’s not necessary — a lot of songs in the subgenre will just slam a solo between choruses, or skip the solo entirely.

* Verses are mellow; choruses are loud. Duh! You stomp on your fuzz pedal when it’s time for the chorus. ’90s rock radio was basically this steady ebb and tide of soft verses and loud choruses. Black Francis didn’t invent this, but I think pretty much all of this music is directly traceable to the Pixies catalog.

* The solo break is very short. The solo is always melodic, but the playing is never too smooth or overly professional. These are mainly to add some touch of melodic flourish and to break up the rigid grid of the song’s construction for a few seconds.

* The melodies are simple. Okay, but not so much that it’s totally sing-song.

* The vocals have an arch quality. This depends on the character of the frontperson, but there’s pretty much always some touch of irony and bitterness in the tone.

* Obscure title and/or lyrical references. The chorus — “Levolor, which of us is blind?” is a play on words — blindness, as in obliviousness, and Levolor, as in the manufacturer of window blinds. There’s a metaphor in here, but it’s not fully formed, which is pretty much the way things go in this style. It’s more about suggesting an idea and an image rather that explicating it. Bonus points for the specific reference to Levolor, which has some kind of nostalgic quality despite being a brand that still exists.

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Antony and the Johnsons “I’m In Love”

A lot of people sing about feeling overwhelmed by love, but in this song, Antony really does sound like it, as if he could just pass out at any moment as a result of love overload. A lot of this effect comes from the arrangement, which is light, gently shifting, and doesn’t seem to have any solid center. The song is all free-floating joy without any sense of stability, which is a pretty good metaphor and approximation of intense infatuation. There are some great, unexpected details in this arrangement. I’m particularly fond of that tapping, shuffling percussive sound in the last minute or so — it’s right on the edge of being distracting, but it works for just that reason. It’s like some feeling or sensation that gets in the way of the huge, emotional sweep of the song.

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Women “China Steps”

The steady bass pulse and detuned guitar rattle throughout this song get a nice horror movie vibe going on, but what really makes “China Steps” sound creepy is that the track seems to be haunted by the ghost of Layne Staley. The vocals share a similar tonality with the late Alice In Chains singer, but they are low in the mix and washed out in reverb, making the words almost entirely indecipherable, and filling the empty space in the track with a non-specific dread that amps up the already high level of paranoia evoked by the composition. Happy Halloween.

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No Age “Valley Hump Crash”

I don’t usually like it when guitars are mixed loud over a thin lead vocal, but it works very well here, mainly because the guitar seems to whoosh by like the ambient noise you get in a car going fast with the windows rolled down. I can’t hear this without thinking of being a passenger in a car going fast to nowhere in particular; it has this perfect balance of laid-back melancholy and careless momentum. The sadness is muted a bit, but despite not being a particularly good singer, Dean Spunt conveys a bit of conflicted nuance when he plaintively calls out the name Catalina over and over at the song’s climax.

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Elvis Costello and the Attractions “Two Little Hitlers”

My favorite Elvis Costello songs tend to be the ones where he is least sympathetic and kind of an asshole, but you’re with him because he’s coming from this highly relatable position of wanting some unattainable thing very badly. He’s brilliant at blending pettiness with yearning romance and making it seem appealing, maybe because he always self-aware enough to make a joke of his worst impulses without canceling out the emotional truth of his darkest, most selfish feelings. “Two Little Hitlers” is a parody of the power plays in romantic and sexual relationships in which the singer — a man who doesn’t seem to have anywhere near the sort of power in these situations he would want — imagines himself with the authority of a ruthless dictator. He’s a mess of seething resentments and deep insecurities, trying in vain to establish some kind of uncomplicated physical relationship in which he has the upper hand, but he keeps finding himself in a battle of the wills with another imagined tyrant. The song is perky and light in tone, full of great little melodic hooks that go by quickly on the way to the next bit. This highlights the humor of the piece — this could be played for drama, but it’s more pointed as a bitter joke at the expense of its character.

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Jumbling Towers “Ramifications Of An Exciting Spouse”

I like the way this song never lets you get a good idea of exactly what it is. It keeps mutating and shifting and adding all these musical elements that maybe shouldn’t add up. It’s like a person in a surprising outfit of mismatched items that work because they are good looking in a distinct sort of way. There’s a spot or two where the song threatens to fall off the rails — specifically the bit with the title phrase — but it snaps back into place and moves on to another oddball hook. This could do with a bit more finesse, but there is a great character to this music, and the catchy, interesting bits really do pile up.

Visit the Jumbling Towers website.

James Blake “Klavierwerke”

There’s a particular sound in this piece that really grabs me, and I can’t really describe it in musical terms. It’s the bit that sounds like someone being suddenly teleported somewhere against their will. It’s the part that sounds like R2-D2 unexpectedly running out of battery charge. It’s the noise that is like a little universe getting shrunk down to nothingness. Do you know what I mean? It’s ghostly and colorful and weird. The rest of the composition is like a frame for that one incredible sound.

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Discodeine featuring Jarvis Cocker “Synchronize”

I wish Jarvis Cocker would do more dance music. Like, an entire album of it. That lusty, wry, erudite voice of his fits perfectly in this context, especially when the electronic grooves and stately disco strings match his particular balance of classiness and lasciviousness. “Synchronize” is pretty straightforward in its conceit, but Cocker has a way of bending fairly standard lyrics about dancing and time just enough to make them seem fresh and sexy. Discodeine’s arrangement builds around Cocker in exciting ways — I love the rhythmic keyboard part that kicks in on the chorus, thought it’s kind of a stock move — and gives him enough space for vocal nuance as well as dramatic gestures. This is a fantastic team-up. Is there a petition we can start to get more like this?

Visit the D.I.R.T.Y./Discodeine site.

Deerhunter “He Would Have Laughed”

I don’t like the word friend very much. Its meaning has been devalued by our culture; in my mind it connotes a positive but mostly superficial relationship, like a more sentimental version of a “buddy.” When people tell me that I am a good friend or something like that, part of me has to remind myself that the person is probably being very sincere and giving me a nice compliment, so I shouldn’t feel insulted or marginalized. The classic values of friendship — of close friendship — are very important to me. I just wish we used better, more precise words to do justice to these kinds of relationships. “Friend” seems so small, trivial, and empty to me. We can do better, especially if we just describe connections with others on the terms of those particular relationships rather than use any one word to describe a wide variety of relationships.

“Friend” is the word that rings out most in “He Would Have Laughed,” the final song on Deerhunter’s new album. “I know where my friends are now,” “Where did my friends go?,” “Where do your friends go?” These lines cut to the emotional core of the piece — loneliness, confusion, the self-defeating isolation of someone who keeps everyone at a distance. The song was written in memory of Jay Reatard, who was by most accounts a rather difficult and angry guy. I hear the song as being about the loss of a frustrating person, the kind who shuts you out, rejects your sentimentality, and behaves like an asshole. The kind of person you love and respect in spite of themselves, or how they treat you. I don’t hear judgment, or even grief in this music. All I hear is empathy and kindness.

I think this song is a major breakthrough for Bradford Cox and Deerhunter. To my ears, this is their most sophisticated and graceful piece of music. The arpeggiated guitar parts and synthesizer tones in this are almost certainly the most beautiful sounds Cox has set to tape; the way the percussion gently guides us from section to section is subtle and lovely, especially for a band whose drummer is commonly derided as a weak link. “He Would Have Laughed” is as pretty as it is devastating. It seems to stretch out in all directions, follows a tangent into a distinct second movement, and abruptly stops, all in the pursuit of answers to its many questions. The sudden conclusion is the punchline of a cosmic joke. He would have laughed.

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Marnie Stern “Risky Biz”

What kills me about “Risky Biz” is that it mostly sounds optimistic. She’s singing about knowing that she’ll have to give up, she’s singing about how whatever she does is not enough, but despite miserable chances, she’s holding on to the hope that things will turn out right. Why? Because he outshines them all, duh. And so the anxiety is somehow worth it, even when it’s so obvious that she’s giving up too much of herself, and she should just let go, cut her losses, move on. It’s so sad, and so sweet. The longing comes through in every note she plays, every aching syllable she sings, but most especially in that fragile, wordless backing vocal that punctuates the verses. That’s the pain, hidden deep below the surface, but totally obvious all along.

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The xx @ United Palace Theater 10/2/2010

Intro / Crystalised / Heart Skipped A Beat / Basic Space / Fantasy / Shelter / Show Me Love / Teardrops / VCR / Islands / Night Time / Infinity // Stars

The xx “Shelter”

A few times in this show, Oliver Sim mentioned that it was hard to believe that his band was playing the United Palace — an enormous, ornate church/theater that is only a bit smaller than Radio City Music Hall — only a year after starting out at the tiny, no-frills Mercury Lounge. Relentless touring, licensing, and especially enthusiastic word of mouth has served them very well — I definitely got the feeling that a large portion of Saturday’s audience, like myself, hadn’t gotten around to seeing them in concert yet, despite the fact that they’ve played at least ten shows of increasing size in New York City alone since last fall. (They just headlined a free show at Central Park’s Rumsey Playfield only two months ago.) I am certainly glad that I held out for this large indoor gig, which allowed them to go full-on with their excellent, thoughtfully crafted light show. The lighting design was crucial in building up the sense of drama they were creating on stage and keeping the band largely hidden in shadows, adding to their mystique.

It makes a lot of sense to me that the xx would catch as they have. Without any perceptible trace of cynicism, they were able to fill a niche in the marketplace that’s been inexplicably underserved in recent years — dark, emotional, genuinely sexy pop music. I mean, given the sheer number of bands out there, how did it take so long for anyone to competently find the middle ground between mid-90s trip hop/R&B and Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game”? It seems like such a no-brainer, but when it comes down to it, without the raw talent, charisma, and vocal chemistry, the xx could easily miss their mark entirely. I used to think that Sim’s voice was inferior to that of Romy Madley Croft, but I’ve come around to liking him quite a lot — there’s a great amount of character in his voice, and his low-key intensity complements Croft’s earnest fragility rather well. This music would fail without total commitment, and that’s what they give. Judging by the audience response, it’s also when they get in return.

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Stornoway “I Saw You Blink”

I reckon this would be a pretty good song at least a few different ways, as it is pretty well-constructed and has some very appealing hooks. Nevertheless, the arrangement here is just about perfect in the way it is constantly shifting and adding new sounds without calling much attention to them, or having too much sound get cluttered in the mix. It’s highly dynamic yet subtle, and the result is an easygoing yet brisk piece of autumnal indie-pop. They really get the most out of this pleasant melody, and put the emphasis in all the right places, hitting the emotional marks without over- or understating anything. The arrangement of this song is credited to the full band, and you can tell — this is clearly the product of thoughtful, clever musicians working together as a unit rather than just a bunch of players doing their parts and calling it a day.

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David Bowie “TVC 15”

A lot of paranoid, cynical songs have been written about television as a corrupting, socially destructive medium. Most of them seem kinda quaint and silly now, particularly in the era of internet saturation and smart phones. In light of much bigger problems, it’s hard to take something like “Television, the drug of a nation!” seriously, and knowing what life is like now, if you go back over old Zoo TV footage, the notion that clicking through 57 channels of television amounts to “INFORMATION OVERLOAD!!!” is kinda laughable. Nevertheless, as much as this stuff comes out seeming ham-fisted and clunky today, the artists were right to be concerned about media, and the increased mediation of daily life. Being wrong about the specifics doesn’t mean they weren’t basically right about the future.

Of all the songs I know about television, David Bowie’s “TVC 15” is the finest, and also the earliest. It’s also the funniest, the smartest, the grooviest, and the one that has aged the best. Some of that comes down to the fact that it takes place in the future, and the technology is beyond what we know now. More importantly, though, there’s not any particular judgment in the song. It’s basically a surreal love story — some guy’s girlfriend literally disappears into the immersive, holographic world of his television set, and he ponders the possibility of jumping in and finding her. The song isn’t a strident comment on propaganda or a statement in favor of a more authentic existence. I mean, how could it be — when Bowie wrote this he was obsessed with Nazis and in a state of severe cocaine psychosis! If anything, the song is really about that paranoia and detachment from reality, and the fear that he could lose the ability to tell the difference between real life and colorful fantasy. And, perhaps accidentally, that’s how “TVC 15” resonates today — not as a condemnation of virtual life or an information glut or an overdose of escapism, but as a song that approaches this intersection of various forms of reality as a weird, scary, lonely, fun, and romantic place to be.

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Glasser “Apply”

I’m not feeling well. This song lines up with how I feel, basically — antsy and restless but also kinda zoned out and melancholy. It sounds like a dull, persistent headache with a good beat and a pretty voice. It seems to be about sleep and dreams, and feeling stuck, like you have no control over your body or mind. It shoots for catharsis, but I don’t think it gets there. Which is fine, really. Sometimes the point is that escaping some mental or physical trap seems totally futile, even if it’s just a passing phase.

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Electric Six @ Bowery Ballroom 9/25/2010

After Hours / Naked Pictures (Of Your Mother) / Dirty Ball / Body Shot / Future Is In The Future / Jam It In The Hole / Improper Dancing / Danger! High Voltage / Slices Of You / It Ain’t Punk Rock / Formula 409 / Dance Epidemic / I Buy The Drugs / Down At McDonellzzz // The Rubberband Man / Gay Bar / Gay Bar Part Two / She’s White

Electric Six audiences are always a weird mix of misfits. There’s not really any obvious profile for E6 fandom, though there’s pretty much always a lot of rowdy dudes. This is generally a good thing about their shows — some bands are cursed with super self-conscious fans, but Electric Six crowds are all but guaranteed to be incredibly energetic and eager to participate. I would have loved to have been more involved for this show. I was feeling pretty sick, and so I only had enough energy for so much movement, and could not even try to sing along because my voice was so busted. Nevertheless, it was a good time, and the typical highlights — the fist-pumping for “McDonellzzz,” the extended breakdown and improvised “my drummer…” rant in “Future Is In The Future,” tons of ultra-straight dudes flipping out for “Gay Bar” — were as great as ever. At the end of the show, Dick Valentine told the audience to “tell others what you saw here tonight.” Well, consider that done. You’re going to have a good time at an E6 show. Try it the next time they come around your town.

Electric Six “It Ain’t Punk Rock”

Not long ago, Dick Valentine was saying something to the effect of how a lot of his lyrics were just him saying nonsense that sounded good in the tune. This is a time-tested strategy for a lot of pop music, and it’s certainly the case for “It Ain’t Punk Rock,” a song that deliberately fucks with you by starting on a line that seems pointed — “it ain’t punk rock ’til the punk rockers say it’s punk rock” — before taking a turn into Valentine singing the phrase “number eighty-eight” over and over again for no discernible reason other than that it sounds good. If there is a point to the song, that would seem to be it — you can make any dumb thing sound cool, and what is punk rock other than a bunch of stuff that sounds and feels cool? But you know, people get to declare what is cool or not, so you know, it only gets to be punk rock if other people say so.

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Pavement @ Rumsey Playfield, Central Park 9/24/2010

Heckler Spray / In The Mouth A Desert / Frontwards / Spit On A Stranger / Shady Lane / Date With IKEA / Grounded / Cut Your Hair / Perfume-V / Conduit For Sale! / Father To A Sister Of Thought / Stereo / Starlings Of The Slipstream / Gold Soundz / The Hexx / We Dance / Silent Kid / Unfair / No Life Singed Her / Trigger Cut / Stop Breathin’ / Ell Ess Two / Here // Rattled By The Rush / Heaven Is A Truck / Summer Babe /// Kennel District / Debris Slide / Range Life

After the glow, the scene, the stage, the set…

The night after my last Pavement show — possibly ever! — I found myself wishing that I could just go back to Central Park and see another Pavement show. Like, somehow, going to the park and seeing Pavement every night could just be the new normal. But alas, Friday night was it for me, and for all the moments that were bittersweet, it was mostly just a total blast. All the Pavement shows I saw last week had their own character, and this one was the victory lap. They were on, and so was the audience. A lot of singing along, a lot of physical movement, a lot of unrestrained glee for these wonderful songs, and these charming men. I know I’ll be seeing Malkmus again before too long with the Jicks, and that there will be opportunities to see Spiral and Mark perform again, but man, I am going to miss Bob Nastanovich. I wish that he could just get some kind of gig — I don’t care, a podcast! A podcast would be enough! — that kept him in our lives. He’s a true gem, and there’s just nothing else like him in all of rock and roll. More bands should consider finding their own Bob Nastanovich.

Pavement “Grounded” [Live in London, 4/11/1997]

Every time they played “Grounded”, I did this thing when that huge, majestic riff comes in — tilt my head back, get up on my tiptoes as it ascended, and then “crashed” down as the motif ended with Steve West’s drum fill. It felt like the right response, it had just the right physical and emotional resonance. I will maintain forever that Wowee Zowee would’ve sold a lot more copies if “Grounded” was the lead single. Pavement’s singles erred on the side of the sillier, more novel tunes, but I think 1995 was the right time to remind listeners that the band had a darker, more emotional side, and could write this ambiguous yet totally devastating ballad about the inner life of some patrician doctor. It certainly would’ve made more sense on the alt-rock radio of that time than anything else on the record. (Would any other Pavement song make sense coming after “Glycerine”?) All these years later, it’s taken its rightful place among the band’s best-loved classics, a cornerstone of the reunion tour setlist. Most of Pavement’s best live songs are due to the energy level or opportunities for improvisation, but with “Grounded,” it’s just about the song’s intensity. It has an unusual and beautiful power.

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Pavement @ Rumsey Playfield in Central Park 9/23/2010

Grounded / Gold Soundz / Silent Kid / Date With IKEA / Unfair / Spit On A Stranger / Rattled By The Rush / Stereo / Loretta’s Scars / Frontwards / Stop Breathin’ / Shoot The Singer / Trigger Cut / Cut Your Hair / Fight This Generation / Two States / Fin / Summer Babe / She Believes / Range Life // Kennel District / Shady Lane / Starlings of the Slipstream / Our Singer / Heckler Spray – Mellow Jazz Docent tease / In The Mouth A Desert / We Dance / Box Elder

Sunday was the warm-up, Tuesday was the classic, Wednesday was the rain night, and this…this was the weird show. Malkmus was in an odd mood — lower energy than the past few nights, a little cranky, a little sloppy — but it came together, especially as the set went on and things became more loose and goofy. I appreciate that each of these shows has had its own character, that I’m seeing different types of Pavement concerts. Ultimately, this was the kind of show the band is best known for. Even if this wasn’t them at their very best, it was a very good and entertaining show with some very memorable and emotional moments tossed in with lots of self-deprecating jokes from Malkmus, especially silly antics from Bob, and a noticeably dark tone in the improvised sequences.

Pavement “Our Singer”

“Our Singer” was very rarely played in the old days; it only just came back to the sets in the final weeks of this reunion tour. When it’s performed, it’s just Malkmus and Steve West, and in last night’s performance, Spiral and Bob walked on for a couple shouts. This was one of the best and most moving performances of the week, spare and loose but very much in touch with the raw, anxious emotion at the heart of the song. A lot of songs from the Slanted & Enchanted era are about waiting for things to happen or bracing for potential failure; “Our Singer” is the one that puts that theme front and center without doing anything to obscure the point. There’s a lot of hope in the lyrics, a feeling that he’s right on the cusp of something worthwhile even when he’s singing “I’ve dreamt of this but it never comes.” I’ve always thought of this song as music for the dawn, alert and awake and about to face the day. Maybe it’s the day. Maybe it’s just another day. You never get a sense of the stakes. That sounds true to me.

Buy it from Amazon.

Elsewhere, I did a chat interview with NPR’s Jacob Ganz about these reunion shows over at The Record blog.

Pavement @ Rumsey Playfield, Central Park 9/22/2010

Heckler Spray / In The Mouth A Desert / Perfume-V / Trigger Cut / Unfair / Range Life / Starlings Of The Slipstream / Spizzle Trunk / Shady Lane / Fight This Generation / Summer Babe / Cut Your Hair / Kennel District / Gold Soundz / Zurich Is Stained / Stereo / [break while lightning storm clears the field] / The Hexx / Two States / Spit On A Stranger / Grounded / Silent Kid / Father To A Sister Of Thought / Stop Breathin’ / Date With IKEA / Feed ‘Em To The Lions (Linden) / Here // Conduit For Sale!

It had to rain at one of these shows, right? There was a thunder and lightning storm through the majority of this set, necessitating a 8-10 minute break after “Stereo” to let the storm pass over the park area. This was obviously not optimal conditions for the show, but it was a bonding experience for the audience, and only emboldened people’s enthusiasms. You don’t wait an entire year, eleven years, or your whole life to get put off by a bit of rain, right? The band was in good form — not as spectacular as the previous night, but still more or less in the zone. “The Hexx” and “Zurich Is Stained” were my personal highlights, though I think the most memorable moments came during major crowd-pleasers like “Stereo,” “Here”, and the triumphant, defiant version of “Conduit For Sale!” that closed out the night.

Pavement “Conduit For Sale!” [Live in London, 12/14/1992]

“Conduit” has always been one of Pavement’s great live songs. It’s one of the few that inspires a lot of thrashing about, and the only one that allows a significant spotlight for every member of the band. I still have a very vivid memory of the first time I saw them play it when I was 17. I remember Bob stalking the stage as the song shifted into the “no one’s gonna save me, no one’s gonna make me rearrange” part, and Spiral was kinda shimmying, and Malkmus was manhandling his guitar and shouting wordless exclamations after each refrain. There’s such a strange and wonderful dynamic between these very, very specific personalities, and “Conduit For Sale!” is the ideal showcase. Last night, it was a surreal, vaguely violent catharsis. Playing “Here” and “Conduit” at the end was like Pavement’s version of ending the show on “We Will Rock You”/”We Are The Champions,” but in reverse order of sentiment.

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Pavement @ Rumsey Playfield in Central Park, 9/21/2010

Shady Lane / Frontwards / Heckler Spray / Ell Ess Two / Starlings of the Slipstream / Stereo / Kennel District / Grounded / Rattled By The Rush / We Dance / In The Mouth A Desert / Perfume-V / Unfair / Fin / Gold Soundz / Debris Slide / Range Life / Trigger Cut / Cut Your Hair / Perfect Depth / Fight This Generation / Box Elder // Date With IKEA / Shoot The Singer / Conduit For Sale! / Silent Kid / Heaven Is A Truck / Stop Breathin’

At this point, I have seen and heard a huge number of Pavement and Malkmus shows, in person and on recordings. I can confidently say with a fair degree of authority that last night’s Pavement show in Central Park was among the best shows they have ever played. They were on, they were playful, Stephen was in good voice and in an obviously upbeat mood. The set was long and full of wonderful songs, including two — “Perfect Depth” and “Heaven Is A Truck” — that made their reunion tour debuts. The former was a lovely surprise; the latter was gorgeous and extended into a brief meandering jam. The band was very sharp and together, far tighter than most people ever remember them as being, but still loose enough to have that tossed-off swagger and swing that is crucial to their appeal and impossible for other groups to replicate. I have three more nights of Pavement ahead of me, and now I’m wondering if they can top this performance.

Pavement “Shoot The Singer” (Live in St. Louis 10/14/1999)

This was the song at the top of my wishlist for these shows, and it didn’t disappoint. There is a delicacy to “Shoot The Singer;” it’s the closest Malkmus has ever come to approximating the crisp moonlit sound of R.E.M. circa Murmur. Actually, it might be the closest anyone has come! The actual subject matter is obscured, but the emotion of it is not — melancholy and slightly bitter, overwhelming romanticism pegged down by clear-eyed pragmatism. It’s the song where the drama fades, and the music at the end — particular in the live arrangement — slowly drifts down from fantasy back to earth. Stephen keeps telling us “don’t expect, don’t expect, don’t expect.” Yeah, yeah, we know. Easier said than done.

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