Showing posts with label Pavement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pavement. Show all posts
Jan 10, 2014
Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks
This week marked the release of Stephen Malkmus' sixth album since leaving Pavement (between solo albums, Jicks albums and pseudo-solo Jicks albums). What makes this particularly interesting is that Malkmus has now released more albums proper post-Pavement than Pavement did. Which is fine, I've really enjoyed his work since then, particularly his embracing of post-Dead guitar jams. It just makes me feel a little bit older, given how important Pavement were to me in the 90s. I've not yet had time to delve too deeply into Wig Out at Jagbags, but early reports sound promising and I was certainly charmed by the video for lead single, "Lariat".
For the record, here's how I would rank the fist five post-Pavement Malkmus records:
Real Emotional Trash (2008)
Pig Lib (2003)
Stephen Malkmus (2001)
Face the Truth (2005)
Mirror Traffic (2011)
Jan 18, 2010
np: "Sister Jack" - Spoon
I sit here on the eve of the release of Spoon's seventh(!) full-length album, Transference, and I am slowly starting to solidify a thought that has been bouncing around my head over the past several years - Spoon may have quietly become one of my favorite bands of the last decade. I say quietly because it has been a long, slow time getting to this point. I discovered them, as I suspect quite a few people have, through Kill the Moonlight before going back and absorbing the much-lauded Girls Can Tell and A Series of Sneaks. But moving forward, I don't recall ever being especially excited for a new Spoon release, at least nowhere near the levels of anticipation I would reach for, say, a new Radiohead or Pavement record. I did, however, pick up both Gimme Fiction and Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga on the first week of release and each wound up being played over and over again on my iPod for weeks. It was almost like I was taking them for granted, "oh another great Spoon album". It took another year or so for me to realize that every single time one of their songs came up on shuffle I took note and ended up playing its parent album. And every damn time I was thrilled that I had done so. In my mind, that says a lot about the quality of a band. So here's to tomorrow and getting to hear "another great Spoon album".
I sit here on the eve of the release of Spoon's seventh(!) full-length album, Transference, and I am slowly starting to solidify a thought that has been bouncing around my head over the past several years - Spoon may have quietly become one of my favorite bands of the last decade. I say quietly because it has been a long, slow time getting to this point. I discovered them, as I suspect quite a few people have, through Kill the Moonlight before going back and absorbing the much-lauded Girls Can Tell and A Series of Sneaks. But moving forward, I don't recall ever being especially excited for a new Spoon release, at least nowhere near the levels of anticipation I would reach for, say, a new Radiohead or Pavement record. I did, however, pick up both Gimme Fiction and Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga on the first week of release and each wound up being played over and over again on my iPod for weeks. It was almost like I was taking them for granted, "oh another great Spoon album". It took another year or so for me to realize that every single time one of their songs came up on shuffle I took note and ended up playing its parent album. And every damn time I was thrilled that I had done so. In my mind, that says a lot about the quality of a band. So here's to tomorrow and getting to hear "another great Spoon album".
