Can we talk about how awesome Parquet Courts are?

I’m thinking some itt have not heard any of malk/pave’s music. “steady on my mind” for example (the song I happen to be listening now) is basically a song from “mirror traffic”

Solo Malk doesn’t sound much like Pavement!

For reference, here are a few random songs that “sound like Pavement”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvNnu3NYKuU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lR1xCjL0mXE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lR1xCjL0mXE (start at 1:05)

Whoops, this was supposed to be #2:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9yeYGbugwc

I think I hear a lot of different malk eras in their records. I’ll give more examples later

I maintain that "Evergladed" by Sammy is the best Pavement ripoff ever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJOwsOfQgFs

That’s the Sammy from Long Island, the biz kids? I didn’t know they had a release on Smells Like... thought they went straight to the majors, LOL

I'm pretty sure they're from Florida, I heard the song at the end of a Kelly Reichardt movie called River of Grass from 1994.

oh lol nvm, yeah New York: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sammy_(band)

I wanna make fun of this guy, but being a junior label exec by day and playing in a Pavement soundalike band by night would have been my dream early-20s lifestyle, too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luke_Wood

Wow, I had no idea about his subsequent career. I got a *lot* of mileage out of that Smells Like... Sammy LP as a youngster.

I, too, learned not that long ago that one of the guys from the all-time greatest Pavement rip-off band, Sammy, is now a millionaire music industry executive. smh, as the kids say.

this sent me to YouTube to revisit some of their stuff. another one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnZ7PxuyqbU

This is some serious hair splitting going on here. Does that happen any time someone incants the name Pavement?

Of course you can find songs that sound *more* like pavement, from the mid-90's, when everyone had similar production and guitar effects, but still, if you're not hearing *any* similarity than you're probably standing too close.
Some of the DNA from "Conduit For Sale"/"Hit the Plane Down" surely made its way into "Donuts Only" (or from "Two States" -> "Dust", or from "Here"/"Zurich is Stained" -> "Human Performance")
That said, I do agree with zchyrs that i hear more minutemen in there.

Also, for the folks who think Turrican is crazy for saying PC are better than pavement, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you were probably aged between 15 and 25 when you discovered pavement, but you're over 35 now, and it's a hell of a lot harder for new bands to get admitted to the canon.

Bands can share DNA (such as “postpunk” DNA, for the first batch of songs you mentioned) without particularly sounding like each other. I understand that sounds like splitting hairs... anyway, it’s just something fun to talk about / debate.

over 35...and it's a hell of a lot harder for new bands to get admitted to the canon.

OTM. Yet Parquet Courts have made my personal canon. I'd even go as far as saying A. Savage is the best millennial rocker.

I don't listen to much rock these days but I make exceptions for these:

Parquet Courts
Sacred Paws
Ought
Big Thief
Future Islands
Lescop
Algiers

And the thing is I like these acts LOADS compared to a lot of everything else I listen to, but I just don't involve myself much in the style as I might once have

like they're part of my canon and very high on there

doggie needs to get down w the bradnelsonwave

rock is good now

does that mean rockism is the new poptimism?

rockism != rock is good

bradnelsonwave is definitely rockpoptimism par excellence

I was actually wondering whether brad would like this band

i don't! i see what they're doing and i appreciate it and can see the craft but it's not for me

that was pretty much what I figured lol

respect

Theres a good interview with A.Savage in this months Tape Op magazine, all about their recording process etc

good indeed, but he doesn't come off as the most easy-going guy in the world does he?
https://tapeop.com/interviews/126/andrew-savage/

haha did he ever?

great interview, thanks for the tip - i let my tapeop subscription lapse.

punk songs
i thought that they were different
and i thought that they could end it
no, no it was a deception

Of course it was a deception... but was his takeaway from that realization: “Maybe Danger Mouse production will do the trick?”

To elaborate (rather than snark & run): “Pretty Machines” is a great, catchy song about (I think) realizing you can’t escape being a subject of consumer culture and mass media, and a complicated relationship to rock ‘n roll as part of that.

And yet this band seems to have de-evolved to ever-clumsier “political” moves — to the point that it’s now yelling “I’M WIDE AWAKE!” over a bed of moar cowbell.

The lyrics on their most recent album are their best, IMO.

huh, I never took 'Wide Awake' as meant to be literal

it's just a goofy little punk/funk jam with an arch lyrical conceit, y'know? I think it's fun

And it's one track

🖲

It's fun and the Danny Krivit re-edit is well fucking banging

He shouts out eva hesse and KoBrA in a song where he also says “fuck tom brady!” You rarely see the battle lines between earnest art kids/adults and conservative jocks drawn so clearly in a song.

It’s all extremely arch and maybe obnoxious but also fun—like they’re giving us our very own 80’s.

At they’r best though this band has amazing lyrics, especially that song pretty machines which i always liked but have come belatedly to really, really like. “But these days I fear my window was just a reflection.”

To me, it feels like the wit & poetry have largely been stripped from his lyrix, and replaced with awkwardly expressed rage (with, yes, some good lines here & there), and oblique sloganeering that doesn’t even have the directness & appeal of good hardcore (although I guess “Fuck Tom Brady!” qualifies).

Of course, if I liked the song themselves more (music, melodies), I could probably overlook this...

confession... i thought he was saying Fuck Tom Petty

lyrics on the new album are so great

yeah lyrics are the best they have been, for both guys really.

total football makes some (mostly superficial) allusions to soccer and the line "swapping parts and roles..." is a specific reference to the title concept in soccer. i'm pretty sure the fuck tom brady line is about football (soccer) vs football (nfl), underscoring which the song is referring to, and probably revealing a personal preference too.

you know, there's a US band from the 90s who also had a thing for soccer...

I don’t think the song’s about soccer at all, it’s about the NFL protests (and related issues, I guess)

the line "swapping parts and roles..." is a specific reference to the title concept in soccer.

Ok, I see

So it’s using this soccer technique as a metaphor for political action?

Collectivism and autonomy / Are not mutually exclusive

yeah it is. the song is about collective action in general, and the nfl protests as part of that. i didn't mean to suggest the nfl wasn't also being referenced.

What U.S. band from the ‘90s are you referring to, Polvo?