Stephen Malkmus

he’s been working on it for 12 or 13 years

!

color me curious

cautiously looking forward to this

It’s gotta be better than his “rock” musik at this point...

i dunno, i like his rock stuff still — last one was very strong. I think he's just made good solo albums as opposed to great ones.

As the world's biggest Modulate fan I'm pretty excited.

Some of it sounds fairly rock-y: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bsvd5WtBth9/

Feel like the vibes are older than 13 years...

Malkmus & ex-GF Heather larimer - "Robyn Turns 26" (2000) comp track
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsuhYhExk_M

Malkmus - "Sin Taxi" (2001) b-side
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiyApoXUt_8

Yeah, I also thought of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3n6Y6OGS78

Awesome cover

https://media.pitchfork.com/photos/5c472ed66250af5b8085ccf6/master/pass/Malkmus.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlC8uz47qGo

Ugh.

Jesus, that is bad

yeah, not good

groove should have been denied

if sparks weren't good at all.

hmm that's not great

It sounds a lot like something off New Traditionalists (I think?) but I can't place it.

http://www.imagebam.com/image/574e251137771234

Poor Steve, someone pwned his billboard

On the cover of this month's Wire
https://www.thewire.co.uk/img/scale/300/368/2019/02/07/ofc-wire-mar.jpg

xp Where was that billboard?

718 area code is Brooklyn

Good sleuthing

i kinda like the new album!

Yeah I didn't expect to. This song is a lazy river rambler:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLeGu_-Bnjk

Album is sounding a lot less "techno" than those interviews last year (about it being bumped/rejected by Matador) led me to believe... I thought there would be, like, no vocals at all.

Seeing Malkmus, Meat Puppets, Joy Division and Bowie on the cover of The Wire really makes me long for the techno baldies and free jazz upstarts of the past

Come Get Me sounds like a Paul Westerberg imitation

^^^The song would fit really well on Eventually.

This album gets off to a rough start but there are some great songs in here. The more electronic songs aren’t bad but I can also feel my standards lowering when I say that - knowing it’s not his wheelhouse and cutting him a break as he tries something new.

I keep forgetting to listen to this. Will do so now!

its like Malkmus does Suicide !

It sure is, ha ha

I like this a lot more than "Sparkle Hard"...

I'm actually pretty surprised that Matador rejected this and demanded he release a Jicks album first

Rather liking this but didn't realise there was going to be an abundance of 'normal' SM tracks to be on there. Was hoping it'd be 'groove' throughout

some nuggets in here that are already making the rounds on twitter, but my question is this:

i don't listen to podcasts, really. are they all as aggressively / poorly edited as this one?

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/stephen-malkmus-pavement-podcast-838534/

1 minute in and goddamn I hear what you mean - not sure if I can listen to that for 30 minutes, wtf

It gets worse (after where you are) but then seems to get better after maybe 5 or 8 mins.

also

is this the best guy RS has to conduct this interview or is he hamstrung by the publication to talk to SM about Beck, Radiohead and Weezer

Interesting that he’s open to another Pavement reunion.

is it, though? his answer has pretty much been the same since about 5 years after they first split.

Really? I remember him saying “no way” for years, until the reunion actually happened... and I haven’t seen him suggest he was open to another one (let alone “psyched”) until now. I thought the deal has always been that the other guys would do it an second, but Malk hasn’t been interested.

I mean, he might've said "no way" for a while, but I feel like he softened his stance - "never say never, it could happen" etc. - a couple years before the reunion, which happened at 10 years.

But I don't know, maybe I'm remembering wrong. I'm an old man.

I do think you're right that "psyched" is a stronger word than he's ever used before, and I think your second sentence is pretty much always true. So maybe I'm just splitting hairs, too.

I thought that one reunion was mostly because someone in the band needed money?

That was rumored at the time (re: Bob).

Maybe the financial/career upside has become more appealing to Malkmus lately... In his round of interviews for the last Jicks album, it sounded like he wanted to break out of the usual routine (small album followed by tour of the same old venues, etc.)

Those reunion rumors re:Bob always sounded silly to me. I'm sure all the members were happy to earn the money that tour generated.

Re:future reunions, it could just be that after doing it once malkmus realized that the sky didnt fall, his standing as a solo artist (such as it is) didnt evaporate, or whatever else he was worried about didnt happen.

Saw one of the reunion shows and it was great, and the band uniformly seemed sincerely happy to be doing it

nastanovich specifically said that he had financial problems when the last reunion happened but didn't go as far as to say it happened because of that, and said that malkmus had approached him about the reunion happening rather than vice versa

Stephen also seems to have mellowed/softened significantly over the past 5-10 years ... getting old and having kids will do that to you.

He might've done the last one because he felt like he owed it to someone(s) but I bet the next one he'll really enjoy getting the gang back together.

Reunion show I saw was great, people who say Pavement sucks live should be rounded up and shot into the sun.

I've seen them do good and bad shows (when it seemed clear they weren't into it)