Stephen Malkmus

"Early Arrivals at the Cocktail Party: The Inner Workings of an Empty-Handed Conversation" does sound pretty Bermany, now that I think of it

That whole first blurb really encompasses it

in that Jicks Picks thing just above ... track 38, "Andy Will" ... does anyone know anything about that song? i don't recognize it and Googling hasn't helped.

maybe it's a Jicks album track incorrectly named, i don't know all the post-Pavement titles. maybe it's a cover? an SM outtake?

it's either a cover or an outtake. i've never heard of it

i couldn't find a thing about it, which is hard to do

i like it!

maybe i'll ask on the Pavement Reddit or soemthing

Seeing Malkmus solo tonight in a tiny club in Portland. The club livestreams shows on their Instagram page , and a local station is livestreaming it as well. Guessing he'll be on around 9:30-10 p.m. Pacific.

Yell SILENCE KIT

JENNY & THE DOG!

GOLD SONGS

I’ll be there too !

Oh wow! I have 3 tickets and someone can't go, so I'll be selling one to whoever's at the door waiting to get in.

gah i want to go but i have to work tonight lol

damn, my knee is bad so I ain't driving to Portland tonight

His voice was shot, but it was a good short-ish set (30 mins, 5-6 stretched-out songs including a cover of "Expressway to Yr Skull."

What other songs did he play

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C3wrTl6r5V2/

seems like mostly (all?) new songs ... that "expressway" is dreeeeeeamy

Another clip here from the friend I went with. (Guessing the whole set is / will be out there, what with the livestream.)

did he have the jicks with him there?

Just the Jicks drummer, I think.

backed by The Joggers (Jake's PDX band before he joined the Jicks)

I really hope this means we’re closer to a new Malkmus solo record

Yeah, hoping the same.

More Traditional Techniques, plz.

I wouldn't complain, but since it's been six years now I'm primed for another full on Jicks record too.

SM has not one but 2 albums recorded, it's just a matter of getting them released.

Jicks are probably done. Jake (the 7th and final Jick?) is the only one still actively performing music, albeit with Malkmus.

!

is it correct to assume one is a traditional techniques follow-up and one is a more typical malkmus rock album (though i guess without the jicks)

I had totally missed that about the Jicks being done, that's a bummer.

More Traditional Techniques, plz.

i vaguely remember something about him working on a follow-up with the band he'd put together to tour it since the tour was cancelled due to covid?

My personal dream album would be SM applying his current songwriting approach backwards to the S&E-era sonic palette. Probably never gonna happen.

Traditional Techniques suffered so much from the Covid lockdown, I think they cancelled that whole tour but the band was going to be great for that.

Traditional Techniques and the Dylan album were my soundtrack to the paranoid first months of Covid.

Trad Tech should've been right up my alley but I just couldn't get into it beyond a couple of songs. I should revisit.

That electronic album was terrible.

Proggy rock SM is still my favorite SM. I'd take something like Sparkle Hard in a heartbeat.

^^ Yeah, I like Trad Tech a ton and even Groove Denied, to a lesser degree, but an album with some trademark SM prog swerves would be great.

Sparkle Hard was such a relief (could they ever really play like that again?) and remains the best of his late records.

Traditional Techniques has been a slow grower for me, but I love it. And honestly, Groove Denied isn’t among his better records; it’s an interesting side path.

I'm still bummed the Trad Tech tour dates never got rescheduled. A "normal" Malkmus album along the lines of Sparkle Hard is what I'd most like to hear now though.

Trad Tech = best SM album imo

^^^agree

My people!

(though I like Pig Lib equally).

I'd go top three:

Pig Lib
S/T
Trad Techniques

Groove Denied was abysmal

I like Mirror Traffic and Real Emotional Trash a lot

Even the albums I don’t much like, when I go back they’re better than remembered - it was startling recently to pull out Real Emotional Trash and Wig Out and feel, finally, like I fully *got* those albums. Everything kinda clicked.

real emotional trash is the best thing he ever did

I must try RET again, I thought it was a bit wanky at the time although I thought that about Pig Lib for years too

I think that on some level, when they came out I thought both RET and Wag Out were a bit too silly or goofy, somehow.

I do like jammy Malkmus tho

leaning into the jams is what makes it so great

it was startling recently to pull out Real Emotional Trash and Wig Out and feel, finally, like I fully *got* those albums. Everything kinda clicked.

that happened to me with Wig Out recently too. I'd always thought of it as a lesser retread of Mirror Traffic, but for now I'd rather listen to that than MT. Sparkle Hard felt like a huge step up from both of them though. The S/T and Pig Lib are probably always going to be my favorites for sentimental reasons, but Sparkle Hard is my non-sentimental favorite.

i have not spent enough time with Sparkle Hard, I need to