Stephen Malkmus

Last month, during a Malkmus appearance at New York City’s Town Hall for public radio’s “Live From Here,” host Chris Thile gushed about one of his favorite rhymes, of “Tennyson” with “venison” in the 2011 song “Lariat.”

“Where did it come from?” Thile pressed.

“Well, Tennyson just comes to my mind,” Malkmus said, without a pause. “I think I like tennis a lot. I like sons. I like daughters. And then Venice. I like the town of Venice a lot. It’s both in Los Angeles and Italy. And I also love the sun. Who doesn’t? Today was a beautiful, sunny day!”

Good snappy answer to a stupid question. Who asks a songwriter that – “where did that rhyme come from?”

Id rather hear groove denied than another jicks album

I'm reasonably certain I won't like Lariat but his answer there is lol because it's just more wordplay/misdirection

Lariat (and video) is great:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYC5JASqWnI

Four thoughts:

1. Lariat is my favorite Jicks song in recent memory.

2. Thile's question isn't *that* dumb. It's not complex, but it's fine for one celebrity asking another celebrity something in a public setting, imo.

3.

Last year, in the midst of the “Groove Denied” dilemma, Lombardi and Matador co-president Gerard Cosloy flew out to see Malkmus to explain why they thought the electronic album would be wrong right now. Lombardi remembers Malkmus answering the door.

“Am I dropped?” he asked.

This is amazing.

4.

Id rather hear groove denied than another jicks album

― calstars, Thursday, May 17, 2018 9:37 AM (two hours ago)

yeah, this is about where I'm at.

seems like a safe-ish guess that Groove Denied sounds something like what's at the beginning of this video, doesn't it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKpi9cAmnfo

if it is, it just confirms that i'd be more interested to hear it than new Jixx. (though i also would assume that it will wear out its welcome quickly.)

Oh wait – Chris Thile is the guy from Nickel Creek, who did that great Pavement cover! I thought he was a radio host or something. Yeah I agree it’s different, one songwriter to another.

that show was the new prairie home companion but then got re-titled after the keillor scandal

pretend the crowd is germany

"kite" (welcome to the top / well i thought so / bring it to an end without hassle / no disaster, i guarantee / do do do do do do)

Sign me up for the SM/ Berman tour in ‘28. Until then zzz

When they play self ignition, that’s the joint

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

Prime-time Berman is still so, so good

Thank you Ray

I live to serve

Mirror Traffic is better than any of the other albums after Pig Lib, right?

I always wondered if this song was about mr godrich but not sure if the chronology works out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTqiKgAux-k

This seems to be a newly posted promo film thing (of course, the album’s out today):

https://youtu.be/MSFTlFEQXW4

Mirror Traffic is better than any of the other albums after Pig Lib, right?

― alpine static, Thursday, May 17, 2018 9:40 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I would agree but Face The Truth exists, and every time I revisit it it's better than I'd remembered it being.

Can we talk more about the press/promotional push this thing is getting?

I'm sure there have been bigger/more expensive ones for pop stars and arcade fires or whatever ... but this record? For Malkmus? At this time? This is crazy.

I wonder why. Why this record, why now?

Does Matador think the time is ripe for appreciating an indie rock icon?

Do they just think this record deserves way more ears than, like, Jagbags got? (They'd be right.)

Does S.M. have two girls to put through college in a few years and so he's willing to play the game?

I'm just very, very curious about the roots of this.

I get that you put out a record and you promote it, especially one of your best-known artists. But this has been something else. Dude must've spent all winter doing interviews.

He talks about it in that WaPo interview -- wanting to make more noise with this one, make more $$, play bigger venues, etc. Don't know if the add'l press will deliver that goal.

Also, reading between the lines a bit, my guess is he told Matador something like -- "OK, we'll hold off on the electronic album and release the rock LP first, if that's what you think is the way to go, but then you need to really try to move the needle on this one...".

digging sparkle hard so far!

i want to hear the synth record

maybe that castle he bought in PDX costs a lot to heat

I wonder how "well" his albums generally sell... that article said that each Jicks release has done worse than the one before it; and the last one (Jagbags) sold 21,000 copies. I have no idea where that ranks in the indie world, compared to Parquet Courts albums or whatever.

Are any of his "peers" (indie folx from the '90s) still trying to move units in any significant way? Seems they've mostly settled into niches or gotten into other things.

I mean I think that's what's so striking about this push, is that he seemed to (rather happily) settle into his niche years and years ago.

i think all the old-timers just rely on superfans to keep them going. i doubt most people who own pavement records buy the new stuff. people like robert pollard and malkmus become boutique businesses. like candle shops.

as far as I can tell, Malkmus is one of the few 90s guys left that has never licensed anything anywhere. The closest he came was doing the sdtk for that Will Arnett show, which is obviously different. So that's one common income stream for people nowadays that he doesn't have.

alpine -- my guess is that the expense of kids does figure into it (as you said). His wife's an artist, he's an indie rocker... I'm sure any increase in cashflow helps.

his stop here in the cities sold out very quickly, which i didn't expect since i've seen him numerous times and the shows were only moderately attended

lots of old indie people tour a ton. and make their money for the year. they are the new tom rush and eric andersons of the world. its not usually about some new hot album for most of them. though they will tour behind albums. my neighbor lou barlow tours like a crazy person! solo and dino and sebaloo...

malkmus has never really fallen into the standard narratives of a solo career ... the back to basics record, the divorce/sober record, the record with a big name producer, the experimental record (maybe "Groove Denied" will fill that last role). and he's never crashed and burned personally (as far as I know) so there's not some narrative to latch onto there. I don't know, it's kind of admirable in a weird way. he's a musician!

yeah, they just do what they do. it's what they do.

a true corporate player, he made sure to name drop two other artists on matador during that talk house thing, car seat headrest and Kurt vile

He probably gets promo copies of all Matador stuff.

oh no he mentioned other bands what a sellout

He talked about fantasy and playoff basketball for 10+ mins too, he's probably an ESPN brand ambassador...

malkmus has never really fallen into the standard narratives of a solo career ... the back to basics record, the divorce/sober record, the record with a big name producer, the experimental record (maybe "Groove Denied" will fill that last role). and he's never crashed and burned personally (as far as I know) so there's not some narrative to latch onto there. I don't know, it's kind of admirable in a weird way. he's a musician!

The flipside to this (and I'll choose my words carefully) is that he also arguably hasn't done a lot to change things up, work with new people, keep listeners following his career, etc. Like (I suspect) a lot of Pavement fans, I bought his first 3 or 4 records and then stopped buying them. The electronic album seems like a good move, because at least it's something different than "album #7 with the Jicks."

malkmus has never really fallen into the standard narratives of a solo career ... the back to basics record, the divorce/sober record, the record with a big name producer, the experimental record (maybe "Groove Denied" will fill that last role). and he's never crashed and burned personally (as far as I know) so there's not some narrative to latch onto there. I don't know, it's kind of admirable in a weird way. he's a musician!

― tylerw, Friday, May 18, 2018 1:05 PM (one hour ago)

yeah the thing I appreciate most about malk is he's just a totally normal seeming dude. watching him hit tennis balls in that video really got to me for some reason

The flipside to this (and I'll choose my words carefully) is that he also arguably hasn't done a lot to change things up, work with new people, keep listeners following his career, etc. Like (I suspect) a lot of Pavement fans, I bought his first 3 or 4 records and then stopped buying them. The electronic album seems like a good move, because at least it's something different than "album #7 with the Jicks."

i don't disagree with tylerw's points, but this is pretty much exactly how i view the way he has handled his post-Pavement career. which, again, is why i think the hype surrounding Sparkle Hard seems like such a major (and unexpected) change of pace.

I'm a rare mega-Pavement fan who feels that his solo work (& American Water) is stronger than BTC & TT...

I'm always a little late to the party (eg, I didn't hear Real Emotional Trash until after Wig Out At Dankos).

He says he's moving to LA near his sister in a recent interview, maybe he'll do more soundtrack work.

lol, dankos = jagbags (brain typo)

and, again, is why i wonder what changed, and who decided it should change.

like, there were *not* major feature stories in every print and online publication around Mirror Traffic or Jagbags.

maybe it's that his kids were smaller then and he wanted to just be Dad for several years, and now they're older and they're developing their own lives and he feels like he can go back to being Stephen Malkmus a bit more. that lines up w/ what everyone says about parenthood - that eventually you get your freedom back.

sorry, that was xpost to my previous comment.

Al - do you have a link to that interview where he says he's moving? i haven't seen that one.

It was a podcast, I think either Emil Amos or Vish Khanna or ??? My short-term memory is terrible.

I'm a rare mega-Pavement fan who feels that his solo work (& American Water) is stronger than BTC & TT...

I def. rate “American Water” above BTC / TT... not his solo stuff, tho. Except the “Pig Lib” bonus disc – that was as special thing.