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Pavement: Return of the Heavily-Favored Underdogs

Woozy does it, 1996. Photo Christian Lantry

On a cheerier note, and there’s always a cheerier note, there’s plenty of life left to be lived, probably plenty of time for first things, for middle things. This is a great thing about a reunion tour. Rock and roll can be a quick and difficult experience, and it takes place mainly in the body, so it can’t hurt to take a break, learn some new words, maybe raise a sequel or two and spend some time in the high ice of mind. Kannberg notes that there’ve been years where music just wasn’t working for him.

“It took putting on a Fleetwood Mac record from the mid-‘70s which I’ve never heard before, and it just, like, it clicked. But, I knew that record was there ten years ago, and I knew people were listening to it—and loved it—but, I wasn’t ready for it yet.”

It may be that there are people who were not ready for Pavement, before, who will hear the band clearly now. As for the provisional 2010 set list, Nastanovich says, “Pavement fans will be very happy with the Pavement songs that we’re prioritizing to learn and play.” Malkmus seems to agree: “When you go to a reunion, a non-music related one, you probably—when it’s people you haven’t seen in a while—talk about kids, and what you’ve done, your work, but not really your most secret esoteric stories. You don’t want to bore them with that right away.”

So, any long time fans who were expecting boring esoteric secrets should have no fear. Nastanovich, ever bright and sunny, is excited and slightly apprehensive, as the band will probably be playing to larger audiences than they were ever used to: “Since the band stopped, I think we’re more popular than we were when we actually existed.” The statement raises an interesting philosophical question as to whether a thing needs to exist to be popular.

The band will rehearse in early February, before heading to Auckland, New Zealand for the first show on March 1st. Nastanovich says, “The bottom line is: we want it to be special. We want to play a memorable concert.”
In a world that can often seem to be lose-draw or draw-draw, there is a win-win scenario here: every single song has the potential to be, depending on who you are, a brand new song, or, a hit to sing along with.

Though we spoke over the phone on a bad international line, Malkmus sounds clear-eyed and deeply down-to-earth about the tour. “We’re reliving it here for—um—because we can and hopefully it’ll be fun.”

As to the question of more Pavement in the future, the three members that I spoke with seemed comfortable with the idea of that not happening. All seemed more or less happy and calm with the world as it is, and their lives as they are. Malkmus says, “I’m so dedicated to the new songs I’m writing, whether or not anyone else is, we are, me and my band The Jicks. That’s my gig, for better or worse.”

It will be very interesting, for both the band and for audiences, to see how the 2010 shows go. The live shows of the late ‘90s were often played with a loose geniality that suggested, as said earlier, the reunion tour of a band that was still together. It was almost as if some slightly uncomfortable and long-lost friends had been cajoled onto the stage by other long-lost friends. The band would play, a subtle quarter-turn from the audience, almost as if they were playing to another invisible audience, just to our right. It wasn’t clear as to whether the band’s gaze was set on some dark impossible thing, history possibly, or whether they just didn’t like us that much. The effect was not unappealing. And it was good to be reminded, at a time when we had very few reminders, that there might be, on this earth, even more important things than the things we call “important things.” As it will be good to be reminded again.

None of this is to say that any of this was intentional. People have a particular temperament, and therefore, so must a band. Even more so, possibly. And this may seem like a lot of intention and responsibility to heap on a rock band but sometimes you have to look around yourself and ask, “Who else am I supposed to heap it on?” And now here they come again, very ready, it seems, to manage all of our unreasonable expectations and smile and nod about all our inexpressible needs.

Will Eno is a contemporary American playwright. His plays include Tragedy: a tragedy and THOM PAIN (based on nothing) which was a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize in drama. He is an Edward F. Albee Foundation fellow and the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. The New York Times has called Eno, “a Samuel Beckett for the Jon Stewart generation.” He lives in Brooklyn.