cbertsch
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Although I purchased this album at midnight on the day of its release, I didn't hear it as a whole until today. Part of the reason for that is that I have been listening to live versions of the tracks from the 1/9/07 show at Plush for some time now. But Matt LeMay's mediocre review in Pitchfork played a role as well. As I already wrote in my Live Journal entry about the measure of my devotion to all things Pavement-related, I struggle to evaluate anything by its former members objectively. I can't hear my way outside of my ritual satisfactions. I'm pretty sure, though, that this state of affairs would change abruptly if I were listening to a record that truly wasn't good.
After all, although I eagerly purchased the solo record by Pavement's first drummer Gary Young and cheered the video for "Plant Man"'s astonishing appearance on Beavis and Butthead, it's not like I ever would have described it as something I listen to for musical pleasure. Maybe the problem with Stephen Malkmus's solo work is that it seeks the pleasure spot too lazily, through jamming that will win over members of his -- and my -- generation whose affection for punk and post-punk was, to some extent, already a historical affection and therefore far easier to reconcile with the psychedelic revival of the mid-1980s. My sense is that Malkmus, like me, came too late to hate the hippies. Rather, he was able to discern the hippie elements in the culture inaugurated by punk and to see the precursors to punk within the midst of hippie-dom.
This is all by way of noting the aptness of a comment my friend Joel made back in 1997, as we were listening to Pavement's Wowee Zowee towards the tail end of a very long drive to Death Valley, to the effect that Pavement could step into the role occupied by the Grateful Dead and Phish if they desired. I would say that Malkmus's solo work has continued a trajectory already apparent by Pavement's second record Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, with its Fillmore-invoking final track. Real Emotional Trash is definitely the most jammy of his four solo -- or semi-solo, since The Jicks are a real band -- albums to date, but hardly a break with precedent. The difference is that instead of one or two songs that devote extended massages to musical fleur-de-lis, Real Emotional Trash has five or six. My suspicion is that it would sound great through headphones in a state of total darkness. But, as I've found out this morning, it's not a bad accompaniment to doing the dishes and writing notes on what I mean to write.
I've been scarce of late. Sometimes I just don't have the urge to share, even where music is concerned. But I'm getting back into a more outgoing frame of mind. I have a huge backlog of records to write about, most of them members of the substantial collection of clearance specials, promos and freebies that I've acquired over the past decade. It's a lot to sort through, but I'm making headway. Right now I'm revisiting a record by Black Cat Orchestra which suits my "cabaret rock" mood, even though it's less rock than cabaret. I also have things to say about a record I'm reviewing for Tikkun, Dan Kaufman and Barbez's Force of Light, which approaches the life and art of Holocaust survivor Paul Celan from the perspective of -- wait for it -- what I'm calling "cabaret rock," a category that I use to encompass everything from Tom Waits to Nick Cave to Camper Van Beethoven. See, by sitting down to write about how I'm not quite ready to write, I wrote myself into a topic worth writing about. More to come. . .
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Over the summer I wrote about rediscovering Superchunk's On the Mouth, a record I listened to a lot when it came out but hadn't paid attention to in years. I had reason to listen to it again today and remembered how much I adore "Swallow That," which is slower and longer than most of their songs but all the more intense because of it. I'd place it in the category of the indie rock "anti-ballad," an underrated subgenre.
One thing I'm appreciating more about Superchunk this time around is their judicious use of dissonance. Their songs consistently veer off the beaten pop punk track without losing the lightness of touch that distinguishes their aesthetic from art rock. At the same time, though, that lightness is suffused with gravity. There's menace in the background of their bounciest moments and even more when, as is the case on "Swallow That," the bounce is slowed to a fitful tumble.
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You know any post with the words "hippie" and "punk" in the title will get my attention, even if I have to look up the meaning of the world "sublation." I shoulda known the word would lead me to German, and to Hegel.
What I really want to know is, what kind of playlists do you get when you and your friend Joel are both picking the tunes? Is sublation involved?
Most of the time I just let him pick. I like to learn about new music, especially from people whose opinion I greatly respect like Joel or yourself. But that particular day, after hearing for many hours about the low points in the relationship he was then in the process of departing, I insisted on my preferences for once!