Pavement
Indie Rock / Alternative
Smartasses with great record collections and a singer with a grad-school bent for high falutin' poetry, Pavement turn the sound of your average alternative rock band and twist it inside-out.
Formed as a home-recording duo between Stephen Malkmus and Fall devotee Scott Kannberg (credited initially as "S.M." and "Spiral Stairs," respectively), Pavement released a couple of "lo-fi" singles that were loud and scratchy and caught the ear of British DJ John Peel; these are now collected along with all their early work on Westing (By Musket And Sextant). Amassing members in a loose, whoever-wants-to-stick-around-and-play manner, Pavement eventually coalesced into a proper outfit by the time of their first album, Slanted And Enchanted, though members lived on opposite coasts. Championed by rock critics as the perfect manifestation of Generation X "slacker prince" mentality, the band played off this appellation with typical cheekiness, Malkmus stating during "Frontwards," "I got style/ Miles and miles/ So much style it's wasted." But for all their self-parody and laissez-faire attitude, they tightened up further for their second album, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain. With nods to Def Leppard, Buddy Holly and Aretha Franklin all within the first track ("Silence Kit"), the album served as much a critique of rock history as the band, closing up with "Fillmore Jive." Crooked Rain even had a minor hit of sorts with "Cut Your Hair."
With Wowee Zowee, the band faltered. Though slapdashery had always been an important quality of their work, here it backfired into an unfocused mess that sounded like the band having a bad night of it. They came back recharged for Brighten The Corners, which includes both the radio hit, "Shady Lane" and the Scott Kannberg ditty, "Date With IKEA." Though the band can write the catchy song here and there, their indie-rock ethics suggest they won't be playing arenas anytime soon.
This Biography was written by Rob O'Connor
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