MMT50 - 241

Meeting Malkmus - a Pavement podcast

jD is talking to Pavement super-fan Pete from Malaga this week on the pod. You'll learn all about his Pavement origin story and hear their breakdown of song number 41 on the countdown

Transcript:

Track 1:

[0:00] Previously on the pavement top 50.

Track 2:

[0:02] Okay track number 42 easily fooled comes from the rattled by da rush ep and um it's the third track on that ep and it later appeared on the sorted sentinel edition of wowie zowiereissue along with its ep bandmate false scorpion and it was track number 22 on that uh second disc of the sorted sentinels uh collection three issue so alan yeah what do you think ofeasily fooled love it love it love it love it it's on like i said to you off off air it's probably one of my favorite tracks alongside here yeah it just it's just such an amazing track Love themeandering nature of it.

Just really acerbic lyrics.

And yeah, it's an awesome, awesome track to jam along to.

Track 3:

[1:01] Hey, this is Westy from the rock and roll band Pavement, and you're listening to The Countdown.

Hey.

Track 6:

[1:09] It's JD here, back for another episode of our top 50 countdown for seminal indie rock band Pavement.

Week over week, we're going to count down the 50 essential Pavement tracks that you selected with your very own top 20 ballots.

I tabulated the results using an advanced abacus and some spilled toothpicks on the floor.

And all that's left for us to reveal is this week's track.

How will your favorite song fare in the rating? You'll need to tune in or whatever the podcast equivalent of tuning in is every week to find out. So there's that.

Track 5:

[1:43] This week.

Track 6:

[1:44] We're joined by Pavement superfan, Pete. Pete how are you doing motherfucker getting over the fact that you said abacus and toothpicks you're like you're you're like you're like a Idon't know you're a cross between like an old Chinese medicine man and fucking rain man didn't he didn't he count toothpicks he did.

[2:13] I'm good man i'm good i'm thanks for thanks for having me no it's my pleasure to have you on the show the legendary pete marchica of marchica easy easy easy so talk to me a littlebit about your pavement origin story pavement origin story um so i think it's fair it's it's it's important to point out that early on so I came to pavement right as they broke up like I was likediscovered this amazing band and the record that had just come out, was Steve Malcolm's self-titled debut and so this is the in after days and a A buddy of mine, Moe, who you know I'vespoke of a number of times, who incidentally knows Spiral well, he was burning discs like nobody's business.

He was a master pirate and was burning a bunch of pavement stuff.

Track 5:

[3:22] I'm like.

Track 6:

[3:23] This band is fucking awesome. And I really couldn't at the time differentiate between the Malcolm of Souls stuff and pavement itself.

And.

Track 5:

[3:34] I mean.

Track 6:

[3:35] I think probably the first Pavement song maybe I ever heard was...

[3:41] Elevate me later or stereo one of those two both good songs to start with yeah and then got to the point to where i had a couple of these like compilation burns of napster tunes frompavement and uh and they just i just listened to the shit out of them i would sometimes i would leave them in my car and i noticed my mom started liking like pavement stuff because therewere like some PSO I sprinkled in there too oh yeah yeah yeah there was one song actually that was a spiral tune I want to say it was date with Ikea right and when you downloaded itfrom Napster there was a there was like a a opener tag like sometimes you get the file and the file would just be be whatever that person that was on the file sharing gave you andsometimes it wouldn't be the song but you know this happened to be the song but it would start with this really cool jingle, and this beautiful woman with a beautiful voice and she wouldjust say encoded by easy mp3.

[4:55] It was uh i guess it was a mp3 encoding software that was early on and uh so i i never like i I think the first time I ever heard date with Ikea without encoded by MP easy MP3 in thebeginning was like.

[5:13] I don't know when I bought my first payment record.

Cause I, I ended up buying them all obviously in the years to come.

And it was probably 2006, 2005.

So I was listening to payment for like a good four to five years.

Thinking that date with Ikea started with coded by easy.

[5:38] Yeah it was like it was some random shit but oh the nowadays that brings me back man, It was a wild west, man. And you know what's crazy? And I may have told this on the...

It's only relevant because of the town that I grew up in.

I grew up in Downey and this high school I went to was a high school of James Hetfield from Metallica.

And so they were, if you remember, at the forefront at the time of just being like, Like, fuck Napster, they're destroying the music industry, and Sal Park made the episode, this, that, andthe other.

So I remember having, like, and my dad used to be a musician before he, like, quit playing music and started a trucking company, this and that.

Track 5:

[6:27] Dude.

Track 6:

[6:28] We used to have, like, discussions at the table, like, the dinner table.

These would be, like, long, drawn-out discussions where I'd have to make my case as to why what I was doing was okay.

Really? Yeah, my dad was just like, that is just sheer theft.

You are stealing from people.

And man, I mean, he wasn't wrong.

Right. He wasn't fucking wrong. And I can't say that I really think that the way the landscape has changed for musicians making music nowadays via streaming platforms is better becauseit sucks.

Just ask any musician. Hi. Yeah. Yeah. Pete Barchiga here.

Um it fucking but yeah dude i remember that um and and pavement was probably.

[7:20] Yeah they were probably the band that i had the first band that i had really discovered via like napster like i had heard the floyd i had heard guns and roses i had heard all the ledzeppelin shit on cd prior to that i had friends who had all those albums and i had a lot of those albums but like I didn't have any pavement I had no idea who they were you know so like I,I guess you could say that like, cause I mean, nowadays, I mean, I bought, I've bought all the records I've seen fucking pavement three or four times. I've seen Malcolm as countless times.

Track 5:

[8:00] Um.

Track 6:

[8:00] I've bought their records, bought their merch, paid for their concerts.

Like, so there's sort of a case to be made that like Napster helped me fall in love with that band.

Track 5:

[8:11] You know.

Track 6:

[8:11] It just was a really slow burn.

Track 5:

[8:14] You know.

Track 6:

[8:15] For the band. It wasn't like, Hey, I bought your record.

Or do you get this much money from it it's like hey i'm gonna fucking steal all your music and then 20 years later it'll that investment will you know appreciate if you will when you thinkabout how many different formats there have been for these for these properties right like that we you know that we that we bought different versions of them on cassette and then on cdand then back Back to LPs, in the middle, MP3s, you know, like.

Track 5:

[8:50] Yes.

Track 6:

[8:50] You could steal on Napster, but, you know, you could also buy on iTunes.

And, like, my digital library is just a mess now, you know?

It's just a mess of stuff that I've imported in, Apple Music, and then stuff that I've bought.

And it's like, my play counts don't work correctly.

And it's really, you know, just a mess.

Yeah i remember back in the day before apple really got a hold on like you know encoding.

[9:21] Having software that basically prevented pirating you know i would borrow friend cds and rip them to my hard drive put them on my ipod if i didn't have those cds and i waslistening to them that way um and then you know the iphone came out that sort of changed everything but it's interesting you say that about the different formats because i rememberbefore moving to europe the first time a friend of mine who is a huge apple guy like i think he's a former employee like you as well told me he said don't sell your media keep your mediado not wow like told me and i was like good out of here like yeah i didn't listen to him obviously no i didn't either and it's like god like i would have it all i would have all my cds still ihave some cds ironically most of my pavement stuff i never sold like that was the only real band and a few other gems but it's funny bring up the the different formats like vinyl cd tapeand then now what we're looking at is the fucking the reissues with the b-sides and the blah blah blahs and yes yeah and like.

Track 1:

[10:42] It's cool if you're like a Pokemon.

Track 6:

[10:48] Got to catch them all kind of guy. And I know, like, I guess what I'm trying to say is the right way because I don't want to sound like a prick.

But I think I'm going to sound like a prick either way. So I'll just say it.

Track 5:

[11:04] Like.

Track 6:

[11:05] I was reading something about Taylor Swift recently, who's got more money than God.

Track 1:

[11:09] And you know she's coming out with like how they kind of like not scam their fans but like you know they'll come out with the same record but like the green edition and it's thisone's gold now get the gold one it's the same fucking record but this one's gold and it's like, and you know most of the Taylor Swift fans are you know, not I'm not knocking Taylor Swiftor her fans but I'm just saying like, if zepp if zeppelin came out with fucking you know houses of the holy and then and i got just a regular standard black vinyl and they came out with likea translucent one i tell robert plant to go fuck himself like you got my money already dude same fucking songs i don't need to fucking get a different edition but you know i guess it's coolif you if you if it's the only only one you have but when you're buying the same record over and over it's kind of like but then on the other hand when it comes to payment dude like dudevery few bands make money you don't really make money on vinyl even nowadays no matter how much you produce you know, they're making money on touring yeah.

Track 6:

[12:25] I mean, and you can see that, right? They're touring their faces off right now.

Track 5:

[12:29] You know?

Track 6:

[12:30] Yeah, I mean... They're putting in their time. Yeah, yeah.

What's the... I don't know who it was. I think I've heard Spiral talk about it before.

Track 5:

[12:38] But vinyls.

Track 6:

[12:40] The point of vinyl records, and I said this too, are not to make money off of them.

They're really an indicator of who's going to go to your shows, who's going to spend that $50 or $75 or whatever it is to go to your show.

Because if somebody's committed to buy a vinyl of your band, chances are they love you enough to go plunk down $50 for a ticket. Yeah, that makes sense.

[13:09] $50 for beers. and that's money that that goes more directly in the band's pocket than you know vinyl record but what do i know i'm i'm you know even though that's true i'm stillwaiting like to build my pavement vinyl collection because i'm hopeful that they'll release like the sordid sentinels edition the elli's desert origin edition like the big boxes for vinyl like i'mreally hopeful because right now i've got them on cd and the book you know the booklet that it comes with is fine but when you see the terror twilight booklet the farewell horizontalbooklet it's like it's big and it's you know it's juicy i don't know it's really the design work that goes into it really stands out so much more and uh i'm so hopeful they do that but what itmeans is i don't have a tremendous amount of pavement on vinyl i've got uh i've got watery domestic and i've got the major leagues ep and i've got terror twilight.

[14:18] Farewell horizons and i've got uh a funny version of slanted the the version of slanted that is just like red and black.

Don't you have the, don't you have like demolition plot or something or no?

Yeah, I have, I have those. I have them hanging on my wall in like a display. Okay.

Those are nothing, man. Yeah. It's pretty cool. People don't have those.

Those are worth some money. Yeah.

Well, the one I paid quite a bit for.

It's weird that it's on my wall now. Now that I have a turntable.

I didn't have a turntable before.

Track 5:

[14:59] You know.

Track 6:

[15:00] Like, dude, if I'm going to listen to pavement shit on vinyl, because I have a fair amount of other stuff on vinyl, i'll do it where i'll listen to them sequentially with like a friend orlike just be like i'm gonna put on some pavement today it's very rare that i will like be like i'm gonna put on fucking, slanted on vinyl right you know i have a shitty copy of slanted i thinki bought it online through like fucking urban outfitters or some shit when when they thought that you know when when pavement was the cool thing again, once again in like the, youknow, cause I never had that record, but.

Track 1:

[15:44] But yeah.

Track 6:

[15:45] I, I don't know. I mean, cause I got all the shit. If I ever want to listen to it, you can listen to it on, on, you know, Spotify or Apple or whatever.

Yeah. And now they're lossless, right? Like, so, you know, they sound much better and I don't know.

What do you think? It's an interesting conversation. Yeah, definitely.

Track 1:

[16:07] What do you think we head over to the other side.

Track 6:

[16:10] Though?

Track 2:

[16:10] We'll listen to track 41, and then we'll come back and talk about it.

Track 6:

[16:14] Let's do it. Let's do it. All right, let's do it. We'll be right back after this.

Track 5:

[16:19] Hey, this is Bob Mustanovich from Pavement. Thanks for listening.

And now on with a countdown.

Track 2:

[16:27] 41.

So there it is. Major Leagues is number 41 on the countdown.

It is the fifth track on Terror Twilight, and it's the eighth track if you're using the Goderich sequencing.

It's on the second side of the Terror Twilight reissue, third track. So it's the eighth song.

Track 6:

[20:15] This is the second song from Terror Twilight on the countdown.

You Are a Light was number 45.

Track 2:

[20:21] And here we are at number 41. with major leagues pete what do you think so i love this song um i was talking earlier about you know the the early days of me discoveringpavement and those burned mp3 cds and i always loved this song um i mean this song was the soundtrack to breakups and and heartaches and and Lonely Times.

Track 6:

[20:50] Getting out of shitty dive bars with my buddy Mo.

And, you know, this song, because I think I said too earlier, I alluded to the fact that there were, that I didn't know, I couldn't differentiate yet, which was Pavement and which was, youknow, Malcolm is the Solo stuff.

Stuff this this has some very much some early malcolmus and the jicks vibes totally i call this the beta test yeah it's very church i get some church on white vibes yeah it's good yeah thebeta test that's well done well said yeah it's it sounds very similar to that quality but one thing i i noticed listening to it um i don't know recently was like.

[21:41] Um the the harmonies the in the back towards the end of the song are just like i i don't know that i ever noticed that i don't kind of i didn't notice it either until today let's sit on thebig cans and there's also this weird weird sound occasionally in the song like uh some sort of electronic static that comes up like two or three times in in the song very subtle very weird i Ihave written down that this is like one of the most dense pavement songs I can think of.

Like there's very little space. And I don't mean that as a critique, just an observation, but songs by pavement are typically very sparse.

And this is, you know, there's obviously Godrich is, you know, building this sort of soundscape and then SM with the, with the lovely vocal tone, like just really lovely.

Track 5:

[22:39] You know.

Track 6:

[22:40] Know this would be a song i would grab for anybody that says sm can't sing you know i'd be like you're crazy first of all but here listen to this and tell me this man can't sing well imean i still get that people will say that because those are the people who are just like you know they just don't really get music i think they think everything should sound like a perfectpop song and that's just not music but right um yeah i i i heard the i haven't heard the hiss but this song is chock full it's it's weighty it's got some fucking meat to it and yeah i don't knowif he's doing a you know a phil specter wall of sound sort of shit trying to have no empty space or, or what but i think it may have something to do with that is it like a little drum track orsomething at the very end that kind of trails off the song it sounds like a repeating drum right.

[23:40] Yeah um or some sort of like some sort of sequencer but um yeah i was gonna mention one other thing about when you're talking about the weight of the song but yeah i mean it'sit's It's, oh, the first line, lip balm on watery clay is just, I mean, dude, it's, if you could have just said that and then just, the song was an instrumental called Lip Balm on Watery Clay, Iwould have been like, fuck, dude.

I mean it's relationships hey hey hey fuck dude like just it smacks of just, 90s breakup fucking early 2000s just oh god i this is one of the very few songs that when i hear it i immediatelyget transported like back to.

Track 1:

[24:38] Images and situations and smells and states of being yeah wow this is a big one for you oh i and a lot of people like say that like oh it's it's not one it's not one of my favorites like ican't say that shit and i i applaud you for doing the doing the countdown in my eyes is it's always different you know yeah yeah yeah this is you know yeah it's fun i got it cool yeah this iswater cooler talk right exactly and it's great to to get together and, to chat i just i i find it funny the people that want to go to the mat, over shit you know well that leads to my next questionthen one of the questions i've been asking every episode is do you think this song is fairly rated at 42 should it be higher should it be lower is it just right like for you i would say it's a littlehigh up i would say it should be a little it should be a little closer to closer it's a top 40 song is what you're saying yeah Yeah.

Track 6:

[25:51] Yeah. I mean, it is really... I think over the last four years, five years since the whole...

[26:03] Uh pavement mania yeah landed in america once again you know um with the primavera 2019 announcement all that your podcast i think people are more um heady so you'regonna get people that like fucking the the deep cuts the the half of canyons the fucking best friends armed you know the the shit like that that are really good songs if you're a hardcorepayment fan but like top 50 songs with their massive catalog my mom wants to know about pavement i'm not gonna put on fucking you know uh flux rat or fucking uh i'm just thinking ofshit off like wowie zowie right now right right you know it's no i'll put on major leagues is gonna be one of the first like and equally i was burning a lot of fucking albums back in the dayyou know that's what you did when you when you liked a girl made a record absolutely burned her cd and this song absolutely made it i mean this is major leagues this is i remember thebartender at my at my local local marla i was so in love with her and uh i i burned a copy of sm's solo record for her.

[27:33] And you know slipped it to her one night at the bar it's like you just have to listen to this i'm not going to tell you anything else you just have to listen to this you know i wanted herto hear church on white so bad but i didn't want to tell her play church on white you know yeah i just I just wanted it to happen organically if I could. But.

Track 5:

[27:52] You know.

Track 6:

[27:52] Yeah. Those were the days, man.

I mean, I think nowadays, too, with so much music at your fingertips, it's really hard to get into a record.

Because even when you get into a record, it's like you get into it and you let it go and there's something new.

Track 1:

[28:16] Knew you don't have to work for it anymore man right even even those even those early, napster days man you know you didn't i was on a 56k for a long time man i have nofucking t1, i knew people that had a t1 and i was like if i got a fucking pave song uh that i was downloading or some pavement tunes i mean i had to wait for those months and i had to sitand say and a lot A lot of times.

Track 6:

[28:45] Sometimes you get close to a download, it's going for like 30 minutes, and then right at the end, the fucking user drops off or, you know, it was horrible.

It's horrible. Yeah, torrents change the game. Yeah, yeah.

But nowadays you just, you don't, you don't have to work for anything.

It's just, you have the world. It's kind of, I don't know.

I tell that to my kids all the time. I tell that to my kids all the time.

And that's why, one of the reasons I started collecting vinyl now and got a good turntable is because.

Track 5:

[29:21] Like.

Track 6:

[29:22] I want them to see that it's, like, something that is tangible.

Like, somebody created this. Somebody made this. and it's not just this thing that lives in your phone and you know i think that's important for them you know no that's that's a really fairpoint and i i get that too and i dig it and i want to build up my media in that respects because and i think we you and i have either had this conversation privately or we've mentioned it onother platforms but there's this really really famous interview that was done in.

Track 5:

[29:57] Man.

Track 6:

[29:58] I want to say 2010. I don't remember when it was, but it was David Bowie.

And it was before he died in 2016 or whatever it was.

And he said, in the future, everything will be subscription-based.

And this was before... I think the only streaming service, Apple wasn't out yet, Spotify wasn't out yet.

The only streaming service was Pandora.

Right. I remember Pandora. And it was like, I think they had just maybe launched a premium, like, if you wanted it without commercials.

Track 5:

[30:35] You know.

Track 6:

[30:36] None of this unlimited, and you still couldn't, at the time, listen to anything you wanted on Pandora. You couldn't just call up a song.

It was like you could go to radio stations and, you know, this and that.

But nowadays, everything's a fucking subscription.

You want, oh, you want fresh food delivered to your house and pre-done meals for five days a week?

Subscription. Do you want...

Fucking, you name it, man. I mean, I think Uber Eats and shit like that has subscriptions. They do. People.

Track 5:

[31:06] Everything.

Track 6:

[31:08] Well, I don't know if you had a chance. Did you have a chance to listen to the Spiral interview? The latest one?

Track 5:

[31:13] I did.

Track 6:

[31:14] And ask me why. And he talks about Pavement potentially doing a subscription-based live record sort of thing.

Right. Yes, I do remember him mentioning that. Because they've got a whole bunch of live...

Live uh dats that they got access to and then they've been taping a bunch of the more recent shows so they might release live records on the like there might be a pavement sub somehowyeah i don't know well i'll tell you what i think they're they're in a they're they're getting under the wire enough to where they can fucking um you know i i i want the best for the boys manAnd they deserve all that's coming to them.

And if they decide to do a subscription model and whatever fucking more power to them, I will say that not now, but I think probably in another five to six years.

Track 5:

[32:12] I think...

It's it's gonna we're we're gonna reach critical mass it's gonna change because i think uh just streaming everything not just music but movies and netflix and all like you know what irealized i watched we canceled this is a more personal shit but we canceled like our netflix disney plus fucking hbo we had all those fucking streaming platforms now we have of amazonand i think that's it because you know we have like an amazon prime account and i watched probably just as much fucking streaming as i did before i'm just not pissing away fucking, youknow 80 extra bucks a month it's fun that's a good way to do it just stick with one, and then suck it dry and then you know but it's not that's the other thing too it never goes dry becauseevery like 30 days they put new fucking shit on there and it's like true good point you can get away unless you're like you're obsessed with the marvel universe or you've got to watchwhatever i mean i know there are some staples on like things like you know people go to netflix for stranger things some people go to spotify for joe rogan shit like that i get that those areyou know flagship products of those companies but i think for the most part like Like.

Track 1:

[33:37] Am I going to have a HelloFresh subscription so I can get fresh potatoes and fuck out of here with that shit?

Track 6:

[33:46] No offense if they're coming on as a sponsor soon. Take it back. Edit this out.

Anything else about Major Leagues?

Anything else you want to say about it?

Track 1:

[34:01] I think it's a really dynamic song.

Track 6:

[34:03] I think it's a song that is just... It's so unique, man.

And the piano that is playing, I'm stupid when it comes to instruments, but it's some sort of effect.

It sounds like a really unique old piano. Yeah, it really does.

It's very bassy. It's very, you know.

Track 5:

[34:27] Well.

Track 6:

[34:28] It's got some cool chorus reverb to it.

It's really cool. And I love it.

Track 1:

[34:38] Yeah I don't know what you want no that's fine yeah it's a soundtrack if I want to put a cap on it it is a soundtrack to a window, into a certain time in my life that I just the songtransports me there immediately it's amazing what a trick the band are magicians in that respect, they know the tricks what's that?

Track 6:

[35:02] They're ex-magicians but they still know the tricks ex-magicians Does that go over my head? Trigger cut, on that note pete uh do you have anything you want to plug any anywherethat anybody can go and find your work uh yeah yeah if they i mean we're we're marchica on apple spotify we have new record coming out um in april or may of this year it's taken longenough it's coming coming out on my label records it's spelled like um not and not it's not the same meaning but it's m-a-i-l-e-i-b-e-l oh my label records so it's coming out in um yeahmay april may cool so we'll look for that yeah awesome well it's been great having you on of course uh great talking to you about a myriad of things.

We'll do this again soon.

Track 3:

[36:08] Thanks.

Track 6:

[36:08] Man. Good to see you. That's all I got for you this week. So stay cool and wash your goddamn hands.

Track 3:

[36:15] Thanks for listening to Meeting Malcolmus, a pavement podcast where we count down the top 50 pavement tracks as selected by you.

If you've got questions or concerns, please shoot me an email.

JD at meetingmalcolmus.com.

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