Pavement

Rip It Up, Issue 190, 1 May 1993, Page 7

Pavement

The most odd, totally wined, innovative, demented-sounding startlingly unlike any other band is just about to pay us a visit. That band is, of course, Pavement who hail from a hick town called Stockton, 80 kilometres inland from San Francisco, USA. There's singer/ guitarist Steve Malkmus, Scott aka 'Spiral Stairs' on guitar, and a just happily married forty year old prog rock fan called Gary Young on drums. These three make the stunning recordings but are joined for gigs by bassist Mark and a second drummer Bob. Pavement may not be big on surnames, but what they are big on is creating incisive, dangerous music. Steve and Scott got Pavement running in 89 when they recorded the Slay Tracks: 1933-1969 in Gary's Louder Than You Think studio. He joined in to record the next two EPs, Demolition Plot J 7 and the aptly titled Perfect Sound Forever. Next up was a single, 'Summer Babe', easily the most blissful piece of American indie rock since 'Freak Scene'. All of this stuff is incredibly rare individually now but a compilation hasjust come outforyou to feastyour ears on, Westing, by Musket and Sextant. An album proper, Slanted and Enchanted came out last year and is equally perfect. I was told that all of Pavement except for Gary would be available to talk to. At the top of my question list I write "Gary Young - probably out shopping". There's no prizes for guessing who answers the phone. So tell me Gary, where's the rest of the band? "They're out shopping, buying beer and cigarettes." Hmmmm. What sort of beer? "Probably cheap beer. We don't have Fosters or anything like that that's any good. Our beer is all watery, like the name of the record." He's referring to the latest Pavement EP Watery, Domestic, another slab of unpretty sound. Part of Pavement's appeal is their riskiness. They're not interested in knowing each song note-perfect. Instead, Pavement have just finished a four hour rehearsal of 14 new songs. Expect a bit of disorder on stage as well. "We've never played the song list the way it was written. When we played at the Reading Festival it was really important because there was 33,000 people there and I said to the guys 'don't even bother to give me one, because I know you're not going to play it and they got on stage and didn't even play the first song first." Gary giggles, adding, "It'll be fun, the new songs are cool." So are their old songs, whch brings us to the release of Westing. "People wanted 'em, y'know, and we figured it'd be the best way to get it all out at once. We didn't think it was smart to put out each one. Most people didn't catch onto us unti I Slanted and Enchanted... it's out of courtesy to them."

Gary's personal view on the older stuff is "We've progressed. The drum parts are more real, the other drum parts were just sporadic and percussiony. Well Perfect Sound has some pretty cool drum parts but Slanted and Enchanted has real drums, like a regular rock group. When I first heard that stuff I thought it was noisy and trashy, but it turns out people really like that. I would've cleaned it up, but that's my error and judgement." There's a song on Watery, Domestic called 'Texas Never Whispers'. Is that a reference to the state's ostentatious image? "I don't know. I don't try to read anything into them. To me they're just sorta songs. I don't write the words. A lot of the songs, even I haven't had them explained to me." Do you think there's a random aspect to Steve's lyrics? "Yeah, there's a sense of randomness and the live shows are that way too, y'know, they're pretty wild and anything can go. People can relate to that, because they're tired of seeing Genesis or whoever pulling off every song perfectly. They consider us to be, like, more human." At the moment Texas is probably most well known for David Koresh. There's a few loopies like that in Gary's neck of the woods also. "It's funny because I don't like that anyone gets hurt. It's a phenomenon, organised religion in America. We live in this town where they have Seventh Day Adventistsand they're pretty weird people man, they wear weird clothes, they're just really weird." Speaking of weirdos, on a recent Pavement live tape I heard Steve refer to the Crucial Three, the legendary Liverpool punk band that included lan McCulloch, Julian Cope and Pete Wylie. Are Pavement influenced by their subsequent bands like Echo and the Bunnymen? (other post-punk bands Swell Maps and the Fall are often cited). "Well, I dunno. I'm not really influenced by that modern music because I've never heard it, because I'm older than the rest. I've never heard an Echo and the Bunnymen record." Instead Gary grew up grooving to the hippy shit that Crucial Three and their more famous ilk were supposed to have eradicated. "I'm a fan of English progressive rock, Yes, Emerson, Lake and Palmer. King Crimson are one of my faves and progressive jazz like Return to Forever and Mahavishnu Orchestra and stuff like that." As it turns out, Gary's played in covers bands, a country bar band, some avant-garde bandsand a punk band called Fall of Christianity. The release of Slanted and Enchanted catapulted Pavement to the heights of alternative cultdom and extensive touring through America, Britain and Europe with the likes of Sonic Youth. Such schedules usually lead to slick, bland technical proficiency and a lack of dynamics. There's zilch chance of that happening to Pavement says an emphatic Gary.

"No no no. I don't think the touring takes away anything - there's a lot of tension -1 think tension's really important and I create a lot of it. You'll see when you see us." If he's not busy drumming or winding the rest of the band up, chances are Gary will engage in a headstand. Away from the road and recording, he's into

that most unrock n’ roll activity - gardening - and relaxing on the walnut orchard he lives at in Stockton. Steve and Scott live in the town too. Mark resides in New York while Bob ("He really likes horse racing") lives in Louieville, Kentucky, the centre of American harness racing. Last year mega US mag Spin rated Slanted and Enchanted as the best album of 92 (and the 3Ds Hellzapoppin as 'the best album you should have heard').

"Well it's an honour to some degree, it's really nice those people think that stuff, it's surprising to me," is the drummer's reaction to the accolade. "It seems to me there's a lot of other ones they could choose. There's a lot of groups out there."

The Wedding Present picked up on Pavement early on, covering 'Box Elder' on their 89 Brassneck EP.

" It's a I ittle too stra ightf orward for me, they take away a I ittle of the spirit of it," is Gary's view of the version. The English music press also got fairly carried away with Pavement last year with some calling them "the next Nirvana" which is ludicrous. "We played with them once and I've got one of their records. But all I think is it's a rehash of old Black Sabbath records, it's nothing new, it doesn't excite me. The new Sonic Youth record is pretty cool," says Gary, who also thinks parts of Automatic For The People aren't too bad either. When he's out here Gary might catch up with an old classmate as well. "Believe it or not, we had a foreign exchange student that went to my school when I was a senior. Her name is Carlene Bergen, her father's a judge, she lived at 9 Castor Bay Road, Milford, Auckland. It's unbelievable that I could retain that information."

By the way, if you're at one of the Pavement concerts and a thin man with a goatee gives you a carrot, a tiddlywink, a piece of tin foil or a slice of watermelon, you've just met Gary Young.

GRANT MCDOUGALL