MMT50 - 213

Meeting Malkmus - a Pavement podcast

This week jD welcomes Ralph to the pod to discuss his Pavement origin story and to reveal song number 13!

Transcript:

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[0:00] Previously on the Pavement Top 50. This week, we're on the horn with AT&T. How are you feeling about song number 14, Rachel, from Portland? I love AT&T. The song is super fun. I really love the way in which, like, the verses go into this, the, you know, when he goes into the, like, whatever, whatever, and there's a kind of screaming thing in it. And it almost feels like the whole song could be complete. And then it starts again with the second verse, which I really love. It takes you on a really cool journey. And I also love, to me, there's so much meaning in it. And there's also so much that I don't understand and feels a little bit nonsensical to me. Hey, this is Westy from the Rock and Roll Band Pavement.

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[0:54] And you're listening to The Countdown. hey 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 then tabulated the results using an abacus and two marshmallows shaped like mushrooms also they were actual mushrooms how will your favorite song fare air in the rankings? Well, you'll need to tune in to find out. So there's that. This week, I'm joined by pavement superfan Ralph from Lincolnshire. Dude, thanks for taking some time to do this with me. How the fuck are you? Oh, I'm good. It's great to be here. It's great to have you. It's a dream. Oh, you got to dream bigger, baby. You got to dream bigger. There's nothing bigger than meeting mammoths.

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[1:54] Well, let's get right into it. Let's hear about your pavement origin story. Okay. okay so uh well so so my dad is really into music he has like a record shop and everything and he grew up in the 90s so he loves it so i i grew up most of my life you know on like various tapes and stuff just hearing two pavement songs i heard stereo and range life a lot so they're like burnt into my brain i only really got uh you know explored further than those two in uh i think it was like october november 2022 so not very long ago okay yeah ever since then it's been you know a burning intensity of pavement wow a burning intensity yeah so what is your what is your go-to at this point like what record do you go to or how many times has that changed what order did you go through the records in talk to me baby so i mean i so i started out uh when i very first died i listened to um quarantine the past the best oh that's a that's a smart move just to discover them you know and uh so i think the first one that i really liked uh other than those two was um unseen power of the picket fence which is a weird choice because it was i don't know why they put on the best of i'm really glad they did.

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[3:20] Tough to get your, it was sort of tough to get your hands on. Yeah. Because Quarantine of the Past was released on vinyl. So, you know, sometimes they throw us a bone that way, right? Yeah, definitely. Yeah, they're good to us. But I would say, I think my first album that I really loved was Bright in the Corners. And then I just very slowly discovered all of them kind of one by one. All right, talk to, I'm a big Bright in the Corners fan. So talk to me about your experience with Bright in the Corners. Oh, it's just, I think it just flows so well. I think that's my favorite thing about it. Compared to all the other albums, it just flows beautifully song into song. And I really like that there's two Spiral songs, you know, Love Spiral there. And I think as well, just having the two openers and then collide together and then kind of flow into all these kind of more mellow tracks really works. I really like that, I think. What's your favorite track on that record? Okay, do you have one? Ooh, my favorite. I think I'm going to have to go stereo. Yeah, I'm going to say stereo, but I really like Starlings of the Slipstream. I guess stereo, because you've got all that indoctrination. Inculcation. Oh, that's a good one. Yes, yes. So, yeah.

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[4:43] Gosh where do we go next so you started creeping into the next records do you what was your next favorite what was the next one that you listened to that sort of just went what in the fuck am i listening to i don't know but i love it yeah i think uh i think probably wowie zowie i think yeah because yeah that makes sense just it's just amazing i think it really fits it's almost.

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[5:09] Cliche to say but it really fits the ethos of pavement doesn't it because they're all just scattered everywhere and it doesn't make any sense but it's just beautiful yeah there's some gorgeous songs on that record mother to a sister of thought yeah love it love it although single choice maybe not the best single choice for commercial purpose i suppose yeah i suppose well said good point my dad maintains that um kennel district should have been single really yeah interesting yeah i can't think of many scott songs that are yeah as a single one is that i mean i mean they have uh painted soldiers as a as a music video yeah it wasn't a single was it i don't think so it wasn't a single for them anyway it might have been a single from the brain candy record oh yeah yeah maybe which was the kids in the hall and that's why they made the video but i yeah i'm not i'm not sure yeah that would be great that's one of my favorite one of my favorite favorite songs when i saw spiral last live um i was like oh can you please pay play painted soldiers and he was like oh man we haven't rehearsed that in a long time and then they played it they pulled it out at the horseshoe tavern in toronto and it was fucking fantastic and uh.

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[6:28] And then they took it on the road with them. Like, I mean, in the 2022 tours. Did they? Which by virtue of the next question, I've got to ask you, have you ever seen them live? Did you go out on the 2022 tour at all? So, I saw them in, I think it was July of last year at a Blue Dot Festival. Oh, cool. Yeah, in Cheshire. So, that was great. That was so exciting. Yeah, I bet. Yeah, my first big festival. How big was the festival? How big a festival? Uh, it was, I don't know. I don't know how to judge it. It was, it was fairly big. It had, uh, I think Grace Jones was headlining the others, but Pavement were headlining. So there was nothing probably bigger than Pavement on that.

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[7:11] Uh, yeah, yeah, it was, it was pretty good. Probably like maybe three main stages, I think. Oh, wow. That's very cool. How long did Pavement play? Uh, they played maybe, maybe 50 minutes or something. Yeah, it was pretty good. I was happy with it the cool thing about blue dot is that it's uh right next to the jojo bank telescope so there's this gigantic like dish like kind of you know for i don't know um radio telescope yeah yeah right behind them and they projected onto it as they played that's really cool oh that's fucking badass yeah that's very cool and i suppose that's why it's called the blue dot festival too yeah yeah they discovered some some i don't know space object yeah i bet they had a really cool thing actually they had um like a listening party where they interview a pavement where they listened to wowie zowie all the way through and pavement talked about it they did like uh like a director's commentary yeah yeah on the whole of wowie zowie it was great and they like i saw people.

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[8:15] Filming it at the festival but i've never seen it released and i'd love to have it released oh me too i'm gonna have to scour youtube for that pressure pavement yeah i have that kind of power of course, what um what what sorts of things did you learn do you remember any nuggets oh what have you learned uh i feel that i can't i'm doing a disservice to payment here but But I think Scott Kamburg's mom used to teach someone or something, someone who was famous. I can't really remember. Oh, man. They were a bit down on, what's Scott's last track on Wauwizawi?

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[9:01] Path to Canyon? No. No, it was. Oh, my God. No, Western Homes. Western Homes. Yes. Yeah, they were saying that they'd never played Western Holmes apart from like once or something. And they were saying it was a shame because I feel like they should play that more. It's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah, I like his contribution. Yeah, of course. I wouldn't be caving him without it. No, because, I mean, if you think of the early stuff, like, he was on, you know, like, he was doing a lot. Like, I don't know if it was 50-50, but it was, like, a lot more, you know? Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think, wasn't it for the first EP, he wrote, like, a lot of the instrumentation or something, and then Mountmas came and did some, like, lyrics on it and sang on it? But I think originally it was going to be a different project. Oh fuck you know i have to have known that because i've talked to scott five times so i'm sure we've talked about it but damn is my memory bad gee whiz well what do you think should we uh flip this sucker over and get to the track of the week number 13 oh i'm excited i think you should yeah all right well we'll do that right after this hey.

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[10:19] This is bob mustanovich from pavement Thanks for listening, and now on with a countdown.

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[14:19] That's right. Song number 13 on the countdown is Shady Lane, J vs. S. Ralph from Lincolnshire. What is your initial thought about this song? Well, it's an amazing song. It's an amazing song. I mean, I think if it wasn't going to, yeah, I think it might be, maybe I'm putting it third on my ranking of Brighton the Corners. And oh wow i would almost say you know brand the concert's my favorite pavement so it is super up there it's it's a brilliant it's a brilliant song i think the lyrics are the best thing for me really i think just uh obviously there's so many moments like uh when you're talking about god and you know and when he's talking about um uh you're the what's that that amazing lyric right at the start uh you're the uh you've been chosen as an extra to the.

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[15:18] Right an extra adaptation of the sequel to your life that is right yes and how he just gets all the syllables on in as one big long kind of statement so good yeah it is it is really cool i think i have i have a question though uh what is an emery board an emery board is like what you would use to file your nails oh it's almost like it's almost like a very fine sandpaper but it's on like a it's on like a tooth or a tongue depressor you know yeah that shape it's that shape and then it's like i say it's got grit on it to file your nails oh yeah see that so that changes the entire song for me now the entire song oh my god whole new ways his own nail nail oriented avenues of interpretation right right i think it is as well um one of three steven mountainous written songs to include uh references to oysters we have uh cold sun who has ever said the world is my oyster i feel like an info stuck in a cloister and uh do not.

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[16:29] Feed the oyster of course so i i see it as like one of a little trio of uh oyster based songs that is great i have to remember when i put this episode out to include that question in social media how many songs about oysters does sm have and see if i see how many people get it right whatever the answer is it's uh he doesn't have enough we need to pressure him to write more We need to write more. He's too busy searching for the pearls, baby. Oh, yeah. That's it. Yeah.

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[17:04] I think the thing about Bright in the Corners as well is that it has so many things that you could have used as singles, you know, so many standout just... Iconic songs so it's not even fair really it's not even fair on so many other brilliant tunes like day with ikea say you know or uh even um even finn i think finn would be a mental single oh yeah i just think um it's uh so it's kind of unfair i'm bright in the corners it's too good, it really is it really is and and going back to finn for a second and jesus fucking christ is that song good okay that's all i have to say about that um.

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[17:46] What's your take on the whole j versus s piece to the title do you have a take on that yeah i love this i love this and payment do this i think i think in other times as well they kind of add little bits on to songs and it's just great and i love how it's you know like a frankenstein's monster of a song with two separate songs because on the um on the music video i was watching it on youtube and probably when they originally did it they don't put j versus s on so it's like it's its own other thing you know it's like to be treated with equal respect um but i really like it i think it flows into the next song well right so your your interpretation is that it is that that tale that outro yeah yeah it's an outro but i think we should uh yeah we should respect it equally okay i can get behind that i can get behind that yeah because it's not even like it's parenthetical it's it's straight up j versus s yeah it's important enough to be in the title i mean that's right what do you who do you think j is and who do you think s is oh uh who do we think Oh, who do we think Jay, um, uh, Julius Caesar versus, um, uh, uh.

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[19:13] Superman. Yeah.

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[19:17] It's like a fight. It's a fight that they envisioned. Oh, man. Just don't have that fight in the middle of the month. Yeah, you gotta leave it till the end. They waited to listen to the song before. That's right.

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[19:32] So, is this song, and I know the context is tough. We record these much earlier on. And you haven't heard the vast majority of the list at this point. But to your experience, this song at number 13, is it rated? Is it underrated? Is it overrated? Is it overrated?

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[19:52] You see i suppose 13 is ridiculously high for a song to achieve um i mean how many payment songs are there there's over 100 there's many songs but absolutely i think i think even considering that it is underrated by this list i think it should be higher wow it's a great song you really do like right in the corners uh-huh jeepers that's great well do you have anything that you need to plug uh ralph from lincolnshire uh i don't think i do i don't think no that's cool pavement plug them up yeah listen to them cool not not by chance making the trip to south america are you uh no i wish i was i wish i was me too uh i i kind of i don't know i don't know i i hope either they continue with like a whole many years worth more dates or they just go with uh you know we'll We'll start touring independently because I want to see Solo Mountainous. That'd be cool. Yeah. Yeah, he's very good. Very fucking good. All right, dude. It's been great talking to you today. And I really appreciate your time. And next week we're going to get to song number 12. So stay tuned for that one. Oh, it's heating up. That's right. Definitely heating up.

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[21:15] Use that hot water to wash your goddamn hands.

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