|
|
|
chicago home
events calendar
bars & clubs movie clock restaurants specials best of chicago 
art
film and video food and drink music and clubs stage style words sports features |
|
|
 Click for music events No more lies Stephen Malkmus owns up
There comes a time in our lives, a moment that we can't possibly
anticipate, but know immediately when it arrives: we all, at some point,
must face the truth.
Stephen Malkmus has, in his own way, maintained a rock-icon status
without stumbling into rock-star clichés--no stories of groupies, dope
or massive amounts of cash strewn about the floor of a tour bus. Sure
he's played his share of shows in which booze has had the best of him,
but he, unlike his peers in many ways, ducked and darted his way through
a successful career as an indie-rock demi-god, with a stage presence of
an underground lounge lizard uninterested in his big break into the
mainstream. Influential from head to foot, Malkmus and his fellow
slacker-rockers in Pavement altered the course of modern music and the
lives of many, many disenfranchised college students cramped in
jail-cell dorm rooms circa '92.
When Pavement split in 1999--a move that seemed inevitable since the
members were scattered across the United States and the band's final
record, "Terror Twilight," really couldn't be anything other than a
band's goodbye--Malkmus started work, seemingly immediately, on his solo
disc, a self-titled pop gem that Matador Records, Pavement's longtime
label, released. The songs on the debut are disarmingly Pavementesque--a
few were written by Malkmus during Pavement's reign and were intended
for the band's next record, which, of course, didn't happen--disjointed
guitar solos, pitch-perfect storytelling and even a lighter, humorous
atmosphere that's usually absent when front men charge the hill alone.
The follow-up, 2003's "Pig Lib," showed off Malkmus' guitar virtuosity
in its seventies-era prog-rock extended jams as the solo outing
blossomed into a full-band effort in The Jicks and was notably different
from anything Malkmus had ever done.
And with "Face the Truth," Malkmus' third post-Pavement record, he
combines the ideas behind the first two albums into a distorted hybrid
of his past. "I think that's a pretty fair assessment," Malkmus says, on
the phone from New York. "I think it sonically sounds more like the
first one, there are more short songs, or there's some tone that's
similar. But then there are some more guitar sprawly things that are
maybe more reflective of the Jicks band."
The "Face the Truth" title, as serious as that sounds, at least
compared to something like "Wowee Zowee," comes from an inside joke
amongst the Jicks. "It was something I just made with our set
list--every song had that title," Malkmus says. "When we were playing a
lot of new songs on tour, everyone was kind of like, `Hey, I don't know
this song.' And I was just like, `Well, face the truth, we're playing it
anyway.' It sounded tough or something--something like what a gangsta
rapper would say."
Unlike the previous outings, Malkmus recorded the album by himself,
in Portland, Oregon, where he lives. "The situation was all new to me,"
he says. "In my house and in my basement, it was just an experiment, as
corny as that sounds. It was like, `I'll see if I can make anything
work, surprise myself.' If anything sounds pretty good, you're pretty
psyched. You're not so judgmental." He tells a story of how, while
recording a guitar part for a later song on the record, "Post-Paint
Boy," a mirror in another room of his house fell off the wall and
shattered. The crashing can be heard on the record. "I thought someone
had broken into the house. I went in and looked in the bathroom--it's a
murderer's bathroom, like a Jeffrey Dahmer bathroom--and there it was.
I'm not particularly superstitious, but it sounded cool. That made me
want to test the fates."
He didn't expect to ever have a solo career. "Not really, I just
thought [Pavement] would go on," he says. "We always lived in different
places, and once it ended, it was a freedom thing. I found people in
Portland in the same mindset. It was pretty natural and it felt good. I
got lucky." One might expect the icon tag to irk someone as
media-elusive as Malkmus has been in the past, but that's not the case.
"I'm happy," he says. "I'm fine to be a part of [Pavement's] place in
music, that whole thing. We wanted to be taken seriously and
respected--most bands want to--and, like most people, we like to see our
names. It's like, we were there too or something. It's really
alright with me." He also supports the recent Matador two-disc releases
of "Slanted and Enchanted" and "Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain." "It was
really cool," he says. "I think it's a good idea to do these instant
classics, it's really flattering. I don't know how necessary it is, but
it keeps the Olympic torch of Pavement burning."
Another burning torch in Malkmus' life? As of February, he's a
father. "She's cute," he says of his daughter Lottie. "You bring her
around, and people into babies lose their shit. It's fun. It's cool. I
just keep in the moment really. You need a good partner to share the
load, the day-by-day stress. It's good for my parents though. They're
psyched." Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks play at Metro, 3730 North Clark, on
June 11.
Also by Tom Lynch Radioactive Men
Tip of the Week
Tip of the Week
Author Visit
Tip of the Week
Tip of the Week
Dark Secrets
Influential Illicitness
Tip of the Week
Tip of the Week
Soundcheck
Tip of the Week
|
|
about Newcitychicago | about Newcity magazine | advertising | privacy policy | FAQ | employment |
