“I heard you threw your man around | Pick him up just to let him down
It’s a shame baby but i always knew | Just the way you’re gonna do oh”
Back from a road trip to the Great White North with a cloudy mind (Canadian drinking habits to blame) and a hefty plate of work to complete by the end of the week. Props to U.S. Customs for letting me cross their heavily-guarded border sans passport (again, Canadian drinking)… I’m glad I decided not to hide under the ski equipment in the boot of the truck.
“Psychotic Girl” comes from the den of Cyrus Weinheimer in Montreal. I started listening to The Black Keys several months back — big fan of the lo-fi jams on Thickfreakness. Attack & Release, including the featured track, is five years more refined: crisper recording quality, while maintaining that dusty Southern twang. It’s reassuring to know that something as close to “the roots” as The Black Keys can garner such mainstream attention. I’m reminded of this Memphis juke joint I ventured into while touring in July. In an age of auto-tune and drum machines, this is a musical-purist’s comfort zone. You’re in a grocery store, and to your left is the genetically-modified tomato, to your right is the organic alternative… listening to The Black Keys is akin to leaving the grocery store, hunting down the nearest farm, picking the tomato for yourself and taking an unwashed bite of that plumply red fruit.
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“Doctor’s leaving for the holiday season | got crystal ice picks, no gift for the gab
and in the parking lot is a sedan he bought | he never, he never complains when it’s hot”
Now that I look at the lyrics, seems to be a coincidence: currently typing away at a paper on Walter Freeman and ice pick lobotomies. But that’s besides the point. I started listening to Pavement about a month ago after hearing about this underrated yet heavily influential 90s alt rock band announcing tour dates for the summer. Pitchfork likes them. I don’t agree with half of the things that Pitchfork has to say, and such was my thought after I bought a couple of the band’s albums: underproduced and underwhelming. Maybe it was a case of Tom Waits Syndrome: hate it or you love it — but most people hate it. I had more or less given up, until I finally developed that acquired taste on Sunday… it’s now chilling with brussel sprouts and mushrooms somewhere in my head.
What did it was Quarantine the Past, not so much as a best hits, but rather a wave of songs that should get you into the right soundspace to appreciate the idiosyncrasies of Pavement. When “Grounded” — somewhere in the middle of the album — made its way to my headphones, my ears were already warmed up. My take on Pavement: Lou Reed meets early Radiohead… Lou Reed in its nonchalance, and Radiohead in its musical experimentation. Take a look at some of the guitar tunings if you get the time — very unconventional. But it works. Or Steve West on drums? If you put any drummer in the Pavement studio and said, “Okay, play along and we’ll record it,” this is exactly what you would get. But that’s all that it needs, nothing more. It’s Pavement, it’s druggy, sloppy, and definitely sounds better when you’re a couple drinks in. And that’s exactly where I am.
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