MMT50 - 231
Manage episode 419298128 series 3244425
Today on the show Scott joins jD to talk all about song number 31, don't worry we get to his origin story too!
Transcript:
Track 1
[1:02] At track 32, we have the song, Grave Architecture. Come on in. Sorry.
I was trying to stick that in, yeah. Oh, damn. I stepped on it.
That's okay. I should have prepared you.
What are your initial thoughts of Grave Architecture? This was a funny one that
when you said it to me, I have a long,
like I think I said before, I think the album that I really kind of really felt
like really grabbed me was was wowie zowie and um and yeah this song is like
the come on in like right away like oh yeah,
hey this is westy from the rock and roll.
Track 3
[1:41] Band pavement 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 an old pair of socks you know
the kind that have toes in them how will your favorite song fare in the ranking
you will need to tune in to find out so there's that this week i'm joined by
pavement Pavement superfan, Scott from North Dakota.
Track 3
[2:19] Scott, how are you doing, motherfucker? I'm doing well, and you, sir?
I am excellent. I'm always excellent when I get to talk Pavement with somebody. Absolutely.
Track 3
[2:29] So tell me a little bit about yourself. So, you know, grew up in Minnesota,
a small town, but not that far from the Twin Cities.
And it's small towns. You don't things come slowly.
And I was I don't want to say a late adopter to pavement, but I graduated in
1996 from high school and I was all about the grunge movement.
You know, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, all of that. And I didn't know much about indie
rock at all or any indie anything until I went to college.
I had heard of Pavement when I was in high school. I had friends who were into
them, but I was so set on grunge that it's like, this is what we're going to listen to.
And I kind of wrote them off at first without hearing them because I for whatever
reason, I was like, oh, Pavement.
It's like going to be heavy, more industrial, you know, maybe like East German
KMFDM or, you know, something really that I might not enjoy.
Yeah. And then I was completely wrong about that.
A friend, a friend had, I was just riding with a friend and he had,
it was right when Brighton the Corners came out and we were just riding in his
car and I was like, what is this?
And he's like, this is pavement. And I was like, no.
Track 3
[3:46] And I was like, this is not what Pavement sounds like. And it literally from
there was just a beeline to the store to pick up everything I could get my hands on.
And, you know, it was, it was, would have been my last, you know,
two years of college, give or take.
Track 3
[4:01] And it was obviously Pavement was up there. And then right at that same time,
Built to Spill, Modest Mouse, all these, you know, other indie bands.
But Pavement was the one that I was just like, oh my God, where has this been my whole life? Oh, yeah.
Track 3
[4:45] On the internet so you just had to go and buy and
see what happened and i picked up
terror twilight which divisive record you know for some people for me absolutely
loved it there's so much same stuff in there that was just jangly and interesting
and different and fun but also i mean,
It's hard to explain, but I remember growing up as a kid, and radio was all we had.
And every song was about love, and it was just straight up hitting you over the head with it.
And here was something that you had to go decipher these lyrics,
and you could decipher them in a thousand different ways.
And if you got sick of the lyrics, you could just go and listen to the music itself.
Track 3
[5:35] And that was just something that I had been looking for forever.
So that would have been roughly like 1998, 99.
And I was living in Minneapolis. I got an internship and I got to see them on that last tour.
So the first time- In 99? Yeah. I got to, I saw them.
I remember this too, because they played two dates and I only could go to one
because the other date I was seeing Slater Kinney.
They were like back to back nights. So I was an intern at the time.
So, you know, I was working during the day and then as much as I can,
I'd go to First Avenue where the show was.
And I remember very little because it was, again, 1999.
Track 3
[6:17] But I remember they opened with Here, which I thought was just such an odd opener
because it's just such a chill, just laid back, you know, didn't come out with a big punch.
And it just set the tone.
And i i remember um what i remember about that gig is steven or malchmus had
uh like uh christmas lights but they weren't around his microphone stand and
that was that was just about it for,
stage presence and again this is the first time i've seen this band uh when
i'd only seen pictures before that i actually when i looked at them i didn't
know who the singer was and i thought i I thought, uh, I thought Mark was the singer.
Cause he stands in the center. Yeah. I was like, oh yeah, that he's gotta be
the singer and nope. You get there and I'm like, oh, okay.
Track 3
[7:08] And you know, I, I remember, you know, buying after that, you know,
the, the major league EP or the single with, with the additional ones.
And, you know, I got very into them and then they went away and I was like,
oh, well, this sucks, you know?
And they never were far from my playlist.
They were always there. And...
Track 3
[7:35] It was the first band that I really remember going, oh, I won't get to see these guys again.
And that was frustrating because I had felt like I had only gotten into them
a year or a year and a half before.
And yes, could I have gotten to them earlier? Sure. If I had been born in a
bigger town with better radio, with better, you know, a college town,
maybe where that could have been a lot, a lot more easily found.
But, uh, you know, growing up in rural Minnesota, you got AM radio,
you got farm reports, and then you got pop radio.
So it was very difficult to find those, but yeah, that's, that's kind of my
beginning with the band and, uh, just becoming infatuated with them.
Track 3
[8:16] So question yeah um oh shit it slipped my mind oh no what was the question oh
the question was so did that lead you to sm solo work or psoi or anything like
that yeah uh i was and and that's,
what we'll get to that uh we'll get to i have some linkage there but that's
okay um yeah i i I immediately went out and followed the solo work,
which again, the first record just blew me away.
And I listened to it on just repeat forever.
And I would say at least with the solo stuff, the first four albums, I just ate up.
Um, and after that, it wasn't because I thought the music was any different.
It's more that I just got older and I was listening to less new music.
And that's something I've been. Weird how that happens. I hate it though.
You know, I, I, I'm finally, I finally figured out that if, you know,
and it took me till here that if you keep listening to new music,
if you make time for it, it comes right back the enjoyment,
you know, and I've tried to set aside and, you know, just shut the TV off and
listen to music for an hour and it's really helped.
Track 3
[9:30] I do that every morning, every morning I get up around five 30 and I listened
to at least one record, um, you know, or a playlist or whatnot.
And that sort of sets the tone for my day.
Yeah. See it. And I'm, uh, I'm an accountant and a teacher by, by trade.
So I teach at a local community college, but I do taxes on the side and this
is busiest time of year for me,
but I can can pour through you know
six seven albums in a sitting you
know just having the music on while i work and just
pound away and pound away and work work work work work and the
music will still just kind of seep in and upon you
know second or third listenings all of a sudden i'm going back and i'm like i
gotta hear this song particularly again because there's something in
there and that that's really helped but long story
longer uh yeah those solo records were and and
whether it was you know technically him or him with the jicks
and i saw him i don't know
a couple times on those tours when he would come through
minneapolis and again loved it loved it
absolutely loved it um yeah and you know he did it in store uh at the electric
fetus in minneapolis a pretty famous record store for minneapolis and uh i remember
being intimidated because that just the stuff you read oh he's he's He's aloof.
He's kind of standoffish, you know, but he's, he's very intelligent.
Track 3
[10:55] And he played, I don't know, three or four songs off whatever record that was.
And then you sign up and you shake hands.
And he talked to me for like five
minutes and he couldn't have been more gracious with everyone in line.
And I was like, Oh, this is, this is great. You know, they say,
don't meet your heroes. And I'm like, well, no, this was, this was fantastic.
This was a really nice situation so yeah i've only ever had good experiences
but i'm like you very nervous because he's just so goddamn cool you know like
that's like you can't you can't plan for that intangible right the coolness factor you know.
Track 3
[11:35] It's it's difficult to relate to especially for
me i'm cool and underqualified oh yeah i didn't and
i'm just like like grew up southern california
you know playing tennis and you know doing doing all these things and you know
but also with skateboarding and then you know he was in bands like still when
he was in high school and stuff and it's all these stuff that you know i had
kids like that in high school too but i felt the same way i'm like ah these
guys are cool and i mean i I took piano lessons forever,
but I never translated that into,
you know, thinking about, oh, you could be in a band or you could do something.
And it was just like, nope, it's piano.
It's nerdy. It's never going to work. And it's like, eh, you know.
Ben Volz would argue with you. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. That's very true.
So what's your go-to record at this point? Is it Brighton still?
Like, because that was your first or.
No. Obviously it changes over the years. Uh, for, for the longest, for the longest time.
It was crooked rain, crooked rain, just because it is a masterpiece.
Yeah. It, it, and again, just out the, out the gate, just how,
just how the shambling start of that record and then, you know,
the, the, the cowbell kicks in and just.
Track 3
[12:51] Yeah i still
get goosebumps from that and for a long time that was it and
my least favorite not least favorite but i thought
wowie zowie for the longest time was there's
so many weird songs on there like you take
you take a song like half a canyon which i adore but.
Track 3
[13:11] It is weird it is out there and he's
just you know screaming and it's kind of nonsense and
i find myself now going to wowie
zowie um because it is so i
mean just starting off with we dance
which is again just this kind of slow burning kind
of almost ballady at points yes and
then just the rest of that record with you know grave
architecture and pueblo and and grounded and
uh you know those are just the ones off the top of my
head but again uh at&t and
it's top to bottom and it's a little bit
longer record which i like as well
um yeah when you've only got five lps to
sort of satiate yourself now there's lots of eps
too but yes five main lps along is
nice right right right which again
just to i always have liked that in in uh i'm a modest mouse fan as well not
that you know we need to get into that but their first modest mouse's first
two albums were like both 74 minutes and wow this is also back yeah this is
also back when like a cd would cost 15 to 18 dollars and.
Track 3
[14:26] I didn't have a lot of money so you know
i would buy these records that had so much music on it
um when i could and i just appreciated that
but that longer album uh and it really ebbs
and flows as well which which i love and it can go
from just something that's really simple and straightforward forward to something
that other bands it might end
up as a b-side or on the cutting room floor because it is
that different but absolutely love that
record now that's that's my go-to yeah yeah it's
a good one and it harkens back to those original three eps with some of the
more you know minute and a half uh like noise art sort of um gems that are on
there which which again um,
You know, getting into watery domestic and all of that, you know,
like the first time I heard like forklift, I'm like, what is this?
And you compare that to, you know.
Track 3
[15:27] Anything off the later stuff and it's a weird transition but
you know a lot of bands do that uh you know
they're they start off you know either fast and punky or
weird or they don't know what they're doing and the songs are like
a minute and a half but you can still sense the structure
there you can sense that this could be you know building to
something and like a lot of those
first i don't go back to a ton of the
stuff prior to slanted i think because
of that because i didn't find out about a lot of
these i didn't have access to them you know you couldn't download
them most of it was out of print uh you'd be
lucky if you could find it in a second hand bin um and
if you did hooray you know uh really hunting for records and uh yeah i don't
those are the ones i don't revisit a ton but there are also so many gems in
there as well that i'm like you really need to do give that give that a better
chance it's nice that it's on vinyl now too yes the westing compilation is on
vinyl that's a treat absolutely yeah.
Track 3
[16:30] Because those eps are especially sight tracks is tough to get your hands on
yeah yeah and i i i don't i don't buy as much vinyl as i used to but i used
to have a big problem of going on to ebay and just any seven inch i could get
my hands on you know know,
um, like anything that I could really, really knock down.
And, you know, if it's a reasonable price, I bought it because why not?
And I've, I've, I've tapered that a little bit, but I have, I don't know if
I'm missing like at least a U S single.
I'm not sure. I can't, I can't remember. I haven't looked in a while,
but, um, I, I grabbed as many of those as I could, uh, just because I couldn't
get them anywhere else. Right. Right.
Track 3
[17:15] Yeah. Did you, did you go to any of the reunion shows like in 2010 or in 2022?
Yep. Uh, in 2010, um, they played at a terrible venue in Minneapolis called
the Roy Wilkins auditorium, which is, um, it's an auditorium that was built,
I don't know, in the twenties or thirties.
It's, it's just concrete. The sound is miserable.
Track 3
[17:38] Um, it has a huge main floor, which gives
you room to spread out which was fun and they
opened with cut your hair which i was
like yep perfect perfect you know just get it
let not get it out of the way but so tongue-in-cheek that i i just loved it
and i got to see them there and then i went to pitchfork fest that year as well
uh to see them so i got to see them to twice there where was the pitchfork fest
in chicago yep Yep. Yep. In Chicago.
And I'd been to that a couple of times. Well, I lived in Minneapolis and I had
my, uh, I was, I was seeing someone whose brother, uh, lived,
he was going to grad school down there.
So we had a free place to stay, which makes, oh, look, yeah,
Chicago is reasonable now. Yeah.
We can drive down, we can take the L and, uh, just have a great time.
And you know, it's a festival, so you're far away.
Track 3
[18:33] But I, you know, had my stupid little digital camera
i still have videos somewhere you know
of that but no wow well it
was one of those things where it's like this is a band that was so important
to me at when they were a band
like in a two three year period and like there's
still stuff i'm listening to it's still always going back
to it but now they're coming back and again it
was it was a thing i'd never thought would
happen so it's like that the pixies were never going to happen just like
the replacements were were never going to happen and those happened so
i was yeah ecstatic never yeah
exactly exactly so what do you think we get to track 31 uh give it a spin and
come back on the other side and talk about track number 31 sounds like a plan
all right we'll be right back hey this is bob mistandovich from pavement uh thanks for listening.
Track 1
[19:27] And now on with a countdown down. 31...
Track 3
[22:09] Well, there it is, track 31, Give It a Day, the first track from the Pacific
Trim EP, also available on the
Sorted Sentinels edition of the Wowie Zowie reissue. This is a great song.
Track 3
[22:49] At 31 give it a day what do
you think scott from north dakota this is
a gem and i
love it so much i love the whole ep because
again this would have been this would
have been something i did not discover until you know
well after i knew all of wowie zowie
all of right in the corners and it wasn't something
i easily could uh you know have
it and they they
said we're not going to waste this time so they came together and
i mean the whole the whole ep itself less than 10
minutes but it is so much fun
the entire time and give it
a day itself like i i don't
i love lyrics i love knowing the lyrics and i
don't often put too much thought into that but when you go read i mean about
the people that are in the song you know referencing uh increase mather and
and john John Cotton and Cotton Mather and the Puritans.
And it's like, it's almost like was somebody reading a book about the Puritans
and the Salem Witch Trials and these people. And we're like, you know what?
We can actually, I just read something about this. We can throw it together.
Track 3
[24:09] And it's just top to bottom, just lick after lick after lick and the poppiness
and the looseness of it. And yes, I mean. Total pop jam.
Track 3
[24:20] Total pop jam. I mean. and the melody is infectious
and it it's one
of those two where it clocks in i got wikipedia i'm
looking at here but it clocks in at 237 and i'll find myself listening to just
that song for like 10 15 minutes in a row because it's it's and and every time
you know whether it's the chorus whether it's the very beginning where the lyrics
start right away whether it's the the last the last line of the song,
what did you do to him to make him think.
Track 3
[24:51] Which again, it's, it's kind of like the, I think it's at the end of crooked
rain, crooked rain, or maybe it's the other one where it just kind of trails off.
It's like almost a sentence, but not. Yeah. And, and.
Track 3
[25:04] Top to bottom, just fun. And again, on that EP with followed up with Gangsters
and Pranksters, which another gem that's just very, very fun.
Track 3
[25:15] They were in a fun mood, weren't they? yeah and
and it does and this is this is the kind of
thing too where it does it it brings me to some
of his early solo work that
there's just fun songs in it
and these are fun songs it's not you know there's a certain way i feel when
i hear grounded or you know we dance that it's almost like this not solemn but
i'm not happy when i'm listening to it like if if grounded comes on at a certain time, it cripples me.
And this will never cripple me. This will always pick me up. And I love that in a song.
You can just put it on and be happy. Do you remember Nike used to have this
app that you could have on your phone and you could program a power song.
So if you were running and you got to the near end, you could click right to
your power song and it would drive you through the finish line.
My power song happens to be Walking on Sunshine by Katrina and the Waves. Wow, that's amazing.
Because it's so bouncy and so fun. But I could easily see it being Give It a
Day because it's also very bouncy and fun.
Now, obviously, the lyrics are darker, but the way he's singing them,
the cadence of the way he's singing them, like the phrasing is just sublime.
Track 3
[26:41] And again, like you said, there is a ton of dark, you know, connotations in
there that unless like, again, I went and looked up Wikipedia cause I was like,
I know these names and I think they have something to do with this.
And then I read about it and I'm like, oh yeah, this is a, this is a,
I mean, this is a dark part of American history.
And it's just like, no, it's just, just, you know, eyes and eyes and teeth to
teeth, but mine are rotten underneath.
It's like just the wordsmithing. ah yeah i love it yeah and the funny thing
is he probably some of it like melodically.
Track 3
[27:19] Came up with it on the fly you know like uh like in that in that session like
i don't know how many days they they recorded but i don't think it was many
i thought they said it was four okay i mean even to come up with anything and
one and they did again i learned this reading but they the the, uh,
no more Kings, which is on that schoolhouse rock record.
Oh, they did at the same time, I guess, which that was news to me.
So, um, but that's, I mean, that they got that much done in that little time.
And yes, there were only three of them, you know, uh, spiral and,
and Mark weren't there, which, which again, kind of leans me into his solo work a little bit.
Cause there are things that, you know, you look at Jenny and the S dog,
which is, you know, just a gem.
You know, it tells this story and same thing here.
We got this really light and poppy and just repetitive, like a song that you
can repeat really quickly and easily.
But if you dig into it, it's like, oh no.
Track 3
[28:22] So yeah, I'm with you. I'm with you. 110%.
Is there anything else about the song that you want to discuss? Yes.
I think it's, I think it's interesting that there's only one chorus.
Yeah. It's, it's just in the middle and it's just, it's repeated and,
and how he does it and how he staggers that I've always loved,
you know, cause it's, it's like, it's all, it's each one is slightly different.
Yeah. And the last one just kind of fades out and it's like,
could we have added another section to that? And would that have added or taken away from the song?
Cause I, I, I'm not a huge short song person because I like,
I get to the end and I'm like, I got to hear that again. I got to hear it again.
Track 3
[29:11] But if you give me something that's 12 or 15 minutes, sometimes I can,
I can just kind of get lost in it.
Right you know certain things you know like old mogwai
and you know old old other stuff that is
a huge just really dense chunk
of material that i can't see trimming down but
if you added to this would it take away from it as well
i think i don't know but the one thing i can i
can venture a guess on is if it
had another 45 seconds this would be
like a single like a like i i don't know
if it would have been a smash hit single but to me it's got single
written all over it it's it's so catchy it's so
goddamn catchy yeah yeah and again
so that's this uh that you said this is 31 31 so is it properly rated in your
book or should it be higher rated should be lower rated it it's it's tough it
i always find that tough with with any band ranking them when you look at eps and you you know,
maybe split singles because it's, it's not an album release.
And this is, I mean, someone quoted that, Oh, it's right here.
It isn't much more of a, than a throwaway, but an extremely enjoyable one.
Track 3
[30:26] And yeah, I think, I think where it is, it's, I don't think it's overachieving.
I think it's really close.
I don't know if, I don't think it would make my top
20 just because i was so ingrained on
the lps for so long and i i mean i didn't
even have an actual copy of this until uh the
the expanded edition of wowie zowie came out um
i had heard it plenty of times but i never had owned a copy so i didn't have
the repetition with it like i did everything else so i think it's pretty close
i think for it to for it to be a two minute and 37 second song that is just
enjoyable front to back. No, all killer, no filler.
I think it's pretty close to where it should be. Nice.
Well, that's what I've got for you. I really want to thank you so much,
Scott, from North Dakota. Yeah. Do you have anything you want to plug at all? Not really.
Track 3
[31:22] I just did a music enjoyer that, you know, I'm so happy that these guys did
another reunion tour as well, which now that I had, well, I had time and a little
bit of money, so I got to see them three more times on this tour, which.
Oh, brilliant. Just, yeah, I got to see him in St. Paul and then I just went
to Chicago for two shows.
And again, what, what amazed me about those shows too, is the,
you know, the first tour they went through the set list, I guess, didn't move that much.
And about the only song I didn't get to hear that I wanted to three nights in
a row, they didn't play frontwards and I was dying to hear frontwards.
They played it the night before and the night after. character um but
night to night to night i think the
set switched because huge sets too
they're playing three and a half hours yeah and i think
the songs changed almost 50 percent night to night to night which if i'm gonna
do themself oh my god if i'm gonna go three nights in a row and i'm gonna get
you know sure i'm gonna get maybe cut your hair all three nights which is fine
it's not my favorite song but you know i got pueblo i got grounded twice i got uh folk jam which
i love folk jam just such a weird funky little song and i get the hex yes we
got the hex the fuck out of that right oh my god and that's that's the thing like i used to think.
Track 3
[32:45] Finn was my favorite closing song and going back and listening to the hex with
the guitar solos like i love finn because i love how it fades out and just keeps
fading and fading and i just keep
turning up the volume until it's absolutely gone.
And the hex is just this beast of a sprawling thing and just do,
do, do, do, do, do, do. Oh yeah. Yeah.
Love that. So, um, and the, the last night I.
Track 3
[33:16] I treated myself. Uh, I literally was orchestra pit front row center.
Oh, I was like, I, I'm a single guy.
I don't have anything, you know, outside of, you know, I don't,
I don't have kids or anything to spend money on except myself.
So I can be, be a little bit, uh, no, no, no, whatever, but absolutely worth it.
Uh, just being right up front and hope, hopefully whatever these guys keep doing,
they keep doing it. but they seem to be enjoying it.
They're obviously due for a break and to get back to, you know,
Preston school industry and Malcolm's solo stuff and whatever the other,
and, you know, and the Stanovich doing horse stuff.
Track 3
[33:57] You know, they, they have other interests, but that they've been able to do
this for now, you know, two years.
Yeah. That's fantastic. Dan, I couldn't be happier with it.
If I had, if I was a man of unlimited means, I'd be going to South America for
sure. Absolutely. Yeah. Yep.
I mean, luck, luckily for me, it happened during its, well, um,
it was in Chicago. And again, I teach, I get two personal days a year.
I used them both in September because of course I'm not going to miss pavement.
So for the rest of the year, I had no personal days. I'm fine with that.
Absolutely fine with that. No problem at all. You, you, you did,
you did well and you did well today too.
I really want to thank you so much. Yeah, this was awesome.
So take good care of yourself and make sure to wash your goddamn hands.
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198 episodes