Westing (By Musket and Sextant)

Not the most consistent Pavement record, but has some of their greatest moments, "Box Elder" and "Perfect Depth" are my favorites.

Not crap!...

the guys were still in their "Swell Maps and Tall Dwarfs are cool!" mode... which is never a bad mode.

BadComrade wrote:It's not an album... it's a compilation

It's got the "Perfect Sound Forever" 10" on, so it's instantly not crap. Who would have thought they'd turn in to a boring "alt country"-tinged boring band a few years later?

Seriously- as soon as they got in a 'real studio' and tried to 'sound good', their songs didn't as much.

best pavement era... best songs... best lyrics.... when pavement was rad.

Good compilation.
I don't care what y'all say, Terror Twilight is still a good record.

This is weird. I just had a dream that I was at a friend's house, and she had a fat tome on her shelf called Northing (by Fife and Fiddle), and it was by Susanna Clarke, whose other work I have enjoyed, so I was eager to borrow it. In my dream I didn't recognize the reference to Pavement, and now I wake up and see this poll. I feel weird.

I like Pavement, in spite of everything. Not Crap, moderate waffles.

mackro wrote:the guys were still in their "Swell Maps and Tall Dwarfs are cool!" mode... which is never a bad mode.

Right.

But somehow, at that point, they still weren't capable of touching the genuine flawlessness of above mentioned low-tech maestros.

For me really captivating Pavement starts with 'the fall' mode or "Slanted & enchanted" record. It finishes very soon too.

If I had voted ten or twelve years ago it woud have been: crap.

I should give it another try.

Well, while the Maps and the Dwarfs certainly had a sense of refinement to their amateurness, I think Pavement did as well.. they just didn't make the refinement as obvious, that's all. I'm not claiming the pre-1992 era of Pavement is the best music ever, but it's grossly underrated.

And to think that the first Pavement song I ever heard was a more beefed up cover of "Box Elder MO" by the Wedding Present on the Bizarro CD back in 1989, which was good, but not as good as the rawer original. I'd love to hear Dave Gedge's comments on how he first discovered Pavement.. he's the British counterpart to Thurston Moore that way, as far as (once upon a time at least) always being a record geek seeking out the new and potential great. I loved Thurston's story about picking up "Slay Tracks" ("I expected it to sound really hard like Big Black or something, given the name 'Pavement', but it was.. something completely different than I expected".. ok, I should stop paraphrasing Thurston here. That's best left to Thurston.)

Anyway, while I'd definitely prefer to listen to Swell Maps or Tall Dwarfs, I love these two bands too much such that comparing them to any band of their time, much less musician fans later on, is just unfair. Early Pavement ist schtillst rad.

(And I've liked Pavement since... Terror Twilight may actually be my favorite album by then, but not by much. Pavement's only downer was Brighten The Corners, relatively speaking. Anyway, that's best left to another Pavement C/NC thread. Westing is the shit. Ok, shut up time.)

mackro wrote:Not crap!...

the guys were still in their "Swell Maps and Tall Dwarfs are cool!" mode... which is never a bad mode.

And, believe it or not, I read an interview where Malkmus said Chrome were a big influence during this time.

I can see it, if not in the sound so much as the overall sense of mystery. Chrome's records sound like they came completely from out of left field, and Pavement wanted to achieve that sense as well.

I was pretty amazed by these singles and "Perfect Sound" when they came out. I esp. could not believe that this shit was being cranked out in Stockton, CA. Go there sometime and you'll see why.

Good art job, guys.

N/C