Remember a band called Pavement? (Mostly Jick Talk)
Sat January 05, 2013 5:21 pm
I have a friend who recently got married, and I've never seen him happier. He met his wife less than two years ago, and before her, he had been dating a different girl for what seemed like nearly two presidential terms. With his wife now, he's more himself. More confident and more apt to pursue things that he's always talked about doing. I have no doubt in my mind that they will make it to old age together and have a wonderful family.
Hopefully I've crafted a pretty obvious metaphor here re: The Jicks. I think this band is the perfect complement to Malkmus's playful tendencies. In Pavement, the songs often flirted dangerously with silliness and immaturity while never quite going completely over the edge like, say Ween. The Jicks provide a much more stable ground for Malkmus to explore, enabling both the singer and the band to really be heard for their own merits. In short, this is a rare example of complete balance in a band. Most of the songs on Jicks albums that I've heard (but especially Real Emotional Trash and Mirror Traffic) are complex without sounding tedious, and that goes a long way.
Just listen to those drums and that bass during the solos here. Oh boy.
Last edited by washing machine on Mon September 24, 2018 2:18 pm, edited 5 times in total.
I got both the albums she drummed on... some really great songs Real Emotional Trash, Baltimore, Hopscotch Willy, Dragonfly Pie, Forever 28, Stick Figures in Love, and of course I loved Tigers
MadTIGERmaN wrote:Janet has escaped to a 2nd thread lol
I got both the albums she drummed on... some really great songs Real Emotional Trash, Baltimore, Hopscotch Willy, Dragonfly Pie, Forever 28, Stick Figures in Love, and of course I loved Tigers
Agreeed i like all he albums i have heard but that one is probably my fav
I have recently decided that I don't like SM and the Jicks. I own all the albums, but realized that I bought them out of loyalty more than anything else. His solo(ish) work just lacks that spark that made Pavement so exciting and broken. I find Jicks albums rather sterile. Some of the great wordplay is still there, but it's just not enough to keep me interested.
I agree with the OP. I enjoy SM & the jicks more than Pavement. Maybe that would be different if I knew of Pavement when I was a kid, but I didn't. I didn't listen to those 2 really famous Pavement albums until I was older and I can tell they'd probably have affected me more when I was younger. I actually really like Terror Twilight - seems kinda like the step between Pavement and his solo stuff. I listen to The Hexx all the time.
it's a bold claim. i don't know, i think the tension in pavement was productive. but malkmus definitely has full control with the jicks. i love both groups.
I remember watching a video on pitchfork i think where they played a couple of songs on a roof and now I am listening to Mirror Traffic and it is awesome.
The imminent stocking of the newest Jicks record at my local music brick and mortar coupled with a solid home internet connection may just bring me back into this stretch of bandwidth in the coming weeks. Aloha, RM.
I don't even remember too much of what was released in that year.
I get the same vibe from the singles on this new Jicks album that I do when looking at the cover of Street Legal. Middle aged and nothing to prove. Just a band coming downstairs to enjoy a walk around the block for a cup of coffee in a neighborhood where they can live peacefully among the locals.