“Summer Babe” single-handedly shifted my musical tastes from full-fledged pop-punk to shrug-shrug indie-cool, opening me up to the vast ecosystem of guitar music that awaited me. I brushed the dust off. By the time I wised up, I was a rotten egg at the party. I quickly realized that I had missed Pavement’s early days (about 15 years) and their 2010 reunion. But as luck would have it, Malkmus’s most prolific and experimental period was just beginning. Over the past decade, he’s released two of the best Jicks albums, an idiosyncratic Ableton fuckabout (Groove Denied), a collection of easy-going psych-folk (Traditional Techniques), and – can you believe it – a second album? We have delivered big albums. Improved pavement reunion. (In fact, compared to 2010, he seemed to be having a lot of fun this time, which was a hot topic among the music media and fans.)
Today (literally as of this month) these pursuits have reached an end of sorts for Malkmus. “This is the end of our career!” he recently told a Manhattan crowd in his usual elusive fashion (as they were playing chronological deep cuts, “These songs… It’s literally the tail end of our careers, but who knows?) This is to acknowledge the premiere of Alex Ross Perry’s irreverent, groundbreaking Pavements rock doc, the shitty Requiem it deserves, if it ever existed, from Alex Ross Perry as Joe Keery (aka Joe Keery). (That’s too strong an expression) It was a random, one-off Pavement show. Stranger Things star Steve Harrington plays Malkmus in farcical biographical scenes that appear alongside clips from Slant. Fascinating! Musical (oh yeah, there was that). Meanwhile, The Jicks unceremoniously disbanded, their last official album released in 2018, and coinciding with this musical relaunch, Malkmus and his family recently sold their longtime Portland home and moved to Chicago. decided to emigrate.
Join Malkmus as he calls the Hard Quartet (HQ) for their first UK performance at the Camden Electric Ballroom. It’s a completely low-stakes, low-concept new project for a songwriter at a crossroads, and his accomplishments are in his name. He appeared in a Barbie movie as the butt of a mansplaining joke (or more accurately, his fans were the butt of the joke. We can’t stand it!). But while Malkmus may have more than 25% of the hard quartet’s attention (just take a quick look at the Pavement merchandise modeled by six music dads), he owns Only 25% of people are in the spotlight, intentionally abandoning their visionary position. He was a dictator who occupied Zix and Pavement alike.
Instead, after years of teaching his songs to college friends, Malkmus leaves them wondering, just as I did all those years ago, “Who the hell is that?” I noticed that I was lined up with a lot of people. Before you look at your resume and feel embarrassed and silent (chop is a must!). “They’ll say I’m being self-deprecating,” Malkmus said recently of his new bandmates. Some shit, and they’re good at it. I also want to learn from that. (Note: He would never have said this about his Pavement bandmates.)
Matt Sweeney is perhaps the only living American indie rocker to outdo Malkmus, and has led the likes of Iggy Pop, Cat Power, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, the Dixie Chicks, Andrew WK, Guided by Voices, And it goes without saying that he will lead his long-term project, Chavez, with members of the supergroup Zwan, Smashing Pumpkins and Slint. With his mismatched fisherman’s hat and breathtaking minor-key Americana contributions, he is aptly juxtaposed with Malkmus on the other side of the stage.
Aside from the great Janet Weiss, Jim White is arguably the best drummer Malkmus has ever worked with. White holds the drumsticks in his hands like a jazz drummer, and has great control over the dynamics. The constant clanging of cymbals on “Renegade,” the effortlessly combative snare roll, the way the snare withholds until midway through “It Suites You” and ramps up in intensity: everything is deftly understated, no matter what. The songs are also uplifting and take them in unexpected directions. My favorite part is the hawkish way he views others. There’s no way this guy is missing a clue.
Emmett Kelly (Cairo Gang, Ty Segal) is the final quarter of the pie. You could say he’s a bassist as long as he walks on stage with a bass (a Gibson SG with the name “Iggy Pop” engraved on its body), but the riffs on the first few songs… After a fuzz tune, the three frontmen swap instruments and carry on. All songs in a row. Kelly takes lead vocals on several songs and delivers some pretty nasty solos, the hottest of which is on “Six Deaf Rats,” perhaps the best of the set. The arrangement collapses and rebuilds several times, climaxing with a duel of guitars and a diffuse outro that leaves the somewhat restless crowd in the most awe of the “Gold Soundz” they know isn’t coming. The furthest thing from secretly craving the cover of.
The one-hour show featured four musicians ranging from the smelly, brash punk of “Renegade,” to Sweeney’s melancholy end-of-summer ballad “Killed by Death,” to Kelly’s Jeff Buckley’s Spaghetti It is packed with a wide variety of content, such as jumping up and down. – Western Impressions “North of the Border” – and everything in between – quietly read each other’s minds and rarely address the audience. But these rare stage jokes are characteristically funny and bizarre. Malkmus playfully hugs Bass (“I love her, I love her,” he says), and when Sweeney introduces the song as having a “straight Cornish vibe,” Malkmus fires. Back to “Malibu, England.”
“Hey” is the high point of this set for me. It’s selfish and feels like timeless, unfiltered Malkmus, with sweet lyrics that could have been sung years ago but would have been obscured by references to the Civil War or something. Because it will be done. He half-whispers with the easy-going warmth of early songs like “Here” (which has a similar title), the clean, drop-tuned chords poking at him like an attentive pet. Masu. (“I smell a rat, I’m a graveyard cat,” he sings later in the song, redressing the balance in the world.) These quieter cuts (“Heel Highway,” too) sound better live than on record. It functions better in and calms us into a closed-eyed bliss zone.
Usually when a band plays an entire album front to back it’s to commemorate a special anniversary – see bands that have been around for over 20 years – but headquarters doesn’t have much of a choice. They play every song from their 2024 debut in order (no skips), then a goofy sing-along of “Action for Military Boys” (with a little show tune thrown in) that gets everyone singing The set ends with a repeat of the dancing refrain. Atmosphere, come to think of it). During the reprise, Malkmus makes the obligatory band introduction…or at least attempts to do so. Swept up by the groove played by his new collaborators, he interrupts himself and launches into a dizzying burst of twists and turns of celebration. His guitar, as always, tells us everything we need to know.
Setlist:
chrome mess
earth hater
Rio’s song
our hometown boy
Renegade
heel highway
killed by death
Hey
They fit you like a glove
6 deaf rats
Action for military boys
being jacked
north of the border
dynasty of thugs
catch the torrent
Action for Military Boys (Reprise)
