PAVEMENT SMOOTH OUT THE EDGES ON'CORNERS'.
There's a problem as pavement singer and guitarist Stephen
Malkmus lays down the vocals for "Westy Can't Drum," a
track on the band's upcoming album. He's just sung the line,
"Dry shag in Devon," when he abruptly halts.
"Should it be, 'Dry rot in Devon'?" Malkmus asks
bassist Mark lbold, who sits installed over a PowerBook, dueling
withco-guitarist and vocalist Scott "Spiral Stairs"
Kannberg in an intense game of computer golf. "Devon's a
town in England, right?" "Sure," lbold replies,
barely looking up from the screen.
These kings of hummable, art-damaged indie rock may firmly insist
that they're not slackers, but a near-dadaist spontaneity rules
their studio approach. "I'm doing all the lyrics right
before we mix them, and that's where I'm ripping them off from,"
Malkmus says, pointing to a copy of poet John Ashbery's Hotel
Lautreamont. At this late date -- the album's due out Feb. 11--
even the title is still being left to chance. "I think it's
going to be called Bright in the Corners," Kannberg says
tentatively.
Malkmus, lbold, Kannberg and producer Bryce Goggin are holed up
in the spacious Hoboken, N.J., Water Music, a former pillow
factory turned studio, for their new album's final mix. But the
band completed its initial recording in the intimate surroundings
of Brickhenge Fidelitorium, a North Carolina studio run by Mitch
Easter, the famed co-producer of classic'80s R.E.M. albums such
as Murmur and Reckoning. Easter also co-produced Corners, along
with Pavement and Goggin, a longtime associate of the band who
has worked with Sebadoh, Spacehog and the Lemonheads, among
others. "[Fidelitorium] is in a quirky, old Southern house,"
says Malkmus. "We recorded in an upstairs bedroom that some
1880s tobacco farmer lived and died in."
Malkmus claims that Easter's seminal work with R.E.M. -- a band
that Pavement once devoted an entire song to -- had little to do
with Malkmus' choice of the producer. "Those records sound
good, but they're dated in their own '80s way," says Malkmus.
"I don't mean that negatively -- I just wouldn't want our
album to sound like Murmur. We might have sometimes said, 'Hey,
what was it like [working with R.E.M.]?'... But [Easter] gets
tired of being associated with that because it's something he did
years ago."
Pavement did find excitement, however, in Easter's collection of
sonic playthings. "There's a lot of unusual instruments
there: a Chamberland organ, a funky amp he got from the Kentucky
Headhunters, an electric sitar," says Malkmus. The band also
found that Easter's obsessive interest in rock esoterica
dovetailed with its own. "He has all these kraut-rock books,"
lbold says, "so I sent him the Silver Apples' records."
"He's got lots of videos," gushes Malkmus, "like
cool Beatles and Black Sabbath footage."
As Malkmus speaks, the angular, fuzzed-out hook of "Westy
Can't Drum" --recalling earlier, noisier Pavement tracks
such as "Forklift" --suddenly erupts into the air. It
sounds tinnier than before: Goggin has wired the song into a beat-up
boombox." We've got to have a mix like that!" says
Malkmus, staring at the radio with wonderment. "Does that
involve compression?"
The title of "Westy Can't Drum" -- a dig at Pavement's
drummer, Steve West -- improves on the song's original name,"Elastica,"
which was inspired by the main riffs similarity to that band's
hit "Connection." "Once I start singing, though,
it's going to sound like that go-go band Trouble Funk," says
Malkmus. "In the end, I scream like [Come's] Thalia Zedek
over this Stooges noise that will hopefully obliterate any
Elastica. I like Elastica -- don't get me wrong. I'd rather sound
like Oasis, though; then I wouldn't have to work."
Other Corners highlights include the gorgeous five-minute sprawl
of "Type Slowly." "It's one of the most epic songs
we've ever done," Kannberg says, "[although] I'm not
sure what it's about." He's more certain about his own song
"Date With Ikea": "It's about shopping."
For Kannberg, Corners' cohesiveness reflects the fact that
Pavement are becoming more of a band than a project and that they
are rehearsing songs before recording -- a Pavement first. "Wowee
Zowee! [Pavement's 1995 LP] would go from a mellow song to a punk-rock
song, then on to some other weird thing," he says. "This
is more like [1994's] Crooked Rain: The songs fit together more
in a classic-rock way. It'll be a little easier to get."
PHOTO (COLOR): Elastica meets go-go: Kannberg and lbold with
Malkmus (from left)
BY MATT DIEHL
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Source: Rolling Stone. 11/28/96 Issue 748. D34. 2/3D. 1c.
