Pavement - Terror Twilight: Farewell Horizontal CD

Matador (2022)

Your eyes do not deceive you.  I have, in fact, purchased the CD version of an album that was also available on vinyl.  There were multiple reasons for this, not the least of which was the $80 price differential between the two.  But on top of that, only two of the super deluxe Pavement albums have been released on vinyl.  If Slanted & Enchanted, Crooked Rain or Wowee Zowee were available, I probably would have picked this up on vinyl as well, just to keep the collection complete.  Since I have all of the other deluxes on CD, it made sense to keep up the consistency there.  Lastly, Terror Twilight has always been my least favorite Pavement record and after delving through all of the demos and B sides of the era I can still say that to be true.

When Terror Twilight came out I wasn't impressed.  I know that's a feeling shared by many, but unlike the vast majority of people out there, I hadn't liked Brighten The Corners that much either.  The peak to me was always Wowee Zowee, though I adored everything that came before it as well.  I felt then, as I do now, that Terror Twilight is just kind of boring.  There some nice songs like Major Leagues and Spit On A Stranger, but nothing that really jumps out as being unique in the way I always felt Pavement was.  One of the reasons I didn't like Brighten The Corners as much as the other albums was because it felt too safe.  It was straightforward.  But if you compare it to Terror Twilight, it's practically avant garde.

When it comes to bonus material, there's not really anything particularly exciting here either.  One of the new unreleased songs, "Be The Hook," is pretty fun, but not remarkable.  And since they stuck it on a reissued 12" single of Spit On A Stranger, I'll probably just grab that so I can have it on vinyl.  Most everything else is demos that don't really differ too much from the final product aside from fidelity and a few B sides that I already have on a bunch of singles.  I am glad that they finally put this out, just so the collection is complete, but it's probably not something I'll listen to very much.  I have the main album on vinyl if I get the urge, the odds and ends are mostly just the sort of things that sit on a CD rack.

Pavement - Shady Lane 7" - Lathe Cut (/25)

Fellaheen (1997)

Pavement is one of my very favorite bands and they are among the most influential that I've listened to over the years.  I discovered them early in my initial toe-dipping into punk rock and indie rock in the mid 90s and they have remained a favorite ever since.  It's their first three (four if you count the Drag City Westing compilation) albums that hit with me the most.  Brighten The Corners is still good, but I just never connected with it quite the same way as the others.  Shady Lane is a song from that album.

In Australia, several Pavement records were released on a label called Fellaheen.  For the most part their versions seem to just be the Matador version with a different logo on them, but they did a few weird things.  When the band released the Pacific Trim EP, Fellaheen didn't release a standard 7".  They did a lathe cut version that was limited to only 100 copies.  I was very lucky to have acquired one of those many, many years ago.  Aside from the copy I have, I've never seen another for sale.

When it was time to do the Shady Lane single, Fellaheen decided to do another lathe cut, but this time they only did 25 copies.  How the hell was I supposed to get one of these?  I don't have every single Pavement variant in the world, but I do have all of their 7"s.  If there's different artwork, I consider it a different version and need it in the collection.  This was the only hole I had that wasn't a vinyl color or a record label logo variant.

Well, amazingly one popped up on Discogs a few months ago.  It was about $100 shipped and even though that's more money than I should be spending on a one sided 7" right now, I knew I would never have another chance to get my hands on this.  Thank goodness for credit cards.  Getting it here was a little adventurous as the seller initially gave me an incorrect tracking number and I was terrified to see it delivered to a California address a week or so ago.  Luckily it was just a clerical error and my Pavement 7" arrived safe and sound this week.

I'll probably never play it.  There's really no reason to.  Let's be honest, there's really no reason to even own it.  But something in me is broken and I find the uncontrollable need to hunt down these weird trinkets so my collection feels more complete.  Can't really explain it.

Pavement - "Shady Lane":
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=ixncbflEqes&list=RDAMVMixncbflEqes

Pavement - Sensitive Euro Man Picture Disc

Matador (2020)

Twenty-five years ago in 1995, Pavement released Wowee Zowee.  It was the first album I heard by them and to this day it remains my favorite.  I'll always be thankful for my friend Scott in high school playing the record for me.  In my opinion it is just an absolutely perfect record.  For its twenty-fifth anniversary, Matador has reissued the record on vinyl, and while I don't need another copy of the full length, I did need to pick up the little bonus record they put out with it.

This shaped picture disc is meant to mimmic the speech bubble on the cover of Wowee Zowee and the flip side image on this is all yellow and says "PAVEMENT?" across it, along with the track information. It contains two songs.  The A side is "Sensitive Euro Man" originally from the I Shot Andy Warhol soundtrack.  On the B side is "Brink Of The Clouds/Candylad."  This was from a 1994 radio session that was recorded in Australia.  Both songs are interesting and showcase the weirder side of Pavement, but I don't think either really warrant a standalone shaped picture disc.

These tracks were both collected on the special edition 2xCD Wowee Zowee set that came out some years ago, the Sordid Sentinels edition.  That release contained a ton of B-sides and rarities.  I really wish that rather than creating an expensive picture disc with two songs, Matador had gone forward and released all of that material on vinyl.  They started that process awhile ago by putting out Secret History Vol. 1, focusing on the extra tracks from the Slanted and Enchanted era, but the project never went past that release.

I for one would have taken Vol. 3 over this release any day.  While this picture disc is neat looking, it's mostly just a fancy trinket to add to my collection of Pavement records.  There's no way I wouldn't have bought it as I need to keep my collection as complete as I possibly can, but it's not something I'd ever listen to all that much.  Now Secret History Vol. 3?  I'd listen to that all of the time.

Pavement - "Sensitive Euro Man":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFDbhqkr4iw

Pavement - "Brink Of The Clouds/Candylad":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGTzHvMOUa4

Pavement - Westing (By Musket and Sextant) LP

Domino (2016, Reissue)

This LP has been missing from my Pavement collection for way too long.  Yes, I have had the Perfect Sound Forever and the other various 7"s that make up the bulk of the songs for a really long time.  And sure, the CD version of this is actually the 2nd Pavement record I ever bought back in 1995 after being thoroughly blown away by Wowee Zowee (At the time I thought surely the indie one before they were even on Matador would be even cooler).  But I never got around to buying this on LP.

Domino rereleased it a couple of years ago.  It's on nice thick 180 gram vinyl and these terribly recorded songs have never sounded more terrible (and by that, I mean they sound great).  The fidelity was never the point of any of these songs.  They were recorded super early in the bands history and a recording budget was pretty much nonexistent at the time.  Still, these songs are some of my favorite all of these years later.

"Box Elder" is a smash hit from the band's very first, self released 7"  "Forklift" is a fuzzy bit of weirdness that really connected with me in high school and has been lodged in my brain ever since.  "Debris Slide" is just perfect with an anthemic chorus that gets me singing along all these years later (even though it still sounds like they're saying "grease fire" and not "debris slide" to me).  Maybe this compilation isn't Pavement's most polished or best outing, but there's something magical in these songs that has kept me coming back over and over again for the past twenty five years.

Pavement - "Box Elder":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_6NEePhHCA

Pavement - "Debris Slide":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwHTMrZptG4

Pavement - "Forklift":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k67p7DN-SWo

Pavement - Wowee Zowee LP

Domino (2010, Reissue)

There are a few reasons I bought this Pavement reissue.  One is it is one of my favorite albums of all time.  Two is because the version I already had was the original pressing on Big Cat and the vinyl was just so damn thin and flimsy (I don't know why I have the Big Cat version and not the Matador version - though I had the CD originally and picked up the vinyl at some point later on).  And three, I really just wanted to write about it on this site, and buying a new version is a good excuse to do that.  I can say that this 180 gram reissue sounds incredible, better than my original copy.  Though that’s not really why this record means so much to me.

Simply stated, Wowee Zowee is one of the most important records of my life.  It came out at the absolute perfect moment for me to be super impactful and I've just been obsessed with it forever.  I know that Crooked Rain and Slanted & Enchanted were bigger for a lot of folks and I also am aware that as the years have gone by Wowee Zowee has finally started getting the praise it so richly deserves, but for me it's always just been my favorite Pavement album.

Wowee Zowee was the first Pavement record I ever heard.  My friend Scott played it for me when it came out our senior year in high school.  I don't actually know where Scott heard of them.  Of my high school friends he didn't seek out music in quite the same way some of the rest of us did, but he definitely brought this to the table and I will always be indebted to him for doing so.  Right away I was taken by the the fast, noisy songs.  "Flux = Rad" (still my favorite Pavement song), "Best Friends Arm" and "Serpentine Pad" immediately scratched the itch I had at the time for loud raucous tunes.  But as time went by, the slower songs and the variety of the album just started to consume me.

The first one to hit was "We Dance."  Something about that song just started to dig its claws into me.  It's the perfect album opener and my high school group of friends were so into the idea of somehow trying to have it made into the senior prom song.  Didn't happen, I grew up in the northwestern, rural part of NJ, so of course it ended up being a Garth Brooks song.  But I still think of that every time I hear the song.  As the years went by new songs would assert themselves as being incredibly important.  "AT&T" became a mixtape anthem.  "Rattled By The Rush" turned into that song that I just couldn't figure out why it wasn't a huge hit single.  "Fight This Generation" was the one that I blasted in my car when I was feeling a bit riled up.  And way later in the story I figured out that "Grounded" was probably one of the most beautiful and incredible songs ever written.

This is an album that has been with me forever, but the sheer audacity of the different sounds that Pavement crammed into it means I'm always discovering something new and exciting, even twenty three years later.  It's the perfect album to put on when I'm feeling stressed out or overwhelmed.  It's instantly familiar and instantly soothing.  It makes me nostalgic for some things, but never makes me dwell on the past since I've never stopped listening to it.  It's been a constant in my life and something I've always been able to count on.  No matter how fucked up the world gets, Pavement still released Wowee Zowee and it's just perfect.

Pavement - Wowee Zowee (Youtube Playlist):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcJ7GpHQT24&list=PLlnyljGQRkcVovZyD1ypWhlELgag_SD8-

Pavement - The Secret History, Volume 1 (1990 - 1992)

Matador (2015)

Even though I wanted this record from the moment it was announced, from the get go I've been trying to contain any disappointment concerning this release.  I knew from the second the track listing was revealed that this particular record would essentially just be the bonus tracks from the CD reissue of Slanted And Enchanted from 2002 on vinyl for the first time.  And that is what it is, no more no less.  Yet I'm still somehow a little let down.

I think the real tipping point for me was opening this guy up and seeing all the liner notes were still dated 2002.  They refer to Slanted and Enchanted as being ten years old.  I realize there probably aren't any new songs to add to this, but some new liner notes couldn't have been that hard, could it?  All of this only matters if you bought the deluxe CD reissue back when it came out.  If you didn't, why this record is essential my good friends.  Early Drag City 7" tracks, some compilation rarities, Peel sessions and a live performance pack this double LP.

I could take or leave the live show.  I've never been much of a live album or bootleg guy.  But everything else is either a great song or just something fascinating to listen to in order to see where the band was at during this time frame.  I'm admittedly much more eager to see what comes out in further volumes of this series.  The rumor has it that everyone is aware this first volume is mostly just to give a vinyl release to these songs, but going forward there are more unreleased gems to share.  We'll see how that goes, but at the end of the day this is Pavement.  It's unlikely that I won't buy everything that comes out no matter what it is.

For Hurricane Sandy: Pavement - Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain LP

For Hurricane Sandy: Pavement - Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain LP, a photo by Tim PopKid on Flickr.

Matador (1994)

Hurricane Sandy is barreling down towards us and they closed down my work for the day. I thought it would be appropriate to break my usual rule about only posting newly bought records in order to take a picture of a record that fits the spirit of the day. Honestly, I'm surprised how few records I own that mention storms or weather, there were not plentiful options here.

Anyway, this is the 180g reissue of Crooked Rain, Crooked rain that came out a few years ago. I had the original version of the LP, but I actually traded it to someone back in the early 2000s. I don't remember what I traded it for, other than I knew if would be way easier to replace that Pavement record than it would have been to find the record that I traded for. When the reissue came out, I opted to grab it, though I probably will try to hunt down another copy of the original pressing at some point.

While my favorite Pavement album is Wowee Zowee, Crooked Rain is an ultra close #2. Pavement really define that poppy, wacky indie rock of the 90s that I just love so much. While I never saw them play a good show (and I gave them ample chances to do so, but always left disappointed), few bands can touch Pavement on record. If you don't have this record in your collection, that is a problem you should fix right away.

Pavement - Range Life:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VVj1zqbWpU

Pavement - Cut Your Hair:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTTgpTeb0Z8

Pavement - Gold Soundz:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPvhKV3Yg2k