by Matty McPherson (@ghostplanetmatt)
The 80s and even into the early 90s were a fruitful time of 7” records and compilations of such. Two compilations have been in my rotation recently: ROIR’s Singles: The Great New York Scene and SST’s The 7 Inch Wonders of the World. Both present bi-coastal cases of burgeoning underground sounds coming to life via the 7”. It was a viable method to push forth new ideas into the world, and helped they were inexpensive low-commitments for both buyer and producer. Anyways, I’m reading the liner notes of my tape of Superchunk’s Tossing Seeds ‘89-’91, where Mac quite succinctly sums up the prowess of the single better than I could:
“It’s not about the colored wax and the ltd. ed. Because it is about the adrenalin [sic] rush, and the conceptual greatness of the 7” single: what can you do in 3 and a half minutes that will make us get up and put the needle in the groove time and again? The single must be a distillation of one’s powers, the most exciting slice of noise a person can cram between the lip of the disc and the edges of the label.”
No band at the twilight of the 80s and the dawn of the 90s quite tapped into Mac’s insights like Pavement 1.0 did. A couple years back, for reasons that are still hazy to myself, I chased after the Pavement discography on cassette and blind listened to it all. Their vinyl EPs for Drag City, collected as Westing (By Musket and Sextant)--formally reissued on Matador Records in July–still stands as my gut-favorite; the only release that immediately clicked for me. Is it a skeleton key to Pavement writ large? Or do the recordings hold a more symptomatic prowess–functioning as a survey of a band and label in a transient time, on the cusp of something greater than the sum of their parts?
Drag City was part of a second, burgeoning wave of indies that were to take on the 90s, and Pavement put out three single digit catalog numbered vinyl for the burgeoning label: two 7” EPs and shockingly, a 10”–all between 1990 and 1991. Even when Pavement had jumped labels, the labels still reserved DC14 for the 23-track, fifty minute compilation. It was meant to come out by Fall 1992, but was delayed until March 1993. At that point the label’s releases included: three Royal Trux albums and singles and a VHS that no one was buying but everyone would soon claim was "important and a big deal" (they were!); a handful of 7" EPs that ranged from Smog’s "country but punk but noise" to Silver Jews’ “country but punk but noise” and even Palace Brothers’ “folk”; and to round it all out a "New Zealand 7” label sampler of sub-1 minute tracks"; VHS, and 12” sampler!. Drag City was more akin to an upstart of two guys who really loved a handful of artists. Yet, they were trafficking in new, viciously weird noise that wasn't quite circulating within American indie labels from Homestead to SST.
That’s not to say Dan Koretzky and Dan Osborn didn’t have a clue regarding what they were stumbling into. If anything was made abundantly clear within the label’s fledgling era, it was that a 2,000 2xLP order is extremely hard to carry up a flight of stairs by yourself. Also, that Drag City’s cold-calling and undying trust n’ love of their OG roster was robustly peerless. In both the luck and assured hoarding of “maverick class talent” it entailed. When Spin profiled the label in 1993, they put forth that “If rock’n’roll is supposed to be maverick music (and it is), then these wholly independent labels are rock’s last free range,”. Drag City’s lasting appeal was beginning to emerge. Their original trio, Royal Trux, Smog, and Pavement, were three-of-a-kind maverick class talent in an era where anything seemed possible. Each of their initial releases set a template and carved a path beyond noise into their own shady lanes and set a flexible pathway for what was to follow.
In its own manner, compiling Pavement’s “tortured context” comprised of the self-released Slay Tracks 1933-1969, those sub-double digit catalog numbers, and flexi-disc cuts made Westing (by Musket and Sextant) the yang to Twin Infinitives' Yin; a 7" gold mine of exciting dipshit noise whose collage cover and phrases and song titles alluded to its own canon subversion. The Stockton trio recorded these in “fits and bursts”, deforming and reforming. All inadvertently stumbling into an alternate path into the 90s that would flirt with majors but willfully refute Alternative Nation (Royal Trux’s infiltration and comical escape from Virgin delivered one of the greatest refutations as well). Perhaps the best way to explain that is to turn to a semi-recent archival reissue I also reviewed for this site: Captured Tracks' Strum n' Thrum. Its collection of 27 tracks coalesced into a pondering: "why was in the mid-80s, in spite of a flourishing underground of guitar pop, none of this taking off?" Listening to Westing, with years of hindsight and access to more regional timelines, an answer seems to emerge: the underground simply needed more substantial, subversive pop.
Slay Tracks does indeed jangle (more akin to Flying Nun's Dunedin Double. Yet, its initial five cuts also helped pioneer a new limb of noise-damaged almost-pop that sorta caught on (by luck). The kind that existed in other regional forms around the US/UK, just not quite like this. "You're Killing Me" straight up initiates a brutal process of weeding out with cracked out noise barely being kept at bay as Stephen Malkmus strums n' wails "you're kill-ing me! you-re kill-ing me...again!" This was the sound of having read a mis-forgotten NME feature on Swell Maps by way of a mis-recorded, but not mis-printed fall bootleg with a wonky library vinyl of Neu! 75 thrown in for good measure. It also existed on the "Husker-Sonic Youth-Dinosaur Jr." continuum Simon Reynolds had teased during an August 1988 concert review of My Bloody Valentine. Like MBV (and Nirvana), Pavement was part of the semi-exclusive club of bands who: sounded like they should've done a cut for SST but never were signed to the label (Malkmus supposedly wrote the letter to SST asking for self-release tips) AND had astute levels of pop prowess burgeoning underneath the noise. “She Believes” and “Price Yeah!” are the closest the band ever came to being a fourth band on that continuum, even as the former goes “kablamo!” and the latter’s drum fills are too krautrock.
Meanwhile, “Box Elder,” the cleanest cut of side A by a mile, becomes a textbook lesson for that latter point. Before the Drag City trilogy even existed, Keith Gregory of the Wedding Present was in New York City. On recommendation from future Pavement bassist, Mark Ibold, he had nabbed a copy of Slay Tracks. Ideas were cranking when they laid down a cover of “Box Elder” in 1989 with Steve Albini as a b-side to their single “Brassneck”. Their “Box Elder” cover might as well be (a barely) technically superior cut to Pavement's, but I see it more as a moment of raw "talent recognizing talent". The song's shimmy-strut drums, fuzz feedback and strum guitar, and detached lyricism subverted heartbreak. A new, wry insularity was burgeoning. You just knew you had to get the fuck out of town and over to “Box Elder” wherever it was.
That cover garnered Peel attention, a Christagu A-, and college radio cool; a holy trinity of praise that no one anticipated–even if few ever bought the release (it was just more efficient for Malkmus to hawk Slay Tracks for rent money). Pavement's jump to Drag City was being noticed, enough to warrant an April 1990 press release that claimed Slay Tracks was selling for $500. Many a garage band dreamed of sounding like this, but Pavement had the songs, or, at least the ideas for them. Demolition Plot/J-7 7" continued to sprout new amalgamations within the luster of that noise as Gary Young produced again, stepping off the drums as Jason Turner made his lone appearance. Perhaps more wild, Malkmus claimed in a ‘93 interview that members of Unsane presided over the mixing.
Then it works to look at this 7” as an excursion in dialing in the proper q-zone of fuzzy melodies and quirky observations because really not much had changed sonically between this and Slay Tracks. Opener “Forklift”’s walkie-talkie vocals full of asinine, imagined images (amongst a singular forklift) are relentlessly endearing, but that chorus of synth noise and garbage compactor gargle that go transcendent. The brevity of “Spizzle Trunk” and “Recorder Grot” work in their favor, de-emphasizing Malkmus’ lyrics to let the riffs sizzle and marinade. “Internal K-Dart”’s 3-dimensional synth spasms alluded to paths Swirlies and Mercury Rev wanted to traverse. To top it all, “Perfect Depth” slowed the rollicking swagger to reveal Malkmus’ messy, beating heart; someone’s time was wasted and kissed off, but really it all seemed like one big joke no one was clued into. It definitively rules.
The idea of a 10" in 1990 seemed uncanny, but Perfect Sound Forever's seven ditties continued a streak of concise prowess. Small instrumentals like "Heckler Spray" saw the sound starting to coalesce into a soundtrack of a walk down a sidewalk on the hottest day of the year, even as "Drive By Fader" existed just to test one's love of ramshackle noise harder than “Recorder Grot (Rally)”. Malkmus' vocal melodies and the backing vocals continued to hone in on an effortless unkempt yet dead-eyed ace delivery. In under 120 seconds, "Debris Slide" practically defined and set the bar to follow, barely telling a sketch of romantic envy to be settled by "socking the eye," as the drums and guitars animate such with a visceral slide tackle into a chorus delivery of "Bris slide!" (Malkmus de-emphasized the "de" in the word while the added “bah-bah” melodies sweeten the whole image). "Angel Carver Blues/Mellow Jazz Docent" and "Home" quickly enchanted listeners with a monologuing ramble loaded in warming guitars. To put it bluntly it was the most stoned and dethroned the lads had rendered their sound. A new suburban psychedelia no one had quite mended.
By the time of the Summer Babe 7" EP, Pavement was in victory lap mode, ready to graduate from Drag City with Shutdown Offers to spare. If “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was the official song of 1991, the moment the underground was going to jump into popular consciousness, “Summer Babe” willfully kissed off any chance of that to achieve the second banana prize, "song of the underground forever". Pavement straight up just hadn't sounded this polished AND gonzo in under three and a half minutes. Propelled by Young's meticulous and nervy drum fills and pitter patter cymbals amongst a mighty bout of guitar fuzz, Malkmus' cryptic colloquialisms became transcendent. This was unfettered maverick rock. The b-sides’ “Mercy Snack” and “Baptist Blacktick” slid between tip-toeing pensiveness and bouncy dudes rock gone psychotic. They’re perfect closers for the detente that are the flexi-disc cuts of “My First Mine” and “My Radio”. Both are short n’ sweet amusements and more or less point to a future ahead.
Nestled inside the liner notes of each edition of this compilation is the logo of whoever was releasing it. For the UK it was the long-forgotten Big Cat (who distributed Pavement in the UK through Wowee Zowee) and as of 2016, Domino Records. For America, up until Pavement appeared on Bandcamp in 2020, it had always been Drag City. Today if you head to the Drag City web page for Westing, it is completely out of print–including the digital! The Matador logo is now firmly present in the liner notes, and along with the bells and whistles of the 30th anniversary Slanted and Enchanted reissue, seem to strike a claim that Pavement was always their band. Possibly the truest act of “Matador Revisionist History” to date.
No doubt Gerald Cosoly heard and supported the band during his zine days and they are a definitive tentpole to Matador. It is about time that all their releases be held under one label–one that actually puts the OG “Sumer Babe” on the compilation, but it also feels patently absurd. My return to Westing (By Musket and Sextant) made one thing abundantly clear, it's that Pavement were first and foremost the crucial third pillar to Drag City.
Let’s turn back to that Spin 1993 profile of Drag City. The one emphasizing the inaugural Drag City Invitational. Pavement had made the jump to Matador, and the post-Slanted, Crooked line-up was taking shape. They were still showing up to support the label, but they’d already supported in another way by bringing David Berman to Koretzky and Osborn’s attention. Will Oldham would hear Dime Map of the Reef and The Arizona Record, convinced to submit the lone demo Drag City had received to date. It enshrined a crucial link between Louisville, KY and Chicago that King Kong had initially started, and from that spawned an explosion of great sounds that persists to this day. Listening to Westing on tape and those turn of the decade recordings stands as a testament to the power of that noise, as much as a transient document of a songwriter and label quickly ascending.