Pavement - Live Europaturnén MCMXCVII (2008)

From all available evidence, it appears that live Pavement shows come in two varieties: very on and very, very off. Theirs is a style that, on record, glorifies the remedial, the happy accident and the sheer joy to be found in a burst of obscene noise. This can be hard to replicate live- play it too loose and they become an unfocussed mess, play too straight and it just isn’t Pavement.

Luckily for the fans that received this record (those who pre-ordered the deluxe edition of Brighten the Corners at the end of 2008), Pavement got the balance just right on the night that this was recorded. Opening with the beautiful country stylings of “Father to a Sister of Thought”, it’s clear from the off that Pavement are playing with what they’re playing. Either Bob Nastanovic or Spiral Stairs has added an extra bit of chiming texture to an already great song, and SM is twisting the melody with some actual emotional involvement. This seems to happen more the further back in time they reach (this was recorded in the “Brighten” era), so songs like “Silent Kid” from CRCR and “Loretta’s Scars” from S&E get a few new twists.

The set list is tight; hearing “Father to a Sister of Thought” from Wowee Zowee lead into something that isn’t the forgettable “Extradition” is always a plus, and here we get Brighten’s sharp single “Shady Lane” instead. A few more Slanted and Enchanted tracks wouldn’t have gone astray (we only get the one), but what they do play is played so well that it’s hard to complain. Even Spiral Stairs deliver the vocal goods when he duets with SM on rare single “Painted Soldiers”.

The recording quality straddles the line between fidelity and stuffy bootleg atmosphere quite successfully- this isn’t Bowie’s Stage, but it isn’t an early European Beatles bootleg either (however much the faux-disguised track listing on the record wants it to be). Like Pavement’s early work, this was made for vinyl (the only format that the set is available on for now), and its playful warmth radiates through every groove.

Definitely more than worth snapping up if you can track down a copy. Even if it's just to hear the great lyric replacing the Smashing Pumpkins diss on "Range Life"- "Kula Shaker in the Melody Maker/Pin-up stars, big big cars/But no tunes/Or should I say 'choooons?"

90

Gang of Four - Entertainment! (1979)

Entertainment! spits riffs in your face. Guitars are punctuated, grainy and sparse. Sounds are cut short and snappy. The record’s post-punk preoccupation with consumerism is as relevant today as it was in 1979. “Ether” spouts lines repetitively about “Dirt behind the daydream”. “Natural’s Not In It” has enough golden lyrical nuggets to populate generations of epitaphs: “This heaven gives me migraine”, “The body’s good business, sell out maintain the interest” and “Renounce all sin and vice, dream of the perfect life”. Entertainment! candidly sings about society’s ills. The years have not sullied Entertainment!’s boorish economic fixation.

“Return The Gift” is persistently funky, complete with a slutty bassline. It wraps up grimily with improvised, sputtering guitars. Drums tumble along rollickingly on “Guns Before Butter”, while Jon King coughs up more lyrics about how “All this talk of blood and iron. It’s the cause of all my shaking”.

“Glass” encapsulates the youthful generation in the late 70s and in the 80s and in the 90s and in the 00s and in the..., “I’m so restless (I’m bored as a cat)/ Light myself (a cigarette)”. The impulsive guitars on Entertainment! are a source of continual animation, like being with a stranger who spits when he says words beginning with “p”, PPPost PPPunk PPPunctuation. The riffs do not comply with time structures.

“At home he is a tour-ist. He fills his head with cul-ture. He gives him-self an ul-cer.” One of Entertainment!’s supreme qualities is the silence between vocals or riffs or drums. When angular notes disrupt the quiet, they’re lapped up.

The last exclamation mark in this PPPractically PPPerfect aural experience arrives in “Anthrax”. A muddied dirge which laments on widely shared anxieties, “And I feel like a bee-tle on its back. And there’s no way for me to get up. Love’ll get you like a case of an-thrax. And that’s some-thing I don’t want to catch.” It’s a rude way to end a record, but Entertainment! never established itself on being polite.

So uncouth.

95
(90 - SM)
Combined Rating = 92.5