Now think about the onus placed on me, your fearless appointee who you've been relentlessly asking about what he thinks his Summah Jam of 2015 is! Everyday there's at least 17 emails sent my way asking when I'll announce it. Guys, I hear ya. I love ya. The time has come! And mainly because I hadn't really realized the place this song has had until recently. Will there be disappointment? Depends on how you feel about 90's Garage Rock and even then you'll probably be a little resentful. But let's dig deep, lets get into it. Let's talk about Stephen Malkmus and Stephen Malkmus.
Stephen Malkmus, as we all know, was/is the lead singer and the front man of a li'l band called Pavement. Pavement's a top-5er and has entered the pantheon of bands/musicians that will never not be on my iPod; they're snuggled along the ranks of David Bowie, LCD Soundsystem, TV On The Radio and Kanye. "Wow" you must be thinking to yourself, "what an incredibly exclusive group-should I hope to go into the music biz, I hope to one day edge out one of these guys!"
Now I could go on with Stephen Malkmus trivia, like how he's from ol' California and moved to Germany for a li'l bit a couple of years ago, but the man's got a wikipedia page and an episode of WTF for a reason! But if you need visual stuff, sometimes people are visual learners, I gotcha covered, no sweat. Here's a video of Pavement on Leno's show (historically one of the most confusing sets ever, because anyone watching Leno at any point in their life and loving it will not enjoy the antics of Pavement) in 1994. Here they are performing on Conan's in 1997.
Three years is a long time, sure, but just looked at how much more engaged Malkmus is when thanking Conan after the song. Look at his haircut, look at his stance during the entire thing. Sure, he's probably a little baked and almost definitely Mark Ibold is, but they're polar to the performance on Leno (which is a better performance ultimately, but that could be reinforced by how little of a shit Malkmus gives-he couldn't care less when his guitar falls and just look at the handshake!).
Alright, fine. Summah Jam 2015. Stephen Malkmus was released in 2001 and I stumbled upon it mid-way through my first semester junior year (so late 2014). I'd combed the Pavement landscape and was looking for something similar but different enough and yeh, this album is like the perfect companion to Terror Twilight, so that feeling of finding something you knew was out there but didn't quite know how to describe overtook my ears and, let's be frank, my heart.
The obvious choice here would be "Jenny and the Ess-Dog" because it's so clearly a great song (and also the topic of a paper/project I wrote for a Detective Fiction Class that semester, so I think I know what I'm talking about here). But no. Alright then maybe "Phantasies," it takes that step into a more fun territory that "Black Book" wasn't; kinda throws you for a curve ball, but you love it. No again. And don't you dare guess "Jo Jo's Jacket," because these are all fine guesses and without a doubt also contenders. But that's just what they are: contenders. Stephen Malkmus is like the Western Conference in the NBA-it's hard to imagine there's that much talent all in one region and it doesn't seem fair, but that's just the way it is in 2014/15.
Let's talk about "Pink India"-oh I'm sorry, is that too much of a deep cut for you? Who's listening to the eighth track of an album just for fun? Who do you think I am? Alright, then let's not talk about it, right now. Let's just listen.
I've listened to this song, as of late, probably what some of you might describe as an unreasonable amount of times. The thing I can equate it to is like in the beginning of Almost Famous when young William ("ELEVEN!?") is listening to "Sparks" by The Who for the first time and then you get that great dissolve. Or in Freaks And Geeks when Lindsay listens to The Grateful Dead for the first time and yer like "man I hate the Grateful Dead, but I can super relate to the joy that Lindsay is feeling right now. Damn."
The beginning of "Pink India" just feels very familiar, like it has this timelessness to it. That light acoustic guitar. But it's probably the build up that gets me most hyped for this song; it keeps its pace for two minutes and that's when it switches to electric with a kind of echo-y feel to it. There's an unknownness to it, by the three minute mark you have no idea, again, where it's gonna go. Then at 3:55 it takes another turn and at 4:11 yet another. There's that kind of shredding guitar that's very Pavement-y and from 4:45-5:00 it's all set-up, again. It's just set-up after set-up after set-up of awesome things ("I had a crap gin and tonic"); it's actually pretty calculated now that I'm looking at time code and how often do you see that now?
Hold on, let me get my curmudgeon cap securely on my head....one second. There. You don't! I mean there probably is something out there that does, but I just haven't come across it. However, the summer time is kind of like all these unknowns, but you know some kind of awesome guitar solo is going to come yer way, you just can't force it. If you wanted that you'd stick to something familiar and go to notorious guitar soloists and grow bitter of that and next thing you know you don't really wanna listen to "Black Math" by The White Stripes for a good long while, because you know all their tricks (bad example, because I just started playing this song and it's still great). Or the summer's just supposed to be hot and if there's one thing "Pink India" is, it's that; chicks will definitely dig it, bruh.
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