The One Where Matt And Kevin Discuss The Music Of Pavement, Part 2

I still don't think I've listened to Slanted enough to compare it yet, but even so, I agree with your Godfather analogy. Also, in terms of Crooked possibly being fully realized — it's often the case with first records, but I think Pavement may be one of the few exceptions. The rawness and youthful exuberance and unpredictability is what makes them an amazing band. There's no reason to desire less of those qualities — granted, they maintained them through Crooked and Wowee, but Terror Twilight sounds a lot more like a professional band deliberately setting out to record and polish defined pop songs with defined song structures. I still like it, but a lot of their core is lost by that point. I don't think they really sacrificed anything, personally, to make slightly more polished — not going to say realized — music on Crooked, which is why it still stands for me. It might represent some small level of maturation at the expense of some rawness and lo-fi grungy sounds, but the songwriting is as raw and fresh as ever.

Still, other really quirky bands like Modest Mouse and especially Dismemberment Plan, who probably owe everything to Pavement, obviously were heavily influenced by Slanted. The only pre-cursor to Slanted might be Pixies, right? I can't think of anything else.

—ml

I agree with your sentiments toward Terror Twilight. In fact, the band does as well. They are unabashed about expressing their regret when it comes to how "produced" that album sounds. On paper, Pavement + Nigel Godrich production seems incredible, but it took away what was special about Pavement — the beauty of the unpolished. Then again, I actually have no problems with Terror. It's a fun album, and it's cool to hear Pavement through the ears of Mr. Radiohead. As you said, Crooked is somewhere in between Slanted and Terror, though I'm sure you'd agree it leans more to the Slanted side of the spectrum.

I'd be hard-pressed to believe that Modest Mouse hasn't listened to a lot of Pavement, but you never know. Isaac Brock is notoriously hard-headed and might not admit to anything. Travis Morrison from Dismemberment Plan, on the contrary, would be happy to reveal his influences. I say this because he once ran off the stage and made a bee-line to hug my friend Farbod because he was seemingly the only one enjoying the show. They stayed in touch and actually held a BBQ where Morrison played a solo set.

In regards to your "Pixies lacking a pre-cursor" statement, I can't argue. Research tells us they had already released three albums (including the acclaimed Surfer Rosa and Doolittle) by the time Slanted was released. Then again, I like Pavement much more than I like the Pixies. In fact, I remember when John Stirratt's cousin (Wilco) quoted me in his Facebook favorite quotes for writing "Nobody actually likes the Pixies. They just think everyone else does." I was exaggerating for effect, but it felt pretty good as a budding music journalist. A few days later he removed the quote, probably because it appeared lame to quote a kid writing in the school newspaper.

—kl

The One Where Matt And Kevin Discuss The Music Of Pavement, Part 1

All those years we've shared a mutual love for Pavement, Slanted And Enchanted has just been an afterthought for me. It wasn't one of the first ones I listened to, and it wasn't one of my favorites, mostly because I found it to be much more raw and less accessible. And since I was thoroughly obsessed with Crooked Rain and Wowee Zowee, I never felt the need to go back and try to get into it. But I never gave it much of a chance, I guess. To be honest, I probably only listened to it once—maybe twice—all the way through. I'm willing to admit it might be the most overlooked album of my college days, easily. I've been going back to it lately and realizing its genius more and more each time. Fuck. Tracks 2 and 4 destroy me, and it keeps going.

I'm sorry. All those times you raved about this album, I was listening to Crooked Rain and felt like we were on the same page. Obviously both are great, but I never gave Slanted the time it deserved. It is legend. Now I understand the true extent of how much it influenced, and not just their own later albums.

—ml

Thanks for sharing this. As you know, the Slanted v. Crooked debate is as old as indie rock itself. The general argument for Crooked as the better of the two typically cites Slanted as a blueprint and Crooked as the fully-realized album Pavement was striving for in its nascent state. I'd agree with this argument, but it reminds me a lot of the Godfather v. Godfather II argument. While Godfather II might be the better movie, much of its impact is due to the backstory provided in Part I. It's difficult to appreciate Al Pacino's rise to godfatherhood in Part II without first understanding his stepping up to familial responsibility in Part I. It was a role he was surprisingly thrust into, yet he embraces every aspect of it once the stick has passed.

That being said, I will always prefer Slanted over Crooked. What I admire most is the sheer rawness of it. As a very radio-impressionable teen (as we all were), I picked up my first Rolling Stone at age 16. It was covering bands that I knew and liked, of course, but a few words appeared quite frequently in reviews and interviews. These were "indie," "Pavement," and, not surprisingly, the album we are discussing. I don't know why I didn't Napster the album, but I suppose it was some sort of fate at work that I did not. I visited the now-defunct Warehouse Music near the entrance of the local mall, and I headed straight for the P section. There it was, that red cover, looking like either purposeful graffiti or a budgetary art-piece. It didn't matter.

I put it in the CD deck of my '87 Cutlass Ciera, and I drove. And I was confused. It sounded like my friends had recorded something in their bathroom. But its power was undeniable. To go from listening to the radio to listening to Slanted And Enchanted at age 16 was nothing short of mindblowing. I questioned everything I had heard before it, and I had no idea what to do. It was a lot like losing my virginity, that first time hearing Slanted. I was completely lost and completely in love. So as much as I appreciate Crooked, there's just too much mental magic tied to Slanted. And isn't that what it's all about in the end?

—kl

My grandfather the farmer

I visited Taiwan in the winter of '07, but it was warm. It's like that in Taiwan. My grandfather didn't recognize me.
"Grandpa, it's me," I said. "It's Strange Glory."
He looked into my eyes. He told me to take off my glasses.
"Doesn't look like you," he said.
He walked away, knees unbending, toward his bedroom.
I would only be in Fuli, in the town where my father grew up, for a few days. In those few days, I would only see my grandfather a few times. I suppose it made sense considering I'd only met him about five times in my life. He'd emerge from his bedroom when it was time to eat, then he'd return to his room to sleep. And again.
Those two days stretched like weeks because it's like that in Taiwan. I lay awake at night, under a mosquito tent, picturing my father doing the same. I took a chair outside to look at the surrounding mountains, picturing my father doing the same. It was a small house for six people. The math on the rooms didn't add up.
My mother took me for a walk on the second day. We went behind the house, an area I didn't even know existed.
"Your grandfather won't sell this land," she said.
She waved her arm in a sweeping motion, a motion I took to mean a lot of land.
"Your relatives have been trying to get him to sell it for a while now, but he won't."
I saw sugar cane and unsugared canes that were just trees. We ended our walk at a stone structure with several engravings.
"That's where your great-grandmother is buried," she said.
I might have nodded. Or made a face. We walked back to the house.
We were leaving that day, and my grandfather came out from his bedroom. He sat me down on a couch and reached into his cardigan pocket. He pulled out a wad of bills and placed it in my palm.
"I don't need this," I said.
"Take it," he said.
"I don't need it," I said. And again.
I won the argument by telling him I had a job.
"You work?" he said.
The cab arrived a few minutes later to take us to the train station. My grandfather put his arms around me, and he felt small and large all at once. I thought of my first trips to Taiwan, wrapping my tiny arms around his waist as I sat on the back of his motorcycle. We would go to the market, and he would pick up sweets and toys one by one, asking if I wanted them. I didn't need them, but I took them.

Things My Parents Say #2

It took me about 5 minutes to convince my friend Scott to buy an iPod Shuffle. I know what you're thinking. iPod Shuffles are stupid. I also thought this at one point. At many points, in fact. So just give me 5 minutes (depending on how fast you read) to establish a scenario.

1. You have a regular iPod.
2. You want to exercise to music.
A. You can spend $20-$30 for a special case for your iPod suited for exercise OR
B. You can spend $50 for a 1 gb iPod Shuffle.

In case A:
You will be running with your regular iPod. I broke one this way. You sweat on it. It attaches to your upper arm or something awkward. You have 7 million songs on it. Yes, you can make an exercise playlist to narrow it down. Do that. But you will have to swap out cases whenever you want to exercise. Do that. It will be enough of a reason not to exercise.

In case B:
The Shuffle is the size of a postage stamp. The Shuffle itself IS a clip. Clip it anywhere. Make an exercise playlist. Put it on there. Hit random or play it in order. Run away from all your problems.

I bring this up because my father asked me about my iPod Shuffle. After I explained the utility of such an object, he had this to say:

"So my students can record my lectures and listen to them while they exercise, yes?"
"Yeah, Dad. But I don't know if they want to listen to lectures while exercising."
"Some of my students probably already do this."

The Tipping Point

If you were to look up "affable" in the dictionary, you would find the definition of affable. But say you had some magical dictionary that had pictures of people you knew next to certain words. Say you had one of those. You might find a picture of my friend Yamanashi Dave. There was only one person in the entire prefecture that disliked Dave, and that guy wrote a thesis in the teachers' newsletter about becoming a musical lute. I wish I could make this up.

So I wasn't surprised when Dave was essentially hired as he got off the plane into customs. I picture an interview process where they keep trying to throw more money at him while he refuses. "No, kind sir. I'll work from the ground up!" Dave has helped in cultivating the right frame of mind for my unemployed self, and one point of advice really stuck out: It only takes one offer for everything to change.

That offer came yesterday.

The advertising agency that I had been interning at (read: for free) wants to see me around more. They want to give me the green papers so that I will come to the office more often. It's still on a part-time basis, so I will spend part of my time at the office and part of my time at home on weekdays. But we're getting somewhere.

What tipped their hand? I wrote a letter to clients in the voice of a child away at summer camp. It only takes one offer for everything to change.

My father the farmer

I have a certain habit when I read books. For one, I always make a new bookmark by folding a post-it note in half. Next, I always make sure to have a pen around when I'm reading. If I come across a line that resonates with me, I write only the page number on the bookmark. The idea is to later look back at my collection of books, my collection of page numbers, and see if any quotes jump out at me. It's a measuring stick of growth. I want to know what resonated back then and still now. If anything.

Unfortunately, I can't post-it note everything in my life. Which is why I have no idea where this line came from, nor can I quote it accurately. To paraphrase (which is just quoting with less accuracy), there comes a time in every man's life when he must walk away from his father. He has to become his own man.

My father did this in the 1970s, and he did it in a remarkable way. My grandfather was a self-sustaining farmer in rural Taiwan. Which means my father grew up riding cows, tilling the land, and literally living those made-up stories about walking to school with broken shoes. He had a faint idea of something better, so he left for America to pursue his PHD. I joked about it in the last post, but this is the American dream. If he can go from redneck to professor in a foreign country, what mark do I stand to leave?

But it's not about living up to him. It can't be if I ever want to be happy. So when I think about walking away from my father, it's not about escaping responsibility. In fact, there's quite a bit of levity in it. I'll call it nurturing my nature. Now I will stop being alliteration-ist (made that up) and just give you some examples.

A good way to talk about my father is to talk about my mother. My parents' home is littered with trinkets (see: tchotskes, brick-a-brack, tokens). I'm talking about Happy Meal toys from the '80s. Which is even more surprising because my parents never let us buy Happy Meals in the '80s or any other decade. My sister once tried to clean up the mess, and my mother uttered one of my all-time favorite lines: "No! They're for my projects!" My sister and I often quote this line at random. Now before you assume my mother throws cats at strangers, she teaches Pre-K. There's truth to this.

So when my sister became an elementary school teacher, she became equally obsessed with crafts. With projects. She handmade keepsakes for everyone at her wedding. And when my mother gave her and her husband a box of gifts for Xmas, my sister was very interested in the festive box.

As much as you resist, there are things you can't walk away from.

I didn't notice how much I was becoming my father until I was paying my own rent. I'd turn the thermostat way down in the winter and way up in the summer. This, of course, annoyed my roommates, but I couldn't help it. I figured grinning and bearing was worth a few dollars. I hated this as a kid, wearing sweaters inside during the winter, wearing t-shirts and boxers in the summer. It's the only thing that makes sense to me as an adult.

The other day I had a long conversation with a friend I grew up with who now lives in New York. When I say "grew up with," I mean her parents still live in the same neighborhood as my parents, where I currently live. They ask about her when we pass the house.

We talked about living in "the city," about how what you want changes when you actually have it. She was in NYC, in the media, but it wasn't all sweet cakes and puppy breath. It hadn't become that after three years. I think part of her is still incredibly driven to live that New York City lifestyle, but the other part wants simply what her parents have: a house in the suburbs, a two-car garage. I too feel the pull of NYC (though it was much stronger when I was living in Philadelphia), but mainly because living month to month has a certain romantic humanity to it. Who has ever created anything worthwhile without suffering? But I also want to own land.

So are we supposed to surpass our parents? And what defines "surpass"? Is the point of walking away to figure out that we need to return? I don't know. But it's cold outside and inside, and it's January.

You've got to admit it's getting better, Part 2

I met the Indian last night. His arms were nicely tatted up, and he told me a story about meeting his girlfriend's grandfather. The two men hit it off quite well, yet the grandfather later shared these words with the family: "He's nice, but don't let her go over to that side." He could have been referring to one of many things (marriage, India, tattoo parlors), but we all know it is every minority's wish to kidnap a white woman and take her to the country his parents were born, where he has never lived. We call it the American dream.

The Indian also mentioned saying "Merry Christmas" to his girlfriend's mother, who replied "Thanks for saying that," as if he had really put in the effort. Way to go, champ. You're one step closer to becoming America's Next Top American.

The conversation turned to comparing ignorance and racism, whether the grandfather's 87-year-old ideas would pass with his passing. Are we continuing to breed racism in America?

I'm unequipped to answer such a question, but it's not as if I haven't done the field work. Every human interaction I have could be viewed with a racial relations magnifying glass, but I try very hard not to do that. The best analogy I can make is of the recent hot button issue of athletes carrying guns. After the Plaxico Burress shooting, a former NFL player revealed that he carried a gun during his first two years in the league. He said that it only added to his problems because he started to see every person approaching him as a potential danger. Would he have to reach for his gun? What if he had to use it? After two years of going nuts, he tossed the gun over a bridge. In a matter of speaking, I try not to carry the gun.

My sister has a great story about an Asian girl who walked up to her in a bar. I believe the two of them were the only Asians in the bar, and the other girl said something to her about solidarity. She then said, "What's your authenticity?" I'm no statistician, but I'd have to go with 100%. My sister is a completely real human. Now I wouldn't deem her question racist or ignorant, but the girl was definitely of our generation. So the ball keeps rolling. The apples keep falling close to the tree.

I recently spent some time in San Francisco, a city that I was shocked to discover still boasts one of the highest percentages of race-related crimes in the country. Of course, this has a lot to do with the fact that every type of person lives in SF, so the chances are higher. An entirely homogenous community isn't having many race-related crimes in its boundaries.

I quite like San Francisco, though I get very introspective when I'm there. Chinatown, for one, is a real Chinatown. There are old men spitting tobacco in courtyards, and they're unlikely to know any English. Everything they need is within that community, and so the live the way they want. And though I like the vast number of cultures all living within the same space, I must admit that I lose a little of my identity in SF. I'm suddenly far from the only Asian in the room, the only one with square glasses and a mullet haircut. I'm suddenly in tune to the fact that maybe I'm not so unique. I'm terrified of talking to the other square glass mullets. In college I met a fourth generation Asian-American, and his existence blew my mind. His family has been here for a long time.

A friend recently went on a date with a guy with a French name. I asked if he was French, and the friend said no. His parents are from France, but he grew up here. So he's American. And how am I different from him? How is he more American than Mr. Fourth Generation? Why isn't he French-American? It sounds odd, I know.

I will never have the answers. I've come to accept this. As I mentioned in Part 1, the best I can do is keep learning. I try to keep the right people close, and I try to live up to my own principles. 100%, baby.