Photo: Gail Butensky

Unfortunately, it doesn’t include new material, but Pavement guitarist Spiral Stairs told NME.com that the band plans to release a best of compilation album sometime next year, which will feature previously unreleased radio sessions. He explained that the album would feature outtakes along with some of Pavement’s most popular songs, and that its release would coincide with some of the band’s reunion shows scheduled for next fall.

“There’s talk of doing a best of, with some really cool outtakes on that,” he explained. “The very first radio show that Pavement ever did has never been released. I don’t think anyone’s heard it, so we’ll put that out there sometime.”

Photo: Gail Butensky

Australia and New Zealand will be the first countries to experience the forthcoming Pavement reunion in all of its glory: the band will play its inaugural comeback show at the Auckland Town Hall on March 1, and will then head to Australia for six concerts.

Tour dates are as follows:
03.01.10 Auckland, NZ @ Auckland Town Hall
03.04.10 Sydney, AUS @ Enmore Theatre
03.06.10 Victoria, AUS @ Golden Plains Festival
03.07.10 Adelaide, AUS @ The Barton Theatre
03.08.10 Perth, AUS @ Metro City
03.10.10 Brisbane, AUS @ Tivoli
03.12.10 Melbourne, AUS @ Palace Theatre

After its stint down under, the band will headline and curate the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in Minehead, England next May, followed by a string of shows in New York in September.

Photo: Gail Butensky

You ever have that thing happen where you get a missed call from your ex that you were madly in love with (say between the years 1992 and 1999) and you assume her call means she wants to get back together and give it another go for real. And then you make a reservation at her favorite Thai place and call her back and she’s just confirming your address so she can send you a “Save The Date” for her wedding. No? Just us? Well, Pavement’s Bob Nastanovich wants to make sure this doesn’t happen this time around.

In an interview with The Quietus, Nastanovich clears up some rumors about the band’s split in the first place, implying a pretty peaceful decision that cited exhaustion and Malkmus’ direction as the only real factors. He also stated the rest of the band has always been up for something like this. The aformentioned reality check for the many fanboys of the world (ourselves not omitted from this statement) came here.

Will you do new material?
BN: No.

Is this a once and once only kind of deal?
BN: I’m pretty sure that’s the case.”

So there’s that. Glass half full… at least there won’t be any complaints for a rushing through of the old stuff? (Via: Daily Swarm via The Quietus)

It’s been heavily rumored for months, even before the announcement of the reunion, and it is in fact happening: Pavement will curate All Tomorrow’s Parties in Minehill, England in May 14-16 2010. Playing ATP means that the band’s first scheduled shows at Central Park will– surprise, surprise– not be their first shows! Who could’ve seen this coming?! Now the question should be, what’s the likelihood will be that Pavement will play Coachella? Or rather, when will Coachella announce that Pavement is headlining? Maybe they’ll “ruin” Lollapalooza again! All in all, looks like the Spiral Stairs may be too busy booking plane tickets on Orbitz to tour Sri-Lanka in support of his forthcoming The Real Feel. Tickets go on sale this Friday.

Sometimes in our RSS-haze we forget that “indie rock” wasn’t always so fashionable. In fact, if you go back to early nineties, the style was a lack of style, and not in some “I’m going to wear this because no one would think that I would actually wear this” sort of way. (Look at you Mom jeans.) Rather, it was earnest, as if all indie rockers of the ’90s merely woke up, saw their jeans and put them on. It was honest. It was real. Often, it was pretty ugly. While the slacker style has surely come back into play by kids whose first CD was Bush Sixteen Stone, it just doesn’t feel as “authentic” as it did back then. Times have changed kids, but the classic t-shirt, Levi’s and All-Stars will never die. It just will never look as cool as it did on these dudes.

You could even be a fat dude in shorts and that was cool…even in Europe! (Fun fact, pretty sure Ira Kaplan has been swapping between the same two t-shirts since Yo La Tengo began in 1984.)

As Pavement demonstrate, your clothes did not have to “fit,” let alone be “form fitting.” Also note, white long sleeve tee. God I miss the ’90s.

Sonic Youth wear coats. Long leather jackets, black and purple nylon ski parkas and denim jackets with leather collars.

As for video fashion, Chavez may have put it all out on the table when they shot their video for “Break Up Your Band” on a trans-gender hosted talk show featuring suburban moms, stripping firemen, kimono clad rickshaw drivers, loin cloth covered dudes in bear masks, and a bevy of gigantic collars.

Something tells me Veruca Salt will opt against the floral crop tank top when they inevitably reunite. (Notice the gold microphones. Oh, Glastonbury.)

Lou Barlow in Germany in 1995 looks like my fifth grade Earth Science teacher in Germany in 1995.

On the other hand, J. Mascis looks pretty much exactly the same.