Photo: Gail Butensky

Unless you surf the Web over the weekend (weirdo) or peruse other indie rock websites (stop that!) you may have heard that Pavement, kings of this Fall’s newsfeed, are set to headline Sasquatch! next May at the Gorge Amphitheater in Quincy, WA. That’ll be taking place again this year over Memorial Day Weekend (29-31,) though which night Pavement will take the stage has has not yet been ascertained/divulged. And while the rest of the lineup will be announced come mid-February, we’re hoping we can report on more stateside reunion dates before then. Coachella, make it happen.

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.

According to Brooklyn Vegan, who quotes “reliable sources,” Indie Rock demigods Pavement will reunite in the summer of 2010 for a four night run at Central Park’s Summerstage in New York City. Of course, last time we heard rumors of Pavement reuniting it was for ATPNY and Wayne Coyne was the one asking Malkmus, Spiral Stairs and Co. and, well, that didn’t happen. While rumors are still just rumors, though from reliable sources, whatever that means, many expect Golden Voice to pony up Michael Jordan divorce settlement money for Pavement to reunite at the always popular reunion festival known as Coachella.

UPDATE: Pitchfork has confirmed that Pavement will indeed reunite on September 21st, 2010 for a show at Central Park’s Summerstage. More info later after we clean the collective shit out of our pants.

Above is the troublesome cover art for The Real Feel, the real deal solo debut from Spiral Stairs, neé Scott Kannberg and co-founder of almighty Pavement. You may have already tinkered a bit with Kannenberg’s work fronting Preston School Of Industry, but The Real Feel marks his first outing under the pseudonym with which most music nerds still know and sorta miss him. Word according to the Matablog is that the recording went down in Seattle late last year and includes contributions from former members of PSOI and the Posies, as well as Kevin Drew of Broken Social Scene. That very same blog is currently streaming new track “Maltese Terrier.” Give it a listen, album’s out on Matador in every format imaginable on October 20th!

—Nikki Turner

Pitchfork reported yesterday that Matador’s gearing up to unleash a new quadruple vinyl version of last year’s Brighten The Corners: Nicene Creedence Ed. re-issue that’s so behemoth, you’d could probably use it as a floating mattress this summer in the pool. But please don’t—that would be stupid. Overwhelmingly lengthy track list after the jump.

Brighten the Corners: Nicene Creedence Ed. Limited Edition 4LP Set:

LP1 (Original Album, released February 1997)

01 Stereo
02 Shady Lane / J Vs. S
03 Transport Is Arranged
04 Date w/IKEA
05 Old To Begin
06 Type Slowly
07 Embassy Row
08 Blue Hawaiian
09 We Are Underused
10 Passat Dream
11 Starlings of the Slipstream
12 Fin

LP2

01 And Then (The Hexx) 7″ Version (Originally released as the B-side to “Spit On A Stranger” May 1999)
02 Beautiful As A Butterfly
03 Cataracts
04 Embassy Row Psych Intro
05 Nigel
06 Chevy (Old To Begin) (Previously Unreleased mix of a BTC session song, featuring different vocals overdubs)
07 Roll With The Wind (Roxy) (Previously Unreleased mix of a BTC session song, featuring different vocals overdubs)
08 Westie Can Drum (Elastica) (Previously Unreleased mix of a BTC session track)
09 Stereo (Remix) (Remixed by Steve Fisk)
10 Birds in the Majic Industry (Previously unreleased full length vocal version)
11 An Then (The Hexx) (Unedited full version of the “Spit on Stranger” 7″ B-Side, as such previously unreleased, originally was supposed to be opening track of BTC)

LP3

01 Agony of the Stars (Recorded for the film Sweethearts)
02 Westie Can Drum
03 Winner of The
04 Birds in the Majic Industry (Originally released as the B-sides to “Stereo” January 1997)
05 Harness Your Hopes
06 Roll With The Wind (Originally released as the B-sides to “Spit On A Stranger” May 1999)
07 Slowly Typed
08 Cherry Area (Originally released as the B-sides to “Shady Lane” June 1997)
09 Wanna Mess You Around
10 No Tan Lines (Originally released as the B-sides to “Shady Lane” June 1997)
11 Oddity (Originally appeared on the God Save The Clean – A Tribute To The Clean album, 1997)
12 Date w/IKEA
13 Fin
14 Grave Architecture
15 The Classical (Recorded for Radio 1’s John Peel Show at BBC’s Maida Vale Studio 4, 1997)

LP4

01 And Then (The Hexx)
02 Harness Your Hopes
03 The Killing Moon
04 Winner of the (Recorded for Radio 1’s Evening Session at BBC’s Maida Vale Studios)
05 Type Slowly (Live) (Originally appeared on the compilation album “Tibetan Freedom Concert” 1997)
06 Neil Haggerty Meets Jon Spencer in a Non-Alcoholic Bar
07 Painted Soldiers
08 Destroy Mater Dei
09 What Goes On
10 Kris Kraft
11 It’s a Rainy Day Sunshine Girl
12 Maybe Maybe (Recorded live at KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic program, 1997)
13 Space Ghost Theme I
14 Space Ghost Theme II (Unreleased songs recorded live at WFNX, 1997)

In honor of the Memorial Day weekend, we took a very small poll asking a few friends to give us their ideal summer song. You know, the kind you would want to hear if you were outside driving around right now without a care in the world. Then we narrowed it down to seven eleven (an arbitrary number, who knows, it still may expand). So, here are seven eleven summer classics from Sister Nancy, Pavement, The Pharcyde, Donovan, Dizzee Rascal, Animal Collective, Screeching Weasel, People Under the Stairs, Dan Deacon, Queen and the one, the only, The Notorious B.I.G..

Sister Nancy – “Bam Bam”

Pavement – “Gold Soundz”

The Pharcyde – “Runnin”

Donovan – “There Is A Mountain”

Dizzee Rascal – “Bonkers”

Animal Collective – “My Girls”

Screeching Weasel – “Totally”

People Under The Stairs – “Acid Raindrops”

Dan Deacon – “Crystal Cat”

Queen – “Fat Bottomed Girls”

The Notorious B.I.G. – “Juicy”

Back in February we told you Sonic Youth would be releasing their 16th album, The Eternal, on June 9. Now, the first single for the album, which incidentally is the first track on the album, which incidentally is the band’s first with Matador has been released. And what better way to celebrate our affinity for the world’s preeminent major label indie band than to stream you the new single?

Starting the track off with the trick of ambiance to your ears, the song quickly moves from the feel of discordant noise, to the classically grungey garage feel that we know and love Sonic Youth for having. In the short 2 minute track, Sonic Youth managed to create a kicking track, as Gordon’s sharp vocals are perfectly laid and blended over the distorted sounds of the guitar and bass. Incidentally (if you’re counting, that’s three incidents), the band has also enlisted the services of Mark Ibold (Pavement) for bass on some of the tracks on The Eternal, including “Sacred Trickster”.

Sonic Youth – “Sacred Trickster”

Nothing can induce a potent combination of nostalgia and rage like the time-honored top 100 list. All the major music magazines have come out with at least one or two, and Rolling Stone has about a one-per-month quota. But this latest one comes from a slightly unlikely source — Amazon. Apparently they don’t just sell you music. They might actually know a little something about it, too. Maybe.

The Amazon list came equipped with a read-this-before-you-write-a-strongly-worded-letter clause, listing all the requirements and stipulations the Amazon music editors placed on albums worthy of the list.

The term “Indie Rock” is undeniably tricky. We challenge anyone to definitively define what is and what is not indie rock–you will fail. For the purposes of compiling this list we’ve decided to use a combination of hard and fast rules and gut instinct. Our hard and fast rules are listed below, but as for gut instinct—you just kind of have to know. For example: John Oates put out a rock record called Phunk Shui on an indie label, however, in no way should Phunk Shui be mistaken for indie rock. Likewise, Black Flag put out many seminal punk albums on SST, but we’re not talking about punk or grunge or classic post-kraut-rock, we’re talking about indie rock. Are Black Flag really indie rock? Not to our ears.

Here are the hard and fast rules:
• One album per artist.
• No EPs or singles, this list is about albums.
• No greatest hits collections or compilations of previously released tracks.
• Nominations must have been originally released on an independent label. Albums released on indies which were later acquired and/or re-released by majors are allowed (like Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nation, originally released by a pre-1989 major label merger Enigma Records).

With the only one album per artist rule, there are definitely a few that make you scratch your head — why Death Cab’s We Have The Facts instead of Plans, why does Sufjan Stevens fall higher than Bright Eyes, and both of them higher than Arcade Fire’s Funeral, which is higher than Husker Du?

But when it’s coming from Amazon, we know two things that bring us solace. No. 1, it’s an online marketplace ranking indie records, and thus any discrepancy should be taken with that proverbial salt grain. No. 2, the only reason something like this exists on a site like Amazon is to boost sales. And any outlet that wants to boost sales of indie rock? Pretty much okay in our book.

You judge for yourself. Here’s the top 20, you can see the full listing here.

20. I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One – Yo La Tengo
19. Kill the Moonlight – Spoon
18. Give Up – The Postal Service
17. Dig Me Out – Sleater-Kinney
16. No Pocky for Kitty – Superchunk
15. I See A Darkness – Bonnie “Prince” Billy
14. We Have The Facts and We’re Voting Yes – Death Cab For Cutie
13. Michigan – Sufjan Stevens
12. Daydream Nation – Sonic Youth
11. 69 Love Songs Volume 1 – The Magnetic Fields
10. Bakesale – Sebadoh
09. Either/Or – Elliott Smith
08. Surfer Rosa – Pixies
07. If You’re Feeling Sinister – Belle & Sebastian
06. Slanted & Enchanted – Pavement
05. Imperial f.f.r.r. (Deluxe Edition) – Unrest
04. Exile In Guyville – Liz Phair
03. Spiderland – Slint
02. In the Aeroplane Over the Sea – Neutral Milk Hotel
01. Bee Thousand – Guided by Voices

If you grew up in the 90s like some of us (no names will be mentioned), then you must be creaming your collective pants. Let’s see, we’ve had Jane’s Addiction, Blur, Faith No More, Sublime, Jesus Lizard, Pavement, Orbital and The Libertines all in the news in the past couple months about confirmed or rumored reunions. And that’s not even taking into account The Specials or Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Well, add one more to your list. The already once-reformed and broken up Pixies are at it again three years after their 2004 reunion stint.

Earlier today, NME reported that the Pixies will be playing Isle of Wight Festival on June 14 before headliner Neil Young. Festival promoter John Giddings was quoted as saying, “It was hard to think of someone capable of complementing the musical talent of Neil Young, but once I had the idea it was blindly obvious and it will surely be a legendary day on the Isle Of Wight.”

The Isle Of Wight Festival line-up so far is:
The Prodigy
Basement Jaxx
The Ting Tings
Pendulum
Stereophonics
Razorlight
Neil Young
Pixies
The Charlatans

And in case you want some juice with your news, Pitchfork has reminded us that in 2007 Kim Deal said, “I think [a new Pixies album] is something to bring up whenever [Frank Black] needs press. That’s the only time I hear about it. I have no idea, dude.”

And in fact, Frank Black does have have somethings to promote, including a new album with his wife, Violet Clark, under the name Grand Duchy, out April 14 in the U.S. on Cooking Vinyl. He also produced Art Brut’s latest LP, Art Brut vs. Satan, and there may or may not be a new Breeders EP in the works.

Well, to be fair, the “more” refers to The Orb and Etienne de Crecy, who along with Devendra Banhart, Chemical Brothers and the Murder City Devils have been added to the official line-up at the Coachella festival.

According to the L.A. Weekly [via The Daily Swarm], Coachella has a new web ‘zine called Coachella Digital, which yesterday confirmed what we told you about Amy Winehouse, and also announced the addition of five new acts to the roster. As the Weekly points out, none of them are U2, Pavement or The Smiths, but it’s still a nice little surprise.

The addition of Devendra Banhart, The Orb, Chemical Bros., Murder City Devils and Etienne de Crecy brings the total of acts scheduled to appear up to 125 — still two shy of last year’s bill.

After hours of text messages, phone calls, and the typical Nashville rumor, it was obvious something was going down at the East Side’s resident club, The 5 spot. Their MySpace had it marked as a “secret show,” and word on the street was an illustrious Pavement reunion would be going down, and rock ‘n’ roll history would be changed. Not exactly the case. The original percussionist for the now 10-year deceased band, Bob Nastanovich, was getting hitched on Saturday in Nashville — and well, the so-called Pavement reunion was supposed to be somewhat of a private reception affair.

But much to the annoyance of the wedding party, word had leaked on the street, and there were over 200 people packed in a normally 100 or so person venue. Most people filed through the doors about 8:30, which is insanely abnormal in the first place considering most of Nashville doesn’t make it out til’ the midnight oil starts burning. Nearly two hours later after the house bluegrass band had long cleared the stage and the crowd was beyond their tipsy limit, something began to happen. Yes, Pavement showed up, but not like you would think.

Longtime Silver Jews band members William Tyler and Brian Kotzur took the stage with a slew of other folks to hammer out a night of 70s funk and soul covers along with the odd diversion into the likes of Sabbath’s “Sweet Leaf” and you know, “Jessies Girl.” That song just can’t be escaped, not even at a Pavement members wedding reception. All the members of Pavement sang during at least one track, and the entire band minus Scott Kanberg, were on the stage for a hilarious rendition of “Rock This Party.”

After a while, the hipsters filed out and this just turned into one big party, one that nobody really felt like they belonged at but wouldn’t head out the door in fear of missing something. David Berman even showed up for a minimal period of time. He had a look of confusion on his face due to the audience and bailed shortly after. Smart guy. For those that were let down, they got the pleasure of seeing Malkmus rock the building with “Come and Get Your Love” — and if that’s not enough to please your 5 dollar cover, then I don’t know what is. While this may have been the closest thing we’ll see to a Pavement reunion until some huge festival inevitably pays for their return, it was an honor just to attend one of the most confusing, enduring parties of the winter. Good grief.

Pavement — along with the people at Matador — are once again on the reissue train. With the expanded edition of 1997’s Brighten The Corners being released yesterday (the fourth Pavement record, and fourth of eventually five reissues by Matador), our friends at FADER posted this Q&A with original engineer Mitch Easter.

Easter, who engineered Brighten the Corners at the studio he had in his Athens, Georgia home at the time, ironically states that he was unaware of the reissue prior to the interview [excerpt below]. You can read the full interview here, and when you’re done, you can find out what kind of Pavement person you are.

Have you seen what’s going to be on the reissue?
I don’t know anything about it. The first I’ve heard about it is this interview. It’s funny because I felt kind of weird about the fact that I didn’t really work on that record on any kind of huge capacity, but I think when it came out, my name floated around for a little bit. Nobody really heard of me much around that time, but at the same time, there were still people that remembered me from a few years before and I got all this press for the record. And I didn’t deserve it. It’s Bryce’s baby. I felt kind of embarrassed about that. I think the New Yorker magazine mentioned me and said that I produced it, which is just wrong. I don’t remember what the credits are, but that was a very much band-produced record, if not a co-production between them and Bryce. That was an example of how beloved they were. They really did get people’s attention and it definitely did get people to start calling me again about recording them.