Pavement, by Whitney Farmer – Un Pop Culture

September 22, 2010 Whitney Farmer 6 Comments

Whitney runs a rock music venue on the beach in L.A. She has an M.B.A., and lots of books.

How many times has someone deleted an image of the object of a romantic disappointment from their cellphone in exchange for a pic of a grease mark from the ground in a parking lot that looks like Jesus? I know I’m not alone when I say, “If I had a nickel for every time…”

In an awkward pavement segue, indie-rock band PAVEMENT has begun touring after breaking up ten years ago. Not taking a sabbatical or going on hiatus, but a BREAK UP compete with dramatic gestures like performing what was their last set with a lead singer in handcuffs at Brixton Academy (in London, not Redondo Beach). The mind-bending performance art/tantrums might continue with the band that alternately describes itself as nu-jazz / ghettotech / black metal – each insider idiom more distanced from reality than the last.

The one-off concert that they announced on September 17, 2009 in Central Park sold out in two minutes. More dates were added, and then a roster of tour locations. Their new album is “Quarantine the Past: The Best of Pavement”, embodying in its title even if not in its music an awesome contribution to the cultural landscape.

Why is this important? Because everyone in my professional sphere with either experience or power says that it is. A band with little commercial success  in the past and a history of being professionally unpredictable is selling out huge venues and is being embraced almost religiously. The standard indicators of quality – strong singing with multiple octaves, serious instrumental craftsmanship, and prescient lyrics – are not present. It sounds mostly like what would be created in a garage in Stockton, California.  This is appropriate because that is where they came from. There is a challenge to see if you can figure out the joke. And it is in this that PAVEMENT makes its mark

There is no packaging here, and perhaps an inaccurate and naïve conclusion that no demographic segment is the intentional object of a Pitch. They are what you see and will do what they want, or they will walk off the stage. In an industry which has begun to reap the consequences of betraying the Mission, these smelly John the Baptists might do us some good by having righteous tantrums.  If a vision is compromised at the foundation, it is going to crumble no matter what quality of building that happens later.

My greatgreatgreat…uncle was Thomas Chalmers, the first President of the School of Divinity of the University of Edinburgh. He was known for leading a revolt in Scotland called the Disruption.  It occurred when the Church of Scotland willingly gave the government power over everything that they did. They could be told what to preach, who could preach, where and when. Ownership to all property was also handed over. It seemed like a financially shrewd move at the time to hand over the keys to the kingdom in exchange for the easy life.  But about 400 clergy revolted, saying that God was in charge and that they would not be used as political tools. To this, the government fired them from their positions which were now government jobs, with their government housing in the rectories being stripped from them as well.

This could have been a tragic turn of events for these uncompromising straight-talkers if it hadn’t been for Chalmers.  Two years earlier, he had what he described as foreknowledge given by God about what was going to happen. Being a university professor whose lectures on mathematics were known to incite such zeal in the students that he was reprimanded for being too passionate, he had the technical skills to make a plan. Two years before the government did their worst, he began to set up a trust. When the 400 refused to compromise, rather than being made destitute as a cautionary example by the government who wanted to get into the God business, they and their families fell into the trust safety net envisioned and launched by Chalmers. Within a decade, the government of Scotland retracted their grasping actions, apologizing to the free people of the land, and returned autonomy back to the people of faith.

It might be a stretch to say that PAVEMENT are visionaries or prophets to the brothel that is now music. But disruption is a good idea when a situation is bad.     
Quote of the Blog from Stephen Malkmus, lead singer of Pavement, when asked about his strategic decision to shelve the band for a decade to increase market demand, “Well…it’s not something that you can strategize.”