That's all folks!
Markhex asks:
Does it annoy you that some people come to the shows just to hear Pavement songs? What was behind the decision to play them in the encores of this tour as opposed to playing more Jicks numbers?
Guardian contributor It does not annoy me. Maybe if people are calling out for them during the whole set, we would ask you to refrain from that so we could focus on the present moment, which is playing our album. But an encore is a time of just to mess around. There's supposed to be some different field to it, I think, a cover song or something unexpected. So as we started doing them, it's seemingly unexpected, but of course with the internet everyone knows what's coming. So really it's a little golden Easter egg we're throwing out at the end. And it's fun to play for the band, I think. At least, they tell me that. They can play anything, the Jicks. Like I've said, we might as well play our own songs and get the PRS. Ha ha.
OperationBanger asks:
Who is your favourite guitar player?
Guardian contributor I like Bert Jansch a lot, old folkie Scottish guy. Steve Gunn, a young gun. He's amazing.
murgs78 asks:
I first came to Pavement’s music after Blur had cited the band as an influence for their self titled album. Were you aware of the influence?
Guardian contributor Yeah, cos I know those guys. Around that time they came around some Pavement shows and Graham especially has always been open in digging Pavement. And mutual fanclub, cos I think he's cool. I think Damon's awesome at music, golden voice, golden boy, makes it look so easy to be like, in all the genres.
'I've seen Oasis three times and the concerts were just atrocious'
dogwaiter1 asks:
Can you enlighten us with the Oasis anecdote…?
Guardian contributor No, not really. Their first album, we played at that festival in Holland, it could be Pukkelpop, and they were on right before us in a tent, and on they went. And I thought they were playing so slow, and like, bar chord-y and lead, it sounded like, sawed, I had no idea that it was gonna take off like that. I've seen them three times since and the concerts were just atrocious. Their albums are good, I like their songs, I think they have beautiful songs. This everyman, Fred Perry, Beatles catchiness, I relate to it. But the shows, I couldn't believe the mediocrity. Maybe I caught them on an off night. Three times.
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'I auctioned my services as a guitar teacher for a school fair and taught another dad Purple Haze'
Steve Baker asks:
Have you ever been a teacher or taught music?
Guardian contributor Once at my kid's school, there was an auction, and I auctioned my services and the dad showed up. He was like, just beginning. So he had his acoustic guitar and I wanted to give him something that sounded hard to play that wasn't. That's usually a good way to inspire somebody to wanna play. Like, it's not that hard, I can do it. So I taught him the chord to Purple Haze, his first minor seventh. And he couldn't play it.
LeicesterNige asks:
Zurich is Stained – anything behind that?
Guardian contributor Nothing behind it, it's right in front of you. It's from the era of cryptic Pavement, when that's the kind of lyrics I wrote. The music itself is straight ahead, I think. It's got a little bit of emo in it.
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BonhamHouse asks:
Stephen, ever consider collaborating with Robert Pollard? What is your relationship with him like?
Guardian contributor I never have considered to collaborate with him. When has he ever collaborated? Doesn't need it. He's awesome at what he does. I don't think I could add anything. It's a universe in and of itself. We don't need another universe where it's like, me and Bob. He's great.
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MrDisc0 asks:
When you lived in Berlin did you ever visit Berghain?
Guardian contributor Yeah, been there like four times. To me it's an institution. It is just a dance club and its great for that but it has an added - where I live in Portland, there's these places people visit like Voodoo Donuts, and actually the donuts are terrible, but people wait in line and it's something you do when you visit. It's something you should do in Berlin. Not every tourist should go to Berghain - you'll get turned away - but everyone reading this, you're all going to get in if you're not off your head. Great soundsystem. Really fun.
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callummcfadden asks:
Mark E Smith accused Pavement of being a “rip off” of his band, one that did not “have an original idea in their heads”.
With the resurgence of music inspired by the 90s, and bands in England such as Hooton Tennis Club and Happyness being accused of cribbing from Pavement, how do you feel about bands taking inspiration from Pavement? Is it a pastiche or do you feel proud to have inspired young artists?
Guardian contributor I wouldn't be the one to accuse anybody of imitation. Imitation is a pejorative, so it's like, how do you - inspiration, imitation, we're all in a hall of our heroes when we're playing music. Sometimes when I'm playing concerts, I actually embody, symbolically, I'll pretend I'm Keith Richards for a second when I do a song like that. I'm not me any more. It's like play acting. And even if I'm not embodying a specific person, just the images I have in my head are taken - they're not my images. The visions I see, I don't see myself. We're all doing that, it's no big deal. And it's an honour - the fact, more concretely, if anyone bothers to listen to you, it's an honour. And they're not making any money off it so I don't have to be jealous about that cos no one is.
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'A memoir is like a cyanide pill you do at the end'
Sionann O’Neill 01
Your lyrics are endlessly fascinating. Is there any chance you might publish a book of them one day?
Guardian contributor Not lyrics. I mean, the concept of a book is a bullet that you have in your belt if things get really desperate. I know that there is a publishing house that would do that - like a memoir - but like I say, it's kind of a cyanide pill you have at the end. If you're a secret agent, you carry it in a little locket. What's my resistance to it? The work. Self-consciousness and how to develop your voice and not have it just be another one. Fear. Everything like that.
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Mitch Ward asks:
The recent experimental music which you put together and is fast becoming lore – will you be putting it out any time soon?
Guardian contributor Yes. It's in the pipeline. Don't get your hopes up for major, major, major experimental, but you know, no guitar solos. It's different. It's amazing. Just gotta get that out there.
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NatTheHammer asks:
Are there any plans to release the soundtrack to “Flaked”?
Guardian contributor I don't think so. There was but I think the show just kinda got lost in the bittorrent universe of too much content and its averageness. It's just another show to be honest, no disrespect to everybody who all worked on it. But some things people take to and... I did see the show, when I was watching Better Call Saul, there's a show called Lot 49 or something that comes on right before, and I watched an episode of the show and it's basically Flaked done again with a slacker dude, Southern California climate. So the idea of Flaked was one that male screenwriters continue to fantasise about.
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Henry Scanla asks:
Do you remember your worst case of writer’s block? How the hell did you break through it?
Guardian contributor I feel kind of like lyrically, it's always lurking. And as I get older, for better or worse, it continues not only because you've painted a lot of the rooms already in a certain way and don't want to repeat yourself. The world continues, and lots of other avenues and people have taken what you did or bounced off it - they're not just listening to you - but in the field, lots has happened and it becomes tired, what you did in the past. It loses its glow. And combine that with my mind itself becoming - whatever's happened, I'm either more picky, or less, it just doesn't flow out. You have to dig harder. And beyond that, the times themselves - not only just history passing but the actual times of now, what works now is difficult, I think, to find a language that can connect or glows, at least to me. So all that leads to writer's block. If you think that, like I just said, how are you not gonna be, right?
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OperationBanger asks:
With weed being all legal and stuff now, are you ever tempted to return to blaze up and pump out some downtuned stoner rock?
Guardian contributor You can even call cocaine "a tool" to keep you up for a good party night or something, but let's say marijuana, you listen with a different perspective to your music, I think it's useful. I think it's worth exploring to listen, to at least run your tracks through a stoner test. The proof's in the pudding. I know a lot of hip-hop is created completely baked, and the data is in - people love the stuff.
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'Biggest stoner in Pavement? In my prime, me'
OperationBanger asks:
Who was the biggest stoner in Pavement?
Guardian contributor In my prime, it was me. But it would probably be our sound man from Holland, named Renko. Which is nice, to have someone who's not afraid to smoke a joint at the sound board. I think everyone can benefit from that altered perspective.
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Shannon Hoon asks:
How was your hitchhiking experience in Wales? You mentioned this at a show before you played Refute. Great gig by the way
Guardian contributor We stayed in a rural hotel in Wales, a farming town, and it seemed like a very safe place. I mean, maybe there was some Straw Dogs-style menace that I didn't pick up on, but it looked like a good place that you could stick your thumb out and get a lift to the next town, jump in the back of a truck with a couple of haybales in it and move onto your next mushroom-hunting excursion. I've never actually hitchhiked apart from from Munich to Berlin when the wall was still up. No problems, either. That all sounds cool but really I was coming from Oktoberfest and being swarmed by Australians and other 19-year-olds doing the worst idea of a party. But at least I did go to Berlin.
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OperationBanger asks:
If you were 19 today, would you still be starting a band? If not, what would you be doing?
Guardian contributor If I was 19... yes, I probably would start a band. Yeah. Knowing what I know now, I would, cos I have had so much relative success that I would think I could do it all over again. And I wouldn't know - I can't know what I would think like cos I already know all this. There's no way I could give up all this glory, this chance at glory, this Cinderella golden chocolate bar.
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'The metrosexual revolution isn't over for the Jicks yet'
raler7000 asks:
Following Pavement’s demise I remember reading a comment about there being only so many morning photocalls with band members-and-their-aftershave a man could take. How is the aftershave/perfume situation with SM + Jicks?
Guardian contributor Good question. Great, great question. I mean, the Jicks are a relatively metrosexual group, we still fly that flag, it's not over for us, the metrosexual revolution. We're stuck in 2007. I've got some pretty nice stuff in my bag called Facial Fuel, I don't really know what it does, from Kiehl's. A man wears it. It's got a little bit of sunblock. It doesn't seem to work on me cos I'm always tan. It would be a pleasure to share a room with any of them.
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steviewwin asks:
1) I’ve read that you fly-fish. Where do you fish and what’s your target species?
2) Letterman, O’Brien or Leno?
3) Pavement performed Stereo on Conan O’Brien. Mark Ibold stands suspiciously close to you the whole performance. Do you secretly record all the bass parts to your songs and Mark Ibold is really an onstage bodyguard in case Billy Corgan/Glenn Fry or Don Henley attacks?
4) Strangest thing you’ve seen at a gig?
Guardian contributor 1. Trout. In Idaho, in Wisconsin and Oregon, we fish for trout. That's about it. Before you have kids you don't realise that your leisure vacations are forever going to be related to cousins and families - I didn't know that - and as that has worked out, we all convene at this fishing club in Wisconsin, it's beautiful. So it's destination, and my parents live in Idaho, so again, just staying at their house. You can wander across the interstate and you're casting. Sounds great, right? I even caught a trout over new year's in the snow. I was proud of that cos no one believed I could do it. We were getting ready for Christmas, I took the reels out and caught a fish. We throw them back. It's just for sport.
2. Definitely Letterman. Then Leno. And last O'Brien. Letterman, y'know, iconic, he's part of the development of humour on TV and along SNL, he bled into Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm - everything we have today is kind of, knowing, cynical, WTF humour that's even on the internet, on YouTube now.
3. That's quite a gang coming after me. Mark's not a fighter. So, no. Answer is no.
4. I can't remember being all that shocked by anything that surprising. I hate to say. Nothing's shocking, as Jane's Addiction said so eloquently.
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monkeygonetoheavensi asks:
What would you say if Billy Corgan called you up wanting Pavement as a support for the Smashing Pumpkins reunion tour?
Guardian contributor I probably would reject that offer but if I believed in the sincerity I would write an email that signalled peace and love and understanding.
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jamesc23 asks:
What Pavement song/album are you most proud of, and why?
Guardian contributor I guess because I just saw Nigel Godrich last night, I'll say Terror Twilight. The song... perhaps like Spit on a Stranger because somehow people told me they've used that as their wedding song and it's an odd accomplishment for a song with that title to be making the wedding circuit.
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AlasdairDickson asks:
When Pavement reformed in 2010, the band described in an interview how none of you had addressed the issues that had caused the band to split eleven years before. Was all of this resolved by the end of that reunion tour?
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texavery asks:
Are you still dressed for success?
Guardian contributor I mean, in a way I have an APC jumper on right now, and Rag and Bone pants, is that good status? Thom Yorke supports Rag and Bone instead of a football team.
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Edwin Bell asks:
Could we ever see a live Jicks release?
Guardian contributor I mean, no. Not for sale. It seems not necessary to put a monetary - I'd rather just give it away. It's a good idea maybe to put it on Bandcamp or something like that though.
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njshields asks:
Your Wikipedia page says your a Hull FC fan. Is it true? Why?
Guardian contributor It is true and it's because my crew, the people I've worked with, that I've been lucky to employ, are almost all from Hull - guitar tech Andy Dimmock who's gone on to work with the likes of Arctic Monkeys and Franz Ferdinand, he's a big Hull City supporter. And the Beautiful South, of course. They're season ticket holders and they pump me up on it. Right now it's quite dire, they're in the bottoms of the tables and the realities of venture capitalist football club ownership are being waged on the town and waged on the team because they've sold all their good players. Tough times indeed. Plus Phillip Larkin's from there. And Mick Ronson.
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'Getting slated by Beavis and Butthead was too much'
Chonged asks
What were your thoughts when Beavis and Butthead said Pavement needed to ‘try harder’?
Guardian contributor It hurt my feelings. They didn't realise in Slanted and Enchanted, one of our albums before - I had a song, all I said was, "I'm trying!" To the point that when my mom heard that song she felt so bad, like she didn't do enough for her son. And then to get it from two sarcastic Gen X slackers on MTV, it was all too much.
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DWFan1 asks:
What’s your favourite Pixar film?
Guardian contributor The power of suggestion leads to Coco. I do remember seeing them with my kids but I can't say I have a critical take. It's like saying what your favourite social media platform is or something.
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'Dave got caught with Mace in his backpack – he had to go to jail!'
callate asks:
What’s your favourite David Berman story?
Guardian contributor Well, mmmm, I'm trying to think. What's hagiography and what's reality? I suppose a funny one was when we worked at the Whitney Museum in New York as security guards and his grandmother in Long Island - we had just moved to the big city from the safe confines of student life, unfortunately, makes us less cool - she said, "David!" He went out and she gave him a can of mace, like, "You're gonna need this in the big city, it's very dangerous in New York!" Since he had been living in NY he had this can of mace in his backpack that he never planned to use - it was almost a talisman, a funny thing to talk about and look at. We used to evade fares quite often on the tube because it was easy and we were poor. You know, it was a very minor infraction and early 90s NY wasn't so highfalutin. Anyway, he got caught one day coming back from work, they did a sting operation and he got caught. And then they checked his backpack and he had the mace, and it was illegal to carry mace without a permit, it turned out, and he had to go to jail for like, four hours. It was very funny. I mean, you laugh at the Schadenfreude. I don't know why I didn't feel bad for him, I should have, but it was more like we were laughing.
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mattereater_lad asks:
Can’t say I would have ever read the excellent Pure Slaughter Value if not for my love of Pavement. Can I get another book recommendation?
Stephen Malkmus replied: My partner just read Testo Junkie by Paul B. Preciado, it’s a weird book. I like Rachel Cusk, Transit. More in the realm of Pure Slaughter Value would be Patrick DeWitt’s recent novels like The Sisters Brothers, which got made into a movie recently with Joaquin Phoenix. He’s got another one called French Exit.
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garfmaster2000 asks:
When I got Pig Lib, there were some super-catchy songs you left off that a friend gave me (from a Japanese bonus disc?) - Fractions & Feelings and Dynamic Calories. I must have played them a hundred times that summer. Why didn’t those two make the cut? Are there any other Jicks-era lost treasures?
Guardian contributor I made a mistake - some songs that were more immediate and should have been on there - you're right, I should have put those songs on instead of a couple tracks which I won't name in case someone likes them. The record was made, like a proper album in that we were experimenting and did not know what it was gonna sound like, and the first song, which is called Water in a Seat, and this other song, called 1% of 1, once they were made, they sorta had the template or the vibe of the record, which I over-stated in my mind. Those other songs, the catchy ones, seemed to me to be out of place, you know, in this kinda prog darkness that the record had. But really, it wasn't because sonically it was all there and I should have put those on. Sorry! Mistake!
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laurasnapes asks:
You are a noted Scrabble demon. What’s your top tip or trick?
Guardian contributor If you play on the Scrabble app on your phone, you don't have to get the words right. It spits them out. And so this makes for experimental word dreaming. When you do that, you learn some new words. It's not cheating because that's the way the app is. And then you could play pure, to your heart, and try to play a game without using that but it's very difficult once you have that opportunity. Play random people on your Scrabble app. I read that Portland, Oregon where I live - it totally makes sense - that we have a lot of graphic novel writers and Scrabble champions and just sort of, pointless masters of time-wasting. There's five top-rated Scrabble players in our town but they play tournament Scrabble, which I've never done.
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lunalc1938 asks:
Is it true you are a fan of Toast of London?
Guardian contributor Yes. Yes, I was informed when I was hate-watching Netflix, people started throwing me recommendations, it was a very giving moment, for the media-obsessed generation, and they recommended Toast of London. It's light and cringey. I don't really watch comedy so often - I should more. I tend to gravitate towards, I don't know, the scissors... Sharp Objects. Or Succession, those kind of things. It's almost not even that I like them, I go that direction. I as talking about the gig we played last night and I thought about these guitar solos I played, they're so compulsive, I look back and I'm like, why did I do that? I don't even like guitar solos.
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Stephen Malkmus is in the office…
… and ready to answer your questions!
Post your questions for Stephen Malkmus
Coming to fame in the early 90s as co-founder and lead singer of the band Pavement, Stephen Malkmus, 52, has since become an icon of American indie rock. Over Pavement’s five albums, Malkmus’s often eccentric wordplay and off-kilter compositions won them a devoted following. They even prompted the Fall’s Mark E Smith to call them a “rip off” of his band, one that did not “have an original idea in their heads”.
After the group disbanded in 1999, Malkmus collaborated with Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore on their project Kim’s Bedroom, as well as writing music for film and TV, including tracks for Todd Haynes’ unconventional biopic of Bob Dylan, I’m Not There. He also fronts the enduring Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks – their seventh album, Sparkle Hard, was released in May.
As he tours the UK with the Jicks, Malkmus is joining us to answer your questions about his life and music, in a live webchat from 12.15pm BST on Thursday 25 October – post them in the comments below and he’ll take on as many as possible.
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I've occasionally read the comment sections on the Guardian online. I'm glad to control the narrative for a second instead of being swallowed up by Tory trolls. Thank you. Goodnight.