It’s not easy to describe the pleasures of art-rock heroes Pavement, so with a laid-back, unfussed attitude that the band would probably appreciate, Australian megafan Steve Bell doesn’t really try. “The beauty of music,” Bell says, sighing. “You can’t really articulate it sometimes.”
Sure, you could point to the nonsensical, defiantly cheeky lyrics of bandleader Stephen Malkmus, a gangly guitar god who appears onstage seemingly composed entirely out of knees, elbows, and slacker indifference. Or the rich, strange pleasures of their hit singles, songs like Cut Your Hair and Gold Soundz, which seemed at once part of the grunge revolution and as though they were regarding the whole movement with one raised eyebrow. Or, their endless reinventions, which saw the band morph from the hard edges of their second album, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, to the splatter-punk mess of Wowee Zowee.
