from the LP Wowee Zowee, Matador Records, 1995There have always been certain bands that come along at particular moments in music history and become larger than either themselves or the songs they write; the very utterance of their name in conversation unlocks doors, and they serve as something of a “coolness” litmus test for the in-crowd. Whether they wanted that mantle or not (anyone who is familiar with their early releases knows they certainly didn’t set out to become that), Pavement sat alongside Sonic Youth, The Pixies and others for the first half of the ‘90s. I enjoy many of their slacker anthems, particularly Steven Malkmus’ snide attitude and snarky, cryptic condemnations of pop culture; his singing might not be the liveliest, but when you smoke that much weed…in fact, in this song, he’s so wasted that, “…we’re smokin’ marijuana, doing blotters, I don’t know which…” The cover art on this album is a cheeky remix of the jacket for the Kanguru LP by acid-gobbling Krautrockers, Guru Guru.
