Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks @ Bowery Ballroom - 31 March 2008

In "Out of Reaches" - a semi slow-jam from Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks' latest album Real Emotional Trash - Malkmus coos repeatedly of "gale force intimacy"; a characteristically obtuse sentiment that aptly summarized the first of his three sold-out New York shows last night.

Trading in the slightly larger digs of the Fillmore at Irving (where he's played the last few times here in NYC) for the (relatively) cozier surroundings of Bowery Ballroom, the eternally laid-back Malkmus shambled his way through a nearly two-hour set so loose and carefree it felt as though the crowd was watching a late-night jam at his Portland practice space. And in no way is this meant as a slight.

It was a refreshing and honest performance by an artist so confident in his (and his band's) abilities that he almost seemed to relish the challenge of rocking out with as little forethought and self-restraint as possible. The crowd responded in kind and reached a level of perceived intimacy in many ways: via his knowing smirk as he slightly botched a guitar line, through the meandering ins and outs of the epic song constructions that define the new album, and in the false starts and stops that marked the beginning of several tunes but somehow only added to their overall charm.

Intimacy. Also brought to the Bowery in a gale force fury courtesy of Janet Weiss, former drummer for Sleater-Kinney and the latest full-time addition to the Jicks. Her potent combination of deadly precision and intuitive feel for Malkmus' idiosyncrasies has been a priceless addition to the band, adding snarling new muscle to their improvisatory jams - "Real Emotional Trash" was particularly awe-inspring - while stoically anchoring the more traditional grooves - as in the punishing, no-frills attack throughout the encore-closing "Dark Wave".

Last night, sloppy and spirited merged with the precise and possessed; it was an inspiring collision. Lots more pics after the jump...












*photos courtesy of Jonathan for EF

Listen:
"Baltimore"
"Real Emotional Trash"

See more pictures from this show HERE

See Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks Live:
01 April New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom
02 April Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall Of Williamsburg
03 April Boston, MA @ Paradise Rock Club
04 April North Adams, MA @ Contemporary Artists Center
20 April Austin, TX @ La Zona Rosa
21 April Dallas, TX @ Granada Theater
23 April Albuquerque, NM @ Launchpad
24 April Tucson, AZ @ Plush
26 April Indio, CA @ Coachella (Empire Polo Field)
27 April San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore
28 April Sacramento, CA @ Harlow's Night Club
30 April Eugene, OR @ WOW Hall
01 May Portland, OR @ Wonder Ballroom
02 May Victoria, BC @ Sugar Nightclub
03 May Vancouver, BC @ Richard's On Richards Cabaret
25 May Quincy, WA @ Gorge Amphitheatre
05 June London, UK @ Shepherds Bush Empire
07 June Manchester, UK @ Manchester Academy
08 June Glasgow, UK @ Oran Mor
09 June Dublin, IRE @ Tripod

Visit Stephen Malkmus on MySpace.

8+

"Real Emotional Trash" by Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks which clocks in at 10:09

(In which we use Google Maps to get a better understanding of this song)

Making sense of Stephen Malkmus's lyrics is largely a hit-or-miss endeavor. Some are so straightforward they read like a picture book. See Jenny. See Jenny run to the Ess Dog. The Ess Dog drives a Volvo with ancient plates.

File "The Hook" under this category. Synopsis: A 19-year old is captured by Turkish pirates only to earn their respect by age 25 and eventually run the crew by the time he's 31. Simple enough, yes?

But of course, not everything can be so direct in the mind of Malkmus, and most songs surrender neat narrative arcs to clever wordplay, verbal gymnastics and Cuisinart-assembled word sequences that sound as cool as they are inscrutable. Sample lyric (from "Discretion Grove"): "Major Alfonso mind up the gold, the ceremonial dead trees told him all that he could do..."

Huh?

Coherence bookended with nonsense, logic sucker-punched by absurdity, such dichotomies define Malkmus's lyrics and have really done so ever since Slanted and Enchanted.

And sure enough, somewhere in the middle of the spectrum between "Oh I think I understand that!" and "what the Mr. Eff?" comes "Real Emotional Trash", the 10-minute scorcher of a title track from the forthcoming album of the same name...

Cursory listens reveal the song's protagonist mulling whether he should track down his long-lost father (sample lyric: "Daddy's on the run"). He's found his dad's trail, he knows he wants to follow it, yet an inability to actually do so pervades. Like Hansel and Gretel's trail of breadcrumbs, here poppa has left a similar trail of, um, his own personal psychological trash? As the protagonist puts it, "Easy said but less often done, point me in the direction of your real emotional trash."

Of course, this is only my understanding of the lyrics. As per usual, Malkmus leaves things cryptic enough for a potentially endless amount of interpretation to ensue. And while you marinate on whether my reading of the situation holds any water, dig the lengthy instrumental passage, yeyah!

(let's all pause and jam out now to this interlude starting around 3:13)

Okay, you back with me? Good. What have we missed? Well, the third act finds the protagonist being less Hamlet and more Jack Bauer. Like those awful IBM ads, he's stopped thinking and started doing, hitting the road to track down daddy dearest, which means - ROAD TRIP.

And since we're in the business of making Malkmus's lyrics painfully tangible and comprehensible, I've gone ahead and done up a Google Map of the route he presumably follows in search of his father:


View Larger Map

This is based on the only geographic scraps we're given throughout the song, which are the following:

"I traipsed over the Mexican border in a cheap caravan man..."
FOLLOWED BY
"Made it back to Frisco in a vanity chest to the painted ladies on house arrest..."
AND FINALLY
"Down in Sausalito we had clams for dessert..."

So - as indicated in the above map - he starts his trek just across the Mexican border (I took liberties with the lyrics and picked Tijuana as the exact locale, it just felt right). After finding relief for an upset stomach there (I'm not making this up, listen to the lyrics), he heads all the way up to San Francisco hidden in a vanity chest to presumably rendezvous with women of loose morals. That right there is an 8 hour drive - and possibly over 10 with traffic - but the good news for him is that the final trip to Sausalito is a mere 20 minutes.

Okay, so we've charted his ideal course, made allowances for any possible traffic along the way, and now have a much better understanding of what the hell he's talking about, right?

Well, the thing is that after Sausalito the lyrics sort of give way to another Allman Brothers-esque guitar solo, and as a result the whole plot of tracking down a long-lost father is pretty much abandoned in the name of further shredding. So...what then? Maybe, umm, this could be indicative of a joyous reunion between father and son?

Sigh...

Look, I've got to be honest with you. I'm getting the feeling that "Daddy's on the run" was kind of a red herring. Charting a Google Map in response to it may have been as useful as trying to WebMD symptoms to the lyrics in "Baby C'Mon": "If you give it to me Timmy, I'm out here on a limb-y" (ie he's probably not talking about tennis elbow).

Malkmus 1, EAR FARM 0

Fine. You may have won this round Stephen, but just wait until we curl up with seasons 1-4 of The Wire and start explicating "Baltimore"; it's gonna blow your fucking mind.

*above photo found HERE

Buy Real Emotional Trash (available 3/4/08) on Amazon/on Insound

EAR FARM's 8+ is a weekly feature that showcases songs longer than 8 minutes. In the recent past these songs were featured on EF's 8+:
Iron Maiden - "Seventh Son of a Seventh Son"
Mandy Reid - "Tornado"
Genesis - "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight"
Metallica - "Master of Puppets"
British Sea Power - “Lately”
The Decemberists - “The Mariner's Revenge Song”
Lynyrd Skynyrd - "Free Bird"
Ludwig van Beethoven - "Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68 - Allegretto"

To see a full list of every song featured in EAR FARM's 8+ click HERE.

Ask Stephen Malkmus

As you probably know by now, the above is the cover art for Real Emotional Trash, the fourth post-Pavement album from Stephen Malkmus and second to carry the Jicks moniker. Did you also know that this has been the wallpaper on my computer for the past ten days? No, I wouldn't expect you to, and it's not particularly worth noting except for the broader Malklove it implies.

Yes yes, seems we're all Malkmus fans these days, so much so that the folks at Blender are just begging to crash their server by soliciting YOU to send in your questions to SM, to which he will presumably respond in a future issue of the rag. Wanna know just what the hell a Jick is? His thoughts on the Portland Trailblazers' storybook season so far? Is Yul Brynner really his muse? You now have the opportunity to be heard, so go forth and ask!

While you brainstorm, go ahead and cue up the two tracks below from Real Emotional Trash. After listening, I think you'll find that his decision to add the Jicks to the title credits makes perfect sense. The record feels like a logical continuation of Pig Lib, a bit of a return to the freewheeling jammy goodness that made that album stand out (to me at least, as it remains my favorite Malkmus-related album, Pavement or otherwise). To those who scored tickets to any or all of his three sold-out New York shows in March and April, be prepared: this album is going to cook live.

Listen:
"Baltimore"
"Cold Son"

Visit Stephen Malkmus on his neglected MySpace page.

New Malkmus Album Update!

Yesterday was just a good news sandwich, a slice of Silver Jews album news in the morning followed by an update on the Malkman's forthcoming album later in the afternoon. So, what was the meat you wonder? Stop being so literal.

Instead, bask in the news put forth by Pitchfork and Billboard about Real Emotional Trash. Here's the deal: the fourth post-Pavement outing for SM will be released on March 4th by Matador Records under the billing of Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks and not simply Stephen Malkmus (like 2005's Face the Truth). It will also mark the recorded debut of former Sleater-Kinney drummer Janet Weiss. What else? How's bout the 10-song tracklist:

"Dragonfly Pie"
"Hopscotch Willie"
"Cold Son"
"Real Emotional Trash"
"Out of Reaches"
"Baltimore"
"Gardenia"
"Elmo Delmo"
"We Can't Help You"
"Wicked Wanda"

I'll say it again - 2008 is going to be a very choice year for music.

Listen:
"Pencil Rot"