Stephen Malkmus

That was Random Rules, the most well-known and most quintessential Silver Jews track, and the opener from their 1998 LP American Water.

Silver Jews was formed in 1989 by the enigmatic genius David Berman and his university friends Stephen Malkmus and Bob Nastanovich.

Malcolmus contributed to three of the six Silver Jew albums, including this third record.

Many refer to the group as his pavement side project, although the Silver Jews formed first and were always really the project of David Berman.

Well, there's a reason I have to finish the words first, it turns out.

The Vancouver recordings were botched because I wasn't playing my rhythm guitar, and Malkmus was being a brat about playing my parts, and putting words on it after the fact was impossible.

So after nine years of failing at everything I'd try to do, I came back to Nashville and had to tell you, um, had to have to tell you now, my wife, Drake City, oh, I see, have to tell you now, my wife, Drake City, friends, that nope, it didn't work.

So I spent most of the next nine months rewriting and getting the words just right.

I said, I'm happy with the purple sky image.

I'd love for you to use it at some point.

Can you send some more images from Vancouver Island? He had mentioned Malkmus.

I said, yeah, I'm totally into Malkmus.

It was, Like, the lyrics were, like, oddball and, like, nonlinear.

Like, almost like, you know, I was like, Steve Malkmus was God to me in high school, too.

So I was like, oh, you can just write... almost poetry like it doesn't really need to make sense but so I think that was most of like artistically like what I was doing but I mean releasing stuff back then and I think I took this from the underground scene where I would burn my best songs I liked on a CD at the time and either stitch it together, throw it into a homemade cardboard sleeve, and pass it out.

I would hand it to the older, cooler bands I liked in town.

Oh, yeah, that's a band I've actually never seen live.

They opened for Stephen Malkmus when he was touring his first solo album.

And me and a friend went to go see that.

It was fantastic.

But they did six albums and David Berman was the only constant member.

But then the various other members include most of Pavement, Steve Malkmus, Bob Nastanovich and Steve West.

Also Will Oldham.

And Peyton Pinkerton, who was in the Penis Brothers.

In 1994, Silver Jews released Starlight Walker.

This was their debut album from David Berman, who also had contributions from Pavement members Stephen Malkmus and Bob Nestanovich.

it however did not hit the mainstream charts either but much like the other one it is a cult classic now it has songs like trains across the sea and new orleans in 1995 the smashing pumpkins released their huge double album melancholy and the infinite sadness this was released in america on this date It was released one day earlier on October the 23rd, 1995 in the UK.

Frontman Billy Corgan actually got a 28 song collection together to show the emotional highs and lows of youth in The band recorded the material over a bunch of months in 1995.

And in either direction, like in the shredding atonal, like Joey Santiago from the Pixies is probably a more accomplished version of that.

Stephen Malkmus from Pavement on Slanted and Enchanted is probably doing more artful versions or something of this.

It's arguable, like a more... skillful maybe is the word I mean, artful might be a different

thing.

And a lot of times artists that go out of their way to do that, they're just not being truthful about it.

To me, I think it was, there was like a Stephen Malkmus quote that always stuck with me, just that on this line of thinking that you're, The act of creating art is always, like, half of it, if not more, is always an homage to something that came before it.

Like, that's causing you to do it, especially, like, with a first album or with a first project of any kind.

Like, it's...

Mm-hmm

... catch myself wanting to, like, you know, let's have Steven Malkmus take a stab at it.

Like-

[laughs]