The SPIN Interview: Stephen Malkmus
Over the course of two decades, Stephen Malkmus has traded Pavement's inscrutable, self-reflexive wordplay for marathon prog-guitar solos. "I'm just not that much into words lately," he says. Yet he speaks to us anyway.
By Douglas Wolk 02.23.08 3:53 PM
For most of the '90s, Stephen Malkmus may have been the perpetually smirking face of indie rock. Pavement, the quintet he formed in his hometown of Stockton, California, with fellow singer/guitarist Scott Kannberg, became the figureheads of a scene, as passionate about elegantly formed pop songs as they were about noise, chaos, and diffidence.
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Panel Surfers
Gerard Way leads a new wave of rockers creating and inspiring comic books.
By Douglas Wolk 01.08.08 10:26 PM
If you've read enough comic books, the opening scene from The Umbrella Academy's first issue doesn't seem all that unusual: A tank-size pro wrestler wallops an interterrestrial squid with an atomic elbow, which then causes 43 women around the world to spontaneously give birth to superhero babies.
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Days of the Leak
Despite labels' efforts to keep new music under wraps, it's no longer a question of if an album will appear online before its official release date, but rather when and how. Here's why.
By Douglas Wolk 07.31.07 3:00 AM
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Love Is All, 'Nine Times That Same Song' (What's Your Rupture)
31 minutes of pissy Swede-punk bliss.
By Douglas Wolk 04.06.06 3:00 AM
Love Is All singer Josephine Olausson wants to get your attention, even if that means getting in your face. On the Swedish quintet's debut album, she's right up front, bouncing and yelling; between her squeal-and-yip delivery and earnest Swedish accent, she ends up in the sexy/nutty zone, somewhere between Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Karen O and Bow Wow Wow's Annabella Lwin.
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Grizzly Bear, 'Horn of Plenty + The Remixes' (Kanine)
By Douglas Wolk 12.13.05 4:00 AM
Grizzly Bear's 2004 debut, Horn of Plenty, seemed to have spontaneously congealed under a decomposing log in the middle of an enchanted forest where the elves were too exhausted to dance. Distant, dreamy, blurred into a Robitussin haze, the Brooklyn group's songs were barely more than a few vague lines and some slow, chiming, delicately mysterious guitar or piano.
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The New Pornographers, 'Twin Cinema' (Matador)
Can music be a conversation? The New Pornographers discuss.
By Douglas Wolk 08.18.05 3:00 AM
Brian Eno once surmised that most pop songs don't have backing vocals, but most hit songs do. People don't want to hear soliloquies -- they want to hear a conversation, or imagine themselves as part of one. (When you're playing "Bohemian Rhapsody" in the car, do you sing along with Freddie Mercury?
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