Thursday, November 13, 2008

Sinking Radio - Pavement's "Harness Your Hopes"


Here's my weekly reminder to tune in to Sinking Radio with Sylvia, Todd and Matt Dwyer on Little Radio Friday from Noon to 2:00 PM. I think Todd's still out on tour with Herman Dune, but it's Matt's birthday, so the mood should be jovial.

Each week on the show, they feature an official You Set the Scene pick. My pick for tomorrow's show is Pavement's "Harness Your Hopes." The song was originally released as a B-side to "Spit on a Stranger" in 1999, but dates back to the Brighten the Corner sessions. I picked the track because it's featured on Matador's reissue of Pavement's Brighten the Corners (Nicene Creedence Edition) due December 9th. 

This is the fourth Pavement album to get the deluxe reissue treatment from Matador and like the other three, it's well worth picking up. Nobody hates re-buying records more than I, but Matador's does such a fantastic job, I can't resist.  This time around they've remastered the studio album (my third favorite Pavement record) and added 32 bonus tracks. 

Amongst the bonus tracks are a lot of b-sides (most of which are new to me, because I didn't buy a lot of CD singles back in the day), some super high quality radio sessions and four cover songs. While the "Killing Moon" cover has gotten a lot of play over the years, the Clean, Faust and Fall covers are a bit more obscure. This collection reminded me how much I prefer the playful, fun Malkmus over the recent guitar god Malkmus. It's pretty priceless during the Faust cover when he says, "Break into Stereolab."

If I haven't convinced you yet, Matador's throwing an added bonus into the mix. When you order the reissue through their Buy Now Get Early program, you get a vinyl LP of an unreleased live show from the era. Pretty, pretty good. Since Amoeba doesn't seem to take part in the program, you might have to order online through Insound. Use this link, and I get a little money.   

Tune in tomorrow for Sinking Radio. And if you're a Pavement fan, pick this up.....

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hey, really enjoy You Set The Scene. I live in the LA area and
thought I'd just let you guys know about this show that's coming up at The Echo. I got wind of this guy named Rodriguez recently from a friend. He's been around for a long time, but just had his first album reissued and is now touring in support of it. This dude is
in his mid-60s and this is the first time he's played west of Detroit. It's weird like psych folk soul and is really pretty amazing.

He's playing in LA on the 21st at The Echo and SF on the 23rd at The Great American Music Hall (with The Entrance Band).

I don't know, I hadn't heard anything about it very many of the local blogs and thought that I'd just spread the word as I thought people would really interested in this.

Hope this gets a few more folk out at the show.