Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, Black Cat

malkmus
Originally uploaded by squidpants.

So I saw Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks on friday night at the Black Cat and here's my review. It was a pretty good show. Malkmus used to be the lead singer in Pavement, one of my favorite bands, and has released three albums since they broke up. The openers, somebody called Paik, were two guys with afros and a girl who made a lot of crunchy bass, basically. They had a decent video projection going, but sort of got tiring. SM&TJ, to use an annoying acronym, were pretty good. I didn't like the first part of the show too much, probably because I was too close to the speakers and the sound really hurt my ear. They also played the less melodic songs at first, so that was doubly bad. But once we moved back a ways I started to enjoy it more. They played the same way as on their albums, which was cool, with lots of noodley licks and weird notes going up and down. The highlights for me were "Do Not Feed the Oyster" and "Baby C'mon" from the new CD, Face the Truth. Malkmus called that song "Gilbert C'mon" and said was for "Zhilbair" Arenas, as in the Wizards point guard, pronounced in French. I was amused, but I didn't hear too much laughter, as I don't think most of the audience got it. I am just super cool. But the second half of the show was enjoyable and they did some interesting jamming. It seemed like the drummer, Moh Moen, and keyboardist Mike Clark were the most into the jams though, Malkmus did not seem really excited about jamming. He didn't seem pissed, just kind of nonchalant about it. But I suppose that's how he is. The bassist, Joanna Bolme, who apparently used to date Elliott Smith, was a little boring, but seemed nice enough. Somebody requested "Peace Frog" by the Doors, and she laughed and said she wished they knew it. They played some more good stuff and did one quick encore of a song I didn't recognize, and then after a bit of a wait, came back on a did a couple more songs. Then Moen and Clark started to play "I Love Rock n' Roll" and Malkmus sort of shrugged and walked off, followed by the bassist. But he did tell Moen to say they liked our style, and then Moen and Clark played "Under Pressure" and that was that. It was a pretty fun show, and while I was a little disappointed he didn't play "The Hook" or any Pavement songs, I was amused.

Below is a photo of Paik, and here's a link to MP3s of "Do Not Feed the Oyster" and "The Hook."