CREEM ONLINE: Stephen Malkmus

Stephen Malkmus
Facing The Truth

The same month Billy Corgan put a full-page ad in the Chicago Tribune pleading for the Smashing Pumpkins to reform, an old enemy was quietly stomping on his home turf.

Playing to a decent sized audience at the Metro, Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks tore through their six-year-old catalogue with reckless abandon in support of Malkmus' latest, Face The Truth. The band didn't play to quite their potential, and the evening was marred a bit by the somewhat Gary Young-style antics of drummer John Moen, who fell, kicked his cymbals, and broke into an impromptu version of "Renegade."

Not that playing a particularly un-noteworthy show would get Malkmus down. Speaking to him prior to the show, he admitted that they hadn't been on top of their game the night before.

"I thought we played pretty great, but evidently we played like shit," he said.

Not playing a mind-blowing show beats not playing at all. Having just fathered his first child, Lottie, has limited the Jicks' time on the road.

"Touring is hard. If you're more financially stable and your partner is willing to travel, it's easier," he said. "You can do it. Obviously, it gets harder when the child is more spastic and wants to run around."

"It's easier if your flat fee for playing is a quarter of a million per show," he added.

Yet he remains optimistic.

"I'll take what I can get," he said. "I just want to play, entertain."

And when it's in support of an album as strong as Face The Truth, his moment isn't quite over. His mentality is far from sidelining his sense of humor or need to grow as an artist. Malkmus' creative output is just as good as ever, as a solo artist, leader of the Jicks, Pavement frontman or otherwise. Not too many musicians can say that about an album that came out 13 years after their first. And especially not too many products of the '90s alternative rock scene. Yet while Corgan is already grasping at straws, attempting to reclaim past glory, Malkmus has taken a different approach. Granted, his legacy as an indie legend should be firmly intact with anyone who truly loves and appreciates music, but that doesn't mean there is the ambition to fall back on what previously worked.

"I hope my records will define the audience," he said. "I hope that people can connect without having the, 'I like Matador records, Pavement, Modest Mouse, Smog' mentality."

And if the record's audience are those who are in love with Matador's staples, or Modest Mouse, it's because it's that "good."

"I just wanted to make an inspiring, interesting record to listen to, that kicked ass," he said.

Opening with the drum-heavy spastic synth-assualt of "Pencil Rot," the album exemplifies everything that's been great and not so great about his work, and improves upon it.

"Some of it's more direct, more accessible," he said of the album.

"It's not all that corny," he added. "There's no songs with girls names in them, like the last two had," he said, speaking of "Jenny and the Ess-Dog" and "Vanessa From Queens," respectively.

While the aforementioned may have been the lyrical highlights of his previous outings, they don't compare to the beautiful family portrait of "Mama," or the contemplative country ballad "Freeze the Saints." Malkmus has never sounded as sincere as he does singing lines like "You said, 'done is good'/ But done well is so much fucking better/ Share the wealth and cauterize the tears/ If you want to know/ Well you are, yes you are so much like me." Stephen Malkmus has managed to age gracefully, a difficult task in the music industry.

"If you're on a major label, it's much easier," he said. "Bowie managed to move with the times until the early eighties, but I think I'm in a different position."

"You can only be in the limelight for so long, and I don't know for sure if I've ever really been in it," he said. "But I see myself still going. It's hard to say for so long, but it's still fun, and that's what matters."