Soft Serve

Softserve

I don't think Stephen Malkmus looks like a lesbian but he couldn't go without comment considering that he is an aging indie due and his band has a new song called, "Cinnamon and Lesbians." I went to a promotional event the other day that combined poster-signing and soft serve mostly because it took place on my block and I was working from home that afternoon. But also because I wanted to see the 47-year-old up close and in person. He's an attractive middle-aged man.

I feel slight embarrassment and just avoid the subject altogether when it comes up (ok, it has never come up) but I don't own a single Pavement record and am only aware of a few of their songs, from way after the fact. I am the perfect age and type to have been a Pavement fan, people I know now with similar music taste always were into Pavement at least in passing, but Portland can be weird and pre-internet, very isolated.  I jumped straight from alternative '80s music, 120 Minutes staples, to small labels like K records, Sarah, Slumberland, Lookout Records, etc. and didn't go to a traditional university or hang with any liberal arts types. (And still like bands, still in their 20s–ok, maybe 30s– that 20 years later riff on these styles–near random recent examples I've encountered: Damaged Bug, Sapphire Mansions)

There's a wide swath of East Coasty college rock (I know Pavement is Californian and that Malkmus now lives in Portland but they don't seem West Coast to me even though I may be the only one who thinks this—geography even gets referenced in this recent interview) that didn't infiltrate my early '90s. A college boyfriend who I thought was older (seven years, which isn’t that much older in retrospect, and if you need any proof that I didn't attend a traditional university, a 27-year-old undergrad was still younger than a number of classmates and friends, some my age now) took me to a Sebadoh show (or maybe it was Lou Barlow solo) and I didn't know any of their songs, just vaguely that that they existed. Same with Superchunk, just offhand. I'm sure there are many more.

 

One thought on “Soft Serve

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