Sunday, March 8th, 2009

Tindersticks cover Pavement

Photo via SubPopSubPopThis was a track that I thought I’d never get to air, seeing as how both the coverers – UK melancholics Tindersticks – and the coverees – Stockton slacker kings Pavement – seemed to be in mothballs for the foreseeable future, though the former’s hiatus since 2003 was decidedly less official than the latter’s breakup in 1999.

And that’d have been a shame because this incongruous pairing – released as the a-side of a Tindersticks 7″ for SubPop back in 1995 – is a beautiful piece of work, taking one of Pavement’s finest songs and truly dressing it up for success in creaking strings and Stuart Staples’ low croon. Definitely one of the favourite covers in my collection.

But huzzah, the return of Tindersticks – with a new album in The Hungry Saw, released last year, and a North American tour, stopping in at Toronto’s Opera House on Tuesday – give me all the excuse I need to share this track. And while the Pavement reunion rumours are pretty much a fact of life, four-fifths of the band did get back together at drummer Bob Nastanovich’s wedding last month, if only to play some covers and not any Pavement material. Odds are it’ll happen eventually – the size of the cheques on offer probably increase every year – and when it does, I guess I’ll have to dig out another Pavement cover…

The Boston Globe and Patriot-Ledger talk to Stuart Staples about his band’s return. They also recorded a session from WNYC.

MP3: Tindersticks – “Here”
Video: Pavement – “Here” (from A Slow Century)

By : Frank Yang at 8:36 am
Category: Chromewaves Radio

Tags: ,

RSS Feed for this post4 Responses.
  1. Gregory says:

    I have The Imaginaries doing a much better cover of this live:

    http://www.imaginariesmusic.com/06Here(PavementCover).mp3

    <3 Pavement.

  2. Gregory says:

    Fixed link: http://www.imaginariesmusic.com/06HerePavementCover.mp3

  3. Frank Yang says:

    that is really so not a better cover.

  4. sampson says:

    Pavement is touring in 2010 and it will start in Australia.