Who Cancelled the Pavement Webcast: A Tangled Up In Wires Investigation

While Michael was enjoying some authentic chillwave at the Pitchfork Music Festival, SOME OF US were stuck in Austin, enjoying all the heat of an outdoor music festival but none of the Civil War punk rock. But, as a nice consolation prize, Pitchfork was streaming sets from the festival on their website. And good stuff too: LCD Soundsystem, Big Boi, Modest Mouse, and the big Sunday headliner: Pavement. Pavement was definitely on the schedule of artists for the webcast (and still is).

Except that the Pavement set was never broadcast, apparently because at the last minute Pavement withdrew their permission. Was it technical issues? Contractual stuff? A desire to make people, you know, pay to see Pavement live? Greg Kot at the Chicago Tribune doesn’t think so:

Why was Pavement excluded? One band member has a beef with Pitchfork’s editorial department. The band’s longtime booking agent, David Viecelli, explained Monday that “one of the band members has some issues with (the Pitchfork e-zine), comments that were made (in past articles) that demeaned that person in the context of Pavement.”

So who had their feelings hurt by Pitchfork? Your first guess may have been enigmatic frontman Stephen Malkmus (who was apparently not in a great mood Sunday night), but Kot said its not him (and it wouldn’t have made much sense anyway since Michael points out that it would be pretty out of character for P4K to bash Malkmus). Instead, a quick look around The Mothership would seem to point to Scott “Spiral Stairs” Kannberg, whose new solo record came out last year and had, uh, lukewarm reception:

In the time since Pavement’s dissolution in 1999, Kannberg has stepped into the role of the frontman with mixed results. Despite the nod to George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass in its title, his debut as the leader of the Preston School of Industry did not reveal him to be an extraordinary songwriter obscured by the flash of his former partner, but rather just a serviceable author of amiable but not especially interesting indie rock

The central problem with the Preston School of Industry albums is that the very things that made Kannberg an effective foil for Malkmus also made him exhausting and dull as the focal point of a band. Whereas he was once the Milhouse Van Houten to Malkmus’ Bart Simpson, he had devolved into being an incoherent indie equivalent of Milhouse’s dad mewling “Can I Borrow a Feeling?”

His style may shift, but Kannberg remains an unambitious songwriter and underwhelming frontman. It could just be that he’s the type of person who best thrives as a second banana. Then again, maybe all he needs is a foil of his own.

We don’t know its Spiral Stairs, but we’re just saying he might have a little empathy for Chris Bosh and an axe to grind with Pitchfork editorial. If you have more information on this developing story, e-mail us at tangledupinwires [at] gmail [dot] come

[Additional, Very Journalistic Reporting by Michael Warshauer.]