Electricity And Lust
Matador’s Revisionist History podcast (Spotify) hooks-up Matt Sweeney (Chavez et al) with Pavement’s Scott ‘Spiral Stairs’ Kannberg and Stephen Malkmus for the 30th anniversary of their debut,
Slanted And Enchanted. Fingerprint analysis of the songs reveals that Malkmus wrote the chords to In The Mouth A Desert on his teeth while walking home to Hoboken after Cop Shoot Cop’s Jim Coleman had given him mescaline. Memories of their “suburban striver” days include Hoboken’s Pier Platters Records, where $100 could buy a Sonic Youth 7-inch single containing Thurston Moore’s hair. Further ruminations on Vanilla Ice, David Berman, post-modern philosophy, weed and overdubs fill 95 minutes. Stray Cats drummer Slim Jim Phantom is contrastingly brisk in Rockabilly Confidential (Spotify). Under-20-minute episodes of anecdotes interspersed with songs: season two includes Jim’s pal Harry Dean Stanton (Dylan showed him how to play I’ll
Be Your Baby Tonight) and historic US TV show American Bandstand. Also in its second series is Atlantic Records’ Rock & Roll High School, hosted by president of A&R Pete Ganbarg. The latest episode features music industry legend Clive
Davis. It’s predictably ‘biz’ focused, with much name-dropping alongside Davis’s uniquely valuable personal insight. Previous interviewees include Sam Moore, Kathy Valentine, Tony Visconti and Todd Rundgren.