A tribute to a band I love
When I drive back home, remembering when we were young … (25 years / stars on the wall / the go find)
I moved to the city and left my little suburban village behind when I earned my first real money. In my case this meant 10 km away from my parent’s house (Belgium is a small country). But of course I drive back home on several occasions: visiting the parents, getting together for that good ol’X-mas, meeting old friends, … and in doing so remembering things when I was a young boy.
In 1991 my town played a small part in music history by hosting one of the shows an American band played on their first European tour. I was 17 years old when their record came out. I had long hair (wrapped up in a tail), listened to fIREHOSE records and was in a band called Orange Black (my sister came up with this name after listening to a Leaving Trains record … I have a cool sis!). And we all hung out at the old factory which was actually an old warehouse turned into a music venue.
I remember the promoter (Peter) of the local venue telling me we could play the support for Swervedriver or for this new band he thought was very good but damn what was the name of the band again. My sister’s boyfriend knew the band’s name … Pavement. I immediately fell in love with Slanted ‘n Enchanted. We were very excited to play our first support act. Fortunately the Pavement guys were very kind to us. They even liked our premature songs and were intrigued by our band name (we like to believe that the song orange black on a rare peel sessions 7’’ (see picture) was named after us > please be a believer too!!)
Their show was not only veeeeeeeeeeery good but also very entertaining because of the drummer’s crazy tricks. After the show the drummer came out of the club with some sort of an electric chainsaw. Later on he left the band… The day after the show I remember bicycling into town and meeting Stephen Malkmus on the main street. I sometimes wonder if my town knows that this was all happening right in front of their houses.
16 years later I’m in another band named the go find and we decide to cover the Pavement song Perfume V. We knew it was risky business but did it anyway and mixed it last week. We’ve tried to turn it into a genuine go find song but when we listen to the original we all look at each other, smile and know nothing beats the original.
Pavement made Gold Soundz and we are humble fans paying tribute to them.
dieter
The cover will be released in April. We’ll put it up on myspace a bit earlier.
