Pop Music Reviews : Pavement: Another ‘90s Phenomenon

Pavement is a band from Stockton with a couple of noisy singles that are beloved by the grunge-rock cognoscenti and a well-regarded album on the tiny Matador label. Pavement is also the latest example of that ‘90s phenomenon, a band considered overhyped before almost anybody you know has even heard of it--Pavement has become an obsession of the British music tabloids, and thus of American record-company interest. Pavement is an extremely trendy band to like.

At a well-filled Bogart’s on Thursday, Pavement was at times extremely reminiscent of the Velvet Underground, right down to the loopy untuned guitar chords, the fidgety Mo Tucker-like drums, the passive stance and a sort of dark-star charisma--ironic to the core. Pavement seems less like such angry fuzzed-out catharsis freaks as Nirvana or an early Mudhoney than like garage compulsives, coming both out of the hipper ‘60s stuff and the hipper ‘80s stuff that itself came out of the hipper ‘60s stuff. There were a lot of bands working this shtick at L.A.’s Paisley Underground joints last decade.

But this is 1992, and nobody can tell whether the band will fade away or develop into something mega like U2 . . . who at the beginning had a similar feel for pop craft, raw guitar dissonance and a small talent for left-field hooks. Pavement seemed more like what they are--a young band with some very good songs and a certain lack of stage experience--than like the second coming of anything.