Tag Archives: cut

#1415: Pavement – Trigger Cut/Wounded-Kite at :17

Ween-Pavement-Ween-Pavement. How the past few days have been going. Don’t fret, there’s no Ween song coming straight after this one. It will be by Blur again. Today’s Pavement song comes from the band’s Slanted and Enchanted album, their debut from 1992. Haven’t written about a lot of songs from that one. My experience with Slanted.. is I heard the album years ago and didn’t like how it sounded compared to Crooked Rain… and the other following albums. As time went on, I’d watch the band performing songs of the album live through videos on YouTube, which then made me appreciate the studio recordings a lot more when I’d revisit them. That happened with ‘Perfume-V’. It happened with ‘Summer Babe’. The same thing happened with ‘Trigger Cut’ too. Looks like that would be the trick in getting me to appreciate the album as a whole. Whether or not I will, you’ll never find out, ’cause Slanted… won’t appear on the blog after this. But I’m inclined to like anything Pavement-wise, so we’ll say that I eventually will.

Back in 2018, Stephen Malkmus was gearing up to release Sparkle Hard with the Jicks. A lot of promo and social media activity was going on in that lead-up. At that point, I probably didn’t think all that much of ‘Trigger Cut’. Slanted… was the one Pavement album I never really went back to then. But during that time, and I’m pretty sure it was the video down below, Pitchfork uploaded a Stephen Malkmus acoustic set to their channel. He played ‘Trigger Cut’ as the last number, and that performance there was really all I needed to be swayed. There’s Malkmus with a 12-string guitar, just his voice with the notes ringing out. The melody popped out a whole lot more. It was like hearing the song for the first time again. I think it might as well have been, I probably hadn’t heard the original for a while up to then. So I saw the light, went back to the original, took it for what it was and found myself having another Pavement track to enjoy whenever need be.

‘Trigger Cut’ is the second track on Slanted…, the two-punch after the ‘one’ provided by opener ‘Summer Babe’. A very fine way to start your album off with two lo-fi indie power pop classics. Will admit, I don’t know what the song’s about. Haven’t built that close connection with it like I have with other Pavement songs. I could look on Genius, but even then I think a lot of ‘contributors’ on that place are usually reaching. All I know for certain is it’s all so catchy. So, so, catchy. Malkmus sings really nicely over the instrumentation. Eccentric drummer Gary Young keeps the rhythm pretty straight for the verses before bringing in the fills and thrashing crash cymbals in the chorus. The call-response vocal structure between Malkmus and Spiral Stairs in those choruses are a hoot, and Malkmus’s “Sha-la-la / Ooh-ooh” vocalizations during the break are arguably the best part of the entire thing. The instrumental ‘Wounded Kite…’ section at the song’s end is a slice of the Slanted… outtake ‘Nothing Ever Happens’. Did it need to be there? Probably not. But the three minutes would feel incomplete without it somehow.

My iPod #229: Pavement – Cut Your Hair

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Ah…. the first Pavement song I ever heard. It all started from this.

I was ten years old, probably getting to eleven, and I was downstairs nice and early whilst everyone else stayed in their beds to watch the music videos on MTV2. “Cut Your Hair” came on, played for the its three minute duration, and then was gone. But it got stuck in my head. The “ooh ooh ooh” chorus, the easy-to-remember ‘riff’ (don’t know whether it’s a riff or not)….. I am certain that that was the only time I saw the video on that channel before it got revamped, renamed and whatever else the company did to totally remove its credibility.

The music video is really simple and not at all serious. The band come into a barbershop, weird things happen when each member sits in the chair resulting in no one getting their hair cut and they leave when the song finishes. Does it have anything to do with the song? Not really. It’s more of an obscure “Hey we’re Pavement” type thing, seeing as this was the band’s first proper music video to go with a song that did quite well commercially. Although, it did leave me wondering who played what instrument and who the person singing was.

Anyway, “Cut Your Hair” is a song about people in the music industry caring more about their appearances than they do about the actual music. It is sarcastic in tone, something supported by Malkmus’ trademark loose and “off-key” vocal.

I liked it so much I put the video on my Piczo site; every kid who was in Year Six (2005/06) will know what I’m talking about. Too bad that company died, and my site is gone now.

“Cut Your Hair” is on the band’s second album “Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain” from 1994.

My iPod #228: The Used – Cut Up Angels

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“Cut Up Angels” is a track from The Used’s second album “In Love and Death“. I already gave my thoughts about it when I wrote a post for “All That I’ve Got” last year, and so this whole sentence will be linked to it.

The track actually comes right after that song. After a sample of what appears to be amusement park music, someone counts-in, a lone guitar plays with some backwards singing (which reversed is Bert yelping out “Happiness Is a Warm Gun” by The Beatles) before the rest of the band joins along.

The lyrics mostly concern the themes of love, sex and suicide. Lines such as “going out at the same time” and the loss to the brain “feeling like a gun” probably reinforce the last of those three a greater amount. They could also refer to a ‘petit mort’ (something my English teacher taught us when he went off at his daily tangents during his lessons) which is describes the state of unconsciousness one goes through after ‘sexual experiences’. Maybe the double suicide that is hinted at is actually a thought of a couple having an orgasm at the same time. I don’t know what “cleaning up the mess” would mean though. You know what, this is too weird. I’ll stop there.

I do like this song though. Obviously, otherwise why would I type about it? It was one I added to my iPod straight away after listening to the album in full before I started Year 10. The last minute or so is glorious when Bert starts shrieking out the repeated choruses before the track mellows out, all except for a noise which repeats and segues into the next song.

My iPod #227: Billy Talent – Cut the Curtains

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I just completely messed up my dinner by leaving it on the cooker for too long. I am a bit depressed now. I had to throw it in the bin; there was no way it could be salvaged. I had the same thing to eat yesterday and it was so good…… 😦 ffs. I think that cooker is too OP, I didn’t even have it on a high flame…. I’ll just cook it tomorrow.

It almost the end of the C section on my iPod, and it is getting to the year anniversary of when I actually first started this thing. Expect the ‘D’ (hehe) next month sometime. Late Feb.

“Cut the Curtains” is a track from Billy Talent’s self-titled debut album. The ninth track on it to be exact. I first listened to the track many years ago, when I wanted to hear all the songs the band made after I’d seen them on the television when I was eight or so.

Even then it was only thirty second samples of it because I didn’t know any downloading sites where you didn’t have to pay. I did eventually get it as a present for my tenth/eleventh birthday, I am not too sure.

After all these years, I still enjoy this album just as much as when I first got it. “Cut the Curtains” isn’t the sole reason why, it is one out of twelve songs that never diminishes on energy, volume, and overall awesomeness.

This track is quite different to the others. It uses a riff, one which I think Ian D’Sa referred to as a chicken, that is practically repeated throughout the song (intro, verses, choruses and all). It probably contains the only part on the album when a track goes quiet for a few seconds. It’s not as quick and pacy as the others, but has a menacing tone and smoothness about it that you still have to move about to it. It’s cool.

The subject matter…. Artifice in a relationship? Maybe? Just a guess.

My iPod #227: The Who – Cut My Hair

The Music in My Ears

A blog about music (and sometimes other things).