Anyway, speaking of Pavement, I'm listening to this "it-band" that's been garnering more than a few comparisons to them... and the Strokes... and Deerhunter...
The band (artist) is called Car Seat Headrest, and even though the name is super 1996 and the cover art is super early '00s MERGE recalling Trail of Dead's baroque Source Tags & Codes inky veneer, the music itself (culled from 11 bandcamp releases over the past couple years and released by Matador in October) is some of the most genuinely exciting lo-fi indie rock I've heard all fucking year.
It sounds derivative at first, but then that shit kinda stops mattering, and it starts to sound less like Is This It? and more like golden era Guided By Voices at their layered, scathing best.
I'm astonished at how good this music is. It's classic indie rock, with power poppy hooks that don't dissolve into embarrassing Weezeresque radio pleas. The lyrics are whipcrack sharp, and the Velvet Underground is alive in this shit, more than they ever were in the Strokes.
Here's hoping they don't turn to shit like most of the other promising nostalgic indie rock bands of the past few years. Seriously, this might be my rawk album of the year. Less musically mature than Viet Cong or Sleater-Kinney, but fresh and fun.
Someone listen to this and agree with me.