Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks: 121 - 2012

121
2012/06/09, Museum Ludwig, Köln, Germany

Partial reconstruction of setlist:
Blue arrangements
Fin
Heaven is a truck
Spit on a stranger
No one is (as I are be)
Trigger cut
Give it a day
Shady lane
Range life
Brandy (You're a fine girl)
Nursery rhyme / Unfair

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=malkmus+ludwig+museum

As far as I'm aware this is the most recent solo appearance by Stephen – exactly three years ago. (I'm not counting the Can concert as it was with band.) It's been a while. But I don't know of any solo concerts nor of any solo radio sessions or anything like that since. Am I reading too much into it, supposing it has something to do with the stronger ties in the new era Jicks? For the first time since the Jicks started, I don't think any of them have any other band commitments. There's a real unity of purpose in a good Jicks set (any tour 2011 to the present). Stephen seems comfortable in his present band. Or maybe it's just another sign of Stephen's work rate slowing down, of looking for comfort rather than balancing on the tight rope. All of the above?

Of course there was one long interruption in this new era Jicks: the year Stephen spent in Germany with his family. The Jicks toured during this time and laid down the basic tracks for 'Wig out at jagbags'. But left to his own devices in Berlin Stephen toyed with the recordings, adding vocals and overdubs. He hooked up with a local neo-krautrock band to cover Can's 'Ege Bamyasi'. And he appeared one sunny day at the Ludwig Museum in Köln – his family in the audience – with one microphone, an acoustic guitar, a distortion pedal and a delay, and he played this impromptu, casual set for a small audience. There is no audio recording that I've found. But a multitude of YouTube clips from the set exist and I pieced together a very enjoyable half hour set from those.

There are no major revelations: no new songs, no radical reinventions, no unfamiliar covers. He takes quite a few requests for Pavement songs, with the expected result that he gets lost midway through a couple of them ('Give it a day', 'Shady lane', 'Unfair'). Other songs are by now such a fixture of his solo sets that he must know them in his sleep ('Blue arrangements', 'Spit on a stranger', 'No one is (as I are be)', 'Trigger cut', 'Range life'). So it's a nice diversion, but it's really nice, easygoing, rambling and sympathetic. My favorites are an irreverent 'Give it a day' (did they ever play this during the Pavement reunion? They should've), a beautiful (but incompletely recorded) 'No one is (as I are be)' and a performance of 'Fin' which loses itself in distorted solos and delaying noise.

Well done.