Aside from a bit of strained small talk, my first half hour or so in the company of one of indie rock’s most acclaimed wordsmiths is spent in silence, watching him clean out his trunk. A soggy copy of an old income-tax form. A Thin Lizzy album. A rumpled suit bag and battered dress shoes, probably last worn to the funeral of his friend Robert Bingham (author of a collection of short stories called Pure Slaughter Value and heir to a publishing fortune). Bingham died from a heroin overdose in the fall of 1999. “I don’t think he was really that into it,” Malkmus will tell me later. “I think he just tried it with this girl … ” The rest of the thought trails off to protect the privacy of the dead.
There’s a song on Malkmus’ self-titled solo album called “Church On White.” It’s prime Malkmus. He sounds sad-eyed and shattered, and the guitars clang languidly, loping along in figure-eights of resignation and regret. It ends with a tolling passage that closes the lid on the final chorus before flaming out in a wailing-wall guitar solo. If every Pavement song was about thinking, this song is about feeling. “Church On White” is about Bingham. He used to live at the intersection of Church and White streets in New York City.
http://www.magnetmagazine.com/2001/04/01/stephen-malkmus-being-stephen-malkmus/
Aside from a bit of strained small talk, my first half hour or so in the company of one of indie rock’s most acclaimed wordsmiths is spent in silence, watching him clean out his trunk. A soggy copy of an old income-tax form. A Thin Lizzy album. A rumpled suit bag and battered dress shoes, probably last worn to the funeral of his friend Robert Bingham (author of a collection of short stories called Pure Slaughter Value and heir to a publishing fortune). Bingham died from a heroin overdose in the fall of 1999. “I don’t think he was really that into it,” Malkmus will tell me later. “I think he just tried it with this girl … ” The rest of the thought trails off to protect the privacy of the dead.
There’s a song on Malkmus’ self-titled solo album called “Church On White.” It’s prime Malkmus. He sounds sad-eyed and shattered, and the guitars clang languidly, loping along in figure-eights of resignation and regret. It ends with a tolling passage that closes the lid on the final chorus before flaming out in a wailing-wall guitar solo. If every Pavement song was about thinking, this song is about feeling. “Church On White” is about Bingham. He used to live at the intersection of Church and White streets in New York City.