By: Darci Michon
CHICAGO– On Tuesday, May 20th, Stephen Malkmus played the first of two intimate shows at the Old Town School of Folk Music. The indie-rock legend is known for his work in Pavement, The Hard Quartet, Silver Jews, The Jicks, and his solo work. Both nights of the sold out event, put on by The Old Town School of Folk Music and Chicago Humanities, also included a sitdown conversation with Malkmus.
The night started off with a conversation with Malkmus, which was moderated by The New Yorker music journalist Amanda Petrusich . Malkmus, who recently made the move to Chicago, was asked about his favorite spots in Chicago, where he responded, “I’m just the new guy.”
The frontman has been known for his dry and playful humor, as well as a cool, nonchalant attitude, which was in full force during the conversation. When talking to Malkmus, Petrusich covered a lot of topics including poetry, his songwriting process, and the new documentary “Pavements.” Petrusich asked Malkmus if another album by the supergroup The Hard Quartet, consisting of Malkmus, Emmet Kelly, Matt Sweeney, and Jim White, was on the horizon, to which Malkmus responded, “probably.” While discussing The Hard Quartet, Malkmus mentioned how White would often make a “fish and tomato-based stew” on a hot plate backstage before they would play a show.
Petrusich brought up Malkmus’s 2024 Vanity Fair article, and in response, Malkmus said that the interviewer, which he refused to mention by name “sucks” and is “so annoying,” which had the crowd erupting with laughter. While he often responded to questions with short, slightly awkward reponses, he never failed to make the crowd laugh with his endearing manner.
Throughout the conversation, Malkmus sipped on a plain-flavored La Croix, which surprised me. During the intermission I found myself wondering if plain was his sparkling water flavor of choice, or if he was drinking it because the venue’s options were limited to lime and plain. While it is a minute and silly detail, I could definitely picture Malkmus being a mango or pamplemousse kind of guy.
After the intermission, Malkmus walked onto stage and started his solo set with the Pavement track “Frontwards,” which was shortly followed by a fan-favorite of the band’s, “AT&T.” The setup during Malkmus’s performance consisted of one chair, an amp, his pedal board, a music stand holding papers, and a table that held his plain-flavored La Croix. Later in the set, Malkmus revealed that the music stand was holding different lyric sheets printed out from lyrics.com which got a laugh from the crowd.
Another comedic moment in Malkmus’s set is when he was replacing his broken high E string, he described it has the least important string and that “if you are the high E of your family, you do not matter, you are the sixth kid,” which the audience lost their minds over and bursted into giggles.
Malkmus’s set consisted of tracks from all of his projects including “Signal Western”,“The Greatest Own in Legal History” from his solo album, “Traditional Techniques,” as well as “Real Emotional Trash,” by Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks. In addition to playing “Blue Arrangements,” by Silver Jews, he also played a lot of Pavement deep cuts including “Roll With the Wind,” and “Give it a Day.”
While Malkmus’s set was slightly unconventional, his musicianship truly did shine. Throughout his set, Malkmus would absolutely shred through brilliant riffs on his guitar, and would switch up melodies and lines in his songs in a way that came off as seamless. With just his voice and guitar, Malkmus never failed to blow the audience away with his wit and unique stylings of beloved songs that made for a once in a lifetime performance.
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