Pavement - Carrot Rope

I'm not sure what informed my decision to buy this record as at the time I wasn't really familiar with Pavement. I think that somewhere in the back of my head I had a vague concept that Pavement were a 'good' band and that to purchase a single of theirs on vinyl was a 'good' thing to do - I was, after all, supporting an obscure and independent and alternative band on a marginal format (as opposed to buying the CDs) and therefore some greater god of indie-rock would see to it that my 99p investment would be rewarded with at least 3 minutes of musical pleasure.* Of course, I had no idea of quite how big the band really were or anything of their previous output, so I think it was a pretty good punt.

*Actually, thinking about it, I already knew and quite liked the song 'Shady Lane' as I think I had seen it on The O-zone (remember that show?) or something and that guided me in 1999 to buy 'Carrot Rope' on one of my trawls through the new release singles box in my local independent record shop.

I love the song 'Carrot Rope'; breezy, poppy, just odd enough to be interesting and it has that rose-tinted sound that makes you believe it could have been the soundtrack to your parents' old super-8 summer home movies. It's in contrast to most of the darker material on the Terror Twilight album.

Ten years on, I'm just watching the video for the first time and it's actually pretty annoying. Here it is anyway:

The song reminds me a lot less of earlier Fall-influenced indie-rock Pavement and far more of the sort of stuff on Stephen Malkmus' eponymous debut album, so at the time this would have been a pointer as to the direction he was going in, with Pavement playing their final show later that year (Brixton Academy, London Nov 20th 1999).

Like the music contained within, the record sleeve can't fail to raise a smile. Silly, yes, but also intriguing, the image of what we can safely assume to be a carrot rope makes me wonder whether it was commissioned for the single or if someone in the Domino art department opportunistically came across it and had a Eureka moment ("That's it! That, my friends, is a Carrot Rope!)

The B-side is 'And Then...’ which is an edited early version of 'The Hexx' from Terror Twilight. The song is dark and brooding Pavement at their best and makes a great counterpart to 'Carrot Rope'. It was recorded for 1997's Brighten the Corners, but left off that album for whatever reason. At a time when a lot of singles were released on two CDs and a 7", with the vinyl B-side being one of the CD bonus tracks, it was cool that the 'Carrot Rope' 7" got its own B-side, as 'And Then...' wasn't on either of the two CDs. Nice touch. The only other place you could hear it was on the B-side of the American 'Spit on a Stranger' 7". The track has since been compiled onto Brighten the Corners: Nicene Creedence Edition with all the other contemporaneous demos, B-sides, and sessions etc. There was also a version included on Pavment's recent Record Store Day release: a live album of a concert in Germany from 1997. Good luck getting one of those outside of the USA!

Well, this is a great single, representing the two sides of the Pavement coin. It appears to still be in print, and you can get one here.