Il primo libro che sono andato a cercare tra gli scaffali ieri, appena tornato a casa a Bologna, è stato Perfect Sound Forever di Rob Jovanovic. Volevo rileggere le pagine dedicate a Gary Young, quegli sconcertanti anni della sua carriera come primo e leggendario batterista dei Pavement. La notizia della scomparsa di Gary Young, letta sui social mentre eravamo in vacanza, è arrivata e passata senza lasciare molte tracce, a parte il commovente post sull’account ufficiale dei Pavement (“In ways, we were his apprentices”). Cesare Lorenzi, il giornalista che per primo scrisse dei Pavement in Italia, ha ricordato quale esperienza fosse vederli dal vivo all’alba dei Novanta, quando Gary Young era ancora in formazione e magari ti accoglieva all’entrata del locale.
Mi è tornata voglia di riascoltare le prime e aspre incisioni della band fatte nel suo Louder Than You Think Studio di Stockton, California, rileggendo le pagine che raccontano come i giovani Malkmus e Kannberg conobbero il veterano musicista. Più avanti nei capitoli arriva anche il resoconto della rottura e dell’uscita di scena di Young, soprattutto a causa degli abusi di alcol e sostanze, e della natura imprevedibile, a volte intrattabile, del suo carattere. Ma quella è un’altra faccenda, quello è come va la vita, e tutti poi sono capaci di spiegarti una morale. Invece, l’incanto di quel suono giovane che prende forma, di quella band che ancora non sapeva di esistere, la poesia e l'assurdo che ti arrivano addosso tutti assieme un martedì pomeriggio nei sobborghi, sono cose speciali e preziose, come il concerto che si interrompe di colpo per improvvisare una verticale davanti alla batteria, e avevo bisogno di ritrovare quelle parole.
«Kannberg asked a friend at the record store if he knew of any good local studios. There were only two to choose from: Studio C, which was the big, relatively expensive, and professional studio, and one alternative. Local drummer and scenester Gary Young had a place up and running at his house. Anyone could hire it, and it was pretty cheap. A single phone call later and the deal was done.
«Kannberg asked a friend at the record store if he knew of any good local studios. There were only two to choose from: Studio C, which was the big, relatively expensive, and professional studio, and one alternative. Local drummer and scenester Gary Young had a place up and running at his house. Anyone could hire it, and it was pretty cheap. A single phone call later and the deal was done.
"He was really busy," recalls Kannberg. "We had to wait because he had some Cambodian folk band in there. I didn't really know about Gary until then. He was responsible for recording all the punk bands from Stockton like the Young Pioneers and the Authorities. We were reallv impressed because we loved those bands.
[...] "It was weird because Gary's house is in this suburban part of Stockton with all these tract homes built in the late 1960s in this regular neighborhood. You go in his house and it's stuff everywhere, old dogs lying around, big pot plants everywhere, and Gary tells us he got all his equipment by selling pot! It was us going in and pretty much just laying down the songs with a guide guitar and a detuned guitar through a bass amp and then we'd Play drums over the top".
They had five tracks to records in the four-hour session, with a bit more time for mixing, so they got to work straight away. “We figured we’d use the static as the third instrument,” says Malkmus. “The third member was noise. We were listening to pretty lo-fi groups like Chrome and Swell Maps and the Fall. It was pretty exciting to be so experimental."
For Young, this approach, and the sounds they were making, were a shock to the system. He didn't "get" it at all, but he reasoned they were paying good money to do this so they could do what the heck they wanted.
"The way I describe it," he says, "these nineteen-year-old kids walk into my recording studio to do a four-hour thing. They come in and they play this weird guitar noise and it just sounds like noise, with no background. My drums were in there so I said, 'Should I drum?' and they said, 'Okay.' What Malkmus used to do was he'd talk me through the songs. He'd play the guitar and he'd say, 'Ok, get ready, do, do, do- one, two, three,' and that's how that worked." Simple as that.
"We just made it up as we went along," says Kannberg. "Gary was always like, 'Let me do that.' but he didn't know what it was and he thought we were kind of crazy and we thought he was kinda crazy. It was a cool experience. We did it really fast. We probably spent one day tracking and one day mixing it." »
[...] "It was weird because Gary's house is in this suburban part of Stockton with all these tract homes built in the late 1960s in this regular neighborhood. You go in his house and it's stuff everywhere, old dogs lying around, big pot plants everywhere, and Gary tells us he got all his equipment by selling pot! It was us going in and pretty much just laying down the songs with a guide guitar and a detuned guitar through a bass amp and then we'd Play drums over the top".
They had five tracks to records in the four-hour session, with a bit more time for mixing, so they got to work straight away. “We figured we’d use the static as the third instrument,” says Malkmus. “The third member was noise. We were listening to pretty lo-fi groups like Chrome and Swell Maps and the Fall. It was pretty exciting to be so experimental."
For Young, this approach, and the sounds they were making, were a shock to the system. He didn't "get" it at all, but he reasoned they were paying good money to do this so they could do what the heck they wanted.
"The way I describe it," he says, "these nineteen-year-old kids walk into my recording studio to do a four-hour thing. They come in and they play this weird guitar noise and it just sounds like noise, with no background. My drums were in there so I said, 'Should I drum?' and they said, 'Okay.' What Malkmus used to do was he'd talk me through the songs. He'd play the guitar and he'd say, 'Ok, get ready, do, do, do- one, two, three,' and that's how that worked." Simple as that.
"We just made it up as we went along," says Kannberg. "Gary was always like, 'Let me do that.' but he didn't know what it was and he thought we were kind of crazy and we thought he was kinda crazy. It was a cool experience. We did it really fast. We probably spent one day tracking and one day mixing it." »
PS: è in arrivo un documentario sulla vita di Gary Young, intitolato proprio Louder Than You Think e già presentato all'ultimo SXSW Festival.
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