| America is known for many things – cowboy politics, its enormous bags of chips and one of the best bands to come out of the ’90s. I’m talking about Pavement – that smarmy group of prep school dropouts, whose insanely catchy melodies and snappy witticisms helped propel the entire emo rock movement. The band seemed to define a generation of music lovers who liked to read. They pushed irony like a cheap drug and their fans became addicts of irreverence.
When Pavement called it quits in 2000, aging hipsters were left with two weary solo projects. Stephen Malkmus had his Jicks and Spiral Stairs built the Preston School of Industry. Both projects sounded remarkably similar to Pavement, with each of the former co-founders magnifying what they did best in their previous band. Malkmus had his wry, monotone rhymes and Spiral Stairs his distinctive guitar hooks.
Spiral Stairs goes by his real name now – Scott Kannberg – and with age comes a certain amount of confidence in his songwriting (as well as hair loss). Now in his late-30s, he runs a small record label (Amazing Grease) and makes music with his band, Preston School of Industry. So is it possible to make a living as an indie musician?
"If you can kind of not make it your complete focus, then you probably could," says Kannberg laughing. "But it’s like with any artist, you know? If that’s what you want to do, you have to sort of suffer for it. Some people can survive."
Kannberg is Pavement’s unofficial archivist and responsible for donating much of the footage seen in the Pavement DVD retrospective Slow Century. Recently, he has been busy gathering unreleased material for a tentative project, a new re-mastered version of Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain. One has to wonder why he spends so much of his energy trying to preserve the memory of his old band?
"(Pavement) was part of my life for so long. It’s still part of my life," he says. "It’s not like it’s over even though we’re not doing anything. I’m pretty much the only one who saved anything. I’m kind of a pack rat."
Besides being a collector of Pavement memorabilia, Kannberg also passionately collects architecture magazines. I ask him if he finds anything ironic about a guy who called himself Spiral Stairs being obsessed with architecture. He laughs and lists some of his favourite pieces of architecture from his travels.
"There’s this weird skyscraper in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s really sleek and at the top, it’s kind of got this unfinished, metal triangular structure. It’s all gold and you can see it from miles away," he says. "And there’s this really long bridge, I forget its name, between Denmark and Sweden. They had to build an island between the two countries, to like keep this bridge together."
Kannberg is a little like that manufactured island himself, somehow managing to keep his old band connected to his new life. He still builds songs like teetering freestanding structures for the Preston School of Industry, but make no mistake about it, Kannberg is still very much the foundation of both his worlds.
CELEB TOP FIVE
Scott Kannberg’s (a.k.a. Spiral Stairs of Preston School of Industry) Top Five architectural achievements, in descending order.
1. One Atlantic Center
2. Oresund Bridge
3. Empire State Building
4. Niagara Falls
5. Macintosh laptop computers |
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