Though perhaps still best known as the laconic, nonchalant vocalist and cryptic, hyper-literate songwriting mind behind '90s era-defining lo/fi alternative legends Pavement, for more than the past decade Stephen Malkmus has been releasing a string of solid albums under his own name, and with his band the Jicks.
And while perhaps these records, including last year's excellent stoner-wordplay and jam-fuelled Wig Out at Jagbags, won't be canonised and mythologised like Crooked Rain, the Jicks' output has remained quintessentially and distinctly Malkmusian: the sound of a densely intelligent dude, who although now 48, still just seems like a young boy kidding around.
When I saw Malkmus and the Jicks early last year while travelling through Canada, it was a playful and captivating show.
At one point, Malkmus taught his band an on-the-fly cover of the Guns N' Roses classic Sweet Child o' Mine, calling out chord changes to the musicians while doing joyful rock impressions of both Axl Rose and Slash as he let rip on his guitar - something in the Jicks he gets the chance to do more than ever.
''I don't have the teeth left for your candy/ I'm just busy being free'', he sings on Independence Street, an elastic, '70s-influenced Jagbags cut.
On stage with the Jicks, you can tell he feels it.
The song was part of a medley that also incorporated covers of Green Day, Rush and The Velvet Underground, a fitting breadth of ''classic'' rock touchstones for the Jicks, who seem even happier to be steeped in a more traditionalist rock history than Pavement.
He's not joking, just joking he is joking.
Malkmus himself is a big Dunedin Sound fan, having extolled the virtues of bands such as the Clean and the 3Ds for years, and even covering the Verlaines' Death and the Maiden for a Flying Nun tribute record.
Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks play two shows at Port Chalmers, Chick's Hotel next week.
A TRUE PUNK BAND
From the former Pavement front man, to a band the former Pavement front man once admitted to mistaking for his old band in a Portland burger joint: Brooklyn New York's Parquet Courts.
This smart, scrappy foursome is a true punk band; full of intent, deliberation, and perhaps most importantly the warmth of real, honest meaning.
They released their debut cassette in 2011 but it was 2012's self-described Americana-punk follow-up Light Up Gold that pushed the band into the spotlight as guitar music heroes and rock writer favourites.
Fronted by two brilliant lyricists, Andrew Savage and Austin Brown, and managing to brim with nervy amphetamine energy as well as stoned and starving sprawl, it's that wild mercury sound that Dylan was talking about.
The gigs
• Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks (Portland, US) play Chick's Hotel, Port Chalmers, Tuesday and Wednesday. Tickets from undertheradar.co.nz. 8pm doors. Chick's Magic Bus leaves Countdown at 8.30, uni library at 8.35, returns to town after the show.
• Parquet Courts (Brooklyn, US) with Salad Boys and Opposite Sex, play Chick's Hotel, Port Chalmers on Thursday. Tickets from undertheradar.co.nz. 8.30pm doors.
