Updates
February 23, 2023:
New tab added for a real gem of a track from the Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain era. Please see the tab for All My Friends. I feel like this song could easily have been an album track, and probably been one of the more popular songs. However, making this tab took a lot out of me, and my time unfortunately is becoming more constricted again, so the next update most likely won't be for a while.
That being said, I am looking for a bit of feedback as far as what updates you may be looking for. I'm aware that many of the earliest Pavement tabs I posted on this site are fairly skeletal and sometimes missing parts, and could maybe use a facelift. In those early days, I was mainly trying to get tabs with the major parts done for as many songs as quickly as possible, whereas later on I tried to make tabs a bit more complete. That's why the tab for an obscure song like Birds in the Majic Industry is fairly long, while the tab for Gold Soundz is just a couple of lines. So I'm curious if there are any tabs in particular that you feel could use an update. If I get several emails mentioning the same song, then that will help draw my attention to it. Also, many of the more recent Malkmus solo material is missing, so likewise if there's a song that I see being requested over and over, that can help bring my focus to it, though I can't necessarily guarantee I will be successful tabbing it. As mentioned below, my email is "evkcowan" [at] "gmail.com."
I was thinking it would be nice to have a section on this site covering Stephen Malkmus' gear, i.e. amps and pedals, either in Pavement or with the Jicks or both if possible. I know there are pictures of pedal boards, old guitar magazine articles floating around, and videos on Youtube that can be used as source material, but I just don't have the time or motivation to do it. So I'm wondering if anyone with the knowledge and time would be interested in putting that together. If you are, please email me.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you very much to the handful of people who have contributed support via my Venmo link. I am grateful for everyone who has managed to find this little site and received some help or enjoyment from it over the years.
February 7, 2023:
Rather than adding some incomplete old tabs as I mentioned before, I decided it's better to finish them up first before posting. The first one up is an outtake from Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain: check out Nail Clinic. The next one to be added will be another outtake/non-album track from Crooked Rain.
February 1, 2023:
I added what I think the tunings are for the Traditional Techniques album to the Tunings page. Much of the album sounds like open-B to me. If the tunings look crazy, don't fret; just think of them as open-D, but tuned down even further, i.e. Xian Man is open-D tuned down a half step to open-C#, Juliefuckingette is tuned down a full step to open-C, and most of the rest are tuned down a step and a half to open-B. With this, Malkmus seems to be continuing a recent trend of tuning down his previously used tunings, probably to help with singing. The one new tuning is for Shadowbanned, so I'm the least certain about that one but it seems to fit. Please note, for the most part these are just my guesses from listening to the album, so they could be wrong. The only two songs where there are performance videos are Flowin' Robes and Brainwashed, so those are the only two songs where I think the tuning is confirmed.
I also posted my first initial tab ideas for all of the songs to the Traditional Techniques page. Note: These are very informal preliminary tab sketches, and very incomplete - sometimes just the first few seconds of a song. They are meant to be sort of a proof of concept that the song could be played in the particular tuning I'm suggesting. I posted this because it will probably be awhile before I get to any full tabs for songs from that album, as my time to spend on tabs unfortunately is very limited and I have a few others in the pipeline already. So yes, more tabs are on the way, both Malkmus solo material and Pavement too, but it will be awhile because of time constraints. Thank you for your patience.
January 30, 2023:
I added a new section to the site that has my thoughts on some of the things that make Stephen Malkmus' guitar playing unique and special, and some notes on the most commonly used tunings that I thought could be helpful for beginners. You can take a look here or find it in the menu on the left.
January 23, 2023:
Another new tab added, from 2014's Wig Out at Jagbags: Independence Street.
January 21, 2023:
For the first time in 7 and a half years, a new tab has been added! One of the easier ones from 2018's Sparkle Hard, check out Bike Lane.Â
I also added what I think the tunings are for the rest of the songs from that album to the Tunings page.
January 18, 2023:
As far as I know, all the tabs should be fixed now. Please do let me know if I missed fixing any, or if there are any other problems with the site. I am aware that the tabs are not very readable on a mobile phone now. Unfortunately, I don't have a quick solution to this problem, so for now I can only recommend viewing the tabs on a desktop/laptop.
January 10, 2023:
First of all, Happy New Year everyone! It has been a good long while. No new tabs at this point, but there's been a slight refresh of the site's look at the behest of Google. However, Google's auto-conversion appears to have screwed up the alignment of the tabs. Please bear with me as I look into fixing them. (Update #2: It looks like I have to re-upload every tab one by one, and the new interface is not as efficient as before so this will take some time.)
Thanks to everyone who's reached out over the years with nice feedback. I apologize I have not been able to respond to every message, but I have read everything and it is appreciated.
In the somewhat near future I'll try to add some partially complete tabs I've had sitting around for a long time, but never finished. I have to find where they're buried on an old HD somewhere.