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Pavement / Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks / (Some) Silver Jews / The Hard Quartet Guitar Tabs

Welcome to my Pavement / Malkmus & Jicks guitar tab site. I've done my best to figure out how to play these songs in the proper manner, using live videos whenever possible as confirmation. I hope you enjoy what you find here!

Note: Because many Pavement songs involve improvisation and subtle variations throughout, many of these guitar tabs are minimalist and contain only Stephen Malkmus' parts in what I believe is the proper tuning. Consider the tab a starting point for you to add your own flourishes and feelings. For most songs, Spiral usually plays the appropriate power chords in standard tuning and contributes some backing lead parts.

Some tabs may be incomplete. They may be updated, and new tabs added, when time permits.

Click here for an alphabetical list of all tabs on this site.

Send me (Evan) comments and feedback here: "evkcowan" [at] "gmail.com"

Updates:

July 13, 2025:

Added another new Pavement tab, for their great cover of the R.EM. song Camera.

June 16, 2025:

Switching back to Pavement, two more tabs have been added: Ed Ames, and Baby Yeah. The tuning for Ed Ames is a shot in the dark, a guess, but I could never get it to sound quite right in regular old CGDGBE tuning. So I thought, maybe Malkmus tried writing another song in the Newark Wilder tuning before recording that song?

June 10, 2025:

Added a tab for the Jicks song Cast Off.

May 28, 2025:

Added a tab for the Silver Jews song Pan American Blues.

May 24, 2025:

Added another song from Traditional Techniques: check out Signal Western.

May 19, 2025:

Added basic tabs for a couple of Malkmus solo songs from Traditional Techniques: The Greatest Own in Legal History, and What Kind of Person.

April 4, 2025:

Continuing the run of new Pavement tabs, here's one that I should have finished tabbing a long time ago: Rain Ammunition. The tab has both the Peel Session version that is found on the deluxe version of Slanted & Enchanted, as well as the slightly different instrumental version found on the Cut Your Hair single, which is at the bottom of the tab.

March 19, 2025:

A couple more new Pavement b-side tabs, although these are basically solo-Spiral Stairs songs. But they're both very solid tracks, and can be found on the deluxe version of Terror Twilight if you are not familiar with them. Check out Stub Your Toe, and Your Time to Change.

March 5, 2025:

Tabs for a couple Jicks songs have been added. Check out J Smoov and Refute.

February 13, 2025:

For the first time in a long time, a brand new Pavement tab! After starting a tab many many years ago but never finishing, Soiled Little Filly has finally been added.
A note on Soiled Little Filly being in CGDABE tuning: this is just about the last tuning I thought the song would be in. But incredibly there is actually a video of this song being played live by Pavement back in 1993 on Youtube. Trigger Cut, which is in CGDGBE tuning, is the song played right before Soiled Little Filly. After they finish Trigger Cut, you can clearly see and hear Malkmus tune his G string up to an A. Furthermore, after Soiled Little Filly they go on to play Cut Your Hair, which is in CGDABE tuning. So I think I can consider the tuning on this one confirmed.

February 5, 2025:

Matt's part in Action for Military Boys was updated to a different tuning.

December 2024 - January 2025 updates:

Another Hard Quartet song added, and one of the album highlights for me: Thug Dynasty.

Tab added for North of the Border.

Basic tabs added for some more Hard Quartet songs: Killed By Death, It Suits You, and Jacked Existence.

One more Hard Quartet song added before the end of the year: Action for Military Boys.

November 2024 Updates:

Gripping the Riptide tab is now up.

Added a tab for the Hard Quartet song Six Deaf Rats.
A tab for another Hard Quartet song is up on the site: check out Heel Highway.
Yet another Hard Quartet song added: Hey. The outro/ending is missing for now but will be added later at some point.
Added a tab for another Hard Quartet song: Chrome Mess. I got the unusual tuning from checking some live footage - it seems to match up with how Malkmus is playing it.
Tabs for a couple new Hard Quartet songs have been added: Earth Hater (tab courtesy of Matt Watton), and Rio's Song.