Home

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:

September 26, 2026:

Back with a new tab for the Jicks song Vanessa From Queens. Ironically, for a relatively simple song this has been one of the most difficult tabs to put together. In live performances, it looks like the song is played in standard tuning and is pretty straight forward. But when listening to the studio version on Pig Lib, to me it doesn't sound like it's played that way, and I haven't found any video of the song being played that matches the album. For 15+ years I have periodically revisited this song and could never get it to sound totally correct, trying at least 6 or 7 different tunings. A month or so ago I felt like I finally made a breakthrough using DADF#AE tuning. I was about 99% finished with the tab in that tuning, until I got to the very ending and I heard a low C note on the 6th string at one point, so I knew that tuning couldn't be correct. I tried a couple of the C tunings that Malkmus has used, but none of them seemed to work. So I finally settled on trying a brand new tuning that I've never seen Malkmus use or seen mentioned anywhere, CGDF#AE. I grant that this tuning and tab are most likely incorrect, but when I play it along with the studio version it sounds as close to it as I can get. That being said, it's clear that on Pig Lib Malkmus tried out several odd new tunings he had never used before, like CGAEAD (Water and a Seat), DABF#BF# (1% of One), and BEBEBE (Us). So perhaps this CGDF#AE is another one? Try it out and let me know what you think.
If you don't want to bother with the tuning - and I don't blame you - I put an abbreviated tab in standard tuning at the bottom, after the main tab in the new tuning. It's not totally accurate to the album version, but it'll work.
I also want to mention that I was delighted and very grateful to see Spiral Stairs mention this site by name in the recent Pavement Rig Rundown video by Premier Guitar on Youtube, which can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnqvUB79xe8. At one point the interviewer asks Spiral about re-learning songs for the tour that haven't been played in awhile, and Spiral says one of the things he used was this site! Thank you very much for the shout out Scott, I greatly appreciate it!

June 15, 2026: Slay Tracks: 1776-2026

A new Pavement tab has been added, for one of the few remaining untabbed Pavement songs: Coolin' By Sound.
Also added a full tab including all the solos for probably my favorite Silver Jews song, Blue Arrangements.
By my count, these two new tabs are the 249th and 250th tabs that have been added to the site since it was started oh so long ago. A surprising number to me, and which goes to show how prolific Pavement was and Stephen Malkmus continues to be - he doesn't rest!
As a bonus 251st tab, you can also check out Juliefuckingette, a standalone single from the Traditional Techniques recording session.
In addition to the new tabs above, I finally came around to revisiting some of the Pavement songs I had previously tabbed many years ago, and fixed them up and added parts that were missing. Among them are my two favorite Pavement songs, which I can never choose between and so I just call them 1A and 1B, Grounded and Fillmore Jive.
- Grounded: added the pre-chorus lead parts, as well as Spiral's rhythm parts.
- Fillmore Jive: fully tabbed out all solos and verse parts.
- Old To Begin: added the outro lead part, and made slight updates to the main chorus & verse parts to be more accurate to how Malkmus plays them.
- We Are Underused: basically a brand new tab including all rhythm parts as well as Spiral's cool backing part and Malkmus' solo parts.
- Passat Dream: updated with lyrics and several parts that were missing from the previous tab.
- As a smaller update, the pre-chorus rhythm part of Type Slowly was changed to how I think it's actually played, based on video evidence that wasn't around back when I originally did the tab. I actually thought I had updated this on the site a couple years ago but it looks like I forgot.
I also wanted to give a shout out to a new friend that I met at a Malkmus solo show earlier this year who has released a couple of nifty Pavement covers recently, for Date with Ikea and Gold Soundz. Check out his bandcamp here: richardturgeon.bandcamp.com, where you can find his covers and also his original music which is recommended as well. On top of that he has a blog on his personal site with a nice article that has his thoughts on the original end of Pavement, which can be found here: www.richardturgeon.com/blog/2025/9/8/the-curious-dissolution-of-pavement . It's a great read!

March 19, 2026:

Another Wig Out at Jagbags tab has been added; if you don't already know it, check out Houston Hades.

March 4, 2026:

A tab has been added for Cinnamon and Lesbians, a gem of a song from the underrated Wig Out at Jagbags and very fun to play. Lots of notes for a 3 minute song!

March 1, 2026:

Another Sparkle Hard tab has been added: Shiggy. As a bonus, below the main tab for the album version is an abbreviated tab of the solo acoustic version of Shiggy that Malkmus played on the same Colorado Public Radio performance as the one mentioned below in the Middle America update. Malkmus also played it in a similar way on the Pitchfork channel way back when, but in that performance he's tuned down a half step (in the same tuning as Solid Silk).

February 21, 2026:

Two more tabs have been posted: Another Jicks track from Sparkle Hard, Difficulties. Also, Flowin' Robes, from Traditional Techniques. This one is in the same tuning as Solid Silk, CGDGBE tuned down a half step. Interestingly, this song traces back many years before Traditional Techniques was released, having been performed live at Jicks shows. It's part of the full Route du Rock set from 2012 that can be found on Youtube, if you want to see it performed in a full band version.

February 10, 2026:

A couple more Jicks songs from Sparkle Hard have been added. Check out Solid Silk and Middle America. The album version of Middle America is played in the unusual open-C tuning Malkmus briefly used around this time, CECEGC. But after awhile he switched to playing the song live in his more familiar CGDGBE tuning, so at the bottom of the tab I also list the chord voicings he uses in that tuning, as well as a quick tab of the fingerpicked intro that Malkmus played on Colorado Public Radio's Open Air back when the album came out.

February 1, 2026:

Back after a long break. New tab has been added for Chartjunk. On the album recording the song is in open-D tuned down a half step, but when played live it seems Malkmus just plays in regular open-D tuning.