Once Upon a Time in Chinatown:
Pavement vs. Andy Richter - (Part 1)
from Raygun, May 1997
If you stick around shoe biz long enough, fame and critical acclaim eventually come your way. "Late Night With Conan O'Brien" sidekick Andy Richter has gone from 1993's beleaguered co-host to today's beloved TV fixture, while Pavement's new smoothes the edge off of this often-difficult band, moving Stephen Malkmus and Co. closer to the commercially-viable pure pop they've often threatened to play. Ray Gun saw it fit to bring these icons of '90s collegiate life together for an hour of conversation. As the snow fell outside, Pavement's bassman Malkmus and major-domo Bob Nastonovich chatted with Richter over tea and Diet Cokes at the band's downtown NYC hotel...
Andy Richter: So how is the Chinatown Holiday Inn?
Bob Nastonovich: Pretty good.
Stephen Malkmus: It's fine. Actually , I like it. What do I have to say about it?
Bob: I think it's so plain that you don't really think about it.
Stephen: They clean their rooms really late which I find is very civilized. We were just in England and it's always rise and shine.
Andy: They insist on coming in.
Bob: Pretty non-descript room I would say.
Stephen: Yeah, it's easy out, easy in.
Bob: Good location.
Stephen: Quiet actually.
Bob: Reasonable rates.
Stephen: Although there's kind of a sweat shop up there. I found some people like spying on me this morning when I was doing my, um, calisthenics. So that kind of scared me.
Andy: How did you guys feel about last night's show [at CBGB's]?
Stephen: It was nice. I always like playing there. It's like being in a really nice rehearsal space. everything sounds really good at CB's when you're in a band onstage.
Andy: It does sound amazingly good.
Stephen: Our sound man is always happy. He's Dutch and macho, so...
Bob (in Amsterdammer accent): "It is good. They know how to do their room."
Andy: How did you hook up with a Dutch sound man?
Stephen: We've had him for years. There's something about the evolution of their ears, the flat land and the cheese...
Andy: The rain.
Stephen: They're made for it. Like Sonic Youth, four of their crew is Dutch, Sebadoh's sound man is Dutch.
Bob: I think it has something to do with the confidence.
Stephen: And there's a nomadic...I mean, there were here before us, you know? Brooklyn means "broken land," you know? It's not like an English thing, I don't know. They're nomads so they're perfect for this touring thing.
Andy (to Bob): You live in Louisville and I read something that said that was to be close to horse racing.
Bob: Yeah, I live across the street from Churchill Downs.
Andy: Is that passion among the whole band?
Bob: no...
Stephen: We like to win but we don't pour over racing forms for six hours a day.
Andy: Like you?
Bob: yeah. Actually, today I just looked at who's racing down in Florida at Gulf Stream and I'm quite sure that all of us could make a lot of money today if we went to an OTB. There's three horses racing that I'm pretty sure are going to win.
Ray Gun: We've still got some time.
Andy: You've got to tell us who they are. Yeah!
Bob: The first race that just went off I'm sure was won by this horse Sierra Grande who races at Churchill, and it's going to be a pretty handsome prize just because he's never raced in Florida and they don't know how good he is.
Andy: There's gottta be an OTB around here.
Bob: I haven't looked in the phone book. Usually I gotta look in the phone book to figure out where the nearest one is.
Andy: They're kinda depressing though. They're like currency exchanges. In Chicago we used to go to the OTB and it was like a Bennigans with gambling. Actually, gambling and cigarettes are the two things that I sense I have trouble with.
Bob: Yeah, me too. Throw in beer, do you do all kinds of gambling?
Andy: Well, I avoid it because I'm terrible at it. The last time my wife and I went to Atlantic City, it was astounding how much money I pissed away in such a small amount of time. I was so mad at myself.
Bob: Blackjack?
Andy: Blackjack. Then I got this genius thought about the $5 slot machines, and I got about $400 and said, "This is easy," and then fucked it all away. I was so mad at myself. I was like, "I'm never going to do this again."
Bob: Well, I determined that the only way I could succeed as a horseplayer was to move right across the street from the track and study the same track 100 days-- we have approximately 100 days of racing a year-- and find out everything that was going on there. I don't have a lot of inside information, but I know the trainers...
Stephen: He looks like a racing guy, too, like when he's out there.
Bob: I fit in pretty good. That's one great thing about it, you can be as absolutely scruffy as you want and not be self-conscious.
Andy: A guy that I work with, his dad won something like 11 grand and insisted on getting it all in cash, and then got out to his car and immediately had three guns on him.
Stephen: What about your making big bets at three different places so you don't have to pay taxes...
Andy: Yeah, that's a Vegas trick.
Bob: I just had to fill out a tax form last week. They changed the rules on me. It used to be any winning bet that was 600 to one you had to fill out a tax form, now it's any ticket that pays more than $600.
Stephen: That's why you save all of the losers.
Bob: Yeah, I've got boxes of losing tickets. Tax reasons. I'm scared that one day...
Andy: (Laughing) For the IRS you have evidence of your patheticism.
Stephen: In shoe boxes!
Bob: It cancels out. You get a W2 for gambling winnings, and if you can produce 12,000 tickets that haven't been stepped on, like supposedly if they have a footprint on them obviously it doesn't count, so I save every one. I probably have a box of like $25,000 of losing tickets from last yea, but I had a winning year last year. I won 3000 bucks.
RG: What's more profitable, the band or the track?
Bob: The band is at this point but hopefully it will reach a point when... my goal is just to not have to work anymore. Supposedly there are 250 Americans that make $50,000 a year or more at the race track, and I would like to be 251.
Andy: Really? It wouldn't be bad. It is just like a job, I guess.
Bob: It's high stress and it cuts you off from a large sector of...
Andy: Life?
Bob:...the world. I can only really talk to one guy and he's pretty insane.
Stephen: Jack?
Bob: Yeah, one of my best friends, my horse racing friend. sometimes at parties we'll just become unbearable.
Stephen: Sometimes Pavement fans will come up to Bob and be like, "Yeah, I really like you," and he'll be like punishing them with horse racing...
Andy: A therapist would have a field day with that. Punishing your fans. Actually at your show, we didn't stay until the end because we couldn't see and my wife gets frustrated.
Bob: You shoulda put her on your shoulders.
Andy: She didn't wear a tube top, so...
Stephen: Did you go to any old school metal concerts when you were a kid?
Andy: Not so much when I was a kid. It's weird, because I've done stuff on the show, like I was talking about KISS, people think I'm some sort of crazy KISS fan, but there's a thin frosting of irony on the cake of my appreciation for KISS.
Bob: Did you draw KISS when you were young?
Andy: Oh yeah, I did draw them, but I think that I was just too young. They scared me.
Stephen: I was afraid of KISS until like Destroyer, then they became more cartoony. When they started out, you'd be like, "Whoa, this is really dangerous." Then it kinda just...
RG: Turned into the Marvel comic book of the same name.
Andy: Also, I lived in a small town and I was the lone new waver, In that kind of teenage way. If it was popular, I didn't like it.
Bob: Did you have that hairstyle?
Andy: No, no, I was never outward...
Stephen: Like Cure and Elvis Costello type stuff?
Andy: Like Elvis Costello and Joe Jackson and the Clash. You know, like Flash and the Pan. Just odd obscure stuff.
Stephen: That's obscure. There hasn't really been a spawn of re-interest in that band.
RG: Flash and Pan were actually the Easybeats,
Stephen: Yeah, they were.