The "classic" L.A. Guns lineup, ca. 1989.

​Today, Matador announced that it would be launching a new singles club and the inaugural release would be Stephen Malkmus and one of the bands currently calling itself L.A. Guns (more on that in a minute) will be releasing a split 7-inch on Matador where they cover each others' songs. The hard-rock outfit, led by the guitarist Tracii Guns, will take on Malkmus's "Gorgeous George" (from this year's Mirror Traffic) while Malkmus will return the favor by covering "Wheels Of Fire," off L.A. Guns' 1989 album Cocked And Loaded. Exciting!

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Hannah manuscript page via

​The wildly inventive, fiercely Southern author Barry Hannah died Monday, at the age of 67, at home in Oxford, Mississippi, where he lived most of his life. His books were truly wonderful things--whether his debut novel Geronimo Rex or the story collections Airships and High Lonesome, among many others. His writing was unlike any other author's--strange and unfamiliar and comic, all at once, a running commentary on Southern Gothic written in a proudly Southern Gothic voice. Writers who encountered Hannah did not easily forget him. Among them? Pavement's Stephen Malkmus, who expressed great admiration for the writer in a 2003 Believer interview:

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Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks, "Cold Son" (MP3)
Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks, "Baltimore" (MP3)

Guess which one of these people has a man-crush on Caron Butler?

Pavement questions are like "getting questions about the giant monsoon you survived but [that] killed your whole family"

Stephen Malkmus's latest release Real Emotional Trash, the first with former Sleater-Kinney drummer Janet Weiss, begs comparison to '60s-era jam-band staples like the Grateful Dead and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Fittingly, Pavement's former mastermind was recently tapped to provide the singing voice for Cate Blanchett's Bob Dylan in Todd Haynes's 2007 biopic I'm Not There. Like Dylan, Malkmus continues to be prolific as he matures--seemingly to spite the ebb and flow of critical reception--and he's also one of America's more lyrically clever rock stars.

Recently, we caught up with Malkmus by phone, where he proved ramblingly lackadaisical and poetic as ever. He and his band the Jicks play three New York dates, starting tonight at the Bowery Ballroom.

VV: Wow, your voice sounds awful.

Stephen Malkmus: Yeah I'm okay. But after five days of shows, my voice is lost for a while.

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