C'mon, Steve, indulge us.

​So Pavement Week ends tonight, with one more show in Central Park. We all had a good time, though, right? Dredged up some memories? Sung a few half-remembered choruses? Got rained on? Made some money? (Actually, no, we didn't make any money.) And though the set lists have varied impressively, and everyone's got their own personal favorite ("Perfect Depth"! "Here"!), there's still a few neglected songs they'd do well to dust off before they abandon us (maybe) for good. Such as:

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He does a great dance to "Rapper's Delight" evidently. Pic by Puja.

​For Bob Nastanovich, the class clown of Pavement, this whole reunion thing is just as much work as play. On his one off day between Sunday night's Williamsburg Waterfront show and the four-night Central Park stand starting tonight (tickets are, uh, available), he DJ'd at the Living Room last night, where he and the tour's stage manager took turns playing actual vinyl on actual turntables. "I carry my 7-inches with me," he explained, pointing to a full shopping bag. "We did this once in Seattle. I'm not a DJ, but I do love these records." He paused to switch to an old-timey, tin-y sounding track; "Hey, this one's great," he exclaimed confidently, showing me the sleeve as I pretended to understand the odd selection. (It was "Midnight for Two" by the Three Suns.) Potentially stranger but equally delightful picks included "Rapper's Delight" -- complete with a hands-on-the-wall booty dance -- and Michael Jackson. Few patrons at the nearly empty bar had any idea what was going on, and those that did stood a careful distance away, trying to hide their excitement. Every now and again, someone would bridge the divide and approach him for a photo op. "He loves it," assured a friend.

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Watch this guy goof around in Central Park, for cheap. Real cheap.

​The year was 2009. You heard that Pavement were reuniting. You either love them or have been told by people older than you that you should love them. They announced a show in Central Park, for a year later. Like, a whole year later. It sold out. They announced another. And then another. And then another. And then, finally, a fifth show at the Williamsburg Waterfront that would actually take place before all the other ones, which was, if we can be real for a second, a dick move. (OSA says that one didn't quite sell out, if that's any consolation.) You probably bought tickets for one of these, probably somewhere in the middle. Perhaps now, a year later, you'd like to sell them, for what you paid for them, or perhaps even a little more. This is not going to happen.

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Stephen Malkmus (top) and Mark Ibold, each super excited about this in his own way

​Pavement/Jenny and Johnny
East River State Park
Sunday, September 19

Better Than: You probably would've guessed

Pavement have arrived. At last. The bad news is they played virtually ever other major city on earth first; the good news is they're now officially... uh, "well oiled" is probably overstating it, but as we begin with "Cut Your Hair," and Stephen Malkmus rips into the guitar solo with way more more aplomb and enthusiasm than 10 years of band retrospectives have taught you to expect, you appreciate that they had all that practice.

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​Well, this is terribly disappointing. The race to determine who'll play guitar with Pavement on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon later this month has been narrowed down to five finalists, and our own Stelios Phili, who poured milk all over his hands and found a blue tarp and formed a band that only plays parts of Pavement songs and everything, is not among the potential victors. Guess who is, though!

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​So Pavement, in celebration of the five-night NYC stand that is (almost) finally upon us, are playing Jimmy Fallon later this month, and held a contest to determine their third guitarist -- submit a video of yourself playing a Pavement song, submit yourself to whatever online-voting scheme Fallon will soon unveil, and become an indie-rock god for, like, four and a half minutes. Deadline for entries was Wednesday. Our own Stelios Phili submitted his own video, and we fully expect him to win. But YouTube right now features submissions from other hopefuls... let scope out the competition, shall we?

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​Shitty dancing, friendship, awkwardness, staring, confusion: Like a middle-school dance, these are the consistent themes of Pavement's music videos. I know this because I watched them all, and then -- four plastic dinosaurs, two yellow ponchos, and one soggy bowl of cereal later -- I made one myself. Last week, reunited indie-rock legends Pavement, who have inadvertently amassed a rabid cult following in their 11-year absence, announced a contest alongside Jimmy Fallon: Submit a video of yourself playing guitar, win a chance to perform alongside Stephen Malkmus and friends on national television. I decided it would be a good idea to win.

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​You remember Pavement, right? That band whose Central Park reunion shows you bought tickets for a solid year ago? Who then pranced around the country for most of 2010 while you patiently waited and ruefully read fawning concert recaps from other cities and very possibly lost said tickets? (Seriously: Do you know where they are right now?) Well, those shows are finally almost upon us; that they're celebrating by going on Jimmy Fallon is not surprising. That they're holding an open call for a third guitarist is.

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The Matador press release sent to the world this morning regarding that no-longer-apocryphal Pavement Reunion mentioned two brick-and-mortar places that would be selling surcharge-free tickets: Nokia Theatre box office in Times Square and Williamsburg's resilient indie record stop, Earwax. Before you take up residence beside a Bedford Ave trashcan, please be advised that Earwax will only be getting 100 tickets. Let's repeat: 100 tickets. They will be $38.50 a piece. But according to the friendly person who just answered the phone over there, even the store doesn't know when they'll actually be getting them. Keep checking back next week, the Earwax employee helpfully told us. Lord help her if she tells too many other people that.

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