David Pajo
The Importance Of Being M
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If you think David Pajo’s music is hard to pin down, try setting up an interview with the man himself. “Sorry about this,” he says when finally reached at his Louisville home after two tries. “I’m making dinner tonight and I had to go out and get some squash.”
Indeed, David Pajo is the kind of unassuming, quiet guy you’d see grocery shopping next to you. But he also happens to have helped produce some of the decade’s most creative new music, first with pioneering Louisville band Slint and later with Chicago’s avant-rock collective Tortoise. And just as you might turn to Pajo for advice on what peppers look the freshest, an array of indie rock’s best and brightest, from Royal Trux to Stereolab and Palace, have called on him as a valued collaborator.
Although he has thrived in these settings, particularly on Tortoise’s landmark 1996 album Millions Now Living Will Never Die, Pajo felt the increasing need to strike out on his own. He returned to Lousville and adopted the overarching moniker M for his future projects. First step: recording a gorgeous, all-instrumental debut album totally on his own, under the name Aerial M in late 1997. “I’m really good at collaborating, and it’s kind of like I lost my own identity,” Pajo said. “That’s why I started M, to find out for myself if I am any good on my own. I had to ask myself, ‘What is my sound? What do I contribute?’ I really had no idea.”
A full band was drafted to tour in support of the Aerial M record, but by the time the spring 1998 tour was complete, Pajo’s muse had drifted yet again. Jettisoning the “Aerial” prefix in favor of the benevolent surname “Papa,” he set to work on an even more low-key solo guitar album, but wound up scrapping it at the last minute. “The artwork was even ready to go,” he chuckles. “But I realized that I didn’t like the record. I just thought it was boring.”
He started from scratch, recording largely at home and ultimately coming up with Live From A Shark Cage, on which he’s reared 11 instrumental tracks from infancy to full maturity, just like any good papa should. Shark Cage is not a retread of the territory covered by Aerial M, in fact, only the genial “Up North Kids” really comes close to approximating the more band-oriented interplay of that effort. Pajo’s keen sense of space and dynamics is pervasive, as is his skill with assembling melodic fragments into greater wholes.
In the end, it was the process that inspired him to keep pushing, and judging by Pajo’s assessment, he's more than pleased with the finished product. “I still put this album on for enjoyment, and I really never do that with any other record I’ve done,” he admits. “I never listen to the other records I’ve played on, because I know them so well.” But since he had little, if any, prior experience as a recording engineer, Pajo initially relied on some esteemed musical pals for assistance.
“I said to myself, ‘I haven’t seen Steve Albini in a while - it would be nice to spend time with him, and recording a song is a good excuse.’ Same thing with recording with [Stereolab’s] Tim Gane. I was over in England anyway, and it was nice to spend time with him and [Stereolab vocalist] Laetitia [Sadier]. Recording was almost an excuse to hang out with people!”
Pajo absorbed whatever lessons he could, and returned to Louisville to finish the album.
"I was really excited about recording the stuff at home, because I had learned things from being with these other people,” he said.
One track that stands out particularly is “Plastic
Energy Man,” where the continual shift in mic perspective makes it feel as if the
listener is gradually moving both nearer and farther from the source of the sound.
“That song is kind of like my approach to the whole record, I wanted to imagine the
songs coming out of nothing,” Pajo said. “That’s how they were born,
anyway, and that’s how I wanted to present them. That song took a while to mix.
I’d have to do stuff with the room mics that I had, like fade the close mics, then
fade the room mics, and then do it in reverse.”
Live From A Shark Cage is almost like the musical equivalent of a coming-out
party, where Pajo’s work can stand on its own, without the overbearing references to
his past contributions in Tortoise and Slint. In conjunction with the ever-witty staffers
at his label, Drag City, Pajo decided to have a bit of fun with unsuspecting journalists.
The press packet that accompanied Shark Cage cleverly masked any reference to
either Tortoise or Slint, substituting “The Genital Warts” and “The Shit
Fucks” as the names of Pajo’s “earlier” bands.
“I sat down and read some of my press clippings, and some of these articles barely
mention the band I’m in now. It was just kind of disconcerting,” he said.
“I don’t want my reputation to precede me. I want the music to be perceived on
its own, and judged on its own, not like, this is the ex-member of The Shit Fucks. So, I
always did Mad Libs as a kid, and I highlighted all the mentions.” A particularly
Photoshop-adept Drag City employee took care of the rest.
"I laughed out loud at some of them,” Pajo said.
“One of them said something like ‘there’s a reson why Genital Warts’
David Pajo plays sitting down.’ ”
Although Pajo hasn’t ruled out recording with Tortoise or anyone else, he maintains a
strong commitment to his own work. Once again, he’s drafted a band to help him tour
in support of Shark Cage, including noted underground guitarist Alan Licht and
former Aerial M drummer Tony Bailey. “I’m hoping that the songs might make more
sense, and be more tangible that way, because of the limitations,” Pajo said. The
trio will open for Stereolab on some dates, while the Aluminum Group offers support on
others.
All in all, it’s been a good year. “I’m totally so stoked on this
record,” Pajo announces proudly. “I can’t think of any other record
I’ve done where I’ve felt this good about it this long after recording it.
JONATHAN COHEN | Jonathan Cohen co-created Nude As The News with his Indiana University mates Troy Carpenter and Ben French. When not traversing the globe for business and pleasure, he holds down the fort as a senior editor for Billboard in New York. Stop him and he just may ask, "what for lunch?"