Artist
Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks
Portland, United States • Formed 2000
Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks is a music group from Portland, United States, active since 2000. Their discography on Gatefold includes 6 records.
6
Albums tracked
53
In collections
2000
Since
Biography
Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks is a rock band consisting of Stephen Malkmus (vocals, guitar), Joanna Bolme (bass, vocals), Mike Clark (keyboards) and Jake Morris (drums). The band has released seven albums: "Stephen Malkmus" (2001), "Pig Lib" (2003), "Face the Truth" (2005), "Real Emotional Trash" (2008), "Mirror Traffic" (2011), "Wig Out at Jagbags" (2014) and "Sparkle Hard" (2018). Malkmus was the lead singer and primary songwriter for Pavement.
The Arc of Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks
The pivots — what forced Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks to reinvent.
The Post-Pavement Pivot
After Pavement imploded, Malkmus retreated to Oregon to strip away the expectations of being an indie-rock figurehead. Recording Pig Lib with Joanna Bolme and John Moen in 2003, the new group focused on intricate, prog-adjacent guitar interplay and dry, analog studio production. You can hear the shift immediately in the knotty, clean-toned guitar duels of 'Animal Midnight'. It was a deliberate move away from bedroom lo-fi and toward the classic rock craftsmanship of the late seventies.
The Janet Weiss Heavy Psych Years
When powerhouse drummer Janet Weiss joined the ranks for 2008's Real Emotional Trash, she injected a massive dose of adrenaline and volume into the band. The record was tracked live to tape with very few overdubs to capture the raw energy of their live jams. This lineup transformed the Jicks into a heavy, sprawling psych-rock beast that stretched songs past the eight-minute mark. Weiss's thunderous precision allowed Malkmus to unleash his most indulgent, feedback-drenched guitar solos yet.
The Beck Sessions
Looking to scale back the heavy jamming, Malkmus enlisted Beck Hansen to produce 2011's Mirror Traffic at Sunset Sound. Beck acted as an editor, forcing Malkmus to trim the fat, focus on shorter pop structures, and reign in the ten-minute guitar excursions. The resulting sessions were light, breezy, and packed with thirty-second melodic ideas that would have been dragged out on previous records. It was their tightest, most accessible set of songs since the mid-nineties, driven by acoustic textures and clean pop hooks.
Influences
- Fairport Convention — Malkmus has repeatedly cited the British folk-rock pioneers as a massive blueprint for his guitar style. You can hear Richard Thompson's modal, stinging guitar solos all over the knotty arrangements on Pig Lib. He even covered Fairport's 'The Plainsman' during his early solo tours to prove the point.
- The Groundhogs — Malkmus is a well-documented obsessive of Tony McPhee's underappreciated British blues-prog trio, famously wearing their shirts and praising their heavy, erratic guitar tone in interviews. The jagged, non-linear riffing on 'Real Emotional Trash' pulls directly from the blueprint McPhee laid down on albums like Split and Thank Christ for the Bomb.
- Can — The German krautrock legends shaped the Jicks' approach to rhythm and long-form improvisation. Malkmus actually performed the entirety of Can's lost classic Ege Bamyasi live at the Week-End Festival in 2012 with Cologne band Von Spar. That relentless, hypnotic motorik beat is the exact foundation beneath the Jicks' ten-minute jam '1% of One'.
- Grateful Dead — Malkmus has never hidden his love for Jerry Garcia, a polarizing stance for a nineties indie icon that became fully realized with the Jicks. The fluid, conversational guitar soloing and country-fried noodling on 'Wig Out at Jagbags' is a direct nod to the Europe '72 era. He solidified this connection by performing entire sets of Dead covers with members of the National.
- The Fall — Mark E. Smith's post-punk poets provided the cynical, deadpan vocal delivery and scratchy, repetitive guitar scratching that Malkmus built his entire career on. Pavement practically started as a Fall tribute band, and that DNA remains on Jicks tracks like 'Shiggy' where the vocals ride a single, snide note over a relentless, scraping riff.
Discography
Their records — most-collected first.
Related artists
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