DAVE PAJO

Asides from my really impressive A-Level grades, my CV is a pretty boring read. Dave Pajo’s however reads like a porno mag for people who jack off over Stereogum each morning. It’s pretty unreal, as well as his various solo guises Papa M, Aerial M and Pajo, the dude has played guitar with: Slint, Zwan, Tortoise, Stereolab, Bonnie Prince Billie, Royal Trux and Mogwai. He’s also played with loads of bands that I haven’t heard of and started a terrible metal tribute act called Dead Child – oh yeah, and he’s also currently playing live with Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

Here’s my top ‘Dave Pajo is my hero’ moments:

Zwan



After the acrimonious dissolution of the Smashing Pumpkins in a fireball of heroin, sacked members and not being very good anymore, Billy Corgan bizzarely called on Dave Pajo, Matt Sweeney from Chavez, Paz Lenchantin from A Perfect Circle and seemingly the only guy in the whole world who could bear being near him for a prolonged period of time, ex-Pumpkins drummer Jimmy Chamberlain. I guess you could call Zwan a supergroup of sorts, if your definition of a supergroup involves half the rhythm section of a Tool side-project, and the guitarist from an overrated math-rock band.

I don’t care what anyone says, Zwan’s singles fucking kicked-ass, and there was definitely a perverse pleasure in knowing how pissed-off all those ‘Spiderland’ geeks must have been to see Dave jamming along next to Billy Corgan onstage. The band broke-up, in all likelihood, because Billy Corgan was being a dick again, but he claimed it was down to “…sex acts between band members in public. People carrying drugs across borders. Pajo sleeping with the producer's girlfriend while we were making the record” – i.e. Billy Corgan split up Zwan because Dave Pajo was being cool.

‘Millions Now Living Will Never Die’ – Tortoise



I like to think that I am not incredibly boring, so I make the effort to dislike jazz and post-rock like everyone else. Unfortunately, I did allow ‘Millions Now Living Will Never Die’ to grow on me, to the point where along with everyone else who has a semi-decent record collection, I think it’s something of a masterpiece. I also don’t think it’s a coincidence that I don’t like any other of their albums and this is the only one in their catalogue which Dave Pajo plays on. If you’re looking for immediate kicks, go elsewhere, but seriously this album absolutely rules even if it does take about four hundred listens before you really ‘get’ it and features a whole bunch of xylophone solos.

'Whatever Mortal’ – Papa M

Dave Pajo released a whole mass of music under the names Aerial M and Papa M around the late 1990’s-early 2000’s (most heavy weed smokers think the letter M has some form of mystical significance apparently) – all of it is very good, but ‘Whatever Mortal’ stands out as my favourite album he has ever been involved in – it’s his folk album and also marks his first vocal performance. I’ve listened to this album non-stop since I bought it way back in 2001 – people talk about overlooked masterpieces, but seriously, this runs a train on pretty much every sad-dude-with-a-guitar album ever recorded.