As I was saying, I'm busy September 22, 2010 because I'm going to see Pavement. Ok. Background.

Please forgive me if I've told this rather un-climatic story before, either on this blog, or when we were hanging out and I was telling you about the more ridiculous moments in my young life, when, not only did I think I was really awesome, but you wanna know what? Maybe I was really awesome.

We were at this party. I don't remember what year this was, but it was some point during my time at Boston University, and I'm guessing - due to the nature of the conversation I am about to relate - that we were in Allston or Brighton, student-heavy residential areas a little west of the main campus, where the bars were plentiful and the housing less expensive. It's where the cool kids lived and partied and then went out for breakfast in an post-drunk-or-maybe-a-little-still-drunk stupor.

Anyway, I was at this party and let's just imagine, for the sake of visualization, that I was wearing some corduroys I'd bought at the thrift store. And I'm getting a beer or something in the kitchen and I overheard some people talking about Pavement. Well, wouldn't you know, I was a Pavement fan! I don't know who'd gotten me into them...the always influential Matt Barbee and his mixed tapes, or maybe my brother, but no matter, I was a fan, and if there was one thing I knew as sure as I loved college parties was that it was really, really radical to a) know who Pavement was and b) be a fan.

I mean, it's not like Pavement is some super-unknown band; they're really well known in the world of indie rock, in fact. But for a young twenty-something, making her way at a large and diverse university, knowing about Pavement was, at certain parties, a good way of singling out the other music lovers. And then what you'd do is talk about the albums.

So I get in on the conversation and I'm talking to this girl who's leaning against the door and is all "You like Pavement?" and I'm like "Yeah," and we're sort of drunk and life IS RADICAL. And she's all, "Well, you know what their best album is, right? It's 'Wowee Zowee.'"

Now, people, everyone says that "Wowee Zowee" is the best Pavement album and I don't know why. It's full of short, weird little songs and I think the reason people say it's their favorite is because liking Pavement isn't unique enough and they want to try and be a little edgier. That's just what I think, I can't help it.

I countered that my favorite album was "Slanted and Enchanted," which actually isn't true anymore, but at the time, you know what? I wasn't gonna follow all the "Wowee Zowee" lemmings. The two of us really got into it then, talking about the specifics of certain songs in sort of deranged, youthful analysis that I'm not even capable of anymore. Others joined the conversation and I semi-abandoned the people I'd come with. I'd become the cool girl who came to the party who loved Pavement, when I could have been a just another guest. A minor event, yes, but in the history of my musical past, a very nice memory.

So when my friend Jennifer called me the other day to announce that Pavement (the band sadly disbanded several years ago) was getting together for a reunion tour, and then found out that a few tickets would be going on sale early, there was simply no question, we had to get them. So we went online while on the phone to each other, like over excited seventh graders (if the Internet had existed in the way it does now when we were 13) and waited until the appointed hour and we got those tickets. Because it's Pavement, and my love has never waned. I hope they play "Summer Babe." And I know it will rock.