Stephen Malkmus, TLA 9:21 PM, last night by JONATHAN VALANIA
BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE INQUIRER Generation X has always seemed the embodiment of Groucho Marx’s dictum about not wanting to be a member of any club that would have you. That goes double for Stephen Malkmus, Gen X’s aging slacker princeling. As leader of Pavement, Malkmus spent the better part of the ’90s zigging whenever his fan base zagged, and the better part of the last decade cranking out the kind of wanky, Aspergerian solo records that scare off women and try men’s souls. While the pretty, wryly observed pop songs of his latest, Mirror Traffic, mark a welcome return to effortless likability, his performance with the Jicks at the TLA Wednesday night was another matter altogether. MORE