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Wig Out At Jagbags

Malkmus is now six LPs deep into his solo career, which makes for one more album than he produced with Pavement. His self-titled solo debut from 2001 sounded a lot Terror Twilight Part II, but on his second album, Pig Lib, Malkmus took a significant departure from his former band’s sound by making a psychedelic blues album.  Three albums later, we finally see Malkmus come full circle with Wig Out at Jagbags, which sounds more like a Pavement record than anything else he’s done as a solo artist.

I suppose that the same thing was probably said about Mirror Traffic when it came out, which is a far more pop-oriented album than the preceding Real Emotional Trash. The difference on Wig Out is Malkmus’ vocals and lyrics. Quirky wordplay coupled with a So-Cal slacker delivery has always been his signature, but on this album it takes center stage in a way that Malkmus has only teased with since Pig Lib.

That being said, it is also no coincidence that most of the songs have more stripped down arrangements than Malkmus has been doing on his past couple of records. This gives the album a loose and live sounding feel. “The Janitor Revealed”, “Shibboleth”, “J Smoov”, and “Scattegories” all sound like they could have maybe come off Brighten the Corners or Wowee Zowee. The rest of the album doesn’t sound as much like Pavement as those tracks do, but it has a similar fun energy and that carries it throughout.

AllMusic gave this album 4.5 stars, the same rating it gave for Malkmus’ previous two albums. Personally, I like Wig Out much more than those albums, and I think that most Pavement-first fans will agree. That being said, Wig Out is far from a rehash. It sounds fresh and is full of surprises. My favorite track: “Lariat” was the first single and is pretty much the epitome of everything there is to like about Stephen Malkmus.

Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks are playing in Philadelphia on 3/1 at the TLA. That date is also my birthday, so feel free to meet me there and buy me a drink. 

My Hall of Fame Ballot

I don’t have a Hall of Fame ballot, but if I did, I’d vote for these 10 players:

1. Craig Biggio: Should’ve been elected last year, but only received 68 of the 75 percent necessary. I guess the knock on him is that he never cracked the top 3 in MVP voting.  Perhaps he wasn’t ever the best player in the league at one time, but his standing on other leader boards speak from themselves. He won 4 Gold Gloves between 2B and CF, as well as a Silver Slugger award as a catcher, a position he only moved from in an effort to stay healthy.

2. Mike Piazza: Belle & Sebastian’s favorite player, and probably the best offensive catcher ever. He also owns a Honda dealership in Langhorne, which more people would probably buy from if he was the guy who took you out on the test drives. His memoir and recent media rounds were more than a little Kenny Poweresque, so maybe it’s better for him for stay out of the public eye, at least until his elected into the HOF in a couple of years.

3. Greg Maddux: The BBWAA members who did not vote for Maddux should sell their vote to Deadspin.

4. Barry Bonds: Barry Bonds did steroids and had a good time doing so. That doesn’t change the fact that he was one the most gifted players ever. His numbers are exaggerated by his use of PEDs, but if we are able to accept that the whole league’s numbers were exaggerated by the Steroid Era, then Bonds’ 7 MVP awards are a more relative measure of his greatness.

But stacking him against the greatest of all time is fun too… If he wasn’t prematurely rejected from the game after the 2007 season, he’d certainly top Babe Ruth as all-time leader in career WAR.

5. Roger Clemens:  Pretty much anything negative people to say about Bonds, they’ll say about Clemens too. But as Bonds is the greatest offensive talent of many generations, Clemens is a pitcher of equal greatness. Clemens won as many Cy Young awards as Bonds won MVPs, both should be in the Hall of Fame.

6. Rafael Palmeiro: Congress was once the paradigm of truth and integrity in this country, until Palmeiro lied to it and ruined baseball forever… A lot of voters think this way, and that is why he’ll probably fall off the ballot this year. I on the other hand, think that he had a no doubt HOF career and would vote for him if I had the chance.

7. Frank Thomas: Statistically very similar to Jeff Bagwell, who I originally had listed here. Both players deserve to be in the HOF, but I’d vote for Thomas first giving him additional points for playing in the more competitive AL of the era.

8. Mike Mussina: Never won a Cy Young, but had an incredibly long stretch of years where him came close, while playing in the toughest division of the era.

9. Curt Schilling: Feels like Schilling in the main reason that the Phillies were able to win any games from 1994-2000. Like Mussina, he never won a Cy Young (finished 2^nd three times,) but had a incredibly long peak. He of course is most memorable for his post seasons, where he may be considered as the best playoff starting pitcher ever

10. Tom Glavine: Because winning 300 games still has to count for something, right?

My friend Marc C wrote an excellent and extensive breakdown of the 2014 HOF ballot which I highly recommend checking out here: Baseball Bullsh

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Thanks again for reading. I’m hoping to write a little bit about some books I’ve recently read sometime soon, so please check back for that. Bye, thanks for stopping by.