THE WORLDS COLLIDE, BUT ALL THAT WE WANT IS A SHADY LANE

Maybe we can dance / Maybe we can dance / Maybe we can dance together?

Hey so we saw Pavement again on Saturday, Sept. 11. Last time was the Pitchfork festival over the summer, this time was at the Uptown Theater in Kansas City, Mo., a 1,700-capacity theater built in the 1920s, with seats in the back half of the main floor and in the ample balcony. Josh and Jessie of another central Iowa-based blog, Nothing Gets Crossed Out, kindly gave us a ride and booked the hotel rooms-- it's like a two-and-a-half or three-hour drive, but the traffic got really bad-- and Chet Boom came along, too*. There's something about Pavement that Mark Richardson touched on nicely in his three paragraphs hailing "Gold Soundz"-- sort of an underdog single, from the band's 1994 album Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, which also featured the more-often-shown-on-MTV "Cut Your Hair"-- as No. 1 song of the 90s. "Pavement went around like regular schlubs and played messy shows with songs that took strange turns and didn't quite sound like guitar rock songs are supposed to sound," Mark writes. Their bemused, down-to-earth shrugginess was exceptional at the time, but it's not the type of thing that necessarily translates well to non-believers when set up on a reunion-gig pedestal at a festival of younger bands. I was trying my best not to look silly in front of a few other writers by singing along too much during the band's Pitchfork set, but next to the theatrics of Major Lazer or the fiery declamations of Titus Andronicus, I could understand if somebody unfamiliar might've been wondering to themselves: What's the big deal?

"Hey, you're not in Poison Control Center."

Not so Saturday night. Dudes opened with "Gold Soundz", another shrug maybe, but one with a triumphant undertone: We do remember, in September, the August sun. As a group, we're not as empty as we (they) protest. And yeah, consider the past un-quarantined. There was sadly no "Summer Babe"-- as Kansas City Pitch points out-- and no "Two States", but there were plenty of favorites, including songs from my own Pavement entry point, 1997's Brighten the Corners (I found out about them by being a huge fan of Britpop group Blur, who were saying in interviews back then they were huge American indie rock fans): "Here", "Shady Lane", "Stereo", "Unfair", "Cut Your Hair", "Date With Ikea", "Rattled by the Rush", "Conduit for Sale", "Debris Slide". Sorry to name so many songs; these guys just play hit after hit. I never saw Pavement live before their latest tour, but what struck me most both times was not the frontman or the guitarist but Bob Nastanovich-- a familiar smiling face around Des Moines (and supposedly the guy who inspired Blur's "Song 2")-- stalking the stage screaming gleefully like a teenager. Or banging on a tambourine. Or blowing into a harmonica, or some kind of pull-whistle, I didn't get a good look at either. Stephen Malkmus was decked out in a Kansas City Chiefs jersey, which he explained at one point, but I didn't quite hear. I guess this was Pavement's first non-Lollapalooza show in K.C., which is crazy. Anyway, I don't know if the band did much out of the ordinary, but it was the kind of crowd where you can just tell a lot of people actually know the songs and are super happy to be singing along with them or else just watching fondly. As someone who mostly grew up near Sacramento, it was fun to finally be able to shout along to lyrics arguing for the supremacy of Northern over Southern California. For "We Dance", Bob and his wife Whitney, another Des Moines fixture, well, danced. Devin Frank from Ames, Iowa-based opening band the Poison Control Center-- more on them in a sec-- ended up onstage singing along for encore finale "Range Life", which segued into a goofy "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da". How'd he do that?

THE WORLDS COLLIDE

If you didn't know, you wouldn't have known.

Hessen Haus, the German beer hall located on 4th St. near Court Ave. in downtown Des Moines, usually picks up around 9 p.m. on Sundays. That's when, for the past four-plus months, Bob Nastanovich has hosted a weekly trivia night.

Last night's trivia session was more crowded than usual.

It could've been the promise of a $100 food and drink tab for the winners-- twice the usual $50 purse. Sure enough, the former Jeopardy contestant's team was back in the Haus, after having gone missing the previous week.

Or it could've been the occasion for the double-size prize. Nastanovich, who works most of the year at the Prairie Meadows race track in nearby Altoona, was headed for Chicago, where he works the other four months or so at the Hawthorne Racecourse. This was to be Bob's last trivia night of a season that began May 17.

At least one person I talked to suspected all the people lining the long tables and bar were here for a different reason. "Oh, I think they know," said the woman, whom I'm only not naming because I didn't tell her she might be quoted for a blog post.

Local media have yet to pick up the story, and Des Moines locals can be forgiven for not knowing. But, right now, Bob is-- how did Kanye West and the Clipse put it?-- kind of like a big deal.

The buzz started last week. On Sept. 16, a friend from Brooklyn e-mailed me: "Any truth to this Pavement rumor? I know you hang out with one of them once a week."

"Hang out with" was an exaggeration. Bob's the host, and Mrs. Des Noise and I are just consistently underachieving contestants. The rumor, though? Totally true.

In the 1990s, Nastanovich was a founding member of the cult-adored indie rock group Pavement. He was sort of a utility man, starting as a second drummer but adding various instruments and vocals.

The band released five critically hailed albums, scoring a modest MTV hit with Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain's "Cut Your Hair" in 1994, before breaking up 10 years ago. Their final album, 1999's somewhat disappointing Terror Twilight, boasted production from Nigel Godrich, the guy manning the boards for all those classic Radiohead songs.

Lead singer Stephen Malkmus went his own way, backed by the Jicks, and came to town this summer for the 80/35 Festival. Guitarist Scott "Spiral Stairs" Kannberg did his thing, too, starting a group called Preston School of Industry.

Bob, meanwhile, has been right here in Des Moines, occasionally helping out a band like Massachusetts' New Radiant Storm King with a guest vocal or between-set DJing at the Vaudeville Mews. You can see him join Ames' own the Poison Control Center for a boozy rendition of "Two States", originally from Pavement's 1992 debut LP, Slanted and Enchanted, right at the top of this page.

Pavement, as many of you will have read, is reuniting. As of last night, they had already sold out two shows-- or was it three?-- at New York's Central Park. Shows that won't take place until next September. Yes, Bob is kind of like a big deal.

If you didn't know, you wouldn't have known. Bob didn't mention it.

The Jeopardy team won, as usual. When the "Jäger train" rumbled by, signaling $3 Jägermeister shots, Bob's wife Whitney Nastanovich was the first to alert us all, as usual. (Somehow, she can do this while hula hooping.)

Only if you listened really carefully, a few minutes after the winners were announced, would you have heard Whitney grab the mic to share a bashful Bob's great news: "Pavement's getting back together!!!"

The Nastanoviches are returning to Hessen Haus for a trivia-night cameo Oct. 11, so if you didn't know, you'll have another chance to wish Bob well.

And you'll still have time to try the bar's great selection of Oktoberfest brews. I recommend the Ayinger.