Whoever said breaking up is hard to do was on the right track. It’s the moving on that’s the real trick, especially when your past won’t let you.

When indie rock gods Pavement finally threw in the towel, their fans and critics (often one and the same) weren't quite finished with them. In the eyes of many, the little band from Stockton, Calif., never quite equaled the lo-fi brilliance of their early recordings. They had always had the audacity to, gasp, progress. And while maybe they never quite entirely recaptured the stunning tenor of their debut full-length, Slanted and Enchanted, the album's impact was such that if they'd continued to remake it you can be sure they'd have heard about that, too.

Stephen Malkmus, one of Pavement's two guitarist/vocalists and generally accepted "frontman," was the first to wander into the ambush with a self-titled solo debut (Matador, Feb. 2001) that was received with plaudits and pans aplenty for, basically, sounding like a Pavement record. Scott Kannberg, a.k.a. Spiral Stairs, was next. The band's spiritual leader and other singin' guitar player threw his hat into the crossfire with his new band Preston School of Industry and their debut long-player All This Sounds Gas (Matador, Aug. 2001). And again, what's right and wrong with this album, the critics seem to be saying, is that it sounds like Pavement. Can a slacker get a break?

"With Pavement, people got mad that we didn't redo the first single," says Kannberg only somewhat jokingly, discussing some of the criticisms leveled against Gas. "I can't worry about it. ... I could see some of the criticisms but, you know, it's not that bad."

Self-deprecation aside, All This Sounds Gas does its best to dispel several Pavement myths. First, the band was more than Malkmus and his flunkies, that Kannberg was more than the funny-nicknamed founding sidekick who provided increasingly occasional anthemic contributions to Pavement's albums (see "Two States" and "Kennel District"). Preston songs like "Whalebones," with its nonsensical lyrics, and the dark, driving "History of the River" would have, well, fit just fine on any Pavement album, and not just in the scope of "Scott Songs."

Second, it debunks the going theory that Pavement's swan song, Terror Twilight, was devoid of Kannberg contributions because he didn't bring any. "Whalebones," the epic Icarus tale "Encyclopedic Knowledge Of" and the classically Kannberg "Idea of Fires" were written around the time Terror Twilight was recorded.

But he emphasizes that there has never been animosity, discussing Pavement's dissolving -- it wasn't really so much a formal split -- as part of a natural process.

"It did seem like starting over in a lot of ways," he explains. "For me, just doing the record on my own was a big step. Not having someone like Steve around to kind of bounce ideas off of. It was hard. It was a good experience for me to do that, to do something on my own and finish it. A lot of songs in Pavement were really rushed and not fully done, whereas this is done."

Kannberg did have an old friend to collaborate with a bit; he hooked up with original Pavement drummer Gary Young to record a few Gas tracks.

Where All This Sounds Gas diverges from the Pavement formula is in its country twang. The modern-rustic "A Treasure @ Silver Bank (This Dynasty's for Real)" and the enigmatic "Monkey Heart and the Horses' Leg" swell with pedal steel emotion and frontier ambience. Kannberg credits listening to a lot of John Prine and Springsteen for the twangy bent. It's a direction he got to explore on a just-completed tour of Europe opening for Wilco, with whom Preston School of Industry jammed toward tour's end.

While Kannberg and Malkmus ("We talk every once in a while," he says. "We're both busy doing what we do") will forever be linked with Pavement, they are both, despite the wishes of fans, moving on.

Kannberg's busy releasing records on his Amazing Grease label and will be leaving sunny California for Seattle, where his wife has been accepted into an MFA program. ("I'll probably be writing a very rainy record, either that or it'll sound just like the Young Fresh Fellows.")

"I don't mind comparisons to Pavement," concludes Kannberg, "'cause I like what I did in Pavement."

Preston School of Industry will play Sun., June 9, 9 p.m., $10, with David Dondero and Detachment Kit, The North Star, 27th and Poplar sts., 215-684-0808, www.northstarbar.com.

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December 2, 2004
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