TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Pavement’s Bob Nastanovich talks Senyawa, TikTok fame and reunion rehearsals
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Rock legends: Pavement members regroup and are pictured in a press photo for their upcoming reunion tour. (Facebook/Courtesy of Pavement/Tarina Westlund) (Facebook/Courtesy of Pavement/Tarina Westlund)
M
ore than a decade after its last reunion, indie rock legend Pavement will hit the road again. Multi-instrumentalist Bob Nastanovich takes us down memory lane.
Halfway through our interview, the ever-gleeful Bob Nastanovich suddenly picked up a vinyl copy of Acaraki, a 2014 album by the experimental band Senyawa, from Yogyakarta.
“This album is one of the greatest albums I’ve heard in the last decade,” he gushed. “Fantastic, it’s so far out.”
Senyawa’s acclaim within Indonesia and in international festivals might be renowned, but it was on another level to hear it from a member of one of the most influential 90s rock bands.
Formed in 1989 in Stockton, northern California, the United States, Pavement was a US lo-fi (“low-fidelity”, referring to its early modestly-recorded releases) indie rock band which went on to become one of the most influential 90s bands.
“I often hear our band’s name mentioned as influences, which I’m grateful for, but then I listened to [other alternative 90s bands] and in most cases, it’s pretty unfair. There are just many bands influenced by Stereolab, Sonic Youth or other bands from the same era or before,” he said.
At the time of speaking with The Jakarta Post on March 24, Nastanovich was in Paris, Tennessee, the US, a small city with a population of about 10,000. He talked with an air of excitement about the city’s fame as home of the world’s biggest fish fry.
