Geek redemption - the Pavement reissues

Yes, I have a problem with geeks. I met a few of them while doing academic conferences and man they are a pest. They can go for long and painful minutes dissecting those Duracell commercials and they always seem like they are on the verge of writing a doctoral thesis on the history of the Corn Flakes package - with textual analysis of the ingredients included. And when you are about to turn off wondering why you left the silencer at home, they turn to you, eyes glowing, and ask "so what's the scene in Portugal?". I suspect they are as insular as rednecks, only more clever and able to disguise it.
But pop music has the power to redeem anything bad and Pavement were an excellent geek band. Their expanded reissues are a reminder of a band which never stopped evolving with each record even if they would often self-indulge and make each album flawed. Their quirkiness was for the most compelling and Stephen Malkmus was very good at singing (and sometimes scream) busloads of lyrics that didn't mean anything but sounded clever without a hint of overblown pretension. And when they sticked to a simple but effective melody they would come up with a Pavement classic - as with Here.
Listening to these reissues also made me think of Miwa, my Japanese friend with whom I attended my first gig in Scotland. That was Pavement at the Glasgow Barrowlands in late 1999 just a short time before they broke up . A Pavement fan, she would have loved these reissues.