Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain: LA's Desert Origins is a compilation album by Pavement released on October 26, 2004. It contains the band's 1994 album, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, in its entirety, as well as outtakes and other rarities from that era, some of which had previously been unreleased.
Release
LA's Desert Origins was released on October 26, 2004, by Matador Records.[1] The album contains a 62-page booklet of liner notes, which contain photographs, artwork, accounts from vocalist/guitarist Stephen Malkmus and guitarist Scott Kannberg (a.k.a. "Spiral Stairs"), and notes Malkmus wrote for Melody Maker about each of the songs on the original album.[2] The liner notes also feature a surreal and sensationalistic "interview" between Matador's Gerard Cosloy and the fictitious "Rob Jurkface". According to Cosloy, he took questions by Pavement's biographer, Rob Jovanovic, changed them slightly, and wrote silly answers for them.
Some of the songs on the second disc ("Flux = Rad", "Kennel District", "Grounded" and "Pueblo") are early forms of songs on 1995's Wowee Zowee.
Shortly after its release, a Matador employee posted corrected info regarding the recording sessions for the previously unreleased tracks on disc two: Only tracks 2 through 8 feature Gary Young on drums. Tracks 13 through 21 were recorded at Gary Young's studio in Stockton, though Gary does not play on them; any drums were played by Spiral Stairs. A further mistake is found in the track-listing on the back of the CD; "Silence Kid" is listed as "Silence Kit", despite the interior artwork showing the correct name in print several times, including written in Stephen Malkmus's own handwriting. Some have pointed out that on Pavement's 2010 tour the song appeared on their set-list as "Silence Kit" (Set list), although it is not clear who typed the list, or if it was done as a joke.