Pavement never received the mainstream success of some of their '90s alt-rock contemporaries. In fact, “Cut Your Hair” off 1994’s Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain was their only song to land on the U.S. Modern Rock chart. On April 21 of that year, the band made its only appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (the other guests were Wayne’s World 2 star Drew Barrymore and Wayne’s World 2 star Harry Shearer).
In Pavement’s 2002 documentary, Slow Century, there is some old footage of bassist Mark Ibold and guitarist Scott Kannberg talking about the upcoming Leno appearance. Ibold worries, “We’re gonna be vegetables by the time we get there.” They’re actually pretty fantastic, from the weird pre-song intro to post-song handshakes, when Stephen Malkmus’s guitar slips off his shoulder and clangs down onto the stage. Even if you’re not a fan of Leno’s, his recovery line is pretty funny: “Did I do that? Uh oh, I just bought a guitar.”
Another note: Bob Nastanovich was the band’s multi-instrumentalist. In the course of a set he would play keyboards, drums, recorder, percussion and whatever else he dreamed up. But in “Cut Your Hair” he just plays tambourine and sings backup, so the casual viewer might assume this band has a full-time tambourine player. Well, good. He sure plays the hell out of that tambourine.
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