Steve ‘Pav’ Pavlovic Teases Forthcoming Book And ‘Compelling’ Doco

The initial plan for Steve “Pav” Pavlovic’s Unpopular exhibition at Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum in 2023 – which curated memorabilia from his personal archive: Nirvana, Sonic Youth, Pavement, Beastie Boys, 1995’s Summersault festival plus more – was to cover the entirety of his career, from the early ‘90s all the way through to Modular Records’ zenith. 

However, due to the sheer volume of Pav’s never-before-seen stuff, a decision was made to create two separate exhibitions. Stay tuned for Unpopular’s Modular-era sequel, as well as a book and “compelling” documentary – once he gets it “across the line”.

STEVE “PAV” PAVLOVIC: “I found so much great stuff. I didn’t realise I was a hoarder. I like to say it was that I had some epic, great vision of what I wanted to do, but the reality is I’m completely OCD, couldn’t stand hanging around my office, so I had a storage space – anything I didn’t wanna look at, I just threw it in there and locked the door and forgot about it [laughs]. And over the years that space became quite full of all kinds of things I’d forgotten I even had. 

“It was during Covid that we were putting the project together, so I got to spend a year and a half, two years just looking at my life’s memories and stuff, which was really kinda cool. It was nice to be able to have some time. 

“I mean, it’s interesting; I never really took the time to reflect on things I’ve done. And whether it’s successful or not is sort of open to interpretation. But I guess I never really dwelled on it, or I never really thought about it or swaggered on it, ‘cause I was always thinking about what I was gonna do next. I find whatever I do has gotta be entertaining in some capacity. And so if I’m excited by something, or entertained by it, I have a lotta energy for it and I apply myself to it obsessively. And, doing the tour stuff, I knew things were going good and I knew it was really cool, but I was just kind of obsessing on what the next thing I wanted to do was.

“So that’s what was nice about the exhibition, was having time to look at your past and reflect on it and actually just pat yourself on the back or whatever, and acknowledge all the things I had done. So the personal thing, for me, was really kind of awesome. And I appreciated it, because I never really took the time to dwell on the things I’ve done.

“It was, quite weirdly, really kind of emotional. There were a lot of memories in there… When you get the time to sit with them, you’re like, ‘I did some pretty cool shit,’ and, ‘That was pretty wild,’ or, ‘Unfortunately that person’s no longer with us,’ or, ‘That didn’t end that well,’ or, ‘That was great,’ you know? It’s good, and I think – this might be my personal opinion: we’re often so busy living our lives that we don’t get that time to really absorb or appreciate those things.”

I can tell you the book will definitely see the light of day

“I finished it over a year ago. But then I keep rereading it and I don’t like it, so I go back and change a few things. And now I’ve probably got 90% I’m happy with – actually, you know what? There’s no reason I still haven’t finished; I think I just lost interest in it. I come out of the gates really fast and I’m really into it, and then after time I start to get less excited about it – I think that’s my nature. 

“Some things happened between me and the [Powerhouse] Museum – they kind of, like, bummed me out a bit and I lost a bit of enthusiasm. And I always find it hard to go backwards on anything, you know? I’m more of an ‘in the moment, move forward’ kinda guy [laughs].

“I can tell you the book will definitely see the light of day. The [Powerhouse] Museum is ready to publish it and it’s all been cleared and everything’s done, I just need to get over myself and let it go. So I’m really happy with the way it looks – it looks really cool – and I’ve just gotta get to the part where I’m happy with the written part, you know?”    

Hopefully we can get [the doco] past the point of development to making it

“There’s one idea we had around that period of time that’s based very closely on the [Unpopular] exhibition, and so I’ve been working with a director here on that for a while. We’ve got a trailer of what we’d like it to look and sound like, and I took a lot of the interviews I did with everyone – I did a lot of oral history interviews with everyone for the exhibition, people like [Dave] Grohl, the Beasties [Beastie Boys], Sonic Youth people, Fugazi people, Melissa [Auf der Maur] from Hole, Kathleen [Hanna] from Bikini Kill, DJ Shadow – there were a lotta people! And I gave all that audio to a doco maker and he cut it to a lot of archival footage, some of which is mine, some of which is on the world wide web. 

“It looks really cool. I’m really excited about it. Now we’re in discussion with people about trying to move that forward. Hopefully we get it across the line, it gets made and I can get it out now in the world, ‘cause the parts we’ve got look pretty great. The interviews – the people talk really openly and honestly about situations and things we were doing back then. It’s pretty great, you know? Hopefully we can get it past the point of development to making it.”

If you weren’t part of it then you didn’t know about it

“In my own sorta sphere, I was only probably able to have the [Unpopular] exhibition and the forthcoming doco thing – which I believe will be compelling for people – ‘cause [the ‘90s indie music scene] wasn’t so readily available to capture. And so if you have captured it, it’s kinda special because [no one’s] really seen it. 

“[The ‘90s indie music scene] wasn’t exclusive as in, ‘We’re holier than thou,’ it was just, like, if you weren’t part of it then you didn’t know about it – ha! 

“Now [with smartphones etc.], everything’s documented within an inch of its life and you know about everything as it’s happening, in real time – and you can see all about it – and it’s not that hard to know about everything. Whereas back then, you really had to work, you know? 

“And then, also, we didn’t have all the social media platforms and you couldn’t really share stuff, so a lot of the stuff that was in the exhibition – or that friends, or this community that I’m part of, had photographed – remained very close, or within the community. So it’s nice to see projects like my exhibition – or other people’s books, documentaries – where you see this old shit you’ve never [seen before] and you go, ‘Wow, how cool is that!?’”