Pavement's

Pavement's "Wowee Zowee" (33 1/3)

by Bryan Charles (Author)

Synopsis

This title presents a compelling examination of the classic Pavement album, including interviews with all band members and record label staff. Upon its release in 1995, Wowee Zowee confounded a lot of Pavement 's fans. And yet, over the subsequent years, it's an album that has come to be acclaimed by many as an alternative rock masterpiece. Bryan Charles talks to the people who made the record and those close to them at the time, letting them tell the story of how the record came to be, how they felt about it then and how they feel about it now. Charles pays close attention to Malkmus' growth as a musician and songwriter, both of which are evident everywhere on Wowee Zowee. He demonstrates how Malkmus essentially throws words together on the spot, often while tape is rolling or he's standing on stage, and argues that this shows an extraordinary verbal gift rare enough in the field of literature, to say nothing of rock and roll. 'A growing Alexandria of rock criticism' - Los Angeles Times , 2008. 'This title is ideal for the rock geek who thinks liner notes just aren't enough' - Rolling Stone . 'One of the coolest publishing imprints on the planet' - Bookslut . For more information on the series and on individual titles in the series, check out our blog.

$13.30

Quantity

10 in stock

More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 160
Publisher: Continuum Publishing Corporation
Published: 29 Jun 2010

ISBN 10: 0826429572
ISBN 13: 9780826429575

Media Reviews
[Charles has written] an oral history about the genesis and recording of Pavement's Wowee Zowee album that is infused with his own personal fandom of the band. Charles paints a vivid picture of the band as it wrote and recorded the album through interviews with band members and the creatives who surrounded the production of the album, all the while sharing his own experiences with the album and as a Pavement fan.Mixing the album's history with Charles' own works exceedingly well, and captures not only the essence of Pavement when they recorded Wowee Zowee, but also the indie rock culture of the time. -Largehearted Boy
Charles puts himself in the center of the book we read about his aimless college years in Michigan and his discovery of Pavement, whose songs initially seem half hearted, even bratty, but actually contain an undertow of emotion that's hard to articulate. Charles' writing is the same way. He succinctly captures the flavor of being in one's late teens and early 20s without going into unnecessary detail. Finishing school, he undergoes that arduous, interminable crisis of figuring out what to do with life , discovering that one of the only things that still makes sense is Pavement. Charles returns to the band time and again, the music weaving a thread through his life. The book includes unvarnished interviews with members of the band, providing an honest, first-person account of the making of the record. But the heart of the book isn't Pavement; it's Charles, and novelist or no, he has turned in one of the best pieces of rock journalism in recent memory a no-bullshit, heartfelt manifesto of fandom. -The Portland Mercury
At the core of every 33 1/3 book is the question of roping in readers who may be unfamiliar with the band or album, but Charles is able to resituate Pavement as the everyman band they were during the 90s payday. From tales of major label flirtations (which the band is quick to dismiss as nothing more than random dalliances with the powers-that-be) to the band's reputation as slackers (which finds Stephen Malkmus tossing aside by pointing out the band's relentless touring schedule), Charles covers much more than the time period of Wowee Zowee without abandoning the album's specific importance in their catalog. Part history lesson, part fanzine love letter, Bryan Charles has written a book that is as ambitious and yet as untethered as his subject matter. -Tiny Mix Tapes
Author Bio
Bryan Charles is the author of the novel Grab On to Me Tightly as if I Knew the Way.