(Continuum Books)

www.33third.blogspot.com

BY REV. KEITH A. GORDON

Pavement was, without a doubt, one of the most interesting and influential bands of the 1990s. The band's so-called "slacker aesthetic," distinctive lo-fi sound, and the songwriting genius of frontman/guitarist Stephen Malkmus made Pavement the flag-bearers for the decade's indie-rock revolution. The band released five brilliant albums over the course of a decade, each experiencing varying encouraging levels of sales, but with their 1995 album Wowee Zowee, Pavement created the kind of classic album that often outshines a band's legacy.

At the time of its release, Wowee Zowee confused and infuriated fans and critics alike. Although the album's material didn't veer far from the musical blueprint that Pavement had written with Slanted and Enchanted, the band's phenomenal 1992 debut, or 1994's Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, the 1995 album's expanded number of songs and shotgun-blast style of incorporating disparate elements of folk, country, and jazz music into Pavement's typical rock 'n' roll chaos was met with tentative elation by the band's hardcore fans.

Count writer Bryan Charles among those who were initially underwhelmed by the charms of Wowee Zowee. As he outlines in his insightful, highly personal account of the album - one of Continuum's wonderfully entertaining 33 1/3 book series - it was a couple of years after the album's release before he really gave Wowee Zowee a fair listen, at which time it "went through me like a blast of pure light." It became Charles' favorite album, its complex and textured musical and lyrical construction revealing new secrets with each hearing.

As such, Charles approaches his book on the album with the serious intent of the music journalist and the gleeful abandon of the adoring fanboy. In creating his narrative on the album, Charles rounded up interviews with all of the major players, from band members Stephan Malkmus, Scott Kannberg (a/k/a "Spiral Stairs"), Mark Ibold, Bob Nastanovich, and Steve West to Chris Lombardi of Matador Records, Warner Music exec Danny Goldberg, Memphis studio engineer Doug Easley, and album cover artist Steve Keene. In lively prose, Charles manages to paint a detailed portrait of the making of this classic album that juxtaposes his own ruminations on the work with the memories and opinions of those involved in its making.

True to form, the notoriously curmudgeonly Gerard Cosloy of Matador provided Charles a non-interview, answering his considered questions by email with nonsensical non sequiturs and unnerving hipster bullshit. In retrospect, Charles would have been better off holding a séance with the hellbound spirit of Cosloy's old buddy G.G. Allin to ask him his opinion of Wowee Zowee. Cosloy's insulting lack of effort rattled Charles' confidence and almost derailed the project; luckily Charles carried on and managed to pull an engaging story out of his other interviewees, even if some of the band members seem bemused that anybody cares after a decade and a half.

Then again, that's been the story with Wowee Zowee all along...underrated and misunderstood at the time of its release; the album's reputation has only grown during the ensuing years. While it remains the lowest-selling of Pavement's first four (Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain being the band's best-selling), Wowee Zowee remains the album of choice for the band's enduring faithful. With his entertaining and informative look behind the scenes, Bryan Charles has enhanced the album's status as one of the landmark releases of the 1990s.