Pavement's Wowee Zowee
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Pavement wrapped up at Easley Recording in Memphis. They mixed the tracks and recorded overdubs in New York. They took a step back and assessed the material. It was a wild scene. They had fully fleshed-out songs and whispers and rumors of half-formed ones. They had songs that followed a hard-to-gauge internal logic. They had punk tunes and country tunes and sad tunes and funny ones. They had fuzzy pop and angular new wave. They had raunchy guitar solos and stoner blues. They had pristine jangle and pedal steel. The final track list ran to eighteen songs and filled three sides of vinyl.
Released in 1995, on the heels of two instant classics, Wowee Zowee confounded Pavement's audience. Yet the record has grown in stature and many diehard fans now consider it Pavement's best. Weaving personal history and reporting-including extensive new interviews with the band-Bryan Charles goes searching for the story behind the record and finds a piece of art as elusive, anarchic and transportive now as it was then.
Customer Reviews
A Slanted View On An Enchanted Band
This one really hits for the ones who came of age in the 90’s with this band. It’s hard to contextualize Pavement in an age of internet “stars” who are typically set for a micro-moment and not much more, no to mention the shallow depths of most of the work, if it even lasts beyond a few moments (no one can see your Vines- and if you don’t get that, look it up). They created a moment that they propelled and shared out of sheer will and shared in-person and by mail in order to create a career (caree-ah, caree-ah) that they enjoyed and lived on their own terms without compromising their values or artwork. This book shows the path for those of us coming of age in that time who had little to hang our hats on but our own dreams and the daily reward of surviving the grind, much like the band. They wouldn’t be the golden boys that record execs would count on for their brass ring; they rewarded themselves with lives they could handle and success that didn’t eat them alive, while, simultaneously, providing themselves with more than just a bite to eat, after all. Life’s more about attention, it’s about intentions, and the author does a good job of providing context for how those intentions make the difference for both the artist and the rest of us.