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33⅓ Main Series #72
Wowee Zowee
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.
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.
160 pages, Paperback
First published May 6, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 54 reviews
October 22, 2014
Gerard Cosloy crushing the author over email is the only worthwhile part.
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September 4, 2014I have, of the first time I heard this record Wowee Zowee, a specific, dislodged, wandering memory-moment. I see that it was released on April 11, 1995, and I know I surely bought it either on that day or within that week, so smitten was I then with Pavement, and so the knowledge of this date might help nail down or grab hold of this free-floating cloud-drift of a memory- might, but doesn’t, because that date and this memory communicate not at all with one another, those letters and numbers do nothing to capture or reveal anything more. April of 1995, when I was within the final months of my high school career. I graduated in June of that year, and then it was a few desultory months before I was off to college and accelerated oblivion. Luke had gone on the previous year, he was a year older than me, and as he was my lifeline and best friend so much dissolved with his leaving; I became someone else; he certainly did; and The End came to many things; including to Katie, whose lips I tasted over and over again and whose brown eyes wrapped me in tendrils of warm forgetfulness~she was to forget me in less than a year. These are neither bad nor good things. I walked on weird marijuana legs; I worked the most absolutely shitty jobs; and I’m wondering was Ben around? Or had he already wandered to Richmond to become himself, more and more, with hair like Thurston Moore and ragged t-shirts, cigarettes, and the scent and sound of the Chesapeake Bay only as a thudding salty phantom, retreating. Who did I see then? John, John, Brian, Melissa, Jessica? We’ve all departed from our little ports to be tossed on restless oceans. Memories are eliminated for some certain purpose; or to none at all; and it all comes to the same thing. Here’s this memory: I am driving my parent's car and it is late, dark night, I am pulling away from a driveway, dropping someone off, in a ghostly unfamiliar neighborhood of green hedges and sloping lawns, there are increments of streetlamps but they are few, their circles of watery light delimit only a small sphere of prismed visibility, the road is the color of deep rivers, I am moving away from some moment, I have departed from someone. The small town I grew up in, like bread, like our bodies, is mostly empty space- I am moving through a subsection of this empty space past darkened houses, as if everyone had gone missing or were taken away in one quick instant, on a dark deep river of road, and trees warp about me, and the guitar and piano on “We Dance” emerge, somehow in conversation with this specific moment of night, and Malkmus’s voice sings out, sounding weary, sounding purposefully changed, a mask-voice, a vocalizing that distances “There is no castration fear, in a chair, you will be, with me, we’ll dance, we’ll dance, but no one will dance with us, in this zany town, chim chim chim sing a song of praise for your elders, they’re in the back… Pick out some Brazilian nuts, for your engagement, check that expiration date man, it’s later than you think… you can’t enjoy yourself I can’t enjoy myself you can’t enjoy yourself I can’t enjoy myself… move that swing and watch it break straight like an arc… but I won’t be there to leave you ‘cause I don’t have a clue anymore… maybe we can dance, maybe we can dance together? First time you see then you’ll be five times forever and you’ll never get lost…” and the sound of water running just audible, but we got lost, we get lost, this dark night loses itself and disintegrates, and it means nothing, or close to everything, but nothing, and is like smoke or like a dream, and my old friends are kept so strangely in little bubbles, little rings of smoke, little pockets of detached space-time that might be conjured by songs or silence, or neither. We always move forward until we swing back straight like an arc...
November 6, 2010
I enjoyed this because of the interviews, but the writing drove me up the wall. Do people really say 'rotated stateside'? Again and again?
May 15, 2013
Of the 6 books in the series I've read, this is easily my favorite. Charles doesn't try to write from the falsely objective Voice of Music History, he writes as a fan and a dude.
Really smart, really funny. Works as memoir, works as analysis. The album title kinda doubles as an opened-eyed "full of wonder" look you picture on Charles' face as he listens to Pavement.
I agree with others that the final chapter doesn't quite land, but it's an ambitious gesture that attempts to open up instead of shut down, and I appreciate what he's going for.
I like Pavement pretty well but knew nothing about this album going in. I want to go listen now, but I am sort of attached to the Wowee Zowee Charles describes and am not sure I want the real album to burst my bubble. What if I don't love it?
August 12, 2010
Like many of the 33 1/3 series books I've read, it's best to just listen to the album in question rather than read the book about it. Though Charles did bring in some relatively interesting insights from interviews with band members, the focus of the book itself is vague.
Some books in the 33 1/3 series go with a straightforward fact-based narrative "Such and such was recorded at this time in this studio with this sort of equipment" intermixed with anecdotal narrative from the parties involved. Other books are exercises in tedious nostalgia waxing on when the author first bought the album in question, who they were fucking at the time, how the record seemed to make the "air brighter", etc. Finally, there's the arty, sub-par prose method where the author makes a flowery narrative loosely based on the songs. Charles manages to do all three, saving the arty bit for the end, while the rest of the book jumps from nostalgia to facts. As stated in another review, Charles latches onto the Wowee Zowee album-as-intentional-career-killer myth. This theory is pretty much debunked by all the band members, and no conclusions are made by the author from this debunking, so I was left wondering what was the point of the exercise if nothing was to follow from this conclusion.
Furthermore, it seemed that Charles didn't really do his homework, like even reading the liner notes to the Wowee Zowee reissue released almost four years ago. Had he done so he would not have been surprised by the fact that four songs on the album were recorded during sessions for the previous album, nor would he have included the mostly useless 15 minutes worth of conversation he had with Doug Easley, engineer for the WZ sessions, that said the same things Easley wrote in the reissue notes, only more informative.
Basically, this book suffers from what some other books in the series suffer from -- having a drooling fanboy as the author. Personally, I enjoy the dorky, tech stuff. What kind of amps were used, what were the recording sessions like, etc. I don't really need another tale of the recent college graduate whose ennui is soothed by the salve of whatever album is being written about. Any music fan has that story, that one record, that one girlfriend and that one song, etc. We know. That lightning storm in the desert while listening to "Summertime Rolls", the squalid college dorm that had "Unsatisfied" on constant repeat, we've heard these stories, and their variants, because we all have them. If you're going to tell us a story we already know, you better make it pretty damn good. And if you have a band, or an album, that you've obsessed over for years and years, think long and hard before you decide to write a whole book about it.
Some books in the 33 1/3 series go with a straightforward fact-based narrative "Such and such was recorded at this time in this studio with this sort of equipment" intermixed with anecdotal narrative from the parties involved. Other books are exercises in tedious nostalgia waxing on when the author first bought the album in question, who they were fucking at the time, how the record seemed to make the "air brighter", etc. Finally, there's the arty, sub-par prose method where the author makes a flowery narrative loosely based on the songs. Charles manages to do all three, saving the arty bit for the end, while the rest of the book jumps from nostalgia to facts. As stated in another review, Charles latches onto the Wowee Zowee album-as-intentional-career-killer myth. This theory is pretty much debunked by all the band members, and no conclusions are made by the author from this debunking, so I was left wondering what was the point of the exercise if nothing was to follow from this conclusion.
Furthermore, it seemed that Charles didn't really do his homework, like even reading the liner notes to the Wowee Zowee reissue released almost four years ago. Had he done so he would not have been surprised by the fact that four songs on the album were recorded during sessions for the previous album, nor would he have included the mostly useless 15 minutes worth of conversation he had with Doug Easley, engineer for the WZ sessions, that said the same things Easley wrote in the reissue notes, only more informative.
Basically, this book suffers from what some other books in the series suffer from -- having a drooling fanboy as the author. Personally, I enjoy the dorky, tech stuff. What kind of amps were used, what were the recording sessions like, etc. I don't really need another tale of the recent college graduate whose ennui is soothed by the salve of whatever album is being written about. Any music fan has that story, that one record, that one girlfriend and that one song, etc. We know. That lightning storm in the desert while listening to "Summertime Rolls", the squalid college dorm that had "Unsatisfied" on constant repeat, we've heard these stories, and their variants, because we all have them. If you're going to tell us a story we already know, you better make it pretty damn good. And if you have a band, or an album, that you've obsessed over for years and years, think long and hard before you decide to write a whole book about it.
October 9, 2016
33 and 1/3 is a terrific series, slim volumes that can fit in your back pocket, each one a critical account of a particular music album from the past 50 years. This one, "Wowee Zowee," released by the band Pavement in 1995, recounts that moment after "Crooked Rain Crooked Rain," when the preeminent '90s "slacker band," with their slipshod sound and untucked shirts that bespoke their indie cred, were poised for a leap into '90s rock stardom that could fill the great void left by Curt Cobain of Nirvana, but was ultimately filled by Pearl Jam, the Smashing Pumpkins, and numerous grunge knock-offs that sounded cheap by comparison.
I remember the moment well. We were in our 20s, just out of college, working our first full-time gigs, and that next Pavement album? It really meant something to us. To me, at least. What direction were these guys going? Would we lose our friendly indie idols to the injustice and grossness of rock fame? Or, as Bryan Charles asked, more optimistically, "Why can't Pavement be the most popular band in the world?" Wowee Zowee, he writes, "went through me like a blast of pure light," from the first note of the first song, "a lonesome plucked E string, sad tinkling piano, faint exhalation of disgust or defeat."
But this effusive and somewhat cluttered blend of New York songs (written mostly by Stephen Malkmus and Bob Nastanovich) and Memphis songs (with the rest of the band present), Wowee Zowee signaled the beginning of the end for Pavement, as Malkmus would ultimately seek out other bandmates for his expanding guitar talents. Two more albums followed, most notably the exceptional "Brighten the Corners," but Pavement's modest popularity never quite exploded. Still, "What appealed to me from the start," Charles writes, "were those hidden depths. Where some saw only sarcasm or detachment, I saw slyly masked fear, joy, sadness, lust."
Interviews include: Gerard Cosloy (Matador Records), Doug Easley (Memphis), Bryce Goggin (mixed WZ), Danny Goldberg (Warner Brothers), Mark Ibold (bass), Scott Kannberg (aka Spiral Stairs, who wrote "Western Homes" and "Kennel District"), Steve Keene (album art), Chris Lombardi, Stephen Malkmus ("the anti-Billy Corgan"), Bob Nastanovich (who "joined Pavement in a desperation move and became a band linchpin and secret weapon"), Mark Venezia, Steve West (drummer).
I remember the moment well. We were in our 20s, just out of college, working our first full-time gigs, and that next Pavement album? It really meant something to us. To me, at least. What direction were these guys going? Would we lose our friendly indie idols to the injustice and grossness of rock fame? Or, as Bryan Charles asked, more optimistically, "Why can't Pavement be the most popular band in the world?" Wowee Zowee, he writes, "went through me like a blast of pure light," from the first note of the first song, "a lonesome plucked E string, sad tinkling piano, faint exhalation of disgust or defeat."
But this effusive and somewhat cluttered blend of New York songs (written mostly by Stephen Malkmus and Bob Nastanovich) and Memphis songs (with the rest of the band present), Wowee Zowee signaled the beginning of the end for Pavement, as Malkmus would ultimately seek out other bandmates for his expanding guitar talents. Two more albums followed, most notably the exceptional "Brighten the Corners," but Pavement's modest popularity never quite exploded. Still, "What appealed to me from the start," Charles writes, "were those hidden depths. Where some saw only sarcasm or detachment, I saw slyly masked fear, joy, sadness, lust."
Interviews include: Gerard Cosloy (Matador Records), Doug Easley (Memphis), Bryce Goggin (mixed WZ), Danny Goldberg (Warner Brothers), Mark Ibold (bass), Scott Kannberg (aka Spiral Stairs, who wrote "Western Homes" and "Kennel District"), Steve Keene (album art), Chris Lombardi, Stephen Malkmus ("the anti-Billy Corgan"), Bob Nastanovich (who "joined Pavement in a desperation move and became a band linchpin and secret weapon"), Mark Venezia, Steve West (drummer).
October 7, 2024
I love Pavement, and yet somehow this book served to remind me of everything about them (and Pavement dudes) that is irritating. Oh well, good interviews anyway!
January 5, 2024
I love Pavement so much. They are the most referred to band when we talk about slack rock, so you might expect their story to be as messy as their music. But the mess in their music was actually totally precise. They didn’t slack; they were hard workers who cared about the art.
So the behind the scenes stuff is nowhere near as tempestuous and dramatic as you might hope. This contribution to the 33 1/3 series is a superfan’s tribute. He wears his own fortitude brazenly, amazed he’s being given money to research and write about Pavement’s third and strangest album - an album he loves so deeply.
His bafflement at being able to interview people like Stephen Malkmus makes for more entertaining reading than the interviews themselves. Given that this is a book more about the singular impact a work can have on a person, than about the work itself, I suppose that’s unsurprising.
So the behind the scenes stuff is nowhere near as tempestuous and dramatic as you might hope. This contribution to the 33 1/3 series is a superfan’s tribute. He wears his own fortitude brazenly, amazed he’s being given money to research and write about Pavement’s third and strangest album - an album he loves so deeply.
His bafflement at being able to interview people like Stephen Malkmus makes for more entertaining reading than the interviews themselves. Given that this is a book more about the singular impact a work can have on a person, than about the work itself, I suppose that’s unsurprising.
April 22, 2012
Yes, I read this partly because I will be responding to Bloomsbury's open call for proposals for the 33 1/3 series, which I have long admired. I probably would have read it at some point because I'm on a Pavement kick. But anyway… Bryan Charles is a passionate and eloquent writer, plus he's from Kalamazoo! Represent! He's smart and funny and soulful and his book is too. Charles "gets" Pavement. Especially charming is his mildly revisionist case for them being secret romantics rather than the slacker-jaded ironist robots they are so often made out to be. Favorite moment: Charles works up the courage to ask Stephen Malkmus what the lyrics to his favorite song -- can't remember which one -- are about. Malkmus: "Uh, I don't really remember."
August 17, 2022
Solid 33 1/3, mostly just interviews with the core members at the time, but it was cool to hear those perspectives with the underlying theme: “y this rec not liked then, but luvd now?” Figured this was a prerequisite for seeing them live in OCT.
Also, I LOVE WPC (Billy corg) but might’ve loved the author more for insinuating he’s a little bitch for about 50 pages.
Also, I LOVE WPC (Billy corg) but might’ve loved the author more for insinuating he’s a little bitch for about 50 pages.
April 23, 2020
This is the first book I've read in the 33 1/3 series, so I have no thoughts on how it might compare to other editions. Pavement is one of my all-time favorite bands, though, and I bought a copy of the Wowee Zowee LP way back in 1995, so I feel like I'm relatively qualified to speak on the subject matter in Bryan Charles's book.
I'm a bit ambivalent in regard to it, but I think the positives outweigh the negatives (hence my four-star rating, I suppose). First, the negatives, which I'll harp on for too long because it's easier to be negative than positive: The book takes a while to get going, and it really gets bogged down in Charles's personal background. The personal story particularly drags because much of it predates Charles becoming enamored with the album (and band) in question. I was rooting for Charles, and I'm sure I'd enjoy having a few beers with him, but I found a lot of the early chapters of the book to be unnecessary filler. Maybe including a lot of personal stuff is part of the 33 1/3 style guide, though. I dunno.
Second, some of the interviews weren't particularly illuminating. Foremost among those is the interview with Gerard Cosloy. I got a chuckle out of it, but does it really help the book to include it? Charles mentions that he didn't have internet access through most of the '90s and that he wasn't quite up on Matador Records during the middle part of the decade, but I couldn't help but wonder whether Charles knew what he was getting into, since Cosloy's responses seemed pretty on-brand. But, maybe I wasted too much of my youth chatting online with the Matabot in 1996. (Also, all the anecdotal info I've heard on Cosloy indicates that he's a good dude, so I wonder whether the cringe-worthy nature of that part of the book stemmed more from Charles's lack of interview and research skills than anything on Cosloy's end.) So, along with the personal stuff, I felt that some of the interviews could have been cut out or truncated.
Some of the language/tone felt a bit over the top, but that's more of a personal preference thing. And, as a final negative, I wonder whether Charles elevates Pavement and Wowee Zowee onto a bit too high of a pedestal. At one point, for instance, he says that "all rock remotely classifiable as indie seemed descended from" Pavement and Guided by Voices. For one thing, I share Cosloy's concern that "indie" seems like a meaningless word in the rock context. And Pavement and Guided by Voices had a deeply profound impact on my life, but I've followed the rock scene fairly closely for the last quarter-century and find it hard to agree with that statement.
Anyway, enough of the negatives. At times (particularly at the end), Charles does a good job of evoking the feel of the record and putting some of its magic into words. Some of the interviews are insightful, particularly the ones with Stephen Malkmus, Bob Nastanovich, Steve West, and Chris Lombardi. And while it seems like Charles did a lot of his research on the back end, he did uncover some cool facts (dig those SoundScan stats!). For die-hard, completionist Pavement fans, reading this book is worth the time.
I had this book sitting on my shelf for quite a while, and I finally got around to reading it in light of it being the 25th anniversary of Wowee Zowee's release. Charles's book made me excited to go back and listen to the LP (and b-sides and outtakes), which is perhaps the best recommendation I can give.
I'm a bit ambivalent in regard to it, but I think the positives outweigh the negatives (hence my four-star rating, I suppose). First, the negatives, which I'll harp on for too long because it's easier to be negative than positive: The book takes a while to get going, and it really gets bogged down in Charles's personal background. The personal story particularly drags because much of it predates Charles becoming enamored with the album (and band) in question. I was rooting for Charles, and I'm sure I'd enjoy having a few beers with him, but I found a lot of the early chapters of the book to be unnecessary filler. Maybe including a lot of personal stuff is part of the 33 1/3 style guide, though. I dunno.
Second, some of the interviews weren't particularly illuminating. Foremost among those is the interview with Gerard Cosloy. I got a chuckle out of it, but does it really help the book to include it? Charles mentions that he didn't have internet access through most of the '90s and that he wasn't quite up on Matador Records during the middle part of the decade, but I couldn't help but wonder whether Charles knew what he was getting into, since Cosloy's responses seemed pretty on-brand. But, maybe I wasted too much of my youth chatting online with the Matabot in 1996. (Also, all the anecdotal info I've heard on Cosloy indicates that he's a good dude, so I wonder whether the cringe-worthy nature of that part of the book stemmed more from Charles's lack of interview and research skills than anything on Cosloy's end.) So, along with the personal stuff, I felt that some of the interviews could have been cut out or truncated.
Some of the language/tone felt a bit over the top, but that's more of a personal preference thing. And, as a final negative, I wonder whether Charles elevates Pavement and Wowee Zowee onto a bit too high of a pedestal. At one point, for instance, he says that "all rock remotely classifiable as indie seemed descended from" Pavement and Guided by Voices. For one thing, I share Cosloy's concern that "indie" seems like a meaningless word in the rock context. And Pavement and Guided by Voices had a deeply profound impact on my life, but I've followed the rock scene fairly closely for the last quarter-century and find it hard to agree with that statement.
Anyway, enough of the negatives. At times (particularly at the end), Charles does a good job of evoking the feel of the record and putting some of its magic into words. Some of the interviews are insightful, particularly the ones with Stephen Malkmus, Bob Nastanovich, Steve West, and Chris Lombardi. And while it seems like Charles did a lot of his research on the back end, he did uncover some cool facts (dig those SoundScan stats!). For die-hard, completionist Pavement fans, reading this book is worth the time.
I had this book sitting on my shelf for quite a while, and I finally got around to reading it in light of it being the 25th anniversary of Wowee Zowee's release. Charles's book made me excited to go back and listen to the LP (and b-sides and outtakes), which is perhaps the best recommendation I can give.
November 6, 2017
Skip to the interviews. The rest is padding.
I was intrigued to learn how Malkmus was seen as a vastly superior musician and how his bandmates were all painfully aware of how inadequate they were. They actually came across as being kind of wounded. It wasn't a case of the band agreeing to go their separate ways, it was more a case of Malkmus thinking "ok these guys have held me back long enough, now it's time for me to get some proper musicians to work with" and the other members of pavement saying "ok, fair enough, we're sorry that we weren't good enough for you". A few of them said "obviously the musicians he works with these days are a lot better than we could ever be". That had never occurred to me. I suppose his solo/jicks albums are more proggy and have more solos and weirder structures and things, but if anything, I always found pavement to be the much more exciting band to listen to. His solo work is a bit flat by comparison. Maybe there was some special mojo within pavement that went beyond musicianship. Maybe Malkmus just lost his talents after a while. It was also interesting to read Malkmus admit to his inability to write songs like he used to, it seemed that his previous style was very uninhibited and flowing, but these days he needs a more conscious notion of what he's writing and how he's going to set about it.
Probably the most insightful line was one about Malkmus and his attitude towards the quality of all his efforts. The most striking element in Malkmus' personality is his carefree attitude, the way he talks about things and approaches things. Bob Nastanovich said "If I had a dollar for every time I heard Steve say, "It doesn't matter", I wouldn't need to work".
I was intrigued to learn how Malkmus was seen as a vastly superior musician and how his bandmates were all painfully aware of how inadequate they were. They actually came across as being kind of wounded. It wasn't a case of the band agreeing to go their separate ways, it was more a case of Malkmus thinking "ok these guys have held me back long enough, now it's time for me to get some proper musicians to work with" and the other members of pavement saying "ok, fair enough, we're sorry that we weren't good enough for you". A few of them said "obviously the musicians he works with these days are a lot better than we could ever be". That had never occurred to me. I suppose his solo/jicks albums are more proggy and have more solos and weirder structures and things, but if anything, I always found pavement to be the much more exciting band to listen to. His solo work is a bit flat by comparison. Maybe there was some special mojo within pavement that went beyond musicianship. Maybe Malkmus just lost his talents after a while. It was also interesting to read Malkmus admit to his inability to write songs like he used to, it seemed that his previous style was very uninhibited and flowing, but these days he needs a more conscious notion of what he's writing and how he's going to set about it.
Probably the most insightful line was one about Malkmus and his attitude towards the quality of all his efforts. The most striking element in Malkmus' personality is his carefree attitude, the way he talks about things and approaches things. Bob Nastanovich said "If I had a dollar for every time I heard Steve say, "It doesn't matter", I wouldn't need to work".
June 27, 2017
Bryan Charles's extended essay on Pavement's third LP is a brief, charming memoir of the author's college and post-college years, and of the band's impact on his life and the culture in that time (the '90s). It includes funny and painful missteps, both from his life and in the writing of the book, and shines in the illuminating (and sometimes faltering) interviews with the band, record company types (indie and otherwise), and studio producers. Matador Records co-head Gerard Cosloy dickishly refuses to concede the most basic points about the band if those points bear even a whiff of conventional wisdom -- yet the tension in that interview results in one of the book's high points and forces Charles (and readers) to confront their assumptions about Pavement and Wowee Zowee. Like other readers, I have no idea why Charles uses the phrase "rotated" so often when referring to somebody moving or traveling elsewhere, but that eccentricity aside, he is a lively writer with a knack for conveying the awkward and the poignant. Wowee Zowee isn't the first album that comes to mind when thinking about Pavement, but I have a different and richer perspective on it after having read this book.
January 8, 2022
Generally informative of the background of the band, artistic process, interpersonal relationships, etc., etc. Bryan Charles is unfortunately completely unaware of his own toxicity, or perhaps purposefully showcased it, making it a hard read for anyone that respects women. That being said, it's funny. The interviews are informative, the band is honest, transparent, and incredibly charming. Charles almost redeems himself with the concluding prose, until he includes a personal anecdote again showcasing his shittiness. The redemption is all within the interviews, especially with West, Nostanovich, and Malkmus.
June 21, 2021
Pavement is my all-time favourite band. Pavement is also Bryan Charles' all-time favourite band, so there was little chance I wouldn't like this book. Charles does not confine himself to recording the history and legacy of Pavement and their mid-career masterpiece, though - he also takes a lot of time describing his personal experiences with their music, his anxieties about writing the book, and the various girlfriends and dead-end jobs he cycled through during the '90s and 2000s. Not only is it a concise and insightful history of the album, but it is a slice of Charles' unexceptional and relatable life. The band members are interviewed, as well as some label heads and other "dickish" associates, and their input provides many details that would have otherwise gone on forever unknown if it weren't for Charles' recording them. Despite this, the book could've been 300 pages longer, and could've taken further interest in the spectral lyrical content and buried B-sides that make listening to Pavement such a unique and charming sonic endeavour. If anything, reading Wowee Zowee has wet my palette for more of the 33 1/3 books - I now have my eyes on Fear of Music, Bee Thousand, Tago Mago, Pet Sounds and Double Nickels on a Dime, to name just a few.
September 25, 2018
So this is a tough one for me. I related to the author in some ways...I too felt a bit unfocused after I graduated university in the mid 1990s. I too am a huge fan of the band Pavement. Grounded was also the first song that hooked me into Wowee Zowee, an album that I pretty much loved from the first moment I listened to. So I connected on those points.
The interviews offered some interesting insight but I have to admit, there wasn't anything that I wouldn't have assumed. It is a great album but there really isn't a compelling story behind it. I enjoyed the book but there is nothing about it that is going to "stay with me" now that I am done reading it.
If you love Pavement, were born in the early to mid 1970s and spent a few unfocused years figuring things out after completing a bachelor of arts....you will probably enjoy this book.
The interviews offered some interesting insight but I have to admit, there wasn't anything that I wouldn't have assumed. It is a great album but there really isn't a compelling story behind it. I enjoyed the book but there is nothing about it that is going to "stay with me" now that I am done reading it.
If you love Pavement, were born in the early to mid 1970s and spent a few unfocused years figuring things out after completing a bachelor of arts....you will probably enjoy this book.
January 20, 2025
One-star reviewers, I was as put off as you were by the rough start that this book gets off to. But Bryan Charles totally redeems himself for me with the way his book becomes a Coen-like cringe comedy about a writer over his head, humiliated by this cool Matador guy who rejects all of his notions about the album. This launches him into some good journalism into what really was going on during the recording of songs like "Half a Canyon."
I do think the prose could have used some better topic sentences and structure, and that the love triangle between Charles, his troubled ex, and Brighten the Corners could have been a little more compelling and less emotionally remote. I'd be interested in reading a piece ranking the autobiographical love stories told in 33 1/3 books, from most touching to (here) alienating.
I do think the prose could have used some better topic sentences and structure, and that the love triangle between Charles, his troubled ex, and Brighten the Corners could have been a little more compelling and less emotionally remote. I'd be interested in reading a piece ranking the autobiographical love stories told in 33 1/3 books, from most touching to (here) alienating.
March 8, 2023
I am a huge Pavement fan. I mean, huge. Saw them two nights running last year, got the setlist, the merch, the vinyl, the works. Somehow, despite me being the target market for this book, the author managed to make it utterly awful for me. There’s a lot of rubbish about his own writing career, bits about when he was about to call a band-member but felt nervous, and verbatim transcripts of interviews but no real narrative of what actually happened in the making of this album - just a collage of bits that mostly could be garnered from internet searches.
And it somehow took THREE YEARS to put together?
And it somehow took THREE YEARS to put together?
December 6, 2020
This made me want to listen to all the albums again. Which has to be the main aim of these 33 1/3 books. The author is winning. the band interviews are fairly by the numbers. It is a hard band and album to get a fix on. I am not sure the book succeeds but in some ways that what the attraction of pavement is.
October 5, 2023
wowee zowee !
in late 2020 this was the only pavement album and honestly the one of only albums period i listened to for like a month straight. half a canyon is pretty much a perfect song. i liked that this wasn't as textbooky as some of the other 33 1/3rd books but man i feel like this guy would be a little annoying to speak to in real life.
in late 2020 this was the only pavement album and honestly the one of only albums period i listened to for like a month straight. half a canyon is pretty much a perfect song. i liked that this wasn't as textbooky as some of the other 33 1/3rd books but man i feel like this guy would be a little annoying to speak to in real life.
January 18, 2025
The interviews with the band and the people from Matador and Easley are great, even when the questions are silly. Gerard Cosley does the lord's work in his brief appearance. Overall, they provide nice context to the record and the overall vibe of Pavement in 94-5.
The writing is horrible. I don't think this writer actually exists. It's not possible to embody this many cliches and stereotypes
The writing is horrible. I don't think this writer actually exists. It's not possible to embody this many cliches and stereotypes
April 17, 2021
decent read
was good to read abit about the band and the 90s music scene
but specifics on the album werent great
and this version of 33 1/3 was a bit longer and rambling and unfocused and had a lot of the author and his frustration and his showing off his style
was good to read abit about the band and the 90s music scene
but specifics on the album werent great
and this version of 33 1/3 was a bit longer and rambling and unfocused and had a lot of the author and his frustration and his showing off his style
June 9, 2022
A great oral history project obscured by the author's abysmal writing and poor sense of structure. The interviews are great but the book does its best to hide them. I ultimately learned a lot about this record. Look forward to reading other books in the series.
March 27, 2024
Bit of a meander through times spent with the album. More impressionistic than fact based, which was a pleasant surprise. The writing actually mimics the source material of Wowee Zowee in its free form feel and at times stream of consciousness construction. Good for fans, not so for the novice.
July 31, 2025
This is the first one of these little books that I’ve actually gotten all the way through. They’re cool collectors items — but they’re rarely as well-written and stylish as this one. The great subject matter and cast of characters definitely helps.
December 15, 2016
Great little, somewhat chaotic book about the somewhat chaotic recording of a somewhat chaotic album.
July 28, 2021
Some solid interviewing and research, but ultimately too much personal narrative for my liking. A somewhat bold album choice from Pavement’s discography to write one of this series of books about.
June 5, 2023
I will commend his analog of interviews and drinkable information about the band but god is he a bad and corny writer.
September 12, 2024
It feels like the author may have gone in with an angle, but that angle went unsupported by his interviews. Instead, he turned in a lyrical outline and called it a final draft.
August 11, 2024
Interesting interviews and while I liked some of the personal aspects of the writing others were offputting and unpleasant eg about ex-girlfriends and stuff. Quite a 2000s, early 2010s vibe to the writing style which can be a bit obnoxious.
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