A compelling examination of the classic Pavement album, including interviews with all band members and record label staff.
Bryan Charles is the author of the novel Grab On to Me Tightly as if I Knew the Way.
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*
[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*
Pavement’s third album isn’t the most obvious choice for a 33 1/3
book … But the series is more concerned with telling new stories
than in re-telling old ones, and Bryan Charles relishes the
opportunity to argue for a personal favorite. Wowee Zowee may have
been a flop (he even admits a ‘lack of excitement’ when he first
heard it), but he shows how the album has gradually revealed a new
cohesiveness governing its scattershot aesthetic over the last two
decades and how it is now revered by the same listeners who
initially shrugged their shoulders.
*Pitchfork*
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