WOWEE ZOWEE

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Wowee Zowee
Bryan Charles
2010
The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc
80 Maiden Lane, New York, NY 10038
The Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd
The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX
www.continuumbooks.com
Copyright 2010 by Bryan Charles
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by
any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or
otherwise, without the written permission of the publishers.
Library of Congress Cataloging- in-Publication Data
Charles, Bryan.
Wowee Zowee / Bryan Charles.
p. cm. (33 1/3)
ISBN-13: 978-0- 8264-2957-5 (pbk.: alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0- 8264-2957-2 (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Pavement (Musical
group) 2. Rock musicians United States Biography. I. Title.
II. Series.
ML421.P38C53 2010
782.421660922 dc22
2009051862
ISBN: 978-0- 8264-2957-5
Typeset by Pindar NZ, Auckland, New Zealand
Printed in the United States of America

Interviews
Gerard Cosloy, May 20 and 21, 2008
Doug Easley, March 18, 2009
Bryce Goggin, April 1, 2009
Danny Goldberg, March 12, 2009
Mark Ibold, March 10, 2009
Scott Kannberg, July 14 and October 10, 2008
Steve Keene, June 7, 2009
Chris Lombardi, June 17, 2008
Stephen Malkmus, May 14 and June 17, 2009
Bob Nastanovich, July 10, 2008 and October 6, 2009
Mark Venezia, April 6, 2009
Steve West, May 27, 2009

I was living in Kalamazoo Michigan on Walwood

Place. There was a football eld in front of the house.
Starting in August the WMU Broncos would practice
there. Id wake to their grunts and whistles and yells.
In the winter and spring the eld was empty. Wed slip
through an opening in the fence and let Spot run around.
On a hill overlooking the eld was East Hall, part of the
old main campus, now barely in use. East Hall was a red
brick building with broad white columns. You could see
all of Kalamazoo from its steps. The steps were a good
place to ponder existential dilemmas. They were a good
place to make out. It was early 95. I was twenty years old.
I ate Papa Johns for dinner two or three nights a week.
The Walwood pad was a former assisted-living facil-
ity, two large apartments connected by a back set of
service stairs. Greg, Chafe and Curt lived in the upstairs
unit. Justin, Spot, Luke and I lived downstairs. Spot was
Justins dalmatian. He was a great-looking dog but a
little nuts. He seemed to attack everyone except Justin
WOWEE ZOWEE

and me. Id met Justin a year earlier when we were both

music writers at the Western Herald. Justin dug Greil
Marcus and Lester Bangs. His criticism was stuffed with
non sequiturs and obscure references. I was less sure of
myself as a critic and by early 95 Id essentially quit. I
liked writing and playing music more than analyzing and
critiquing it.
I played guitar and sang in a band called Fletcher.
We were a power trio with a Jawbreaker vibe. I had my
Stratocaster and Twin Reverb in the Walwood basement.
I spent hours down there writing songs. Id get blitzed,
crank the reverb and play surf tunes. Chafe and Curt
were in a quasi-Dischord outt called Inourselves. Their
apartment was littered with instruments and recording
machines. Someone was always listening to or play-
ing music in that house. This was in keeping with the
Kalamazoo ethos of the time. There were dozens of
bands and everyone was a rock dude whether they
actually played music or not. Even the girls were rock
dudes. Everyone went to shows and bought vinyl and
jocked out on obscure bands. At the same time under-
ground vs. mainstream tensions had eased. Once in a
while a big band made a splash. A few months earlier
Weezers rst record had hit the city like a megaton blast.
It was beloved in all quarters of the fragmenting scene.
Justin worked at Flipside, Kalamazoos best record
store and a haven for rock dudes in the middle of awk-
ward musical transitions. A mini movement was afoot
in the local hardcore community. Straight edge fell by
the wayside. Darker pleasures reigned. Abstemious emo
geeks ditched the gas-station work shirts and sanctimony.
BRYAN CHARLES

They started to blow grass and roll their own cigarettes.

They grooved on jazz and orchestral pop. Moss Icon and
Born Against were out. Sun Ra, Captain Beefheart and
Brian Wilson were in. A new breed of geek materialized.
Theyd hang by the vinyl bins at Flipside extolling the
genius of hophead jazz greats. There was dietary capitula-
tion. Soy milk and tofu were out. Beer and cheeseburgers
were in. The weird change seemed to occur overnight. I
was leery of this musically schizoid behavior and regarded
the jazz and reefer scene with contempt. As a Flipside
employee even Justin a Beatles freak and all-around
power pop guy was susceptible. He disowned the
traditional in favor of screeching free-form noise. He
declaimed old favorites to be pass. He boned up on jazz
history and held forth on this or that player or this or
that famous session. He burned through new trends and
passions forever in search of the Next Thing.
One day he came home with some promo CDs. We sat
in his room going through them. I got the new Pavement,
he said. He put it on. I dont remember what I was think-
ing as it played. I dont remember if we discussed it or
not. All I know is what I heard made no impression on
me. We played all or part of the disc. Justin took it off. I
didnt think about it again for a long time.
One record I continued to think about was Slanted and
Enchanted, Pavements rst album. It was three years
old but already felt to me like a timeless classic. I lis-
tened to it often that spring and early summer. It was
in permanent rotation in a stack of vinyl I hauled back
and forth between home and my job at Boogie Records.
WOWEE ZOWEE

My favorite songs were Summer Babe, In the Mouth a

Desert and Here. I also liked Conduit for Sale and Zurich
Is Stained. I knew little about Pavement. I didnt know
who the members were or where they were from. I knew
I liked Unseen Power of the Picket Fence their song
on the No Alternative compilation and I remembered
sitting in my dorm room watching MTV and seeing the
video for Cut Your Hair. That was a year ago. That had
been strange. You saw strange things on MTV then. I
saw Jawbox get interviewed by Lewis Largent, the ber
bland host of 120 Minutes. He asked about the rave scene
in Washington DC. They told him they didnt know
anything about it. He apologized and admitted it was a
stupid question.
Cut Your Hair was the rst single off Pavements sec-
ond record, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain. I didnt own it.
I dont know how I came to own Slanted and Enchanted.
Maybe I bought it on the recommendation of a friend.
Maybe it was given to me. Maybe I stole it from Boogie.
The store, a former Kalamazoo institution, was in the
last lap of a sad fall from grace. The absentee owner was
a jerk. He ran it into the ground. He stocked the CD
bins with bottom-rung cutouts no one would touch.
Employee theft was rampant more a reaction to the
stores mismanagement than a root cause of its downfall.
In any event I never bought Crooked Rain. And when the
record with the underwhelming promo came out I didnt
buy that one either. It was called Wowee Zowee. I never
heard any singles. No one I knew talked it up.
Fletcher went into the studio to cut songs for a
seven-inch. A month later we went out on a weeklong
BRYAN CHARLES

tour. Most of our shows were in the basements or liv-

ing rooms of punk houses. In Baltimore we played at a
converted strip club with a pole still in the center of the
stage. The only people there were the guys in the band
we played with. I liked playing live but didnt like touring.
I didnt like breaking my routines or being away from my
shit. I didnt like staying up late drinking beer with strang-
ers. I didnt like sleeping on oors or in the back of the
van. Paul the bass player and my best friend loved
it. He could have gone out for months at a time. I can still
see him nursing a forty and gassing about music in Kent
Ohio or Paramus New Jersey or Knoxville Tennessee.
One thing I didnt mind about touring was the long
drives. We each brought a bunch of tapes. It was nice
to listen to music and watch the road or stare out at
the landscape and highway scenes. Dan the drummer
brought Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain. We played it a
lot. It was the rst time Id ever spent any time with it.
Crooked Rain was great driving music. Many of the songs
have a sunny and open quality not least Cut Your Hair
and its ooh-ooh- ooh-ooh- ooh-ooh chorus. But theres
also an undercurrent of melancholy on the record, on
slow songs like Stop Breathin and Heaven Is a Truck.
Then there are times when the two aesthetics collide and
merge perfectly, as on Gold Soundz and Range Life, slow
to midtempo numbers whose chords and lyrics evoke a
wonderful mix of both possibility and resignation. Is it a
crisis or a boring change when its central, so essential? It has
a nice ring when you laugh at the lowlife opinions . . . Out on
my skateboard the night is just humming and the gum smacks
are a pulse I follow, if my Walkman fades I got absolutely no
WOWEE ZOWEE

one, no one but myself to blame. They were good songs to

listen to in a van on the road far from home.
The following spring I began dating a girl named Elise.
She was beautiful, promiscuous, paranoid, insecure. She
shoplifted compulsively and snorted crushed Ritalin.
I knew all this beforehand but went for her anyway. I
was reading a lot of Hemingway and saw myself as Jake
Barnes stoic in the face of moral and cultural disorder
and possessed of great depth. I thought my life was bor-
ing and wanted my own Lady Brett.
Elise had been living in a house on Academy Street
but had trashed her room on a pill binge and been
kicked out. Now she lived with her parents in Indiana
and worked part-time at a hotel. She stole credit card
numbers from customer receipts and used them to place
daily long-distance calls to me. She was often high when
we talked and her banter was strange. Once she called
from a payphone at work and talked of nothing but a
lighted exit sign in the lobby. The sign was having some
kind of wild effect on her. I tried to get off the phone. She
had a minor meltdown. All right, I said and listened for
another hour. We exchanged long letters in which we cast
ourselves as doomed gures too sensitive for the world.
Elise sent provocative photo-booth strips. I grooved on
the drama and braced for trouble, imagined answering
the phone to a hostile inquiry I found this number
on my credit card bill, who the hell are you? Such a call
never came. Elise continued her nutty gabfests.
Id signed on for the swing shift at the paper mill. I
was making nice bread but perpetually exhausted. Work
BRYAN CHARLES

you dont believe in or love is a waste of life. Id had

inklings of this before. I was dead certain of it now. I was
a few steps closer to the endless disappointments and
compromises of the adult world.
One night on the eleven- to-seven a weird feeling
came over me. My breathing became labored. Everything
seemed far away. The paper machine roared. It was the
size of a city block a howling unstoppable beast. One
wrong move and it could maim or kill me. I emptied the
broke boxes huge waste-paper bins which required
a forklift. Id driven them dozens of times but was scared
to be on one now. What if I crashed and the forklift tipped
over? The fucking thing would crush me and thatd be the
end. It was eighty and humid outside and much hotter in
the mill, probably over a hundred degrees. I was dripping
sweat, nauseous, already spent. I found the foreman and
told him I was sick. I walked out to the parking lot and sat
in my car. A few minutes later I was able to breathe again.
Back home there were people drinking beer on the
porch. I decided I couldnt face that scene either. I called
Elise and told her I wanted to drive to her place tonight.
Okay, she said in a sleepy voice. I threw some clothes in
a bag and hit I-94. I pulled off at a truck stop and wolfed
a greasy one a.m. meal. I hit I-69 and cruised south for
three hours. The window was down. Warm air rushed in.
My car only had a radio. I scanned through the stations.
I landed on Pretty Noose by Soundgarden two or three
times. I sang along at the top of my lungs.
The shift cycle had turned over. I had the next few
days off. I stayed with Elise, sleeping on a twin bed in
her little brothers old room. My body was out of whack
WOWEE ZOWEE

from working the swing shift. I was pale and tired and
felt older than twenty-one. The days in Indiana were
relaxing. Elise and I went to the movies. We ate at Wafe
& Steak. We walked around Meijers Thrifty Acres. We
watched TV. We screwed in her bathroom after her
folks went to bed. In Broad Ripple one night we stopped
at a record store. I was ipping through the used vinyl,
saw a copy of Wowee Zowee and paused. Something
compelled me to take it out of the bin. It was a double LP
with a gatefold cover. The cover was an abstract painting
of two strange gures sitting next to a dog. Pavement?
said one of the gures. Wowee Zowee! thought the dog.
On the back were individual photos of the band under
the words Sordid Sentinels. Aside from dim memories of
the Cut Your Hair and Range Life videos which Id
seen one or two times each this was the rst time I
really saw what the band looked like. One of them was in
a bubble bath smiling, holding a Racing Form. One wore
sunglasses and had what looked like black wax smushed
in his teeth. One was a ghostly disembodied head oat-
ing inside a TV. Two were pictured eating. Beneath the
photos was a crude doodle of a wizard with a thought
bubble that said Pavement ist Rad! Inside the gatefold
hand-scrawled text bordered a large drawing resembling
a system of interlocking freeways. Dick-Sucking Fool
at Pussy-Licking School it said at the top. I chuckled at
that and read some of the text. I kept the record with
me as I browsed some more. I inspected it again then
brought it up to the counter. What possessed me to buy
it? Ill never know. I had no overwhelming urge to give
Wowee Zowee another chance. I hadnt even listened to
BRYAN CHARLES

10

Pavement lately. Maybe it was the fact that it was used

and I had the money and was itching to spend a few
bucks. Maybe it was vinyl fetishism and I was drawn to
the big art and the gatefold. Either way I paid for it and
we left. When I got home I shelved it in the P section
and never took it out once.
At the end of the summer I borrowed Pauls van and
drove to Indiana. Elise and I loaded her things and she
moved back to Kalamazoo. She got a job as a waitress
at Blakes Diner and found a room in a house on Vine
Street with two speed freaks. One of them worked at
the Subway on campus. Id been ordering sandwiches
from him for years. He worked incredibly quickly with
an odd machine-like precision. He could assemble a boss
footlong in seconds without asking you to repeat any
part of your order. Paul and I had always marveled at his
technique. Now it made sense.
Fall passed into winter. Things with Elise went down-
hill. She grew increasingly hostile, jealous of everyone I
talked to. Yet she irted openly pathologically with
other men. In December I broke up with her. She started
screwing another dude immediately. I walked to her
pad in a fury and crashed their post-pork cuddle fest. I
dumped a box of her shit on the back porch. I yelled at
her window till the light came on. Elise opened the door.
I looked in the window and saw the dude in her bed. He
was wearing a blue T-shirt and had a hand pressed to his
forehead. That one visual was too much for me. Elise and
I got back together. We clung to each other out of spite.
I was living in the upstairs Walwood apartment now
with Paul and Trish. We had a dinner party one night.
WOWEE ZOWEE

11

Pauls mom was in town. Trish made eggplant parmesan

and tiramisu. Elise ipped out after a glass of wine and
sat babbling incoherently. We tried talking around her.
It didnt work. Finally she rose from the table, stumbled
to my room and passed out. Paul was fed up. Hed never
liked Elise and didnt want her around. Trish didnt mind
kicking back with a cocktail and listening to Elise rant. I
like her, said Trish, shes entertaining.
Entertaining, yes. Shed called me crying, threatening
suicide. Shed drop by at odd times, uninvited, spewing
venomous remarks. She snuck into the pad when no one
was there and wrote the word home on the wall over my
bed in her own blood. She had body image issues. She
didnt eat. Or shed binge eat and puke. Or binge eat and
snarf laxatives till her asshole was chapped. Wed always
had good sex. Now even that appalled me. As did her
living situation. The speed freaks unnerved me. Their
crib was lightless, smoke-lled, depressing. I went there
infrequently and used the back door when I did. Except
for this one day when I used the front door and paused
in the living room and by chance looked down. There
behind an old recliner was a stack of CDs. On top of the
stack was Pavements Brighten the Corners. Their fourth
LP. It had just come out. It was strange to see it there. I
didnt think either of the speed freaks liked indie rock.
I scoped the other CDs. It was a random assortment
no other indie bands. Most likely someone had left the
Pavement CD there by accident or the whole stack was
stolen and one of the speed freaks was going to try and
sell it back.
Whose CDs are these?
BRYAN CHARLES

12

I dont know, said Elise. Why?

You think anyone would mind if I took this?
What is it?
The new Pavement album.
Pavement?
Yeah.
Go ahead and take it.
I went home and played it. I liked it at once. The lyrics
blew my mind. They sounded like poetry. They were
typed in the insert and read like poetry too. Glance, dont
stare, soon youre being told to recognize your heirs . . . Cherish
your memorized weakness, fashioned from a manifesto . . . If
my soul has a shape well then it is an ellipse and this slap is a gift
. . . Open call for the prison architects, send me your blueprints
ASAP. The music was straightforward, played more or
less cleanly. But there was a playfulness, a humor, a skill-
ful balance of light and dark that I found lacking in most
things literature as well as rock music. The production
was different from Slanted and Enchanted and Crooked
Rain. Those records had a rawness and the performances
werent as tight. Theyd been labeled lo-. I never quite
saw them that way. Early Sebadoh was lo-, obviously
recorded on two tape players. So to a lesser extent were
Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes, Guided by Voices two
mid-90s breakouts. Slanted and Crooked Rain couldnt
be called overproduced. But they were recorded artfully
enough that the lo- tag seemed lazy to me. Still, the
Brighten the Corners production was unquestionably
more polished. The liner notes said it was co-recorded
by Mitch Easter, whod worked on the rst few R.E.M.
records. The association made sense. Unseen Power of
WOWEE ZOWEE

13

the Picket Fence is explicitly about R.E.M.s early days

and Pavement had covered gently recongured one
of my favorite R.E.M. tunes, Camera. The Easter sound
was well suited to the Brighten the Corners material. The
album has a warm organic feel like Chronic Town and
Murmur, two of my all-time faves.
I listened to Brighten the Corners nonstop. I bought
it on vinyl even though I had the CD. I played the
vinyl in my room, the CD in the bathroom boombox
while I showered and kept a dubbed cassette copy in my
Walkman at all times. One day I ran into Justin. He asked
what Id been listening to lately. The new Pavement, I
said, its fucking awesome. Yeah I dont know, Im not into
it, he said. He mocked the part in Shady Lane that goes
oh my god over and over. Thered been two hundred Next
Things since Slanted and Enchanted. Built to Spill was
hot shit now. Modest Mouse was coming up. Justin and
the jazz geeks thought Wilco was boss. I liked that stuff
too. But not like I liked Brighten the Corners. I played it
and sang from it so often Paul and Trish knew the words.
I began to view my life through the lens of its songs.
Elise would be on the oor of my room sobbing, Id hear
Shady Lane in my head. Youre so beautiful to look at when
you cry. Id ponder life after college and my dreams of
being a writer and scattered Brighten the Corners lyrics
would it through my daydreams. Im my only critic . . .
The language of inuence is cluttered with hard Cs . . . I trust
you will tell me if I am making a fool of myself. Sometime
later I found out Elise had cheated on me and we broke
up for good. I packed her stuff into my Subaru and drove
her back to Indiana and all the way down on I-69 under a
BRYAN CHARLES

14

late-May sky Transport Is Arranged played on an internal

loop. I know youre my lady but I could trickle, I could ood,
a voice coach taught me to sing, he couldnt teach me to love.
We unloaded her shit. I left her standing in the driveway.
I sped back to Michigan. The sun set halfway there. A
depressive sort of lightness ooded my heart. Pavement
addressed this complex emotional paradox. I need to get
born, I need to get dead. The radio played ten-minute
blocks of commercials. It played AC/DC. It played the
Verve Pipe. It played Sublime.
It was now summer 97. I was a college graduate, scared
shitless of the future, unemployed. I had a few hundred
bucks saved and didnt look for a job. I stayed in the apart-
ment reading, writing, playing guitar. I took long walks
around Kalamazoo listening to Brighten the Corners,
Slanted and Enchanted, Crooked Rain, the four-song
Watery, Domestic EP. Id liked those records before.
They were miraculous now. I listened to Pavement to
the exclusion of all other bands. I saw them as one of the
dening forces of my life.
The funny thing was I never played Wowee Zowee. It
was there on the shelf with the other records, untouched.
I still had dim memories of that rst time Id heard it, the
lack of excitement I felt. I had a sense too that the record
was a failure somehow, not as good as the rest. I dont
know where I got this. Maybe a friend told me or maybe it
was mentioned in some of the Brighten the Corners press.
By press I mean whatever would have appeared in Spin
or Rolling Stone. Those were the only rock mags I read
and aside from word of mouth they were my only means
WOWEE ZOWEE

15

of keeping up. I didnt have cable or own a computer. Id

only been on the Internet a handful of times and wasnt
really sure what to do on there anyway.
My bread ran out. Paul and Trish oated me. For lack
of other options or ideas I became a substitute teacher.
Starting in September I woke each morning at six to call
the sub service and see if they had work. I took every
assignment they offered me kindergarten through high
school, auto shop to math. Some days there was nothing
and I stayed home and wrote. It was nice to have money
coming in but every dime was accounted for. There was
no room in the budget for treats. Then I heard Pavement
was coming to Grand Rapids. They were playing at the
Intersection, a relatively small club. I agonized over
the matter for two or three days. Recently Id gotten a
credit card. The rst thing I bought with it was a bag
of Doritos at a gas station on the way to a Radiohead
concert itself an extravagance that still caused me great
guilt. The second thing was a computer. It cost twelve
hundred bucks. Owing that money terried me. I thought
about it constantly. It seemed Id never be able to pay it
back. And that was the least of it. There was also twenty
grand in student loans. I was starting my adult life with a
low-paying place-holder job, already drowning in debt.
I decided I wouldnt charge another cent to my credit
card till Id paid at least some of it down. That meant if
I wanted to see Pavement Id have to pay cash, of which
I had almost none. Its strange to think about it now
three days of deliberations over whether or not to spend
twelve dollars to see my favorite band play a small club.
In the end I took the plunge. I bought a ticket at Repeat
BRYAN CHARLES

16

the Beat. I walked out feeling happy, thinking of what

songs I wanted to hear.
The night of the show I drove a few people up to
Grand Rapids. We rolled in early and hit Yesterdog for
a snack. Everyone munched hot dogs but me. Id eaten
beforehand and sat nursing a water. I was trying to recoup
some of the money I was giving up not taking a subbing
gig the next day. The Intersection was crowded. A girl I
had a crush on named Chrissy was there. She was dating
a handsome cipher Id nicknamed Plastic Man. He was
nowhere around. I sat across from her and tried sending
vibrations. She either didnt notice or didnt care. After a
while I got up and walked through the crowd. I stopped
and stood near the front of the stage. Soon the house
lights went down. Pavement walked out. A guy next to
me was shouting.
Wheres Malkmus? he said.
I wasnt sure who this was.
There he is! Theres Malkmus!
I looked at the stage. A tall thin man with brown hair
had come out. He strapped on a guitar and approached
the microphone. He scratched his nose and said some-
thing about his allergies.
No shit! yelled the guy next to me.
Its great to be here in central Michigan, said
Malkmus. His voice was at. He didnt sound thrilled.
Its western! Western Michigan! yelled the guy.
Malkmus looked at the yelling man.
Whatever, he said.
This is a tune called Grounded, he said.
The band launched into a slow number I didnt
WOWEE ZOWEE

17

recognize. The guitar notes were clean and high and

pretty. I ticked through the catalog. It had to be on
Wowee Zowee. Hours later in my room I took that
record from the shelf. Sure enough Grounded was on
the rst side. I played it. When it was over I lifted the
needle and started the record from the beginning. It was
late. The house was quiet. Paul was at work and Trish
was asleep. I had the volume down low. I entered a sort
of dream state. Wowee Zowee went through me like a
blast of pure light.

18

Nine years later I was living in New York City. I

walked out of the subway into Union Square. I entered
the Virgin Megastore looking to kill some time. Near
the front of the store was a table stacked with little
books. They had album covers on the front and were
named for the album they featured. I picked one up and
looked through it Unknown Pleasures or Doolittle.
It seemed to be entirely about that one record, with
bits of the bands history thrown in. I scanned the rest
of the table and looked through a few other books. I
read the list of available and upcoming titles. I didnt see
one for Pavement. How could that be? R.E.M., Pixies,
the Replacements Guided by Voices and Nirvana
coming soon. Surely there was one in the hopper for
Pavement. Or maybe there wasnt. My pulse started
to quicken. I thought, youll be the one. Within a few
seconds I had the whole thing mapped out. Id do Slanted
and Enchanted, their epochal first LP. A record that
dened no, invented modern indie rock. Endlessly
WOWEE ZOWEE

19

imitated, never surpassed. Lets be honest never even

equaled. I stood daydreaming at the table. Music blared
through the store. I imagined a little book with Slanted
and Enchanted on the cover, my name underneath. Id
place the record in context. Early 92 a revolution
prophesied. Alternative music as commercially viable. Id
break it down song by song, examine every lyric, drum
ll, guitar lick. Id argue against the notion of Pavement
as slackers, banish that dead concept once and for all.
And here was the best thing Id talk to the band.
What would I ask them? I hadnt the faintest idea. My
rst novel was coming out soon. Id started a second one.
Id knock that out and then write the Pavement book.
Everything was so fucking groovy. I was shaking almost.
I left the Virgin store and went to the movies. Halfway
through the previews I forgot about the little books.
My bankroll thinned. I got a temp gig at Virgin
Records doing sub-intern shit. My boss was sixty but
dressed like she was sixteen. I made Starbucks runs for
her. I answered the phone. I ordered ofce supplies. I
did peoples expenses. I sat with a spreadsheet reading
cellphone-provider websites, checking to see if Fat Joe/
Meatloaf/Janet Jackson/30 Seconds to Mars ringtones
were on sale. 30 Seconds to Mars was a top priority at
Virgin. The actor Jared Leto was their songwriter and
frontman. Leto thought he was a genius. Leto was dead
fucking wrong. His band was pure shit. People in the
ofce acted like they were the Rolling Stones. The same
two 30 Seconds to Mars singles played loudly at all times.
Leto was given enormous sums to make big-budget
videos that aped Kubricks The Shining and Bertoluccis
BRYAN CHARLES

20

The Last Emperor. He was praised in meetings for his

dedication to his craft. One guy said to me, you know
Jared doesnt have to be doing this, he turned down a
starring role in that Clint Eastwood movie about Iwo
Jima so he could go on tour, you have to admire that.
Work on my second novel stalled. By then the rst
one had been out for three months. There were certain
emotional rewards but its presence in the world generally
hadnt changed my life. I needed something to pin my
hopes on. The Pavement book lled the void. Thered
been a shift in my thinking. Slanted and Enchanted was
no longer the one. It seemed too obvious somehow.
Plenty had been written about it before. It always shows
up on lists best of the 90s, best indie records etc. I
mulled it over in my cubicle as down the hall Leto wailed.
What about Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain? The album
that spawned the closest thing Pavement had to a hit and
delivered them to the brink of big mainstream success.
It was a promising notion. Crooked Rains context was
heady. It came out in February of 94. A sea change was
coming. We just didnt know it. Then early April, the
death of Kurt Cobain, his demons revealed. Depression,
white horse, the dark side of fame. Grunge kids coast to
coast weeping. Me in a quivering heap on my dorm room
oor. Middlebrow rock writers drawing Lennon com-
parisons. Nirvana gets a huge sales bump. Commerce
prevails. The alt-rock juggernaut rolls on. Smashing
Pumpkins headline Lollapalooza, still in Siamese Dream
mode. Billy Corgans multicolored hippie shirts and
thinning hair a year away from the Zero shirt, the
god complex, the shaved dome. The curtain thrown
WOWEE ZOWEE

21

back. Bushs Sixteen Stone hits the scene their tune

Little Things a cunt hair away from outright Teen Spirit
plagiarism. Alternative music as merely another product.
Aprs Kurt the deluge. A revolution denied.
My next thought was Terror Twilight, Pavements
fth and nal LP. Practically a Stephen Malkmus solo
effort. Somber in tone, a Nigel Godrich production,
lots of reverb and space blips. Terror Twilight closed
out the decade and in effect my adolescence. In March
of 99 three months before its release I entered
my rst Wall Street cubicle sporting a hand- me-down
suit and tie. By November of that year the band was
effectively done. But the story of their passive-aggressive
dissolution was a downer. I decided I had no interest in
chronicling Pavements demise. Thats when it hit me.
Youre overlooking the obvious. Wowee Zowee your
favorite record of all time.
You shrugged it off initially. Returned to it later. When
you did it blew your mind. You think probably others
share this experience. Early resistance followed by rabid
embrace. Wowee Zowee is a wild, unpredictable record.
Fragmented, impressionistic, casually brilliant. Brilliance
revealed in stages. Sprawling. Eighteen disparate songs
that somehow magically cohere. Maybe a little aloof at
rst but once you spend a little time with it it keeps giving
back to you. Potentially larger theme: Wowee Zowees
anarchic form as career calculation. Pavement coming
close to the Big Time, sensing danger, showing fear or
disgust, taking a hundred steps back. Youve heard this
theory before. Youre not sure where. But hey, youre
easily swayed. You could be convinced of this. Back in
BRYAN CHARLES

22

the 90s you didnt think of indie or any current rock

music as art. That seemed to be a designation for old
classics. The Beatles made art. Bob Dylan made art. Pink
Floyd, with their synth-heavy concept albums, made
art. Now you know better. Pavement made art. Theres
no question about this. Wowee Zowee is an artful and
beautiful record. It has made you laugh, moved you to
tears and pretty much everything in between. It took
some knocks in its day but is now regarded as one of
their best even by many hardcore fans as the best. Ergo
your thesis: underdog record greeted with head-wags and
confusion stands the test of time to become fan favorite
and indie rock classic.
Youve never owned it on CD. On your lunch break
you buy a copy of the just-released Wowee Zowee reis-
sue, a double-disc set featuring Peel Sessions, b-sides,
other assorted extra tracks. You commandeer a yellow
pad from the Virgin supply closet and begin making
notes. This is among your last acts as an employee of
the dying and wretched label. You give your four-days
notice. Your boss hits back with some cold truth: this
saves us a tough talk, I was going to let you go anyway.
With your newfound freedom you try to resuscitate
your novel. The work goes slowly. Why is this your
destiny, this constant spinning of wheels? You think
often of Wowee Zowee. The record is so much a part
of you youve heard it so many times youre pretty
sure you can play it from start to nish in your mind.
The rst note of the rst song is a lonesome plucked E
string but wait! What was it like before, when you
didnt know any of it? What was it like hearing those
WOWEE ZOWEE

23

songs for the rst time? What was it like shit. Might as
well try conjuring prenatal memories. Early impressions
and recollections dissipate as you strain for them.
You rotate to Michigan for the holidays then back to
New York. Youve hit rock bottom money-wise. You bor-
row a grand from your parents. Your girlfriend springs
for meals. You write a Wowee Zowee book proposal and
submit it without high hopes. A job offer materializes:
proofreading at a nancial company, sixty grand a year.
You swore youd never again work in a nancial ofce but
have no choice but to accept. You dust off your Brooks
Brothers suit and make the midtown scene. You suffer
the riffs of your coworkers in the hallways, the elevator,
the mens room. The woman in the next cubicle has a
radio on her desk. Gwen Stefanis The Sweet Escape
plays every hour. In the afternoons she tunes in to Sean
Hannity. A web-design creep sits in an office across
the aisle. He eschews the overhead lighting in favor of
a specially purchased oor lamp. He likes to close the
door and blast NPR-approved alt rock as if playing
Gnarls Barkley at a nancial rm somehow mitigates the
dress code. Work on your novel stalls. You sit stupeed
in your cubicle. The hours crawl. Youre permanently
spent. Back-burner those dreams, son. No hold on to
a little something. Wowee Zowee can save you. You get
the green light. Welcome aboard, write the book. You
whip out the old yellow pad with renewed vigor, make
notes on company time. You ll page after page, barely
lifting the pen. You ponder the vagaries of Wowee Zowee
and the Pavement legacy as a whole. Yet the more you
think about the record the more elusive it becomes, the
BRYAN CHARLES

24

less certain you are of what you want to say. You reread
your notes and press on. You ll up the yellow pad, hit
the supply closet for a fresh one. You search for and
print dozens of Pavement reviews, interviews, proles.
Other peoples words and opinions get jumbled up in
your head. You consult rock dude friends you hang
with fewer of them now but theyre around. You listen
to the records, starting with the Slay Tracks single and
going all the way through Terror Twilight. You do all
this and still feel lost. The rst little ickers of anxiety
arrive, the rst whiffs of self-doubt. Look at you. What
a fraud. You lack the vocabulary for this. Youre not a
Pitchfork guy Pitchfork people are all over these
books, pushing their theories, arguments, assertions.
Interview Pavement? Thats a yuk. Given the length
and depth of your fandom will you even be able to form
words? For years you admired Stephen Malkmus to the
point of worship. Now imagine calling him up on the
phone. Whyd you want to do this again? What is the
point? To explicate the mystery of Wowee Zowee? Talk
about a fools errand. Mystery is essential to the records
very appeal. Why try and crack the code? Why you
look up. Your boss is walking this way. You lay down your
pen. He stops at your cubicle. He raps a line of ofce
jive something about a mandatory interdepartmental
initiative. He hands you a paper. He wants you to write
out your goals for the year then come to his ofce and
discuss them. Goals? Well sure. Lets see. Youve got
some pretty big goddamn goals. First on the list is nish-
ing your novel. Youve been working on it the last year
and a half and are still light years from hitting a groove.
WOWEE ZOWEE

25

Second is starting the Wowee Zowee book. Yes but ha

ha thats not what he means by goals. He means your
goals as a proofreader of nancial-marketing brochures,
reports, presentations. He walks away. You stare at the
paper. Months pass. A year.

26

Stephen Malkmus and Scott Kannberg were child-

hood friends. They grew up in Stockton California in
the 80s. Certain scenes were exploding. West Coast
hardcore. College rock. These were the ancient days of
having to seek out the good shit, of talking to friends and
strangers to nd out what they were into, of visiting the
record store weekly in search of cool new or old bands.
There was a bit of a punk scene in Stockton. Stephen
played in a hardcore band called the Straw Dogs. They
lasted about a year. Stephen graduated high school.
He split for the University of Virginia. He returned to
Stockton the next summer. He and Scott formed Bag
O Bones. Echo and the Bunnymen and New Order
were inuences. Stephen sang. The drummer didnt dig
his voice. Bag O Bones stuck to instrumentals. They
hooked up some gigs. They played a wedding reception.
Someone pulled the plug after three songs. Bag O Bones
was short-lived. Stephen rotated east. Scott did a year at
Arizona State. It wasnt quite his scene. He didnt go back.
WOWEE ZOWEE

27

At UVA Stephen made some new pals. He met David

Berman at a Cure concert in Washington DC. A while
after that he met Bob Nastanovich. Malkmus, Berman
and Nastanovich were rock dudes. They went to shows
and bought vinyl and jocked out on obscure bands. They
were DJs at the college radio station, WTJU. They
got turned on to all kinds of new shit. They formed a
noise rock outfit called Ectoslavia. David eventually
took control of the group. He gave Stephen and Bob
the heave-ho. Stephen played in a couple other bands
Lake Speed and Potted Meat Product. He graduated
college. He rolled back to Stockton. It was 1988. Bush
One was ascendant. Stephen and Scott met up and started
to jam. They both played guitar. Stephen did most of the
singing. They made a lot of noise but had some decent
tunes too. They decided to record and release their own
single. They looked into studios. This dude Gary Young
ran one out of his house. Gary was older. He was sort of
fried. Hed recorded a bunch of Stockton punk bands.
His rates were cheap. Stephen and Scott booked time.
In January of 89 they recorded some songs. Gary was a
drummer and ended up playing a bit. The result was a
four-song seven-inch called Slay Tracks (19331969). It
came out on their own Treble Kicker label. They pressed
a thousand copies. Scott sent some out to the fanzines for
review. Slay Tracks had a stark yellow cover. It was hard
to know at rst glance if the band was Treble Kicker or
Pavement. The insert made no mention of anyone named
Stephen Malkmus or Scott Kannberg. The main players
were listed as S.M. and Spiral Stairs.
Slay Tracks pulled in some good fanzine reviews.
BRYAN CHARLES

28

Vinyl geeks and rock dudes sought it out. Dan Koretsky

was one of them. Dan lived in Chicago and worked at a
record distributor. He ordered two hundred copies of
Slay Tracks. Dan was starting a label with his friend Dan
Osborn. He wrote Scott a letter saying they wanted to
put a Pavement record out. They were also talking to
this New York band Royal Trux. Dan and Scott kept in
touch. Stephen was traveling abroad. When he rotated
stateside he and Scott started to jam. They went back to
Garys and recorded more songs. Koretsky and Osborns
label Drag City was up and running. Pavements second
EP Demolition Plot J-7 was Drag Citys second
release. Pavement got more good reviews. Word con-
tinued to spread. They returned to Garys and laid down
more tracks. The new material came out on ten-inch
vinyl the Perfect Sound Forever EP.
Stephen rotated permanently east. He got an apart-
ment in Jersey City with Bob Nastanovich and David
Berman. He got a job as a security guard at the Whitney
Museum. A small Pavement tour was arranged. In August
of 90 Gary and Scott ew to New York. Minimal rehears-
als were undertaken. Gary was proving to be a wild
card. He was a longtime alcoholic. His playing could be
incredible or all over the map. Bob was all set to roadie
for the tour. Stephen pulled him aside and said, you bet-
ter get a couple drums, you know how to keep time. So
Bob played second percussion live. He kept a steady beat
when Gary was in his cups. They nished the tour. Gary
and Scott ew home. An idea had been hatched lets
make a full-length album.
The sessions went down at Garys pad around
WOWEE ZOWEE

29

Christmas. They recorded a huge batch of songs in about

a week total. Stephen returned to New York. Stephen
and Scott assessed the material. They dubbed some tapes
and sent them around to independent labels. Those tapes
got dubbed and passed around some more. A bunch of
people heard it and went apeshit. Drag City released a
single featuring three of the new songs. The a-side was
a beautiful pop tune called Summer Babe. The rst two
words of the song were ice baby. Reviled white rapper
Van Winkle gets a nod. In August of 91 they did another
east coast tour. They had a permanent bass player now,
a friend of Stephen and Bobs from the New York scene
named Mark Ibold. Interest in Pavement and their unre-
leased record was off the charts. A New York label called
Matador vied to put the thing out. Before that happened
it received a glowing full-page review in Spin, a review
based solely on an unlabeled tape.
Slanted and Enchanted ofcially came out in March
of 92. It was a critical fave and steady seller. Pavement
popped up on major-label radars. The band pushed
it full-throttle. They recorded some more. They toured
the US and Europe. They honed their live skills and
got fucking good. They went from playing before a
max crowd of twelve hundred opening for My Bloody
Valentine in New York to thirty thousand people opening
for Nirvana at the Reading Festival the famous one
where Kurt came out in a wheelchair and hospital gown
and rocked everyones face off. Kurt was a Pavement fan.
Kurts fandom could open doors. Seemingly any band
he mentioned in passing or advertised on a T-shirt got
a lucrative major-label deal. Youve heard it before and
BRYAN CHARLES

30

maybe lived through it. It bears repeating: the early 90s

were an insane fucking time.
Garys drinking worsened. His performances suf-
fered. His wild-man antics irked others in the band. Back
in Stockton they tried to demo new songs. Gary was
building a new studio but it wasnt done. He was hitting
the sauce and couldnt perform. They split for more
shows abroad. Tensions escalated. Last-straw scenarios
emerged. By the time they rotated stateside Gary and
Pavement were quits.
A new drummer had already been more or less picked
out. Hed worked as a guard at the Whitney with Stephen
and was high school friends with Bob. His name was
Steve too but he often went by his last name West.
West lived in a loft in Williamsburg Brooklyn. He had
his drums set up there and he and Stephen would jam.
Stephen heard about a dude who was building his own
recording studio in Manhattan. The guy was called
Walleye and worked at Rogue Music, a vintage equip-
ment store located in the same space. A mutual friend
approached Walleye and said, I know this band, theyre
looking to do an album, what do you think? Walleye was
hesitant. His studio wasnt quite there yet. But Stephen
checked it out and said itd be ne. Scott ew to New
York. Pavement minus Bob convened at Walleyes
studio, which hed named Random Falls. Bob was now
living in Louisville Kentucky. He was a part of the live
show. It seemed unnecessary for him to be in New York
to record. Random Falls was on the eighth floor of
a building on West Thirtieth Street. It was dark and
cramped, still being assembled as they went along. But
WOWEE ZOWEE

31

Walleye tricked the place out with ace gear from the
shop. He brought in vintage amps and microphones and
gave the band free rein.
Everyone was excited by the quality of the new
songs. There were positive signs on the business end
too. Matador was glued up with Atlantic Records. It
was kind of a new thing. They now had major-label cash
and distribution. Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain seemed
poised for bigger things. Around the time it came out
Stephen booked another session with Walleye at Random
Falls. Stephen, West and Mark recorded a handful of
songs. They were spazzier and stranger than the ones on
the new record. There was no real plan for what would
happen with them.
Now the myth-making begins mixed in with some
truth. The deal with Atlantic paid off. Crooked Rain blew
up. Cut Your Hair hit radio and MTV. It was so catchy
with that wordless bubblegum chorus. It hit the Billboard
modern rock chart. The song itself addressed the crazy
music scene. Bands start up each and every day, I saw another
one just the other day, a special new band. The video was
charmingly low-budget: the Pavement guys in a barber
shop taking turns in the chair. It turned out these dudes
whose album art didnt include their pictures or even
their names were handsome, funny, charismatic. The
rock world took notice. Major labels began salivating.
People in ofces drew up contracts. The A&R call went
out: sign this band. Meanwhile Pavement ground it out
on the road. They toured Europe. They toured the states.
During one grueling stretch they played something like
fifty-five shows in fifty-two days. Some towns theyd
BRYAN CHARLES

32

play an all-ages show and an adult show. They rotated

to LA and played Cut Your Hair on the Tonight Show.
Their fan base grew. A second single was released, Gold
Soundz. It was more wistful than Cut Your Hair so
drunk in the August sun and youre the kind of girl I like
because youre empty and Im empty. People said Pavements
gonna be huge. Theyre that phantom thing, the Next
Nirvana. It had been three years since Nevermind. It
seemed like a fucking eternity a time/space continuum
Cobain himself now occupied.
A lone voice dissented, a literal whine. It belonged to
Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins. Corgan still had
that innocent twinkle in his eye but was showing signs of
the hubris that would characterize his downfall. Corgan
was pissed about the Crooked Rain song Range Life, the
one that went out on tour with the Smashing Pumpkins,
nature kids, I/they dont have no function, I dont understand
what they mean and I could really give a fuck. Corgan always
wanted to be huge. He made no bones about that. But
about the only thing he had on Kurt success-wise was
that hed porked Courtney Love rst. Now Cobain was
ashes. An alt-god vacuum opened up. Corgan was will-
ing eager to assume the mantle. He was an egotist
with a psyche of jiffy-popping insecurities. He didnt like
people who didnt get where he was coming from. He
didnt like people saying they could give a fuck what he
meant. Early on thered been talk Pavement would play
Lollapalooza with Smashing Pumpkins headlining.
Billy pulled rank. He said no way, Im not playing with
Pavement. Those guys are sarcastic. Theyre not in this
for real. They dont write personal, emotional music.
WOWEE ZOWEE

33

They dont make WIDESCREEN ART like me. Billy

spilled his beef to the festival brass. He recommended
bands he thought would be better. Siamese Dream was
a multiplatinum hit. Crooked Rain sales were a blip by
comparison. Billy conated humor with carelessness and
units moved with artistic achievement. In the end he got
his way. Pavement was shitcanned from the bill.
They toured on their own for the rest of the year.
West locked in on drums. Bobs role expanded. Pavement
was road-tested and stable in a way theyd never been.
They left other forms of employment behind. Rock and
roll was now their full-time occupation.
Crooked Rain was barely eight months old. Pavement
had toured almost constantly for the last two years. Still,
they gured now was the time to record a follow-up.
The band booked time at Easley Recording in Memphis.
Doug Easley and Davis McCain, a couple laid-back cats
with deep roots in the local scene, ran the board there.
Lately theyd been working with a lot of indie bands.
Pavement traveled to Memphis and began to sort out
and record new material. They worked quickly and the
songs piled up. When they werent working they grooved
on Memphis and snarfed local grub. They recorded an
astonishing number of tracks the Easley session lasted
only ten days. A few of the songs had been attempted
for Crooked Rain but rerecorded in Memphis. The
Memphis versions were radically superior. Walleye was
a good guy and he came through with tight pieces. But
the Easley guys were total pros. Theyd been doing this
shit since the Big Star days. Some of the songs they put to
tape were already live staples. Theyd been in Pavement
BRYAN CHARLES

34

setlists for a year or more. Also oating around were the

songs theyd done with Walleye earlier that year. Those
tunes had a different feel. They were more off the cuff.
Thered been no plan for them. Now there was. Stephen
wanted them on this record too.
Pavement wrapped up at Easley. 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 eshed-out songs and whispers and rumors
of half-formed ones. They had songs that followed a
hard- to-gauge internal logic, sometimes drifting into the
ether or ying totally off the rails, sometimes achieving
an unlikely resolution. 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
nal track list ran to eighteen songs and lled three sides
of vinyl. Side four was blank. There was an empty thought
bubble on the label. The records title was a nod to Gary.
Hed say wowee zowee when something blew his mind.
Major labels were still hounding them, offering them
big dough. It was the waning days of a golden era but
righteous coin could still be had. The Jesus Lizard was
on Capitol. Royal Trux Pavements old Drag City label
mate was on Virgin. Who had made these decisions?
Who thought these weird fucking bands would recoup?
Pavement weighed their options. They decided against
signing a big contract. What was the difference anyway?
Matador still trucked with a major. The Atlantic deal was
history. They were with Warner Brothers now. Wowee
Zowee would be the rst record released under the new
WOWEE ZOWEE

35

arrangement. The Warners people were psyched. They

were ready to get the publicity machine rolling and
make the band stars. The Pavement guys were psyched.
They knew theyd made a good record and were ready
to tour. In a wild turnaround theyd been booked to play
Lollapalooza. It was by far the best lineup in the festivals
short history. The Jesus Lizard, Beck and Hole were on
the bill. Sonic Youth was the headline act. Stephen picked
Rattled by the Rush for the rst single. It had hypnotic
stuttering guitars and a staccato vocal pattern tough to
get out of your head. It had a monster post-chorus riff. It
had a catchy chant and killer guitar solo at the end. The
time was still right for this kind of number. Rattled by
the Rush was going to be big.

36

Summer 2007. I came out of the subway in Brooklyn

wearing a suit and tie. I crossed over to the shady side of
the street. I stopped at the deli and bought a six-pack of
Blue Point. When I got home I put one in the freezer and
the rest in the fridge. I changed out of my work clothes
and returned to the kitchen. I cleared off the table and
arranged my notebook and gear. At Radio Shack Id pur-
chased a small digital recorder, a cellphone earpiece and
an adaptor that facilitated the recording of conversations.
In a few minutes I was going to call Bob Nastanovich,
Pavements second drummer and utility man. Id gotten
his number from our mutual friend Sam. Bob and I had
traded e-mails and established a time. Seeing his name
in my inbox gave me a jolt.
Id spent the day at work poring over my questions,
feeling more confused than ever. The magic of Wowee
Zowee seemed lost to me now. No matter how many times
I played it the songs were just songs great songs but
still. I was starting to force shit. I was losing the thread.
WOWEE ZOWEE

37

I took the beer from the freezer and downed half for
courage. I punched in Bobs number and hesitated before
pressing send. I closed the phone and waited exactly three
minutes. I dialed the number again and listened to it ring.
The voice mail clicked on. I left a rambling message
and sat there feeling relieved. I took some deep breaths
and nished the beer. A few minutes later my girlfriend
Karla arrived. We made tacos for dinner and drank the
beer. I kept looking at my phone thinking it would ring
but it didnt. In the morning I got up and checked it rst
thing. There were no new messages and no missed calls.
I stood in the living room in my underwear. Months
passed. A year.

38

Gerard Cosloy wrote the fanzine Conict. For a

time in the 80s he ran Homestead Records. Cosloy was
college pals with J Mascis and Homestead put out the
rst Dinosaur LP. When Scott Kannberg was deciding
where to send Slay Tracks for review, Conict was high
on the list. It turned out to be a good move. Cosloy said
nice things about the record and became one of the
earliest Pavement champions.
In 1990 Cosloy teamed up with Chris Lombardi
to run Matador Records. The label was in its infancy
when the two signed Pavement and released Slanted and
Enchanted. Matador and a small handful of other labels
defined indie in the 90s. For a few years mid-decade
Pavement and Guided by Voices were Matadors agship
acts and all rock remotely classiable as indie seemed
descended from those two bands. I was scared to try to
contact the Matador honchos. They were tastemakers
whod carved out their own little piece of rock history.
In the face of this I ignored my own achievements and
WOWEE ZOWEE

39

reverted to an old view of myself as a midwestern rube.

I thought of when I rst moved to New York and would
go to this East Village record store, Kims. I tried talking
shop with the studs who worked there. They answered
in single syllables and wouldnt meet my gaze. If thats
how the record store guys treated me then what about
the guys who actually put out the records?
I did some preliminary Internet research. To my sur-
prise Gerard Cosloy had a MySpace page. I thought it
over for a minute then composed a message. I told him
about the book and said it would benet from his insight.
I came on heavy with my supposed credentials and ended
up writing way too much. Cosloy wrote back saying if I
had any specic questions re away. Otherwise, he wrote,
I prefer to keep my insight to myself. What did that
mean that he didnt want to talk to me but if I asked
questions he would? I wrote back saying how do you
want to do this. He responded with his e-mail address. I
cut and pasted some questions and sent them along. No
rush, I said, the more you can give me the better. Cosloy
wrote back twenty-three minutes later. His answers were
short and dickish. I read our exchange with a mix of
humiliation and horror.
BC: From a fans perspective, Pavements rise during
the Crooked Rain era and the ascent of indie bands
generally was somewhat disorienting. There was a
sense of being happy on one hand and quite protective
and bitter on the other. What do you remember about that
time? What strikes you about that era now looking back?
GC: I like thinking about what records sound like and
how theyre made. The ascent of indie bands generally is
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40

the least interesting thing I can possibly imagine thinking

about. So I dont. I never considered Pavement an indie
band.
BC: What were your first impressions of Wowee
Zowee? What songs leapt out at you?
GC: I was pretty happy with the entire thing. I kept
imagining how Rattled by the Rush was going to sound
on KROQ. Talk about naive!
BC: Do you consider Wowee Zowee to be a challeng-
ing record?
GC: Compared to what? I think my short answer is no.
BC: What did you make of its relatively lukewarm
reception?
GC: Everyones entitled to their own screwy opinions.
BC: At what point did you realize a shift had begun in
how the record was being perceived from sprawling,
confusing mess to diehard fan favorite?
GC: Ive not realized that actually. I mean there are
some people who loved it right from the get-go.
BC: Why do you think the record was so underrated
initially? Why do you think it resonates so strongly now?
GC: These are impossible questions to answer. I
didnt underrate the album initially. Youre better off
asking someone whose opinion changed over time rather
than someone who loved it right away.
BC: Some people have interpreted Wowee Zowee as
a kind of fuck-you record, Pavement taking a deliberate
step back from potentially greater success. Do you think
theres any truth to that?
GC: No. I mean its really juvenile to assume Pavement
had no other subject matter on their minds than their
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41

career trajectory. Just because they traded in humor

doesnt mean their albums were meant to be a running
commentary on being in a semi-popular band.
The least interesting thing he could imagine thinking
about? Everyones entitled to their own screwy opinions?
Impossible questions/juvenile assumptions? The arche-
typal indie band not actually an indie band? I stewed
and fretted, feeling like a big fucking geek. My worst
fears had been realized black waves of record store
anxiety redux. Karla and I watched a couple episodes of
Deadwood then went to bed.
In the morning I wrote Cosloy back. His reply came
in less than an hour.
BC: Your point is well taken on paper maybe the
ascent of indie bands generally isnt the most scintillating
topic. But theres no question Matador brought a new
kind of music to a much broader audience.
GC: Im sorry. I hardly think theres no question. We
were somewhat successful in helping a handful of bands
scale new commercial heights. But our interest was in
those specic bands. Weve never been advocates for a
new kind of music.
BC: I was just looking for a line or two about what it was
like seeing artists you championed whose records didnt
sound like what had previously been popular reach
greater heights than perhaps even they had imagined.
GC: Youll just have to keep hoping then.
BC: If not indie what kind of band do you consider
Pavement to be?
GC: Theyre a rock and roll band. I dont believe indie
is actually a musical genre.
BRYAN CHARLES

42

BC: Do you consider Wowee Zowee challenging

compared to Pavements previous two records?
GC: No. I think the songs are fantastic. The entire
notion of challenging strikes me as bogus. I mean if you
found yourself challenged, fair enough, but thats your
take, not mine. Any artist worth his or her salt is just
trying to write what they like the audiences anxieties
shouldnt ever enter the picture.
BC: I dont doubt that you and many others loved
Wowee Zowee immediately. But it seems clear there
was also great resistance to it at the time. Surely youve
thought about that, or you did then. Why do you think
certain listeners found it inaccessible?
GC: I dont know. I mean I have my suspicions (i.e.
they were morons), but unless I actually ask them Ill
never know for sure. And again, youre asking me to put
myself into the tiny head of someone else. If youre inter-
ested in why someone else didnt dig Wowee Zowee, it
seems you oughta be identifying those persons. Or better
yet, examining your own feelings about the album rather
than expecting me to conrm your hypothesis. And no, I
didnt surely think about it at the time. Theres a million
and one reasons why a record or a band captures the
publics imagination. Some of those reasons are entirely
nonmusical.
I stewed and fretted. I took a walk. I eked out minimal
perspective. I wrote Cosloy back.
I wrote: When you say you dont believe indie is
actually a musical genre, are you suggesting the word
should only be used to literally describe a certain type
of non-major record label? Or that words like indie or
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43

alternative or whatever have no value at all? I ask because

Matador is more closely aligned with the word indie than
probably any other label except Merge.
I wrote: Also it strikes me as somewhat disingenu-
ous to say you released records especially a highly
anticipated follow-up by one of your labels biggest bands
without giving a thought to their reception, whether
positive, negative or indifferent. So let me put it another
way: having loved Wowee Zowee from the get-go, were
you at any time confused or disappointed by its relatively
lukewarm reception?
I clicked send and waited. He didnt respond.
The interaction left me shaken. It spoke to a series of
buried doubts. Maybe Gerard Cosloy was right. Maybe
my questions were bullshit. Maybe my macro theories
were bunk. Was Wowee Zowee so underrated at rst?
Was it such a critical and commercial dud? Do people
really love it so much now? I searched the Internet for
reviews. Everything I found referenced the 2006 reissue.
Those items all followed a similar plotline and seemed
to conrm my thinking: this was a strange record, no
one got it at rst, we all sat with it for a while, we all
love it now. But where were those old bad reviews? The
only original one I found was from Rolling Stone. It
begins: What does a deantly anti-corporate rock band
do when it starts getting too much attention? It retreats.
Slanted and Enchanted is then described as something
of a masterpiece. Crooked Rain is said to have con-
firmed Pavements buzz-band status. Wowee Zowee
is introduced as a doggedly experimental album with
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44

disappointing results. Pavement is accused of not under-

standing their own songwriting impulses they werent
sure whether they were mocking something or imitating
it. Rattled by the Rush, Grounded, Kennel District and
Father to a Sister of Thought are singled out for praise.
Brinx Job, Serpentine Pad, Best Friends Arm etc. are
dismissed as half-baked, gratuitous, whiny, tossed-off,
second-rate Sonic Youth, unnished rehearsals, empty
experimentation. The last line: Maybe this album is a
radical message to the corporate-rock ogre or maybe
Pavement are simply afraid to succeed.
There it is. The old self-sabotage bit. But was Rolling
Stone really anyones barometer of quality? What about
the dude who wrote the review? Did he have some glo-
rious resume of achievement to coast on? Given ten
lifetimes could he conjure a melody to rival even the
laziest effort of Stephen Malkmus? I havent done any
digging. I cant say for sure. One lesson was clear: moth-
erfuck Rolling Stone.
I contemplated shitcanning the whole project. I had
a single original review and no sales gures. I still hadnt
talked to anyone in the band. I half thought rock writing
itself was a fucking scam. Id nally nished my novel
but it had big problems and needed a slash-and-burn
rewrite that would take many months. Id blown through
my bankroll and needed a job. A little voice said no. A
little voice said wait. I kept thinking of this thing that
happened shortly after I moved to the city. It was a small
moment but for some reason it stuck with me. I was
walking around exploring with my headphones on this
would have been October of 98. A Wowee Zowee track
WOWEE ZOWEE

45

called AT&T was playing. Theres a line in it that goes

spritzer on ice in New York City, isnt it a pity you never had
anything to mix with that? and right at that line I turned
a corner and was on Park Avenue and saw the MetLife
building in the distance. It must have been midday. There
were people rushing around. It was overcast. I paused on
the sidewalk and looked around as if aware for the rst
time of where in the universe I was. Suddenly some of
the terror of moving here fell away. I felt a surge of pure
freedom. Id been here what, maybe two or three weeks.
I had no history in New York. My life was unwritten. All
that I would do and see and be here lay ahead. The air felt
alive. It hummed and crackled with possibility. Stephen
Malkmus urged me forward one two three GO! in a
long joyous shout. A moment later I reentered the human
ow. We walked the plank in the dark.
I met Chris Lombardi at the Matador ofces on Hudson
Street. I sat waiting by the front desk and checked out
the scene. It was similar to the Virgin Records ofce Id
temped in. There were band posters everywhere and
loud music played except the posters were of bands I
liked and the music was good. Lombardi appeared. We
went into his ofce. He was in the middle of switching
spaces and everything was in disarray. He said hed been
listening to Wowee Zowee right before I showed up. He
had the reissue booklet in his hands and ipped through
it a moment.
By the time of Wowee Zowee, he said, Pavement
had money to spend and ideas to burn. And so they went
and tried some stuff. I think they stepped back from
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46

things a little bit. There was an ambivalence. They didnt

necessarily want to go for the brass ring. Theres no doubt
they were working hard. They were a hard-working
band. They were touring all the time. People who liked
them might have been frustrated. I think a lot of people
thought, this is some of the best songwriting out there.
Pavement was fresh-sounding and adventuresome. There
was always just that feeling that if Steve would have
changed that lyric around a little bit . . . He would always
throw that wrench into the song that would be something
goofy, an in-joke for him or somebody else in the band
or a slag on something that ultimately was kind of the
curveball that kept them from knocking it out of the park.
There was a sense that these guys should be the biggest
band in the world. Why are the Smashing Pumpkins the
biggest band in the world right now? This is retarded.
I think that was probably part of peoples frustration
with Pavement. They were like, these guys are so good.
Theyre obviously super smart and super talented. They
can fucking play circles and write circles around any of
these other idiot bands. Stone Temple Pilots or some
bullshit. Why cant Pavement be the most popular band
in the world?
Funny he should mention those two bands. Maybe it was
an intentional or unconscious allusion to Range Life
in which STP also takes a hit: Stone Temple Pilots, theyre
elegant bachelors, theyre foxy to me, are they foxy to you? I
will agree, they deserve absolutely nothing, nothing more than
me. I smiled when Lombardi said this. I didnt couldnt
tell him I love both bands.
WOWEE ZOWEE

47

Smashing Pumpkins are one of my all-time faves. I

got into them early and stayed with them unequivocally
through Adore. Fandom became a trickier proposition
after that. Billy Corgan starting pulling all kinds of
deranged shit. He made a mostly terrible record
MACHINA/The Machines of God then blamed
everyone but himself when it didnt sell. He announced
the Pumpkins were disbanding because they couldnt
compete with the Britneys of the world. He formed a
decent power pop group, Zwan. He ditched the black
gowns in favor of earth-tone indie garb. He broke up
Zwan and trashed all the members minus drummer
and musical soul mate Jimmy Chamberlin to anyone
who would take notes. He published a book of terrible
poems blurbed by JT LeRoy, a starfucking gment of
some addled starfuckers imagination.
Corgan started a blog. He wrote new-age posts about
forgiveness, healing and god. Other posts oozed Nixonian
paranoia and trashed old friends, bandmates, engineers
this time including Jimmy Chamberlin, whose 90s
drug fuckups he chronicled at length. He said his remarks
about the Britneys of the world had been misconstrued
and blamed the Pumpkins dissolution on James Iha a
little like suggesting Porl Thompson could break up
the Cure. He made an underrated electropop record.
He did that record no favors by taking out newspaper
ads the day it came out announcing his intention to
re-form Smashing Pumpkins. The new band Corgan,
Chamberlin, three charisma-free hired hands hit the
scene two years later. For some reason Corgan dressed
everyone in owing white robes with spacesuit collars.
BRYAN CHARLES

48

A new record came out, the mediocre- to-bad Zeitgeist.

It failed to zoom Corgan back to his mid-90s peak. He
launched an epic bitchfest, contradicting himself and/
or insulting fans at every turn. He said even though
Smashing Pumpkins had gotten back together and made
a new record what you were seeing was not a reunion.
He said they werent going to be like other bands that
re-form and just play the old hits. Those bands lacked
integrity, they were slaves to their audiences demands.
Corgan insisted he wasnt anyones puppet. He could
not be constrained or told what to do. He wondered
why people didnt love the Zeitgeist tune Bleeding the
Orchid. Thats a great song, he said, it could have been
on Siamese Dream. He wondered why people just stood
there blinking when he played formless acoustic tunes
written hours earlier at his hotel. He said he wasnt going
to release albums anymore no one listens to them so
why bother. What hed do instead was release two or
three songs at a time digitally over a period of years.
He broke down the cultural moment in the manner of
a sophomore on a hit of reefer these days everyones
being spoonfed, everythings rigged to give people exactly
what they want, fuck that.
I caught the new Pumpkins on their twentieth-
anniversary tour. Id never seen Corgan live. A nostalgic/
curious muscle exed. I dropped $132 for two nights at
the United Palace Theater. Bad move. The stage was
cluttered with session players horns, strings, keyboards
etc. Corgan wore a form-tting dress. Long stretches of
both sets were given over to tuneless metal rifng and
ponderous noise-blip jams. A Pink Floyd cover stretched
WOWEE ZOWEE

49

to thirty minutes. A Simon and Garfunkel cover was

unrecognizable sludge. None of the hired hands moved,
smiled or spoke. Corgan veered between hostile silence
and expressions of gratitude and love. At the end of the
rst night he rapped a line of passive-aggressive bile while
the band stood behind him playing kazoos. He responded
to negative comments from the crowd that at least that
night didnt appear to have been made. He mocked
those who wanted to hear their favorite songs and said
hed see us in hell. The next night he let a moron vent
spleen on stage then ran a middle-school-level sodomy
riff when the guy sat down. The whole experience was
a depressing mess. Any goodwill I still had for the man
expired with a pop.
I mulled over those concerts for days afterward. One
thought recurred: Billy Corgan as the anti-Stephen
Malkmus. Maybe I had them on the brain together
because of Range Life. In my head there were parallels
that transcended their association via that song. Both are
favorites of mine going back to my late teens. Both led
revered and inuential bands. Both are guitar virtuosos
with signature styles. Both started solo careers at around
the same time. But Corgan has spent the years since then
adrift. Malkmus has yet to make a bad/false/wrong move.
Corgan seems constantly ill at ease. Malkmus seems to
exist in a state of permanent sangfroid. Corgan is stuck
in a weird cycle of announcing/repudiating increasingly
baroque schemes to challenge his audience and bring his
music to new markets. Malkmus releases great records
every other year with no fanfare twenty-one years
in hes never made a bad or even a weak one. Malkmus
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50

doesnt make sweeping statements about where rock is

headed or talk about all the mind-blowing shit hes gonna
do he just fucking does it. If some portion of his audi-
ence didnt follow him where he wanted to go I doubt
hed blame a pleasure-centric culture bent on instant
gratication or give interviews declaring a lack of faith
in his audience. No hed tour for the record and make
another one, tour for that record, make another one etc.

51

Summer 2008. Karla and I were traveling to France.

We arrived at JFK around four p.m. and breezed through
security with an hour to kill before our ight. We stopped
at a restaurant called Soho Bistro. Karla ordered a burger.
I ordered a wine. I popped a Xanax. Id copped the tablets
from a friend. I used to have my own prescription but my
health insurance ran out and I cant board a plane sober.
Every time I get on an airplane I think Im going to die.
Our seats were in the last row of the middle section
and didnt recline. I squeezed in and sat there trying
to hold it together. A guy across the row from me was
ling his nails. The noise scorched my nerves. I leveled
a hate stare. The guy didnt notice. I wanted to slap the
nail le away, shake him, scream. He led only the left
thumbnail. He would le for a few seconds then run his
left index finger along the thumbnail, discover some
imperfection, begin ling again. Look at that fucking
guy, I said to Karla, what the fuck is he doing, who les
their nails on an airplane, what the fuck is that about? My
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52

heart was jackhammering. I dripped cold sweat. Karla

smiled. She touched my arm. She told me it was okay.
The man put his nail le away. We pulled back from
the gate. The plane taxied and took off. The person in
front of me reclined. Their seat pressed into my knees.
Everything closed in on me. I imagined an explosion,
steel shredding me, my body in flames. How could I
get through six more hours of this shit? I discussed the
matter with Karla. I hailed a ight attendant and asked
if there was any way I could move. Youre in luck, she
said, theres an exit row seat just a few rows back. She
asked if I was willing and able to assist in the event of an
emergency. I said yes.
I stretched out in my new seat and popped another tab-
let. They came around with the beverage cart. I ordered
a wine free on international ights. I ordered another
with dinner. I popped a tablet. It grew dark at the window.
They cut the overhead lights. The movie came on. Evan
Almighty. I put in my earbuds and scrolled through my
iPod. Nothing leapt out at me. The curse of the mp3 era
thousands of hours of music at your ngertips and you
never want to hear any of it, nothing ever leaps out you.
The blue bar rolled over Wowee Zowee. I hesitated, rolled
it back, pressed play. I sank down in my seat and closed
my eyes. The rst note of the rst song is a lonesome
plucked E string. Sad tinkling piano. Faint exhalation
of disgust or defeat. It jumps to A. Malkmus sings there
is no . . . castration fear Something clicked into place
then. The thick mists cleared. I thought, holy shit, this
is fucking it! I heard Wowee Zowee as Id rst heard it
a thousand years ago, before I moved to the city, before
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53

all my shit jobs, before a plane blew up my ofce, before

these endless fucking wars. The record held me. The
magic was there. All current music suddenly withered
in comparison. Who takes chances like this these days?
Who has this kind of fun?
When it was over I went to see Karla. We watched
the end of Evan Almighty with no sound. I returned
to my seat and popped a tablet. I phased in and out of
consciousness. Now and then I looked around at the
sleeping people. I wanted to keep everyone safe, even
the nail le guy. Please let us land, I thought, please just
let me get down from here. I didnt know who or what I
was addressing. A bright orange line formed on the black
horizon. I glanced at my watch. Time was compressed
up here. Time was fucked up. It was only midnight. It
was already dawn.

54

Bob Nastanovich joined Pavement in a desperation

move and became a band linchpin and secret weapon.
He joined initially to prop up Gary Young. Gary was so
out of it at times he wouldnt know what song they were
playing. As Pavement began touring more Stephens
voice would go from nightly abuse. Bob took on the
more abrasive vocal parts live. He yelled IM TRYIN! on
Conduit for Sale. He yelled DEBRIS SLIDE! on Debris
Slide. He yelled WALK! WITH YOUR CREDIT
CARD IN THE AIR! on Unfair. He played all kinds
of percussion maracas, hi-hat, tambourine, cowbell.
Around the time of Wowee Zowee he bought a Moog.
He didnt know how to play keyboard per se but he knew
how to make interesting noises on a synthesizer. He had
free rein to do whatever he wanted. Stephen wouldnt
even pay attention. Sometimes two months into a tour
hed say to Bob, I dont know what youre doing over
there but it must be pretty good because people say
youre doing a good job.
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55

Bob was a key member of Pavement from early on

but Wowee Zowee is the rst full-length he was in the
studio for. Prior to that his studio input was minimal.
He was there for the Watery, Domestic sessions the
last to feature Gary on drums. That was Bobs rst time
in California. He wrote a travelogue chronicling his
rst forty-eight hours in the state. Stephen dug it. Bob
recorded it as a spoken word bit. They stuck it at the end
of Sue Me Jack, one of a string of extraordinary early
b-sides. Wowee Zowee was different. Theyd played many
of the songs live on various Crooked Rain tours. Bob had
parts to play and therefore tracks to lay down. On Wowee
Zowee he sings or plays on almost every song. Thats him
screaming in the background on Serpentine Pad, a track
that comes close to approximating the Bob phenomenon
live. Bobs energy was crucial to the Pavement concert
experience. He always looked like he was having a blast.
That sounds like a small thing but after years on the road
playing all the same songs most people start to go through
the motions at least a little bit. Bob never did.
The whole thing was incredibly exciting for me, he
told me. Id started to go see bands when I was twelve
years old and twelve years later to be in the kind of band
I would have loved was very exciting for me.
I asked him to take me through the Crooked Rain
period.
I think the interesting thing about Crooked
Rain that seems to have made a lot of Pavement fans
uncomfortable was that it wasnt their precious little
band anymore. This band that theyd followed for a
few years some of them even before Slanted and
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56

Enchanted had always been the fans band. Its not

like it was a secret or anything like that because there
was always people there. But it was the denition of a cult
following. And just all at once really sort of based on
not only what we were doing but also most signicantly
the effect of Nirvana on the music industry all of a
sudden all these people, mostly young people, were turn-
ing their attention to underground acts. What was being
put in their face at the time was bands like Pavement.
All of a sudden we were playing two or three times as
many shows during Crooked Rain and there were a lot
more people coming out and there was more sustained
interest. Wed get a lot of crowds where half the people
knew the band really well and really liked the band and
the other half would just be trying to gure out if they
liked that kind of music. So it was pretty interesting from
that standpoint because people were trying out Pavement
to see if they liked it. Things sort of happened fast at
that time but they didnt feel like they were happening
too fast. During the rise and leveling off of Pavement
our fame never reached a level where it made any of us
uncomfortable. Wed worked very hard and done just
about everything on our own, up to a certain point. We
were actually able to hire people to help us and still
feel like it was nancially prudent. Pavement, more than
a lot of other bands from the same era, were very shrewd.
We wanted to work hard and we wanted to make money.
We never canceled a show. And a lot of that was getting
to places under very adverse circumstances.
Did you ever get burned out touring?
Oh yeah. Terrible. I drank a lot. The food
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57

sometimes was good and sometimes was crap. You get

sick and then you still have to go on. I mean you cant
just say Im sick. Im not complaining. Im not saying the
whole thing wasnt incredibly fun and we didnt have a
blast. It was a classic case of too much fun. It got to the
point toward the end of the year, a lot of those years,
where I would hide in the bus or the van, just to put
myself in the isolation tank because I didnt want to talk
to people. And then when I did have to talk to people I
wanted to make sure that I was going to present myself as
a nice person. Its just part of caring. Caring about those
people that came and saw the band. They were incredibly
important to us.
Thats one of the paradoxes of the band. There was
this lazy tag that followed Pavement around, that you
guys were slackers and you didnt care.
Malkmus was the focal point of the band, deserv-
edly so. He wrote most of the songs. And thats sort of
the way he carries himself, more than anybody else. Plus
from a fashion standpoint we pretty much dressed the
same way in Pavement as we all did when we were fteen
years old. That was part of the whole movement, the start
of indie rock: rock is not about dressing up, its about
wearing whatever youre comfortable in. We all wanted
to look good but we all wanted to present ourselves
exactly as we were. Stephens body language and the
way hes pretty nonchalant about his clothing a lot of
the things he wore on stage in Pavement he borrowed
from me. He would have lost his clothes. I think that
whole slacker, lazy tag really comes from him and how
he presents himself and this whole sort of I dont really
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58

care, it doesnt really matter thing. If I had a dollar for

every single time he said, it doesnt matter, I wouldnt
have to work.
Bob laughed. So thats where that whole thing comes
from. Its not like Stephen did not work. Hes obsessively
working on his songs. But its the way he carried himself
and still carries himself to this day.
Its funny you say that about clothes. Thats one of
the things I miss about that era. With a lot of indie bands
now its more of a dress-up thing, with tight western
shirts and things like that.
That kind of thing is coming back, actual rock and
roll fashion. But basically from the mid-80s through the
90s, all the Sub Pop bands, the whole grunge thing, it was
T-shirts and corduroys or T-shirts and jeans or maybe a
golf shirt. Whatever you wore whatever youd wear
anyways on your days off thats what people wore. The
Strokes were pretty high fashion. Even Franz Ferdinand
and bands like that. Theres a lot of beards now in indie
rock. A lot of the cool bands are these guys with beards. I
dont know what it is. West always had a huge beard. But
hes an insane Civil War buff so thats where that comes
from. And Berman, David Berman often has a beard. I
think they think it makes them look like historic gures
or something. Which I guess both of them are in their
own way.
In their Jersey City/Hoboken days Berman, Malkmus
and Nastanovich formed a living-room group called
the Silver Jews. The Jews evolved from making primi-
tive home recordings to become a full-edged studio
band. Membership was fluid. David Berman was the
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59

only constant. For a while in the 90s three-fifths of

Pavement Malkmus, Bob and Steve West was in
the band. The Jews recorded their Starlite Walker LP at
Easley Recording in Memphis. In 94 they returned to do
another full-length. Berman aked and quit the scene.
Malkmus, Nastanovich and West used the time to record
Pavement songs instead. The result was the Pacic Trim
EP. Everyone dug the Easley vibe. It made sense to go
back there to do Wowee Zowee.
We were very comfortable at Easley, said Bob.
Everybody knew what to expect. Memphis was really
cool because were all barbecue enthusiasts. I think dur-
ing the entire process at most times I had sauce crusted
on my face. I gained like twenty pounds. All we did was
eat barbecue and drink beer. We went out a lot. It was
fun. It was very easy to make Wowee Zowee because I
think most of us knew what we were doing. The problem
was, we kept recording all these songs. We got two-thirds
of the way through the process and we were trying to
figure out, should we make this album conventional
length or should we leave it all on there? Should we save
some songs for an EP or what? In the end we decided
everything we had was album-worthy so it all came out at
once. We didnt really put any thought into the fact that
it was complicated, not as easy to swallow as Crooked
Rain. That was Pavement. We had all those songs, we
were happy with all those songs and happy with the way
they were recorded. We thought they were all good and
wanted to put them all out.
At that time there was a lot of talk about Pavement
elding big-money offers from major labels. Was that
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60

something the band took seriously? Was there ever a

moment where you were truly wondering what do to
next?
First of all, there were never any feelings like, no we
dont want to be successful. We wanted to be as successful
as possible within the connes of our collective taste.
We werent going to do anything really, really lame or
embarrassing to be successful. That was a misconception
about Pavement. I think people always sort of thought,
oh they made an album like Wowee Zowee intentionally
to stay on the ground or to push back certain elements of
the music industry. But in truth, nobody contacted us at
all during that period with any ridiculous offers.
Really? There were never any concrete offers from
the major labels?
I think maybe after Slanted there were, before
Crooked Rain. But I dont even know because I would
not have been privy to that. Youd have to ask Scott. Or
even Gary. Gary was drunk so he would get approached.
Theres some story hell tell you about how before he
played a show in Hoboken one time he was at Columbia
Records or something and they got him all drunk and
they offered him a million dollars. He showed up late
for the show. At this point I dont really know if thats
true. But I guess they shipped him over in a limo so he
actually was in there. Who knows. It could have been
part delirium tremens or something. It might have been
entirely unreal. No, we were very happy with the situa-
tion at Matador. We knew all the people there and theyd
sort of started at the same time we did. We had an unusu-
ally good deal with them and we were making plenty
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61

off the records and on tour. Again, we wanted to be

successful. But we also felt like we were. So there wasnt
this dissatisfaction. One great thing about Pavement,
from day one, there was always people at the shows, there
was always a huge amount of interest in the band. Around
the band there was always this feeling not that we
couldnt do anything wrong, because we made mistakes
all the time. A lot of them had to do with the fact that we
disdained practicing. There was always a feeling not
like a condent swagger but there was always a feeling
that we were important.
I would have thought there would have been all
kinds of offers. Plenty of lesser bands were getting huge
deals then.
In all honesty you would have found out before I
would have. Thats Kannbergs territory. It would have
been him and Malkmus. Denitely Kannberg. He would
have been more interested in that aspect of the situation,
so he could actually dene what was going on. From my
standpoint it was like, okay what are we doing in the next
six months.

62

Scott Kannberg aka Spiral Stairs, aka Spiral.

Kannberg co-founded Pavement and wrote at least one
of the bands best songs, Wowee Zowees Kennel District.
He wrote a few others almost as good that wound up as
b-sides or compilation tracks. Outtake status can be an
unpromising sign but Pavements non-album tracks are
better than most bands best shit. Theres a Wowee-era
Kannberg tune called Painted Soldiers that easily could
have been on that record or even, with cleaner produc-
tion, on Brighten the Corners it might have t better
than his tune Passat Dream. Instead it landed on the Brain
Candy soundtrack. Kannberg favors woo-hoo/ bop-bop
vocal patterns and Painted Soldiers has a catchy woo-ooh
hook. It also features one of the best Pavement videos:
Spiral res everyone in the band and remakes Pavement
with himself as the leader and members of Veruca Salt
following his direction. The characterizations are price-
less. Mark Ibold plays a greasy bully/pimp, Steve West
plays a creepy suburban swinger/pedophile, Malkmus
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plays a fast-driving hotshot cruising in a red sports car

with a babe at his side. Only Bob hews more or less close
to the truth, playing a dapper horse racing acionado
who gets canned at the track. I didnt see the Painted
Soldiers video till the Slow Century DVD came out
in late 2002. The notion of Kannberg ring Malkmus
struck me as darkly humorous in light of the bands actual
songwriting dynamic and then-recent breakup.
Post-Pavement, Kannberg released two albums under
the name Preston School of Industry and one as Spiral
Stairs. His solo work generally is underrated. The rst
Preston School record in particular got a raw deal. Bad
timing maybe it came out six months after Malkmuss
solo debut and two weeks before 9/11. But some of
Kannbergs best songs Whalebones, Falling Away,
Encyclopedic Knowledge of are on that. Five years
passed between the next Preston LP and The Real Feel
the rst album credited to Spiral Stairs. The Real Feel
is Kannbergs most personal, cohesive record. It has some
heavy divorce tunes and an autumnal gestalt. His solo
singing is fuller and stronger across the board.
Kannbergs Pavement album tracks range in quality
from the sublime Kennel District, Date with IKEA
to the arguably swappable Hit the Plane Down,
Passat Dream. Its hard to be objective about this since I
essentially like all Pavement album tracks at this point and
cant imagine the records with different running orders.
But there was a time when I left Western Homes off every
tape I made of Wowee Zowee. Its an easy edit, the last
song on the record. For a good ve or six years I thought it
should have been cut. I wasnt alone Kannberg himself
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told me he wanted to give it the ax. But not because he

didnt like it. He favored a shorter running order for the
record. He also wanted to cut Brinx Job, Serpentine Pad,
Extradition, Best Friends Arm and Flux = Rad. Those
songs sounded like b-sides to him. Most of them were
done in New York with only Malkmus, Ibold and West.
They didnt t with the vibe of the other tunes.
Steve and me, we really bickered on that. He wanted
certain songs on there that I just didnt want. I wanted it
to be more the songs we played as a band at Easleys. Steve
wanted to bring it back to the way he thought Pavement
should be a little more loose. I was thinking, this is our
Reckoning or this is our Lifes Rich Pageant. I thought
of it in terms of other bands or classic rock records. And
it was kinda funny because our next record, Brighten the
Corners, ended up being more of a classic, traditional
kind of record.
Cutting Western Homes seems like a modest
move, I said. You dont usually hear about people in
bands wanting to cut their own contributions.
No. But I think now it ts well in the context of
the record. Because it is very different from some of the
other songs. Its a pretty good last song.
Thats actually how I came to appreciate it. Western
Homes really grew on me. I didnt like it for the longest
time.
Yeah. That one is kinda like, whoa whats this?
So what are your songs on Wowee Zowee about?
Kennel District and Western Homes sound like pretty
specic titles.
Kennel District I wrote when we were doing
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65

Crooked Rain. We recorded it then and it just didnt

sound good. Kennel District is basically just the title.
The song has a completely different theme. You know
how when youre walking around New York it has all
the different districts, the diamond district, the fashion
district. I envisioned having a kennel district, where they
kept all the dogs in New York.
He laughed. I used to do that a lot. I used to have
titles different from what the song had anything to do
with. Date with IKEA is like that as well the title has
nothing to do with the song. Western Homes, on the
other hand, does. Its based on suburbia and where I grew
up and how everything was changing into very crappy
brand-new suburbs. Western homes, locked forever
I cant even remember the lyrics. But look at it now.
The area outside of Stockton I was talking about is the
foreclosure capital of America, the ghetto of the future.
Friends of mine from California dont say many
good things about Stockton.
Well theres cool little areas of it, the older areas.
In the 70s and 80s there was a lot of money there but
it was all in agriculture and they always fought against
professional jobs going there. So everything moved to
Sacramento, everything went to the Bay Area. Stockton
kinda got left behind. Then in the late 90s all these
suburbs for the Bay Area, for Silicon Valley, started
sprouting up around Stockton. There was just no stop-
ping it. Western Homes is based on an old Roxy Music
song In Every Dream Home a Heartache, on either
their rst or second record. Its based on that. I really
like the sound of it, I like the way it turned out. Its still
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66

one of my favorite songs that Ive ever done. Its pretty

weird. I dont think any of my other songs sounded that
weird.
What about Kennel District? That sounds to me
with that one refrain why didnt I ask? like a love
song.
Yeah it kind of is. I think when I wrote it I was bro-
ken up with my girlfriend, soon to be wife. It was a love
song for her. I think I broke up with her because I was
in the band and I was just never around and I think she
needed me to be there more than I was. A lot of the lyrics
had to do with her, especially that line. I cant believe
shes married to rope that line juxtaposes my girlfriend
against this woman whod been married to a guy I met
in New York. The woman told me the guy always beat
her. So married to rope is being tied down. Those couple
lines in there are juxtaposed against the lines about my
girlfriend. I think she wanted more of a relationship with
me and I didnt want it. At the same time Im meeting this
woman who loves this guy whos beating her, and whos
married to her. So its like this weird . . .
He paused. He laughed. I dont know what I was
thinking, dude. Its nonsense almost. It wasnt that well
thought out.
Whats that odd high-pitched noise on the melody?
It sounds like some kind of guitar effect but I cant nail
it down.
Thats a weird keyboard. Fuck, what was it? Id
never seen it before. It was a weird kind of phase-shifting
Moog. But it wasnt a Moog, it was something else. I
wish I still had that. I found it at a garage sale. One of
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67

our guitar techs was really into weird electronic music

before anybody ever was and he snapped it up from me.
Its on Western Homes as well the fuzzy noise sound
on that. When wed play Kennel District live Malkmus
would recreate that part on his guitar, that melody.
Yeah but it never sounded the same.
No. I think Matador wanted to try to do Kennel
District as a single but they wanted to rerecord it. I kind
of wanted to because its pretty noisy.
Its noisy but I can see that impulse, someone
looking at Wowee Zowee and thinking, okay whats the
single?
Yeah whatd we put out? Rattled by the Rush. Oh
god.
Kannberg laughed. Rattled was good. Its just . . .
funny. It was a pretty weird song for that time period to
put out as a single.
I backtracked to Crooked Rain. Kannberg said they
never expected to get that big. It was a combination of
touring hard on their own and going out with Sonic
Youth that was a lucky break. In their minds the sec-
ond record was a continuation of what theyd already
been doing. The only difference was Gary Young wasnt
around. With Steve West on drums the band felt more
stable, for Malkmus especially.
But it was such a short little period, he said. Cut
Your Hair came out and got played on a few modern rock
stations and then all of sudden it disappears and then its
Bush. And then the real major-label bands took over. So
that was basically it for us. They tried with some other
songs, Range Life or whatever, but we couldnt compete
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68

against Weezer and Bush and all those what I like to call
manager-driven bands.
I was nineteen or twenty then and I was naive. I
assumed any band that was on MTV had made it, they
were rolling in dough.
You know what we were doing? Right when that
song came out we were doing a Canadian tour, basically
driving nine hours every day and Bob would, instead of
putting the money in the bank Bob would put all the
money in the trunk. Wed make a couple thousand dollars
a show if that. That was a big show. There were little
perks that came with being on MTV. We got to play on
120 Minutes and famous people came to our shows for a
little bit and we got to be on Jay Leno.
That must have been a little weird, being on Jay
Leno.
Oh it was surreal. But it just seemed kind of funny
to us. Like this is what the Replacements would have
done. I always thought of things in terms of them. It was
like, right now were like the Replacements when they
were on Saturday Night Live. Lets act like them.
I asked if any major labels were after Pavement.
Kannberg said no, that was all hype. The band kind of
played that stuff up in the press. Matador kept major-label
people away from them. But there was a meeting in LA
once. They ew there to pitch Wowee Zowee to Warner
Brothers. Weird shit happened. Kannberg asked if Id
heard about it.
Vaguely. What was that like?
Danny Goldberg had just become president of
Warners and we were going to do Lollapalooza and
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69

everything so we wanted to have this meeting with him.

Gerard and Chris were there and Steve and I were there.
We had this meeting with Danny Goldberg and some
other vice president or something. Gerards giving this
speech about Pavement, asking what Warners was going
to do for us and how they were going to promote us, and
the whole time Danny Goldberg is on the phone talking
to somebody. And its kind of uneasy because its like
hes not listening. Finally Gerard gets mad and says hey
dude, obviously you dont want us here, what the fuck?
Danny Goldberg says ah this records shit, or something
like that. He looked at the other Warners people and
said what do you guys wanna do? I dont think we can
do anything with this record. It was like, great. Thanks.
Oh man, Gerard was so mad. I think the minute that
happened he was on the phone with his lawyer. The
weird thing about Warners, there were some really cool
people that worked there and loved our record and tried
really hard. At that time I started becoming more active
in making sure that I would contact these people and talk
to them about what we were doing. And they were really
nice and they tried hard but when the president of the
label says Whatever, its a bad sign.
He laughed. I dont blame him really. If I would
have heard Wowee Zowee after Crooked Rain I would
have been the same way.
Some people think it was a deliberate fuck-you.
Not at all, man. Not at all. Thats the weird thing
about it. I think the reason why is it starts with We
Dance. Steve denitely wanted We Dance rst. Thats a
pretty dark song coming after Cut Your Hair.
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70

Its interesting that some people think that about

Pavement. They didnt want to be big, they thought they
were too big.
Yeah well. You can promote that myth if you want.

71

Danny Goldberg came up in times of rock purity

and excess. He was vice president of Led Zeppelins Swan
Song Records in the 70s. In the 80s he started a manage-
ment company, Gold Mountain. He kept a toe in the
underground. Sonic Youth and Nirvana became clients.
Goldberg was tight with Kurt Cobain. He was present at
an ill-fated intervention late in Cobains life. It was weird
calling Goldberg for this reason. I was a huge Nirvana
fan. Nevermind hit when I was seventeen and I went deep
with it. I believed Kurts drug-use denials. I believed the
ofcial statement issued by Gold Mountain that
said Kurt slipped into a coma accidentally after pop-
ping a few chilling tablets with a splash of champagne.
Goldbergs assistant put me on hold. A moment later he
came on the line.
Yeah, he said. Go.
All right. Well. When did you first hear of
Pavement?
I know I had heard of them before Wowee Zowee.
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72

I had heard Slanted and Enchanted when it came out. I

dont remember when. I mean I wasnt the rst person to
hear it. But there was enough critical acclaim for Slanted
and Enchanted that it came to my attention at some point
and Id heard it. So by the time I spoke to Matador when
Crooked Rain was going to come out I was familiar with
Slanted and Enchanted.
And how did the deal with Matador come about?
I went to Atlantic Records from being a man-
ager. My job there was to bring in new music and to try
to modernize Atlantics roster in the rock area. They
had some big rock records. You know, Phil Collins and
the great legacy with Led Zeppelin. Some very smart
people there but with the burgeoning of indie rock they
had underperformed a little bit. They had some acts,
they had the Lemonheads, they had a few other things.
But it wasnt happening. And I asked Kim Gordon and
Thurston Moore what to do. I asked the artists I had
worked with. Nirvana and Sonic Youth knew much more
about music than I did. Especially Sonic Youth. They
were so integral to exposing people as opening acts and
just knowledgeable about all the indie labels. And they
told me Matador was the best indie label and if there was
any way I could be involved with them I would be lucky.
You know, I did my homework. At that time Superchunk
and Pavement were the two kind of marquee acts that
Matador had. Gerard had his history as a critic and
tastemaker and all that. I called Gerard it was either
Gerard or Chris Lombardi. I think I called Gerard and
said are you interested in working with a major label? Do
you need money? Do you need distribution? I guess they
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73

did. So we gave them a deal where if things didnt happen

they could get the company back. They had complete
control over who they signed and who they hired and
how they operated. But there was some marketing help,
distribution and some nance from Atlantic in return
for half ownership and the distribution fees. With some
months of discussion with them to reassure them that
they could do things the way they wanted to do them.
But it obviously worked out from their point of view
enough to sign the deal. I was very proud of it. So that
was the context in the Atlantic period. I then moved over
to Warner Brothers. There was a corporate shakeup at
Warner Music and I became the chairman of Warner
Brothers. Gerard said, we were at Atlantic because of you
and its weird without you and could we put out the next
Pavement record through Warners instead of Atlantic?
And Val Azzoli the chairman of Atlantic didnt care.
He said ne, you can have it.
Was there any expectation that the follow-up to
Crooked Rain would be an even bigger record and that
Pavement would become a bigger band?
Those expectations were dampened by Gerard
and by Stephen Malkmus. Especially Stephen was really
into downplaying any kind of expectations and not really
wanting to be involved with some of the things that an
artist would do. Certainly at Warner Brothers we had
a lot of other artists. It wasnt the dynamic to pressure
them into doing anything they didnt want to do. But
Stephen was very clearly not going to play any of the
games or do any of the things that might increase the
odds of it happening. He was the one member of the
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74

band I spoke to. I didnt get to know the other guys at all.
And Stephen just wasnt into it. He wanted to do what
he wanted to do and keep the quality of life he had. He
loved the intensity of the fans he had but didnt want to
disrupt his inner rhythms and lifestyle. I really respected
that. But you know, obviously when an artist isnt pushing
what can a label do?
I told him Id heard about a meeting with Matador
and two of the Pavement guys. Gerard was pushing
Wowee Zowee. You were checked out. You were on the
phone or something, not listening. You said the record
was shit and nothing could be done with it.
Thats absolutely not true, said Goldberg. I
would never have said anything like that. First of all
I wouldnt have said that to Pavement and I certainly
would never have said that about anything on Matador.
I mean I had the highest respect for Chris and Gerard
and I still do. And I really walked on eggs to try to be
respectful of them. I thought they were special people
who did things their own way. When I was at Warner
Brothers I was thrust into a maelstrom of music business
political chaos. All the senior executives were trying to
gure out whether they wanted to leave the company or
stay at the company. All these superstars whether it
was Madonna, Prince, Neil Young, Eric Clapton, Paul
Simon were wanting to meet with me. Some of them
making demands, some of them complaining. There was
tremendous anxiety at the company about how it was
going to function. All of this was covered extensively in
the media. In that context this Pavement release was a
really minor thing. I loved Chris and Gerard. I wanted to
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75

be faithful to that relationship and I did the best I could

to do that. Its very possible there were meetings that I
was not at where somebody said that. I had ve hundred
people reporting to me. I was kind of the magnet that
brought it there but, you know, I wasnt at every meeting.
I asked about Range Life. Stone Temple Pilots were
an Atlantic band. They were pulling in millions. Crooked
Rain had Atlantic distribution and marketing muscle
behind it. Stephen Malkmus was talking shit about
an Atlantic band on what was essentially an Atlantic
co-release. Goldberg shrugged it off.
I thought it was funny. At a major label you have so
many different artists with different points of view. And
at that time rock and roll was so fragmented in terms of
different notions of what was cool and what was real. It
didnt cause any great drama internally. I dont remember
Stone Temple Pilots complaining about it and if they had
it would have been too bad. Nobody told Stone Temple
Pilots what lyrics to write and no one was going to tell
Pavement what lyrics to write. I think it was just like
water off a ducks back.
Our talk wound down. Goldberg brought it back to
his alleged outburst.
I just completely deny that I ever would have said
anything negative about Pavement. I put them on a
pedestal. I knew how important they were to people
I respected. I myself like their music. I can absolutely
believe that there were other people at both Atlantic and
Warners who were not excited about Pavement because
they didnt make radio hits and therefore they saw a ceil-
ing to their sales. A lot of executives were programmed
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76

and directed to focus on hits. I can believe that there were

other people there that wouldve said, great what am I
supposed to do with this? But I would never have said
that. Its very possible that I might have seemed and been
preoccupied. Its totally impossible I would have felt or
said anything dismissive or negative about them. Because
I really, really respected and liked them.
I believed Goldberg. He seemed sincere. Plus how
could he dig Sonic Youth and Nirvana and be that down
on Pavement? I mulled over our conversation. Some
things leapt out at me. The chairman of Atlantic gives
Matador to Goldberg post-Crooked Rain the time
when the majors were said to be red hot for Pavement.
Goldberg expresses affection for Cosloy, Lombardi et al.
but admits Wowee Zowees release in context was a
blip. Scott Kannberg conrms the major-label stuff was
hype. Stone Temple Pilots who took endless shit from
critics and indie people throughout the 90s and beyond,
who could have called Danny Goldberg and said who
the fuck is Pavement and whats this about? STP rolls
with the Range Life jibe. Billy Corgan widely admired
at the time throws a t. Ergo: Pavement werent the
coveted property their legend suggests. Scott Weiland et
al. are probably okay guys. Billy Corgan is a world-class
creep.

77

Five or six years ago I was at Great Jones Cafe, one

of my favorite restaurants in New York. My friends and
I had just been seated. I glanced across the small room.
Mark Ibold was behind the bar pouring drinks. I knew
he worked at Great Jones but hadnt seen him there
before. I regressed a little, became a gaping fan. The
bass player of my favorite band was standing just a few
feet away. I nudged my friend Jim. He stared too. Our
dinner companions were square. They didnt know who
Pavement was or get the big deal. Half a beer later I
relaxed and quit staring so much. But seeing Mark Ibold
still blew my mind.
Ibold was a quieter presence in Pavement. He doesnt
show up in a ton of interviews. He never said much
onstage. But watching him could be as fun as watching
Bob. Ibold has this great smile. He grins a lot playing live.
He seems to be at once off in his own orbit and totally
present. I was at a Pavement show once where late in
the set Malkmus had to stop and reacquaint Ibold with
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78

an older number Grave Architecture maybe? When

Ibold had it down he turned to the crowd and smiled
bashfully. He hopped a few steps. It was totally charming.
When Malkmuss rst solo record came out there was
an article in Time Out New York. David Berman was
quoted. He said Malkmus solo was a happier person. He
said the singing on Pavement records was informed by
Malkmuss disgust at his bandmates incompetence. He
said disgust was the source of tension and sass that made
Malkmus sound so entertainingly rude. He said the rude-
ness was gone now and whimsy was whats left. Ive never
met David Berman but these quotes make him sound like
a major asshole especially since two of these so-called
incompetents were old friends of his whod played on
Silver Jews records. But never mind that I remember
reading Bermans comments thinking thats a shitty thing
to say about Mark Ibold. Theres some great bass lines
on Brighten the Corners Transport Is Arranged, Type
Slowly, Blue Hawaiian. And after Malkmus, Ibold pulled
off the sweetest second act. In 2006 he began playing
with Sonic Youth. He joined initially as their touring
bassist and later became a studio member of the band,
making his recording debut on their album The Eternal.
When I spoke to Ibold he was unfailingly modest. He
told me Sonic Youth is still basically doing their own
thing and that his input is on the same level as their
sound man or lighting person. I mentioned the Brighten
the Corners bass lines I like. He said he never thought
of Pavement songs in terms of his bass playing. He said
he tends to think of songs all songs not in terms of
their component parts but how they sound as a whole.
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I asked about going to Memphis for Wowee Zowee.

Ibold said he was fuzzy on the details. His memory was
jumbled and he couldnt put it all together at this point.
Doug Easley and Davis McCain the engineers
were great guys. Memphis was a blast. The barbecue
was fantastic. I said barbecue seemed to be a running
theme. He said it was no joke. Two places in particular
Cozy Corner and Paynes fueled the band there.
Cozy Corner had these great ribs. Paynes made great
barbecue sandwiches. Their buddy Sherman Willmott
turned them on to the good spots.
Ibold said maybe there was a bit more pressure
after Crooked Rain. Theyd all thought Slanted and
Enchanted was huge and then Crooked Rain made
them even bigger. The other guys felt pressure but of
course Stephen was the main songwriter and maybe he
didnt feel it. Maybe in his mind he was just going along
doing his thing.
Stephen was the secret weapon of Pavement. And
its not even a secret. He always had so many songs that
sounded so good to all of us. I actually joined the band
as a fan of the band. I felt like I was a fan of the band as I
was in the band. What happened most of the time before
these records came out was that Steve would in some way
give us an idea, whether it was at soundchecks or in prac-
tices. Mostly I remember getting cassettes of stuff that
hed ddled around with at home. Sometimes he would
just do stuff on a keyboard or a synthesizer or something.
I would get these really weird, freaky versions, they were
sort of skeletal versions of songs. And then we would all
get together and work out different parts. And for me
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80

it was pretty simple. I would just normally follow along

and play a bass line that was very similar to the low parts
of his guitar lines. And I think that everyone else would
kind of do the same thing. Scott would generally have
one or two songs. Those were normally a little more
straightforward, songs that I would be able to pick up
immediately. I would say that Stephens songs changed a
lot while we worked on them. Sometimes he would have
to adjust them to our ability levels. Which is probably
something that is very nice for him now, playing in a
band with really good musicians. He can probably just
come up with anything and those guys can give him
one better or whatever. But that was basically the deal.
Things got worked out in the studio a lot. I felt like that
was sometimes a waste of time, that we didnt prepare
enough to go into the studio. But now actually after just
doing Sonic Youth stuff in the studio I realized that not
everyone does do a lot of preparation beforehand. A lot
of times everything happens in the studio.
Is that how Sonic Youth works?
On this last album that I worked with them on,
yeah. We rehearsed once or twice then went into the stu-
dio and did a bunch of versions of the songs we rehearsed
and then picked the ones that were the best. Pavement
kind of did that but it would take longer. A lot of the
corrections would happen in the studio. I was always
conscious of the clock ticking in the studio and thinking,
oh my god, were paying for this and were fucking up
right now. I think one of the reasons we were considered
to be this slacker rock band is that sometimes we would
just say, look this is done, this is good the way it is. A lot
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81

of the times the result whether it was fucked up or

not would be great. I think thats one of the reasons
that a lot of the Pavement records have that charm that a
lot of people respond to. Theyre not overworked.
Ibold dismissed the Wowee Zowee- as-career-killer
talk.
To us what sounded like interesting songs or types
of songs or a sequence of songs that would make up an
album might not have been the thing that everybody
was so interested in. And maybe for some reason on the
previous two records people were more willing to get
into that. Although Wowee Zowee did end up being
Pavement fans favorite record, I would say. Challenging
people is ne. But we didnt want it to be difcult listen-
ing. We were hoping to blow peoples minds with every
record that we came out with. I remember after each
record being super excited about some of the songs and
being like, wow were doing something thats really new,
theres no one else doing this right now. I think everyone
felt that way. Its probably a normal feeling for people in
a band to have. Im a pretty picky person and I still felt
that way on every record, for a few songs at least. I think
that if a record has one or two songs that you feel that
way about on it, its worth putting out.

82

It was early evening. I was stretched on the couch.

I stared at the wall and tried clearing my mind of all
thoughts. Id had two beers and was nursing a third.
The phone rang Doug Easley calling from Memphis.
Easley and I had been playing phone tag for a week or
so. I didnt know if he was calling to schedule something
or if this was it.
Do you want to talk now? I asked.
Well Ive got about a fteen-minute drive ahead
of me.
I thought for a second. I was a little high from the
beers. All right. This is sort of unexpected but let me
grab my stuff and well do it.
Thats how I like to work, said Easley.
I walked to the kitchen and set up my gear on the
table. I opened my notebook and ipped to the right
page. Doug Easley led me through his background.
Ive had studios since the late 70s. I got involved
with the underbelly of Memphis, you might say. Alex
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Chilton and all those guys, they would go to the big

cities and make contact with people out of town, the
underground scene, Lydia Lunch or whoever, you know.
Alex would hang out with a bunch of people. Then wed
record some of their records, or Alex would bring bands
like the Gories down from Detroit. I was sort of the
do- it-yourself guy in town. I had a studio behind my
house, which was one of few at the time. I actually started
recording as a kid, back in grade school, like in fifth
grade. We were making tapes back in those days, sort of
weird little radio dramas. This was like 1968. We had a
little band called the White River Catsh. Wed beat on
pots and pans. My buddys brother was in the Box Tops,
so he had a lot of guitars laying around and wed try and
play instruments. But after my college days and beyond
I had studios off and on in various places. The Grifters
had a lot to do with going out of town and spreading the
word. Occasionally Id make stickers. I would go out and
play with various people and take stickers around. And
then it sort of just blossomed. There was a rash of bands
around the time Pavement came here. Sonic Youth,
Wilco, the Blues Explosion. Jeff Buckley might have been
a little later, I guess. But a lot of those bands. And then
all the fans of all of those bands that had bands. So it was
coast to coast. It was pretty nutty.
As far as Pavement was there any kind of prepro-
duction work? Did you know what kind of record they
were going to make when they showed up?
No. Hell no. I dont know if they knew what they
were gonna do.
Easley laughed. I dont think they had rehearsed at
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all. Theyd all come from different areas and convened at

the studio as far as I can remember. I dont have the best
memory in the world. They seemed to be extremely off
the cuff and it was very invigorating in that way. It was
like, wow you dont have to worry about anything. Just
go do it. Thats what it felt like. Lyrics were changing.
Every time youd try to take a vocal itd be a different
lyric. It was very experimental-feeling in the beginning
stages and then some overdubs would happen. It was so
loose. It was very loose.
So it was a good pairing then, in terms of the way
you like to work?
Yeah it was very inspiring to me. Because you see so
many people just beat the hell out of it. And that doesnt
always work. Stephen, he just seemed like he was blowin
in the wind, you know. Hes just like, as free as the wind
will blow.
He laughed. They started out in a strange manner,
very elemental. Two and three people recording at a time.
Basically like being at practice and going Heres a song.
There were some ensemble things but it was mainly like
a practice Stephen introducing new songs to the other
bandmates. I dont think anybody knew what the hell was
going down. Thats the way I remember it.
Howd you end up playing pedal steel on Father to
a Sister of Thought?
Oh probably somebody just asked. There was
probably a pedal steel sittin in the room and they said
hey man, thatd be cool if you got on there. Thats prob-
ably the way that went down. I dont remember a ton of
things because I was just sort of hustling. We were all just
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hustling to get it done.

The studios biggest projects in terms of record sales
came later on. The White Stripes and Modest Mouse
worked on gold and platinum records at Easley. Jack
White mixed Van Lear Rose, the Loretta Lynn record,
there. In 2005 the studio was destroyed in a re. Easley
and McCain reopened in another building but the pace
isnt as hectic. In the old days they booked bands one after
the other. In the old days they put in long days and nights.
Easley still has the original tapes of a lot of those records.
They were in a concrete room and survived the blaze.
Theres tapes everywhere, he said. Ive got tapes
up the wazoo. And theyll never be touched again Im
sure.
Easley had arrived where he was going. Birds chirped
in the background. I pictured him out in the country
somewhere. I thanked him for his time and we hung
up. I got a beer from the fridge and walked back to the
couch. Three minutes later the phone rang. It was Doug
Easley. Something else had come to him Steve West
painting little Civil War men. West would sit in the
studio and paint these plastic toy soldiers when he was
done recording his parts. Easley always remembered
that. He gathered a few of the soldiers and put them in
the studio shrine. It began as a Django Reinhardt shrine
and became a place for those whod recorded there to
leave a little mark. The shrine was in the hallway outside
the control room. I thanked Easley again. We got off the
phone. I lay back on the couch and drank the beer. My
mind wandered. A light bulb icked on: Scott Kannbergs
tune Painted Soldiers.
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The names Doug Easley and Davis McCain appear in

the credits to a small handful of my favorite records:
Extra Width by the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Under
the Bushes Under the Stars by Guided by Voices, Dont
Ask Dont Tell by Come. Another name pops up a lot
Bryce Goggin. Goggin produced and mixed Dont
Ask Dont Tell. He produced and engineered tracks on
Ride the Fader by Chavez, a fantastic record now largely
unsung. He mixed Crooked Rain and Wowee Zowee.
He co-recorded and mixed Brighten the Corners. I met
Goggin at Trout Recording, his studio in Park Slope
Brooklyn. It was April Fools Day, cool and overcast.
Goggin cut his teeth at two Manhattan studios, Sound
on Sound and Baby Monster. When Baby Monster
started it was at 645 Broadway, close to the old Knitting
Factory and CBGB. Baby Monster was cheap. A lot of
Knitting Factory and CBs bands would work there. By
the time Pavement arrived Baby Monster had relocated
to Fourteenth Street and upgraded to a Neve board.
This was around the time of Crooked Rain?
Yeah. Thats when I rst met Steve and the band.
This woman Janet Billig and I only heard this second-
hand was sort of like advising Steve in the hopes of
getting to manage him and Pavement. She pointed him
towards Baby Monster and me to mix Crooked Rain.
Dont you play on the record too?
I played piano on Range Life. I might have, you
know, rattled something else. Those guys are very
stream- of-consciousness people so we didnt really think
about who did what. We just kind of did it.
What did the work on Wowee Zowee entail?
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It took longer to mix that record. I think we did

more tracking than on Crooked Rain. I remember cut-
ting a few vocals on Crooked Rain but I may have cut
about half the vocals on Wowee Zowee. There were
overdubs to do. There was a list of things to do includ-
ing Rattled by the Rush, which we definitely did the
guitar solo on. Wowee Zowee was maybe two-thirds
tracked by the time it came to me. All the basics were
done at Easley.
How was that different from Crooked Rain?
It was a little bit more involved. Wowee Zowee
was less complete when it came to me in some ways.
But Crooked Rain was actually fucked in terms of the
professionalism of its recording. They had gone to this
place at 251 West Thirtieth Street with this guy Mark
Venezia, who had an understanding of recording but
really kind of dabbled.
Goggin cataloged the fuckups: no track sheets for any
of the songs, no leader tape between songs, sound quality
going to shit as the recording progressed. He said Mark
Venezia had been a salesman at Rogue Music and was
probably still there. Id been trying to locate Venezia
the Wowee Zowee credits list a four-day session with
him in February of 94. The Easley session went down
that November. I made a note to check Rogue Music.
Goggin continued.
I had never seen anybody be so uninhibited about
making their record. Especially during Crooked Rain but
also Wowee Zowee. We would cut vocals and we would
do them in one pass and Stephen would be reading off a
sheet of paper some vague ideas of what the vocals would
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be. And if we were gonna punch the vocal it would be only

because he didnt like the lyric. It wasnt because he didnt
like the read at all. Which was a far cry from the arduous
process of cutting ve tracks of a song with a singer and
going line by line and cobbling them together which
was and still is a pretty normal routine in the studio.
Thats what Doug Easley said when I spoke to him.
He said it was inspiring because Pavement worked so
loosely. They didnt overthink things.
And it sounded great. I remember when I was
recording Brighten the Corners, that was the rst time
I had been in the studio with the band. It was totally
magical and infectious. The Nast I had never seen
that in action before.
The what?
Bob Nastanovich.
Right.
He was like, what key should I press on the key-
board? And Malkmus would be like, ah that one and that
one and that onell be good. And he would just go at it.
Is that how they worked on Brighten the Corners?
Because thats a much tighter record.
Yeah I mean that record, I cut it. I had actually
been producing records for about two or three years by
the time I did Brighten the Corners so I had precon-
ceptions about the way things should work. So in spite
of Pavements looseness there was some dick standing
around
He laughed. And there were retakes and edits made
on basic tracks that Id never seen before on some of the
other stuff. Getting back to Wowee Zowee, I denitely
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felt there was a little bit of the shadow of success hanging

over us all. Including myself. I had been really enam-
ored with the outcome of Crooked Rain and, you know,
when it came time to mix Wowee Zowee there I was
basking in the sunshine of success. Why did I want to
actually try and repeat it? So there was a little bit of that
energy.
Do you think the band felt that as well?
Yeah. There was a little taint of that, I think. It
didnt seem to be in the Brighten the Corners experience
at all. You know, counter to the pop formula of trying to
repeat oneself Malkmus always wanted to do something
differently. That was something that he and I both spoke
about the importance of. You dont want to do the same
record every time. You want to do things differently.
The fact that he worked with me for three records is
kind of counter to that philosophy. But we did come up
with different environments every time. There was this
attempt to reinvent every time. Every time. That was his
critical way to keep things fresh.
And he was always the one steering the ship in
terms of how the band was going to sound?
There was never an I Have This Vision conversa-
tion with anybody. It was always organic. There was a
very in-the-moment sense of what the music needed
to make it work. I didnt have a star chart out. There
was no grand design. There was, Ive written this many
songs and were gonna work on them and see how they
go together and thats the way its done. The guy had ve
paragraphs on a piece of paper and he would choose two
of them to sing the lyrics from and then go Yeah man,
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90

thats good. Ship? Whatever. The ship was in his head

oating around and he was just searching for it.
Our talk wound down. Goggin showed me a guitar,
a red Gibson SG Standard with P-90 pickups. Malkmus
used it to play the solo on Rattled by the Rush.
Actually when we were doing it he was just moni-
toring through that.
He pointed to a small Sony boombox that looked
many years old.
Which is pretty funny because its such a ripping
thing. Malkmus did it in a low-key way. The guitar amp
was in another room and we were in the control room
listening on this fucking thing really quietly. And he was
just slaying it, you know. This after Id spent years in
control rooms with guitar players who are like, please
turn it up till I die! I gotta feel it!
Stephen Malkmus jumped up a league chops-wise on
Wowee Zowee. Rattled by the Rush was clear evidence
of greater gifts. The progression continued through
his time in Pavement killer solos on Fin and The
Hexx, from Brighten the Corners and Terror Twilight,
respectively. His solo work grooves on some other level.
Starting with Pig Lib his second record with the
Jicks, a more procient group of players the songs
grew longer, their arrangements more complex, the solos
more mind-blowing. Malkmus achieved this without
sacricing basic pleasures. He still wrote strong melodies,
choruses and hooks. He mixed epic jams with shorter pop
numbers Baby Cmon and Gardenia, from Face the
Truth and Real Emotional Trash, respectively. The leap
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between his playing in early Pavement and the Jicks is

astonishing. I had mentioned this when I was talking to
Bob. Bob had said, yeah if you go see him live youll hear
a lot of that fucking guitar. Then hed laughed and said:
Pavement edited Stephen to an extent as well. Im
not saying that he would go out of bounds or something
like that. But I think one of the reasons he enjoys playing
with the people he plays with now is that he is completely
free. Whereas in Pavement, not only could we not keep
up with him, we certainly didnt want to. The songs are
simpler and more straightforward. There were a few
songs on Wowee Zowee that got jammed out. Pueblo
if it was played right would be a long jammy song. Half
a Canyon would get real jammy. That song was good.
But thats the kind of music Stephens into. Those are
his heroes and thats what hes going to play like. I cant
imagine Pavement making a whole album of ten-minute
songs.
I called Rogue Music and asked for Mark Venezia. A guy
who sounded Australian told me he didnt work there
anymore. I asked if he knew how I could get in touch
with him. The guy asked who I was. I told him my name
and that I was writing a book. He took down my number.
I thanked him and hung up. Venezia called ten minutes
later. I ran through my spiel. He said you know its funny,
in all this time youre the rst person to contact me about
Pavement. I said that was sort of odd seeing as how he
recorded their biggest record. He said yeah well Im glad
that you called.
Everyone who worked at Rogue Music had to have
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a nickname. Mark Venezia chose Maverick, after the

reckless, Righteous Brothers-crooning hero of Top Gun.
But his boss hated that movie and instead gave Venezia
a choice between Dead Meat, Wash Out or Walleye
each a reference to the Top Gun spoof Hot Shots.
Venezia chose Walleye. The store was on the tenth oor
of a dark building on West Thirtieth Street. It was one of
the go-to spots for vintage gear. The rest of the building
was rehearsal studios. When one opened up on the eighth
oor Venezia snagged it and started building a recording
studio there. He mentioned this to his friend Tom Surgal.
Surgal mentioned this band Pavement. Venezia had
never heard of them. Surgal set up a meeting. Stephen
Malkmus dropped by, maybe Mark Ibold too. Venezia
played a track hed been working on. Malkmus said yeah
ne, well work here. It happened quickly. The studio
wasnt even done.
But because of that chaos, said Venezia, because
it just wasnt ready yet I think that there was a lot of
experimentation that happened that really helped cre-
ate the sound of the Crooked Rain and Wowee Zowee
sessions. And also the fact that I had like fteen vintage
guitar amps that I had been collecting from Rogue Music.
What was it like making Crooked Rain?
Oh it was great. It was just a really nice vibe.
Basically I was hooking things up as we went. It was
funny because youd be done at the end of the day and
Steve would be like, hey if you wanna lay some tracks
down go ahead. Go ahead and play around with it. He
was totally cool about stuff like that. I think I did a couple
things, a background vocal on one track and a scream on
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Fillmore Jive. I didnt get to know Scott that well. Scott

was there for most of the recording but then he was gone
for a while. But Ill tell you, the most fun I had was on
AT&T. That was a blast. I think all of Crooked Rain
was pretty much done and obviously the Wowee Zowee
tracks that I worked on
So hold on. You did Crooked Rain and then they
got in touch with you a while later to record some new
tracks?
No. These tracks were all done at once. It wasnt
like a year later they did Wowee Zowee. This was all
done during one session.
So the songs you recorded that ended up on Wowee
Zowee were done during Crooked Rain?
Exactly. They were extra tracks. I remember
Grounded specically. It had such a magical sound to it.
When it didnt end up on Crooked Rain I was like, oh
my god thats the best song, how could they not put that
on the album? And then of course later on they put it on
Wowee Zowee.
The Random Falls version of Grounded turned up of-
cially on Everything Is Nice, Matadors tenth-anniversary
compilation, mislabeled a Slanted and Enchanted out-
take. Five years later it was included on the Crooked
Rain reissue. The earlier version is faster, jumpier,
sloppier half the song it would eventually become.
I told Venezia theyd reworked Grounded at Easley. I
asked if he was sure about the one-session thing. Yes, he
said, with the exception of AT&T. That was done a few
weeks after the Crooked Rain sessions and that was all
Stephen. What happened was Venezia was working in the
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94

store. It was the middle of the afternoon. Stephen called

and said he wanted to record a track. Did Venezia have
time? He may have mentioned something about a solo
project. Venezia said sure. He met Stephen downstairs.
They recorded and mixed AT&T in two hours. Stephen
played every instrument and did all the vocals. Venezia
was blown away.
It was this amazing song that came to life in front
of your eyes within a two-hour period. That was a really
good time, just to produce something that sounded so
cool so quickly. You could see when Stephen was work-
ing, he had a knack. You could just tell. Ive worked with
a lot of bands since that time and very rarely do you see
someone like that in the studio who creates something
like that, knows it and is content to move on. When we
were doing Crooked Rain they were denitely a band
but you could tell Stephen was the creative force. There
was no doubt about that. But everyone was cool with it.
I think in part because it was such a kickass record. You
could tell what was unfolding within like a week.
Had you ever done a full-length project before?
No.
Wow. It seems crazy in retrospect that you under-
took that. Maybe crazy in a good way, I dont know.
Well you know its funny. I didnt realize the magni-
tude of it until a couple months later. But I knew when we
were recording it that they were great songs. I felt like,
okay this is gonna be a good record. I could tell there was
something bigger happening than I rst realized.
I mentioned that Bryce Goggin said the Crooked
Rain tapes were . . . amateur. Venezia had heard and
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read similar comments over the years. It bummed him

out but he didnt want to get into any kind of weird back
and forth. He insisted the core sound of the recording
was good. He said, I know guitar sounds and theres some
great ones on Crooked Rain. The Rogue Music pieces
were crucial to that. Hed lled Random Falls this
quasi-crash-pad studio with vintage guitar amps, tube
mics, mic pres. He ran a lengthy gearhead riff. They
used an Ampeg Reverberocket on Stop Breathin. One of
Venezias favorites. It had a beautiful tremolo sound and
tracked beautifully to tape. They also used Danelectros,
Premiers, Univoxes. Malkmus played a twelve-string
Rickenbacker on Gold Soundz. He played a battered
Ibanez acoustic on Range Life. It was this cheap guitar
just sitting around the studio. But it sounded right with
the microphone an AKG C 26A and a Demeter
mic pre. Its all about the chain, said Venezia, and that
chain was correct. The Range Life vocal was tricky. They
used this old mic pre, a Telefunken V72, a relic from the
Beatles EMI days. But its actually a line amp, very hot.
Venezia placed another pre in front of it to reduce the
gain. A bit ghetto but still the vocal sound on Range
Life is one of the best on the record. They should have
used that chain on more songs. Stuff like that happened a
lot. Theyd hit on these sweet spots just fucking around,
trying unorthodox combinations, seeing what sounded
best. The band had plenty of room to experiment.
Without that experimentation Crooked Rain wouldnt be
the same. Venezia kept talking. My mind jumped around.
I thought of Strings of Nashville, a Gold Soundz b-side.
One of the slow sad ones. Pavements great at those. I
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was pretty sure it was a Random Falls tune. I made a

note to double check. Ive always loved the guitar tone
on Strings of Nashville. Theres an instrumental version
on the Crooked Rain reissue. Even listening to that one
gets me. In the reissue booklet Scott Kannberg says the
guitar sounds on Newark Wilder are some of the best of
all time. I agree. But could those be conjured strictly by
triage work in the mix? Maybe now with Pro Tools but on
a micro-budget recording in 93/94? Also in the booklet
Malkmus says he feels bad calling Venezia co-engineer in
the original credits and admits that Walleye did the lions
share of the work. I asked Venezia if hed seen that. He
said yeah that was cool, that was a nice thing to hear.
He said he knew he fucked some basic things up and
was sure mixing the record was a lot work. Bryce did a
great job, theres no question about that. Venezia stuck
to polite phrasings and kept his responses high-road. I
caught the subtext: no magic wands going to turn a shit
recording into Crooked Rain. The right sounds have to
be captured on tape in the rst place.

97

I sat at the kitchen table with my notebook in front of

me. The recording gizmos were connected. I was ready
to go. The appointed time arrived. I took a deep breath.
I waited exactly three minutes, entered the number and
pressed send. It was a heavy call to be making. I ashed
on countless nights in my room getting lost in that voice
. . . singing along in the car as I drove through lake-effect
snowstorms on back roads in Michigan . . . a night in
Grand Rapids coming up on twelve years ago. Whatever,
he said. This is a tune called Grounded, he said. Stephen
Malkmus had cast a spell over my entire adult life. He
was in his yard in Portland Oregon raking when I called.
The rst thing I wanted to ask about is the record-
ing chronology. Mark Venezia told me that all the
Random Falls songs that ended up on Wowee Zowee
aside from AT&T were done during the Crooked
Rain sessions in 93. Is that the case?
Its hard to know, said Malkmus, but some of
those things, I really think they were after. But maybe
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98

not before Crooked Rain was out or even mixed. Maybe

theres something on Wowee Zowee thats not. But I
think it was just b-sides and messing-around time, you
know, because the whole band wasnt there. It was just
me and Steve West and Mark Ibold. Usually Kannberg
was sitting around. Like during Crooked Rain he was
there. But I dont think he was there for the other session.
So you guys could have been recording in February
of 94 right as Crooked Rain was coming out?
Yeah. Mark still had his studio and he had some
new pieces. He was always getting new stuff from where
he worked up above at this secondhand place. And it was
that and the combination of going back down to Easley
Recording where we did most of the songs, I guess, except
for Fight This Generation well Brinx Job was from the
Crooked Rain session. But the others arent. Theyre after.
When you were recording those other songs did
you think you were making songs for another album or
were you just working on miscellaneous tracks?
Yeah just miscellaneous tracks. Or weirder songs
that I didnt have to explain to anybody and I could just
kind of like play them even more off the cuff. Which we
did a little on Crooked Rain. I guess Steve West and I
rehearsed a little bit for that in his loft. But this time we
were just going to Marks he was charging twenty,
thirty bucks an hour and I think we had extra tape left
over from Crooked Rain. So I think we were just working
on b-sides. I dont really know what the plan was. It was
denitely going to be not as standard as Crooked Rain,
the songs that we were doing. Not that theyre totally
avant garde. But it was just a little bit weirder.
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Did Crooked Rain exceed your expectations for

what you hoped to achieve with the band?
Yeah. I mean it starts more with the one before
that. Thats the one that really was the surprising one
Slanted and Enchanted that it was in mainstream
media and that people were actually sort of interested
beyond the fanzine culture. So that was like, oh things
are changing a little bit. But then with Crooked Rain
Matador had a deal with a major label and they were
going to release it to a bigger audience. But we didnt
get a producer or make mixes for radio or something
like that. We were just going to mix it ourselves. There
was no conscious effort to be on radio and MTV. Maybe
there was a conscious effort to make more poppy songs,
with more bass and a fuller sound and some different
references that were more accessible. But not in the way
that its really done. You know like you get Andy Wallace
to do it or you get Butch Vig. Thats the way that you
really do it. You get a manager and you put yourself out
there and get Spike Jonze to do your video. We hadnt
planned that far ahead. But what you said, when it did
get more when there was Cut Your Hair and all of a
sudden there was this alternative nation, I guess that was
surprising. We didnt expect to be part of it.
And you toured that whole year for the record,
right?
Probably. We toured a lot. We were young and
wanted to go see the world. We were really excited, as
most young bands are, to be part of something that we
didnt know where it was gonna end.
Do you like touring?
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100

Yeah. I mean we overdid it a bit. But I did like it.

Touring is a very childlike thing. People take care of you
a bit. And you have a purpose and you feel wanted and
all these things that children want.
Speaking of children is it harder to tour now, being
away from your kids?
Yeah its harder. But I dont go very often. I still like
it. I take it for what it is, like a chance to just be selsh a
little bit, sleep in or something. Youre not supposed to
think of touring as sleeping in. Youre supposed to stay
out till three and get up at ve. But its easier than having
two young kids. The needs of the others are just, be in
the van at this time and be at soundcheck on time and
remember the lyrics.
Were you writing songs on the Crooked Rain tour?
Maybe some riffs. But not lyrics. I never really
tried to do that. Some people do that they write on
little scraps of paper and theyre really driven. At least I
imagine some people do that.
Making songs at soundcheck and stuff like that.
Yeah Ive heard of bands that do that. Maybe we
did that a little bit but not like it was one of our goals.
We didnt really write songs together anyway, we never
did. Sometimes Id play a riff and then if it sounded good
Id go We can play that, stow that away as a future thing
to do.
So you write at home typically?
Yeah at home. When there was a home. Back then
I didnt really have a home. I was just a couch surfer. I
lived at Steve Wests. I had an apartment in Greenpoint
for a while. It was a really nice studio. Big windows, really
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pretty. David Berman got it rst. He lived there rst and

I took it over from him.
Is that where you came after the Crooked Rain
tour? Or did you ever really get off tour?
Not for long. I was probably just staying at Steve
Wests. I was still working at the Whitney a little bit.
They took me back on in between tours because they
knew that I was gonna be part time.
Why the decision to go to Easley so quickly after
the Crooked Rain period?
I dont remember how fast it was. It just seemed like
it was time to make a record, like we had the songs and it
was time to go to the next thing. That place is great. There
was a Memphis kind of cult this band the Grifters had
recorded there. They were emissaries for the studio.
The two guys that run it Doug and Davis theyre
really down- to-earth southern guys. They were kind of
surprised by this new world of indie and open to it. They
didnt have any aspirations to be a major-label recording
studio. I think they were just doing it by the seat of their
pants. It was affordable. Nice echo chamber. Mellotron.
They had a couple of amps, not a whole lot. Big room.
Eventually a lot of groups went there. Sonic Youth went
there and recorded Washing Machine. Theres a lot of
history in Memphis. You could hope it would rub off on
you. The spirit of Stax/Volt and I guess Elvis to a lesser
extent, for me. But other people would be interested in
Sun Records. Big Star of course. They were from there.
Part of the Pavement mythology is that you guys
spent that period elding and turning down major-label
offers that everyone was clamoring to sign the band.
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I had some meetings. It wasnt out of control

because we didnt have a manager and we werent actively
elding offers. But we went on tour with Sonic Youth and
we met Gary Gersh, who was then a star A&R guy with
Geffen. He had signed Nirvana and Sonic Youth and I
think Beck. So there was maybe a time when we could
have gone with him and over to Gold Mountain, Danny
Goldbergs management company. But we decided not
to get a manager. That was a fork in the road where I
guess we could have gone another way and gone over
to Geffen and tried to be a little bit more mainstream in
terms of having a force behind the band. But besides the
fact that we were scared or skeptical of committing to
that route because there was still the feeling that if you
did that they would get you a producer and water down
the band and try to make it more commercial, we were
worried about that besides that fact we really liked the
people at Matador and we knew we could probably get
by without a manager and just do it ourselves still. We
got some offers in England from big labels. Rick Rubins
label gave us a contract, I remember.
American?
Yeah. Thats the only contract I actually got that
was a full contract that said come to our label. It was big
and it was a very long commitment. We were gonna be
with them forever. Rick Rubin, I respect him and his ear.
Theres something about him, some kind of mysticism.
That kind of LA almost old-school mysticism that hes
got around him. There must be something there. He
must be smart and talented. And hes denitely posi-
tive, hes trying to generate good vibes. Nevertheless we
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just were like, these Matador guys, I think this is where

we belong. We were a little skeptical. That being said,
American had some success with the Black Crowes. But
there were a lot of misses by the label, I think. There was
maybe a question of, are they a responsible concern or is
it just a plaything for Rick while hes producing? He was
probably just starting the Johnny Cash thing then. But
they had Slayer. If I had to say there was a metal band I
liked it would be Slayer. I dont like metal at all. Theres
no groove to it. Rarely. Even the new kind of black metal
thats cool now. Its not my bag of tricks. I guess I could
go see some of it. But theres only so much time.
You said earlier that you were thinking Wowee
Zowee would be if not avant garde then at least more off
the cuff. Is that the direction you knew you were gonna
take it?
I think, yeah. It was maybe a reaction to Crooked
Rain. That was somewhat conservative. Theres weird
stuff on there, I guess, by some peoples standards. It
was experimental in the sense that we didnt know what
we were doing and didnt know what our sound was. So
almost anything we did was an experiment in a certain
way, even if we were trying to do a country rock song.
But yeah, Wowee Zowee was gonna be less planned out.
Theres a lot of songs that have basically no lyrics, like
Extradition and Brinx Job and Best Friends Arm and
Half a Canyon. Theyre just me projecting rock and roll
id or attitude. You know what I mean? Some of the songs
have real clear words. I guess theres a split. Some of the
songs are angular and somewhat about the sound and the
experiments of the recording and some of them the
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ones we did at Easley those were more like a band,

Rattled by the Rush, We Dance, Blackout. Those three
and Grounded and Grave Architecture. Pueblo doesnt
really have lyrics, thats maybe more like R.E.M.s rst
album or something, where Michael Stipe didnt have the
lyrics ready and thats why people think its mysterious.
He might have consciously said, I dont wanna have the
lyrics ready or he just didnt have the lyrics ready. With
most bands you work the song out and kind of sing along
and try to convince the band its good before you have the
lyrics. Like why waste the effort to make them. I dont have
like a novel of lyrics sitting around. Most people dont.
I got the sense that the lyrics on Brighten the
Corners were more crafted.
Yeah. That was maybe taking a break from Wowee
Zowee or saying, well lets be more formalist. Something
tugging back in that other direction. Im sure I was think-
ing something like that. I havent really thought about
the fact that there arent that many lyrics on Wowee
Zowee. Or that theyre not very theyre just kind of
impressionistic. When I think about it now it really is
very slapdash.
Malkmus laughed. But in a good way.
Did you make up lyrics in the booth? Or did you
have a piece of paper with some notes on it or something,
a loose guide?
Well some of them, like Best Friends Arm and Half
a Canyon and Pueblo, there was no lyric sheet. I think
I was just kind of emoting in there. But Grounded and
Rattled by the Rush and We Dance, theres denitely I
can see a lyric sheet in my hand of some sort. You can
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kind of tell if you hear that Im mumbling more or you

really cant make any sense of it if you hear that there
either werent many lyrics or there was just a chorus or
something.
What were some of your personal inuences at
the time?
For the lyrics, I cant remember. But Id try to
make some of the songs be inuenced by mainstream
things that I didnt really care that much about but that
we were kind of a bastard version of. So the rst song is
kind of like a Bowie singing style. Im not much of a fan
of Bowies but I like a couple of songs. The second song
is kind of a Led Zeppelin riff. Another band that when
push comes to shove I really dont like. I like Dazed and
Confused and some of the hits. Theres probably like
six songs I actually really like and the rest just is kind of
boring to me. I dont know if its because theyre popular.
But its not because I always like to listen to the Stones,
for instance. I like Emotional Rescue and Exile on Main
Street. Maybe not the last couple albums but I just really
like them. I like Mick Jaggers singing. I dont really like
Robert Plants singing and I dont like the bombast of
some of their generic blues. That being said, theres six
Led Zeppelin songs that Im blown away by and I admire
their craft. And then the next song, that Blackout one, I
dont remember what that would have been. Its kind of
R.E.M.-y, I guess, but not really. Brinx Job, I cant think
of anything thats like. Its got like a Ween-style thing to
it maybe. But I didnt really listen to Ween.
I always thought Brinx Job sounded like a studio
jam. But you said it had been recorded a while before.
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Yeah Im sure it was done on Crooked Rain.

Was that a written song or was it more of a jam?
I wrote the guitar parts. Its kind of a jazz progres-
sion. I thought it was nice. I cant think of anything its
like really. Its just kind of warped. We had some warped
b-sides in Pavement, just kind of stoner goofy songs.
Then Extraditions kind of like channeling Royal Trux
a little bit and a little Stones-y somehow. Best Friends
Arm is kind of like Beastie Boys, even though it doesnt
sound like that I think I was trying Serpentine Pad
is kind of singing a little like the riot grrrls sing, Bikini
Kill or something. Its actually produced like some kind
of Butch Vig Dirty-era song. Its really compressed. I
didnt plan on it being that way. The producer did that.
He totally made it sound really Dirty-style. But I thought
the chorus was kind of late-period Black Flag, their fake
metal period. And then Grave Architectures kind of
jazzy. Theres some riff thats like that from some other
song. It was probably Grant Green. People sort of were
into him at the time. Fight This Generation, the second
half, is kind of Fall-y. The rst half is just a waltz. I dont
know what inuences waltzes, theyre all the same. You
should only have one on your album probably but theyre
nice.
The early version of Pueblo sounds like the Beach
Boys.
Yup. That was an idea to do that the rst time,
the Beach Boys harmonies. But I cant really sing like
that. Animal Collective does it better. Flux = Rads kind
of like an early Nirvana song, Bleach-era Nirvana. Half
a Canyon is just a rock and roll Trux thing. The end is
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a little like Stereolab, an effort to make a drone. Scotts

songs, you know, hes obviously got the Fall-inuenced
one, the last song. And Kennel District thats his kind
of song. I dont know what theyre inuenced by. Theyre
just like nice-guy poppy songs, a little Pixie-ish. Its his
style.
I like that strange keyboard hes playing on it.
Totally. Hes good at finding keyboard sounds.
He added a few of those on Wowee Zowee and the one
before that.
Did you mention Grounded?
Grounded. Yeah I dont know what that is. Its Sonic
Youth-y maybe. The guitar intro is at least. Thats maybe
a little like Kennel District you dont know what it is
because its so simple in a certain way. Theres no chord
changes. Its the same thing all the way through with
different permutations. I could never do that anymore.
Do what, write that kind of song?
Yeah. Like Summer Babe or In the Mouth a Desert
they dont have any chorus. The chorus is the same
chords, just louder or quieter. I dont know how to do
that anymore. I used to be able to.
What do you recall about recording at Easley?
I recall eating a lot of food and not getting that
much done.
He laughed but stopped short of mentioning barbecue
specically.
Or getting something done but having a lot of the
songs not turn out well, so thats why we used different
versions of them. Like we used the original Fight This
Generation and AT&T and Flux = Rad the ones
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Steve and I did in New York. Then again Rattled by the

Rush really turned out great. I remember being really
psyched about that and spending a lot of time doing
overdubs on it. And the We Dance song turned out to
be kind of spooky and better than I thought. There was
really no plan for that song. I dont remember too much,
unfortunately. I dont think anyone does. I should more
than anybody else. I think we were just drinking beer
and eating twice a day and recording the standard twelve
hours that you do but not really going over that and not
worrying about if it sounded that good or not, just trust-
ing that we could mix it. Because when we did Crooked
Rain we didnt know what we were doing recording it.
We didnt even have any help, or not as much. We had
Mark Venezia, I dont want to underestimate him. And it
turned out sounding good. So we just gured thats how
its always gonna be. When we got the rough mixes they
sounded kind of abby. It sounded okay but it sounded
much better when Bryce Goggin mixed it.
Youre talking about Crooked Rain?
Wowee Zowee too. It sounded much better after
Bryce got his hands on it. I guess I just thought, well
thats what always happens. But its not the case some-
times. Sometimes you just recorded it bad or you go
to a bad mixer who doesnt make it sound better. But
Bryce was on a roll. He really clicked with us. So did the
Easley guys and Mark Venezia in a way. But it was more
hands-off, like some encouragement and good vibes but
not major sonic architecture.
So it wasnt like Doug Easley was saying, Stephen
I think you should do that again.
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Yeah he doesnt really do that. But hed be positive.

Malkmus mimicked a southern accent: I dont know,
that seemed a little slow, you might wanna do that again.
Sometimes he would say that. When youre doing it you
just want it to be over a little bit. You go in the control room
to listen and hope its good. This is after the magic, after
youve done it a couple days in a studio and youre almost
tired of it already. Sometimes theres more enthusiasm.
You listen back and it obviously is good. Other times it
maybe isnt but you just say thats good enough.
Aside from AT&T are there any other songs on
which youre playing multiple instruments, or all the
instruments?
Yeah. I would say Im playing every instrument
except drums on Rattled by the Rush. Maybe not bass.
And the rst song, We Dance. I think we all play on
Blackout, maybe. But I play everything on Brinx Job
and all the guitars on Grave Architecture and the bass,
I bet. Maybe not, maybe Marks on that. Pueblo, I think
Im all the guitars and all the bass on that. Mark might
remember differently. Im pretty sure I play everything
on Half a Canyon and I denitely play everything on
Fight This Generation except drums. Extradition and
Best Friends Arm, I play everything on those.
So you play most of the guitars on the record?
Yeah just about everything. Scott might be in there.
On his songs hes in there. He might be jangling a bit. He
plays some nice jangly guitar sometimes. But Id have to
go back and listen to see if its actually on there.
So whats he doing while youre recording guitar
tracks?
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110

Hes hanging out. Adding advice, saying thats

good, maybe try something else. Or hes just messing
around, drinking a beer. Like everybody else.
He laughed. Mark was getting more and more into
the band and playing more stuff. He got to know how I
play more. I would think he probably played on Rattled
by the Rush and Blackout. Maybe Grave Architecture
and three or four more. Im sure he played on Grounded.
Scotts on Grounded too, hes gotta be. But there was
some stuff where I would just play it because of the
speed at which we were recording, just to move on. Or
Id have an idea to do a counterpoint thing. With songs
you just learned its easier to play to yourself than to have
someone else play with you. Unfortunately its a one-way
street a little bit. Its like you have to follow the leader,
not the other way around. Which makes it much harder
for everybody else to play to their style.
Did you play on Scotts songs?
Yeah I play on there. Maybe not on the last song
because that ones kind of weird. That might be just him.
Its got a weird timing and he knew what he wanted on
that. But Im sure Im on Kennel District because we all
played that as a band before we recorded it.
So there was kind of a Billy Corgan thing, picking
up the instruments and banging out all the parts.
Yeah but I dont know. It got better after a while.
Its just how we did it. We were moving fast. No one was
completely feeling abused by it. It was more like, you
know what youre doing, lets just get it done. We also
were working towards maybe becoming more of a band,
as we tried to do on Brighten the Corners.
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No, I get it. It wasnt some dictatorial prison.

If theyre not saying it was then Im glad. Im trying
to imagine what Bob would say maybe like Steve knew
what he wanted to do and we just wanted it to be the best
it could be. I hope thats what it was like.
So the band dynamic was good during that period?
Yeah. It was fine. Maybe for Steve West it was
a little stressful. He was always on the spot a little bit
trying to play his parts. Doing a great job when he did
a great job but also sometimes . . . You know, he would
get the blame even if it wasnt his fault, if a song wasnt
that groovy. Its not fair but that was a time in rock when
people were really hard on drummers, I think. People still
get on them. Theyre constantly being judged. Singers I
guess would be too. But bass players arent really.
When do you think you developed greater range
as a guitar player?
I dont know. Its always been my rst instrument.
Just over the years playing more and maybe realizing you
have a style thats yours, trying not to sound like other
people but also being inuenced by them and using other
things. For some reason I was blessed a little bit by not
copying people that well. When I would do it it just
wouldnt exactly sound like it because there was enough
of a variety of inuences in there, maybe, and enough
lack of skill at rst to make it have its own sound. From
the original idea the thing that really made Pavement
sound like Pavement, beyond the vocals and the lyrics,
which is maybe the most important thing in the long
run not that I would want to admit that is the guitar
tuning. Writing songs in these different guitar tunings is
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112

an idea that I would have learned from Sonic Youth, or

at least the potential of it. Once I opened myself to that
it made our songs sound a little bit different, even if they
were standard songs. And we got some different tones.
Ive never gone away from that, so that was kind of the
gateway to the Pavement sound. Theyre not particularly
complicated tunings, but not standard. Taking some of
the ideas of these open tunings but playing regular songs
with them, so that it didnt really become just about the
open tuning or about some avant-garde statement. More
just like a tool to bring out different overtones and not
sound like everybody else. Thats probably what has led
my guitar sound to be what it is more than anything
else. Or why my solos sound like that. And it is pretty
self-taught.
I always think of Rattled by the Rush as your rst
really gnarly solo.
Yeah. That does stand out. Thats like a standard
solo with a Marshall. Id do it again if I could. Because
that song was more rock, I guess. There were probably
some quotation marks around the solo. But its still a solo.

113

When I asked Scott Kannberg if he had a favorite

Pavement record he said he had two because they had
two different drummers. He said Slanted and Enchanted
was his favorite with Gary Young and Brighten the Corners
was his favorite with Steve West. This struck me almost
as revelatory. Of course Im aware of Gary Young and his
importance to the band as a player, a recording engineer
and an unhinged image-maker at their early shows. But
when I listen to Pavement casually I dont break it down
into different drummers. The concept of Pavement to me
always includes Steve West. West lacked Youngs surreal
theatrics. He didnt do headstands or throw cabbage at
shows. He also lacked Youngs nimble chops. But he could
make it through a show without falling over. He was up
for the long-haul grind of Crooked Rain. He was up for
goong hugely in videos his bit in Painted Soldiers is
their funniest moment in the form. West brought a needed
stability to Pavement. His friendships with Stephen and
Bob locked in a tangible band chemistry.
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Bob and I would always tease ourselves, said West.

Wed say, well were not very good but at least were
these guys, these freaks behind Stephen that people can
see are having a good time and being enthusiastic. And it
countermanded it when he wasnt. If people looked over
at him and he was having a bad night they could look over
at us and we were trying extra hard. I think that was part
of the charm of the live show. We rarely practiced before
our tours. I dont think we did it more than a dozen times
in all the years that I was in the band. And even those
were not real productive. Bob would always say we liked
to start our tours in odd parts of the world where theyd
never seen us before. So we could be bad and it wouldnt
make the front pages.
I asked what it was like joining the band right as things
were heating up.
I tried not to think about it. I knew Pavement was a
really popular underground band and I had really enjoyed
their earlier work. And Bob was a longtime friend of mine
and Id worked with Stephen at the Whitney. When I
joined it was between tours, of course, and that whole
side of it the whole publicity side and that kind of pres-
sure and stuff wasnt real apparent to me. It was just,
Stephen and I would rehearse and kind of jam and then
we went to Walleyes studio, this room where there was a
drum set and a tape machine. It wasnt any producer-type
thing. Walleye was there some of the time, making sure
things were set up, and then he would go up to the music
store and work. So it was very low-pressure. We got some
victories out of that.
And you worked on some Wowee Zowee songs
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around that time too?

Yeah. We recorded Crooked Rain that summer.
And then I believe we went back before it was released
and worked on more songs. And some of those songs
ended up on Wowee Zowee. I remember Stephen being
excited about some of those because they were a lot more
off the wall and they had a different feel. So the thing
about Wowee Zowee is its got the dynamics of a harsher
New York or punk kind of sound as well as the more
southern sound that came out of Memphis. Thats one
of the reasons I always thought it was a unique record.
What do you remember about going to Memphis
to make it?
Lets see. I guess we were there about two weeks. I
remember we stayed in a really crappy hotel and I slept
on the oor. I remember waking up and hearing it was
one of those suites where there was a door to another
room and hearing this couple in the other room mak-
ing love and thinking, oh my god. I mean it was like
right there and it was a really cheap motel. I remember
Kannberg working on his songs. People trying really
hard to produce a lot. There was a lot of prolicness
going on. I heard the CD, the rerelease today for the rst
time and I was pretty amazed there were all those extra
tracks and stuff on it.
The record itself is long. Did you ever think it
would have been better served by cutting it down some?
No. We wanted to do something completely differ-
ent. It felt right to do what we did. We had all those songs
and instead of cutting it up I know we probably talked
about that and then we were just like no, put it together
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and see how it feels, this is bolder than anything else we

could have done. I dont know if it sold any more or less
than the previous records. Its hard to tell. It hasnt been
hailed as the great one like Slanted and Enchanted and
Crooked Rain have been. But itll come around.
So things were coming together fast in Memphis.
Yeah. And there was a real good spirit in the band
at that point. I dont think everyone was as burned out
yet. Every band gets burned out. Not to say theres any
negative thing about it. Its just one of those things that
goes on with touring in a band and playing and being
somewhat successful. Relationships have their high
marks and their low marks. I think everyone at that time
was in fairly good form and good humor and stuff, and
real energetic.
When did you notice that might have started to
change?
Hmm. Probably after Lollapalooza. Because that
was such a rough experience for us. It was good and bad.
Playing to the crowd walking away from you is hard. And
realizing that we just werent the Lollapalooza kind of
band that was going to be successful for them. I mean its
a gradual thing when bands slowly turn away from each
other, just like any marriage. There wasnt really any one
moment or month or show.
But Lollapalooza was a point where it started to
feel more like work?
Yes. It was kind of getting away from more of the
Pavement, do- it-yourself, tour in a van thing. We toured
in a van for Lollapalooza but it was for a different type of
aesthetic that we hadnt really been a part of up until that
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point. We tried to shelter ourselves somewhat from the

big record company-type stuff. But it hits you sometimes.
And it was pretty apparent from the get-go, when they
would have those people come to our shows and wed
have to have a meet and greet, that they really didnt
some of them seemed to get it but some of them seemed
like these guys who had been with the label forever and
were all about traditional classic rock. And we werent. So
it was obvious that we werent gonna get the big push we
probably needed. That could be as much our fault as it
was their fault, you know. I dont think we always played
the game as well or as cordially as we should have. But I
dont think we really wanted to anyways.
What was the songwriting process like after Wowee
Zowee, when you and Stephen werent living in the same
town anymore?
It was more like whoever was bringing the song
to the table would come with the idea and wed hash it
out in the studio or some jam somewhere, at my place or
wherever we were. And really it was Stephen and Scott
crafting their own songs. Wed put in whatever input
in the studio. But it wasnt like everyone said, all right
were gonna write a song and then everyone sat down at
a round table.
So maybe part of the reason Wowee Zowee has that
feel is because you and Stephen were able to get together
and goof around in your loft.
Those New York songs, denitely. And then when
we got to Memphis we had toured for a year together so
that had more of a complete band feel. I think thats why
Wowee Zowee has that dynamic and that dichotomy, just
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because wed done all that touring together. Before that

it was just fresh little me trying to gure out what to do
with Stephen in Walleyes studio. That added some of
the color to it. When you listen to Wowee Zowee you
can hear the different quality of the recordings the
different rooms and drum sounds from the different
mics and compressors in the two studios, all put together
over about a year.
I talked to Doug Easley a couple months ago.
After we hung up he called back and said, Bryan I forgot
one thing, I always remember Steve West sitting there
painting these little soldiers.
West laughed. Yeah I think they thought I was a
little nutty. You know after youve played your drums
and youre just sitting around and everybodys talking
and theyre mixing or theyre rerecording guitar tracks,
theres a lot of down time. So youve got to do something
besides just sit there and say yeah that sounds good over
and over again. So I tried to keep myself busy doing other
creative things too.
He said he kept some of them in a shrine in his
studio, I guess till it burned down.
Yeah I know. Thats too bad. I got some of those
little dudes left. I dont know exactly where they are but
maybe I could get his address and send him one. Put it
in a bottle somehow. Stick a few in a bottle as a little
diorama.
Is that where Scott got the title for his song Painted
Soldiers?
Probably. And he also has that song Western
Homes. He would call me homes sometimes. So maybe
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theres a dual meaning. When Scott would do his songs,

at least when I recorded with him, it would pretty much
be Scott and myself. Id play the drums with him and
hed hash out his ideas, kind of like we did with Stephen
sometimes, either with the whole group or earlier when
I did the rehearsals for Crooked Rain. It was more of a
partnership that way. You wouldnt have a room where
all the band guys were sitting there playing together.
Because Stephen didnt really know exactly how a song
was gonna go and it was a lot easier to have a drummer
and a guitar player with a guy singing. Some of the songs
were done that way. Others were done with a full band,
where we had hashed them out live or had more time to
practice them together. Like Grounded. Wed played
that a lot live.
Thats my favorite Pavement song.
I think we did an earlier version of it and then
rerecorded it at Easley.
Yeah Walleye recorded that one. The Easley
version, the slowed-down version is better, I think.
Something about slowing it down really made that song.
Really? Because I remember Stephen and I always
talking about, yeah we should have made that one faster.
Do you have any particular favorites on Wowee
Zowee?
Best Friends Arm. I thought that one was really
great. Extradition was really tough to gure out.
How so?
Well Stephen gave me a cassette of him just playing.
And theres so many changes. Thats kind of like his Royal
Trux song. It seemed to go on and on. I remember going
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away with my wife for a week and listening to it over and

over again just trying to memorize where it was gonna
go, because its not your average pop song. Pueblos really
good. Half a Canyons great. Best Friends Arm if that
was really produced it could have been a real big hit, I
think. AT&T I like and that could have been a really
good song but it just wasnt hitting. I dont even think I
played drums on AT&T, I think Stephen did. Serpentine
Pad, I like that too. Bob sings on that. Rattled by the
Rush is another one that I thought was good but its too
slow for me now. But thats just me looking back thinking,
I should have made them go faster!

121

One Sunday morning I left my pad and walked to

Wowee Zowee cover artist Steve Keenes home/studio,
about ten minutes away. Keene greeted me at the door
and led me into a vast work space lled with hundreds of
paintings instantly recognizable as his bright slashes
of color laid down in quick brush strokes, gures and
scenes oating between representational and abstract.
Beyond the work space was a living area. Keenes wife
and their two young daughters were back there. Music
was playing at a low volume. Keene and I sat on milk
crates next to a stack of plywood panels. Keene looped
wire through tiny holes in the panels, tied it into hangers,
tossed the nished panels onto another stack. Later he
would arrange a number of these in a fenced-off painting
area and work on them simultaneously. We rapped about
his early encounters with the Pavement guys. It began in
Charlottesville Virginia. Keene and his wife had a radio
show on WTJU, back when Bob Nastanovich, Stephen
Malkmus and David Berman were working there. Keene
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had known Bob peripherally for a while. Bob had dated

Keenes wifes little sisters best friend. The best friends
name was Chesley as in Chesleys Little Wrists, one of
Slanted and Enchanteds more fried-sounding numbers.
Keene and his wife moved to New York in 89. They
returned to Charlottesville two years later. In 93 they
settled in New York for good. It was an exciting time.
Malkmus and West were jamming in a loft down the
street. Keene was making a ton of art. Hed honed this
philosophy: do it like a rock band. Crank stuff out. Sell
it for cheap. Hes still doing it that way, making three
hundred paintings a week.
Is that the real number, three hundred?
Yeah. Ive sold over two hundred thousand prob-
ably two hundred thirty thousand paintings in the past
twenty years. So yeah, thats what I do. I think the direct
link with Pavement I mean we all had the same Fall
records in Charlottesville and we played them on the
radio and everything like that. The Wowee Zowee cover
just sort of came about, I dont know why. I think at that
time Malkmus almost wanted to delegate jobs to people.
Maybe he was tired of being totally in control. Or maybe
he wanted more spontaneity. Its still magic to me that I
did it. It meant a lot to me because Id known those guys
for a long time.
To watch their band get big must have been
exciting.
Yeah. I felt like I was friends with the Beatles. I was
the number-one fan. It was thrilling. It was absolutely
thrilling. Its not like I was close friends with those guys
I was more in awe of those guys but we were all in
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the same circles. When I rst started doing this people

gravitated to the performance aspect of what I did. I was
an exhibitionist too with my art. The way I do it, I mass
produce it. Whenever I have a show I go to the gallery
and I paint it there for people to watch. So I did a whole
stack of probably fty, sixty, seventy paintings on paper.
And Malkmus picked the one that he wanted. The image
is from some Time Life book on the middle east.
I look at it and it seems like theres a poodle there.
I think its a goat.
A goat. Okay. And two shrouded gures.
Yeah. Theyre people sitting at an oasis someplace.
Its odd I cant really remember how it happened.
Because I didnt really think it was going to happen. You
know people say stuff and then it doesnt happen. Oh
yeah, I like your pictures but we decided to use Scott
Kannbergs moms painting or something. So I didnt
want to be overly anxious. I tried not to I kind of shut
down when they asked me. Because it was a very big deal
to me. I felt like this band of people not band as in rock
band but this tribe of people came from Charlottesville
and were attempting to conquer the world. And it kind
of looked like it was going to happen for about a year
and a half.
Keene got up and walked to the living area. He
returned with a book.
I dont think Ive seen this picture I dont think
Ive looked at this book since I did it. I copied it out of
here.
It was a Life World Library title, The Arab World.
Keene located the page and showed me the picture. The
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image I was seeing felt both intimately familiar and totally

mysterious. For years Id been carrying a reimagined ver-
sion of it in my head. I used to sit with the record playing
and just stare at the cover, wondering what if anything it
was meant to convey.
This is really strange for me to see, I said.
I know, its pretty weird, said Keene.
Two women in dark coverings, only their faces
exposed, sit in an open-air structure. To their right is
a small black goat with curled horns. Between them a
young girl stands holding a baby. The caption reads: A
midday rest is enjoyed by three Arab women and a goat
on an arbor-shaded porch. Fellahin women often wear
black robes over their other clothing.
Its strange that I left out that gure right there.
He pointed to the girl in middle. Normally I copy
stuff. Why did I leave out the middle person?
Is that how you usually work?
Yeah. I always copy stuff. Its almost like hand-
painted Rauschenberg or something. You grab stuff,
you put it up, you copy it and you walk away. What was
the coolest about the cover, they had it in a light box at
Tower Records and I could see and you can see on the
CD too if you look at it the staple marks where Id
stapled it onto a board to paint it. It was so funny to see
my staple marks big.
Keenes visual association with Wowee Zowee went
beyond the cover. He painted the backgrounds and set
pieces of the interior portions of the Father to a Sister
of Thought video. Those interiors were lmed in his
Brooklyn loft. He painted stage sets used for tours for
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the record visible in the Slow Century footage of

Pavements ill-fated Lollapalooza appearance in West
Virginia, in which a sparse and largely hostile crowd
pelts the band with mud. Malkmus leaves the stage in
disgust after being struck in the chest. Kannberg stands
at the edge of the stage and screams at the audience. Dirt
bombs sail past him. He ips the crowd the double bird.
He bares his ass.
It really was my intention to mimic a band, said
Keene. The reason why I started selling my paintings
like this was because whenever your favorite band would
play a show at a bar theyd have a box of CDs or singles
and start selling them. I used to go to places around
here in New York and sell my paintings for two, three
bucks. There was this place called the Thread Waxing
Space. War Comet played there, this thing with Steve
West, David Berman and Malkmus. And I got to hang
my paintings up at that show. It was a huge space. It was
like three times the size of this room. That was a really,
really big help for me to get a lot of people turned on to
my work like that. It was a thrilling time, it felt very com-
munal. It was like you have your tribe of people and you
try to create something. It felt like that right then. We
were all still kind of fresh to New York and living off that
adrenaline, like Im in the city, Im gonna do everything!
Well its like you said. For a year and a half
Pavement
They changed the world.
And then Wowee Zowee changed that in some way.
Yeah. It made them another band to critique instead
of a band to worship.

126

Friday afternoon a woman from my temp agency

called. I hadnt heard from her in months. She asked if
Id be interested in a one-week proofreading gig starting
Monday, twenty bucks an hour. My rst thought was yes.
The economy was in the shitter. I couldnt nd work. My
bankroll languished in the high two-gure range. I did
a mental schedule check. The lone item next week: my
second interview with Stephen Malkmus. Sorry, Ginger.
I need time to prepare for and conduct the interview.
I cant do it on a ten-minute break in a cubicle. I need
silence and all kinds of fucking emotional space. No
thanks, I said, but keep me in mind for other things. She
never called again. The following week I called Malkmus.
Scott said you guys tussled over the Wowee Zowee
running order. He wanted to cut some of the stranger
songs and have it just be the Easley tunes, I said.
Yeah I can see him wanting that, said Malkmus.
And I can see it being good like that in a way. But
it seemed to me like that would have just been another
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album. I wanted to have it more like the b-sides were

actually on the record what were considered b-sides
at the time. Because people liked our b-sides anyway.
Like the Minutemens Double Nickels on the Dime, stuff
like that. Longer records where you put out what you
had and let it all hang out and weirder songs that were
considered b-sides were actually just part of the band
too. And there was more energy, I thought, in the songs
that werent from Easley. They were more spastic. There
were some faster things in there. Like Best Friends Arm
and Flux = Rad. The Easley stuff is more laid back not
all of it but its just kind of heavier.
I always wondered about Easily Fooled. That song
had been kicking around a while. It was on Peel Sessions
and stuff. And then it ended up as a b-side on the Rattled
by the Rush single. Which is surprising to me because
its such a great song.
Yeah thats true. I dont know why we didnt put it
on Wowee Zowee. It was done at the same time as Best
Friends Arm and Extradition. It was from that same
time at Mark Venezias studio. It is kind of catchy and
Stones-y.
Aside from Wowee Zowee did you do the cover art
for the Pavement records?
Yeah pretty much. And all the singles. I think at
that time I just didnt have any good ideas and Steve
Keene lived in the neighborhood and was a friend of the
band. It was something we always thought about doing. It
was the right time I guess. That Wowee Zowee painting
he did, the colors and stuff, it looked a little like an album
by this band Guru Guru, whose album cover Id always
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liked. Its a German band, this album called Kanguru.

The cover has kangaroos on it and I sort of appropriated
that one to mix with Steves, with the comic-book talk
bubbles. Wowee Zowee sounded sort of like Guru Guru
and it rhymed. So we picked that one and went with it.
The other fonts, I dont remember what I was thinking.
I did those with Mark Ohe. The inside thing was some
drawing my grandma did in one of her phases.
One of her phases was making art? Or that par-
ticular kind of art?
That style, which was some kind of 40s-looking
weird futurist drawing she did. She covered a lot of
ground. That was probably around my apartment,
something that she had given me. Then I made this
writing thing. I remember it said Dick-Sucking Fool at
Pussy-Licking School, which Bob made up. He probably
doesnt want to own up to that. It was some stoner thing.
I wrote that on there. I was just being kind of risqu or
something. We thought that could be a good name for
the album, like Cocksucker Blues by the Rolling Stones.
If we could have called the album that, you know, that was
an alternate title. Which would never be used. Maybe it
would have been used by an Amphetamine Reptile band
or some rock band back then. But Jesus Lizard wouldnt
even do that. Maybe the Butthole Surfers would.
Whats your take on the meeting you guys had with
Danny Goldberg?
Danny was a pretty cool guy in general. He was
powerful at the time. Matador followed him over to
Warner Brothers, who did sort of a one-off with
Pavement. They said, well pay a bigger advance and do
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more promotion, come over here, its gonna be great.

They did distribute it and promote it, I think. But it
was an interim time. It was a new thing. Danny had just
recently started and all of a sudden he was there in this
high-up position. Its a venerable old company, Warner
Brothers, with Mo Austin, who got the Kinks there. The
Beach Boys were there for a while at the end. Van Dyke
Parks, Randy Newman. But at that point Red Hot Chili
Peppers and Green Day were two successful bands they
had, along with Janes Addiction and some other things
I dont remember, like Candlebox although I cant
say that for sure. We ew out to Burbank. They have
a campus out there that looks sort of like a California
community college. Sixties architecture. It was kind of
strange. We went to one meeting. There was another
guy there, another older record guy. I cant remember his
name. Not Mo Austin but someone like that, not quite as
famous. We met him and we took a little walk around the
place where theres posters of bands and people working
at their desks. We went to Dannys ofce and it was all
kind of not adversarial but I was kind of skeptical of
what it was gonna be like to be on this label. I didnt really
expect to have a close connection with them. But they did
listen to the CD, I know that. They had some comments
about songs they liked and how they were gonna try and
do these other songs for radio instead of Rattled by the
Rush. They liked AT&T. But that was too sloppy and
it was just me playing all the instruments. I didnt think
that one was tight enough to be a single. They said, we
might try to work that. They did some of that stuff and
that was kind of it. It was a feeling-out vibe that was a
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little awkward, I remember. Danny feeling like he was

brand-new in this chair and surprised that he was there
in this powerful position. And the Matador guys feeling
weird about it too. Chris and Gerard saying is this good,
do you guys like this, is this gonna work? A couple times
we did some promotional things. We met a few regional
reps who gave us free CDs when we did an in-store. I
remember a couple things like that, you know, in the
Boston area or something. Regional rep-type people
that we didnt have at Matador. But it came and went. I
remember being aware that there was no single that was
gonna take KROQ by storm, which was the standard
way to try to become successful. Try to get on KROQ
and people will like you and then it will bleed into other
stations. Like the Offsprings Keep Em Separated, which
was an indie record that really exploded. They spent a lot
of money to make that happen more than they would
have spent for Pavement but still.
On the DVD you said you thought Rattled by the
Rush and Father to a Sister of Thought sounded like hits.
Were you just being funny or did you really think that?
Malkmus laughed. Rattled by the Rush I thought
was a really unique song for us. It had a lot of clever over-
dubs and a different sound. I guess I didnt I thought
the riff was catchy. I thought it was a single, I dont know
why. Father to a Sister of Thought, I was stoked with how
it turned out with the pedal steel. It sounded better than
I imagined it would when we recorded it. Like maybe
from that time Mazzy Stars Fade Into You. Thats about
as big as it could ever be. It wasnt that big, of course. But
from the labels mindset that would be their only hope.
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It doesnt have a pretty girl just singing the same thing

over and over again. But it has similar minor chords and
not many chords.
Have you ever been one to read your own press or
follow reviews?
When they come out normally we read them and
try to get a sense of feedback. Some sort of validation
of the work, at least that people listened to it and what
they think. I read them to see what people are saying
or what the placement is, like if youre gonna get a big
feature in the NME or whats gonna go on. Im kind of
interested in that. I dont know about believing whether
its true or not.
The reissue sort of screwed with my research. The
Rolling Stone review is the only original Wowee Zowee
review I could nd. And that was a slam.
Yeah that was real bad. I remember that being two
stars or something. In his defense a little bit whoever
reviewed it we had these cassettes that we handed
out for people to hear rst. They didnt give out CDs
for review. I dont know if it was cheaper to do that or
maybe we were just late. But all we had was an unmastered
cassette. And it did sound pretty shitty. It sounded muddy.
You could even not be a hater and want to like the band and
think, this is dull sounding and doesnt go anywhere. After
it got mastered it was brighter and sounded punchier, the
way it was supposed to sound. Then again the guy could
have just gotten it wrong. A lot of people disagree with
him. Im sure he would probably provided he was a
decent fan of Pavement not think it was as bad as he
did then. I would give him a second chance.
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Did you ever get sick of people calling you or the

band slackers?
Yeah well in terms of the competition at that
time, to not be a slacker the other things we could have
been were like Janes Addiction or the Offspring, tattooed
LA people who were knowingly rifng on these classic
rock or skate-surf archetypes. We were college-educated
suburban kids. We didnt look like Dave Navarro. I dont
know what else there was to really go on. I guess there
was Seattle, Kurt Cobain and Nirvana. Kurt Cobain was
a pretty big slacker, with heroin involved. But there was
more of a story of economic hardship behind him, or
divorced parents and pain from that. We didnt have that
kind of pain really. We didnt riff on any of those things.
Our band wasnt about that so I guess there wasnt much
to say. We didnt make much of an effort to change it.
At the time, coming out of the place that we came from,
there was this big cynicism about the music industry and
being successful in music. Dinosaur Jr and Sonic Youth,
those kind of bands were the successful ones from that
era. Those are basically slacker bands too. Sonic Youth
just had some art-world New York guitars hiding the
same basic slacker tenets. And Dinosaur had big giant
guitars and solos. He was an ultimate slacker, J Mascis.
It was just a big giant pool of slackerisms. It didnt really
matter to us. Sometimes it got boring in England or
something, once we got a little bigger, to keep getting
asked about the movie Slacker or what a slacker was.
Occasionally wed say, were not slackers, we tour a lot,
were really hard-working, would a slacker do that? No.
What exactly is a slacker? Is it from that movie or is it
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just an uncommitted intellectual skeptic? People who just

want to work in a record store their whole life and be kind
of smart, like that movie of that book by Nick Hornby.
I just remember there was this long article in the
New York Times when your rst solo record came out
talking about how you were a big slacker and ironic and
stuff. It was really appalling. I thought the time for that
kind of analysis had long past.
I was pretty much just into music and really excited
about recording and layering things on records and mak-
ing kind of classic-sounding albums. Like Scott would
have been too. Thats really what we were trying to do
take advantage of these situations that we didnt expect
to nd ourselves in. Which was having an audience and a
voice in different places than we expected, coming from
the 80s where Camper Van Beethoven was a huge band
and Sonic Youth were massive. We were sort of built to
not expect much success and therefore to seem sort of
like slackers, because we werent particularly ambitious to
start with, more than just wanting to make cool records.
It turned out that times were changing a little bit and
there were lots of other seemingly suburban nerds com-
ing to ll the void. They are the void now Death Cab
for Cutie or the Shins, in this town.
I dont get too wrapped up in song meanings or
anything but Grounded is my favorite Pavement song
and over the years Ive wondered what that ones about.
Lets see. I couldnt even tell you. If I think about
the lyrics . . . I dont even know what thats about any-
more to tell you the truth. It sounds like its vaguely about
some Westchester County wealthy person, the son in
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some kind of 1990s Ice Storm scene. Theres something

there about somebody of privilege. Theres a doctor,
boys are dying on the streets. Its kind of cryptic. I know
that some of the individual words and slang in it sounded
important to me at the time. You know if I go through
all those lyrics back then and how I wrote them its really
impossible for me to evoke what I was thinking. It was
some kind of roll that I was on. It doesnt mean it was
a good roll. Doing things without overthinking it too
much and if it sounded cool that was good. I couldnt do
that anymore. I just dont have the capability, whether
thats good or bad. If you look at somebody like Bob
Dylan, he did all this stuff and you dont know how he
did it and he doesnt know how he did it. Maybe he was
taking more speed than me.
Youre saying thats different from how you write
songs now?
I cant even imagine writing a song like that now,
thats so cryptic. Maybe I can but I dont think so. You
know it rhymes. So thats good. Its the same chords all
the way through. Maybe that made it easier to write
like that. Its called Grounded, which is something that
happens I dont really even know.
He laughed. Im sorry.
Thats all right. Thats the danger of venturing too
far into this stuff.
I like the guitars in it a lot. The lyrics were some-
thing to try to sound sort of sincere and go along with the
music. The bottom line was how the chords and some of
the guitar made it feel and what that made me think of.
But it kind of just happened then.

135

I asked Steve West if there was a time in Pavement he

looked back on most fondly.
Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain and Wowee Zowee,
he said. Because that was when it was really fresh to
me and everyone was still enthusiastic. Everything before
Lollapalooza.
I laughed. Lollapalooza was the breaking point?
It wasnt terrible. I mean we made good money.
But its not all about making money. We could have been
out there playing to our own crowd, supporting Wowee
Zowee in that way and it probably would have been more
gratifying. But you know its always good to do different
things. What was Stephens quote? He called me I was
in Virginia and he said
West attened his voice, imitating Malkmus: Yeah
were gonna do it. Its just another nail in the cofn but
were gonna do it. It doesnt matter.
But thank god that happened, said Kannberg.
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Otherwise I wouldnt have been able to buy a house.

Lollapalooza basically bought everybody in Pavement a
house. They paid us like twenty grand a show. We were
worth maybe four and a half.
He laughed. It was the easiest thing ever to do.
Thered be three shows a week. And we didnt have a big
bus, we had two little minivans. None of our expenses
went toward giant buses. It was really fun. Playing the
shows wasnt that fun because I dont think Steve was
really into it. The rest of us had a great time. Lollapalooza
carried all of our equipment and set it up every day. We
made them buy us a ping-pong table and set it up every
day. It was hilarious.
You said you wanted Wowee Zowee to be a tighter
record and mentioned the songs you wanted to cut. You
also said listening to it now you see why it works. Was it
just a matter of living with the record for a while?
I always knew the way it was presented it was more
like I hate comparing it to the White Album because
I dont think the Beatles thought they were making what
that record ended up being. But you have to compare
it with something and thats what I compare it to. We
were pretty overwhelmed at that time because wed been
doing so much. Then we went and recorded everything
we had and what came out was a little messy. Its almost
like when a band, after everythings all said and done,
they put out an outtakes record. It almost felt like that
to me. It was so different from our other records. Even
the song material was different. Theres country songs.
Theres weird Captain Beefheart-y songs. Every song
had a certain vision to it. Every song was self-contained.
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Whereas on our other records you can see how the songs
t together.
Do you think theres a greater appreciation for the
record now?
Oh denitely. Denitely. But you have to think
of it in the context of our whole career. If that was the
only record we ever put out I dont think it would have
been as signicant. I also dont think its the same for
a fan hearing it for the rst time now. I dont know if
it creates the same kind of feeling as people back then
hearing it after Crooked Rain. Some kids today say to
me, Wowee Zowee is so great, so much better than your
other records.
Its a very free album, said Bob. I think Stephens solo
work really proves that hes an avid fan of pretty far-out,
experimental music. He always has been. His radio show
in college was fty percent unlistenable. I think having
to play those Crooked Rain songs over and over again
probably in a way made him sick. They ended up sounding
like bubblegum to him. So I think he wanted to get back
to the haphazard ways of Slanted and Enchanted. Thats
why some pretty weird songs ended up on Wowee Zowee.
They werent weird to us. It just all sounded like Pavement
to us. The only Pavement songs that I dont a lot of
people like these songs but I just dont because they dont
seem like Pavement to me are songs like Major Leagues
and Carrot Rope. They dont sound like Pavement to me.
Just about everything else does.
A lot of people say that about Terror Twilight
generally.
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That was just a whole different type of album.

Wowee Zowee represents probably the happiest era of
Pavement. We were feeling good about the fact that
everybody was making a living off it and everybody had
done the right thing in putting down what they were
doing in 92 to devote their lives to this band. Everybody
had a role and everybody got along. It was an upbeat
time, at least within the shell of the band. We loved our
crew. We had the same crew for years and it was a very
tight-knit group of people. In some ways we felt like a
little juggernaut. The dissolution of the band would have
begun during the making of Terror Twilight. There was
the feeling that Stephen was real frustrated with us, I
guess mainly due to lack of musicianship.
So there was perhaps a shift in his thinking, from
wanting to get back to that looser sound to moving on
to something more accomplished?
I think Stephen felt that he was better musically
than the four of us, that we were holding him back and
that he wanted to play with better players. That came
to a head during Terror Twilight. Thats Pavements
most singer-songwriter-type album. Stephen and Nigel
Godrich really made that record. Stephen was pretty dis-
satised the whole year and I think more than anything
else he didnt want to dislike me or dislike any of us. He
was just frustrated. The sad thing was, it was like the
demise of just about every other band. It was typical. And
that was the most embarrassing thing about it.
People make a big deal out of the Pavement dynamic
and that being what broke up the band, said Ibold. But
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it was a more subtle thing than people imagine it to

have been. Thats not to say it wasnt a serious issue. I
think that we were lucky to get along as well as we did.
Everyone gets along quite well still, I would say.
Do you ever get tired of people asking you if
Pavement will reunite?
Ive got to say that I dont because its nice to hear
that people still care about the band. I think its amazing
Im even talking to you on the phone about an album
that came out such a long time ago. I think its great that
people are still psyched about it. It makes me feel better
about what we did. Because I still really like all of that
stuff and I keep worrying that it will become dated and
therefore I will be dated.
He laughed. And its crazy because a lot of the
people that are interested in this stuff were too young
to have seen the band when it came out. It reminds
me of my interest in, I dont know, Captain Beefheart
or something that I didnt get to see. There also have
been a lot of reunions lately. People expect every band
thats broken up that had somewhat of a following to get
together and do a reunion tour now. I think that works
against the possibility of a Pavement reunion. We like
the idea of doing something surprising or special and it
becomes less special the more you hear about other bands
doing it. At the same time all these people that have never
seen the band, itd be fun to play for them.
I said something to that Warners guy, said Malkmus,
the guy whose name I cant remember. I was like, you
know its okay if we dont get the radio thing because
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Wowee Zowees a great record and itll sell as a catalog

thing because its a critical success I didnt say critical
success but its a great record and itll keep selling. You
think that when youre a young band, that youll make a
great record and people will keep buying it through time.
But thats not how it matters to a record label. Its all now.
You have to try to sell a million now. Like White Light/
White Heat didnt do any record labels any good even
though its a classic record that people listen to still. The
record label doesnt care about that. They do for Dark
Side of the Moon or Pauls Boutique. Those keep selling
but they sold so many at the start too. Anyway I was a
little delusional about that.
Of course if Pavement became the most popular band
in the world their core fans wouldnt have liked them.
So its a vicious circle, said Lombardi. But it helped
them in terms of their legend to a degree, never having
a platinum record. They never sold as many records as
they should have. I mean how many times has Slanted
and Enchanted or Crooked Rain been named the most
important indie rock record of the 90s, or of all time?
Over and over and over again. Well if thats the case then
shouldnt they have sold a couple million records? So I
guess its that underdog mentality too. Pavement made
great fucking records and they didnt compromise. It
feels good to like them.

141

I was on the phone with a woman from Nielsen

SoundScan. She dished Pavement sales gures as of June
2009. The original version of Slanted and Enchanted sold
152,000 copies. The reissue sold 106,000. Crooked Rain,
Crooked Rain: 246,000. The reissue: 75,000. Wowee
Zowee: 129,000. The reissue: 32,000. Brighten the
Corners: 154,000. The reissue: 16,000. Terror Twilight
reissue forthcoming sold 104,000 copies, more
than I would have guessed. I dont know what any of this
means. Im way past caring. Three years have blown by
since I started planning this book. I began with a head
full of theories, arguments, assertions. I lled two legal
pads with notes. In the end I used almost none of it. It
blew away in the wind
But I am still sitting on the oor of this room. Next to
the record player is a bourbon on ice. I drop the needle
on the vinyl, the rst of three sides. Theres a momentary
pause but the pause is not empty. Theres slight hiss and
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crackle as the needle works into the grooves. I lay back

and close my eyes. All that youve seen and done and
written and remembered. Yet everything not coming
through your speakers at this moment is entirely beside
the point
The rst note of the rst song is a lonesome plucked
E string. Sad tinkling piano. Faint exhalation of disgust
or defeat. It jumps to A. Malkmus sings there is no . . .
castration fear. We Dance begins with a Freudian joke
then shifts to the kind of muted longing he does so well.
Well dance, well dance but no one will dance with us in this
zany town. What appealed to me from the start were those
hidden depths. Where some saw only sarcasm or detach-
ment I saw slyly masked fear, joy, sadness, lust. You cant
enjoy yourself, I cant enjoy myself . . . maybe we could dance
together. Slow fade on this half-hopeless suggestion. Then
the KROQ smash that never was. I bought the Rattled by
the Rush single in Washington DC early February 98. I
was visiting my father. We had long been estranged. His
second wife had died. Wed gone to the memorial service
together. I hadnt wanted to go, hadnt wanted to visit
him at all. Id been listening to Wowee Zowee obsessively
and knew Rattled well. Worse than your lying, caught my
dad crying. I didnt know the b-side, Easily Fooled, one
of Pavements best songs. Stephen Malkmus must be a
merciless self-editor. Over the years hes discarded great
song after great song. He wanted to ax Summer Babe
from Slanted and Enchanted a song plenty of people
would kill to have written. Scott Kannberg intervened.
The song opens the record. They played it live for as long
as they were a band. I listened to the Rattled single in my
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dads sterile apartment. Easily Fooled shufed along to

the bridge. Everybody needs a home, takes centuries to build,
seconds to fall. My father and I sitting there listening to
those lines. Id like to see more of you, he said. How
about some ice cream? he said. He got up and went into
the kitchen. The guitar solo in Rattled snakes through
your brain. The ice in your drink has melted, the whiskey
feels good in your throat. A thought bubbles up but fails
to cohere, something about music being put to tape in a
room in Memphis or New York, lost to the atmosphere,
falling through time. Snow like a star shower ying out
of the darkness. You squint through the windshield at the
snow-covered road. You can only go twenty, twenty-ve
maximum. Occasionally you pass a house, its windows
darkened. Its after midnight. There are no other cars
out. The cold of this night envelopes you as you make
your way home. Blackout on the stereo. Count to ten . . .
and read . . . until . . . the lights begin to bleed. The guitar
line at the end conjures an early fall day, a taste of cold
on the air but the leaves havent changed yet. The smell
of black walnuts hangs heavy in the dusk. Thats part of
it too, that subtle tension in his lyrics, a feeling that time
pushes you forward and you have no choice but to move
on but maybe someone you left behind was really worth
holding on to, so many people drop in and out of your
life, how can you ever know for sure? Brinx Job is the
rst of the far-out numbers. A classic Pavement prankster
jam, in and out in a minute and a half. Dig the last fteen
seconds in which our heroes become gremlins tearing
at the planes engines mid-ight. In the distance a voice
counts three four. Grounded shimmers to life. The door
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144

to the record for me. I stood listening to the guitar intro

at the Intersection rst with vague curiosity then as if in
a trance. The song builds slowly, adding and stripping
away layers. The doctor is leaving for some summer
holiday. He owns a sedan. Never complains when its hot.
The strings bend pre-chorus. Harmonics ash like blue
sparks. Early one December morning I walked out of a
house. The Kalamazoo streets were quiet and still. Id
stayed up all night with Chrissy. We started out watching
a cable documentary about the Titanic. All that winter
the doomed ship was the rage. We went up to her room
and lay on her bed. We held each other and talked. I kept
thinking I would leave but I didnt and then it was dawn.
Chrissy was still dating Plastic Man but that would end
soon and she and I would be together. For now it was
just me on McCourtie Street walking home. I put on
my headphones, pressed play on my Walkman. Brinx
Job ended and Grounded began and the world looked
dazzling, so bright and strange, like the light had spilled
out of me and wanted back in. Boys are dying on these
streets. I used to imagine he was saying my name at that
part coming back in from the breakdown, the drums and
guitars build, listen closely youll hear Buh-ryan. There
were times when I almost convinced myself it was true.
Pavement have a few real barn-burners in their catalog.
Serpentine Pad is one of them, a bracing dose of punk
rock. Malkmus in punk-brat mode railing against snoring
and corporate integration, Bob on the chorus sounding
gloriously unhinged
The questions are the questions. They never get
answered. Like what does this mean, why cant I control
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145

it, where oh where in the motherfucking hell are we

bound? I walked to the kitchen, poured another drink.
Sometimes the days are so long and sad. Other times
even the Con Ed bill winks cheerfully. Life is a marvel of
sweet times and pals. I returned to my room and ipped
the record. I heard the music a second or two before it
actually began
We lurch forward drunkenly, holding the walls for
balance. After a pause the soundtrack to some stoned lm
noir. Theres this great line in Motion Suggests Itself,
the second verse, captivate the senses like a ginger ale rain
delivered in a hush over a droning keyboard that haunts
the song. The atmosphere so humid you almost long for
that rain, almost feel the rst drops cooling your skin.
Dueling guitars give way to a lone languorous solo, a
creak like insects in a moonlit marsh. But really Motion
Suggests is the candle. Father to a Sister of Thought is
the ame. My last summer in Kalamazoo I lived in an
apartment with no furniture. Paul and Trish had moved
out and taken everything with them except a recliner and
an old TV. I set the TV on a piano bench in the empty
living room. Every night I stayed up late watching the
talk shows. Chrissy was in Europe for a month. I was
making out with her friend. I felt guilty all the time but
couldnt stop myself. I thought my life was boring and
wanted to be someone else. I drove around Kalamazoo
trying to memorize the landscape, missing the city ter-
ribly even though I was still there. Im too much, Im
too much comforted here. In a way Father to a Sister of
Thought is the sequel to Range Life, broadening the
latters sun-bleached palette and dreams of escape with
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146

lonely pedal-steel guitar. But where the guy in Range

Life cant settle down the guy in Father to a Sister knows
hell never go. Then the tune shifts abruptly, the pedal
steel cuts out, an angular fuzzed-out riff ends the song.
Barely time to take a breath before Extradition blooms
and we make our w-w-way way far away. Less than a
minute in: hang gliding, soaring over the wasteland. Scan
the horizon. Tell me what you perceive. Another dismal
truth maybe. Like you have no more right to exist than
a paperclip does. Youre either bent-out alone jabbed
into a cubicle wall or strung together with two dozen
others to be played with while your creator raps with
some dame on the phone. Tonight we interact like separate
worlds, spoken barriers you hurl. I am not the same person
who clawed at your prom dress, breadstick grease on my
tux, an Olive Garden gift certicate in my hand. No Im a
private investigator now. I stare into peoples dark hearts
for a living. Dont ask what I find there. Youll learn
soon enough. I captured the moment of your ultimate
ignominy using a penny glued to the sidewalk and a tele-
photo lens. Funny that Steve West thinks Best Friends
Arm could have been a hit. I mean its catchy and all but
aside from keep it under your best friends arms which
comes at the end after the song settles down Im able
to make out only eight words in the urry of vocals: come
on, let it go, take it off. Even the verse hook is a mystery
to me. Over the years Ive heard it as I can see, I can see
and I concede, I concede. But theres a z sound in there so it
could be a foreign word, German perhaps. There have
been plenty of nonsense hits Tutti Frutti, Brimful of
Asha, Song 2 but usually those have at least one clear
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147

phrase propelling them. Everyone said Blur wanted to be

Pavement on that last one. If thats the case something
crucial got lost in translation. Even so, their self-titled LP
is the best thing Blur ever did. Has it ever saved me from
drowning or slashing my wrists? No. Four notes up, the
same four notes down. Someone youve been wanting
to see opens the door. Come on in. A rush of ne feeling
swells in your chest. Grave Architecture is a fun one to
sing along with while driving, a rare occurrence now that
I live in New York, where music is experienced mostly as
a private distraction beamed straight into your head or as
just another fucking thing your computer can do. Maybe
this is true everywhere. We live in a detestable era. Id
be the rst to sign up for time-travel experiments. Doc
Brown, warm up the ux capacitor. Id risk being shot by
terrorists to live in a pre-cellphone age. Heres another
one that informed my early impressions of the city. The
wind blew through the midtown canyons. Central Park
was a wonder in the autumn light. The air was scented
with smoke from the food carts. Horses drew carriages
along the path. Stroll past the strip, is it old, am I clipped,
am I just a phantom waiting to be gripped around on shady
ground? Halfway through they pull the rug out from
under us. They make thunder happen. Then everything
begins again fresh and new just like weve heard it would
since about middle school. One or two false endings
later Grave Architecture closes with an instrumental
version of the timeless childhood taunt Malkmus would
later employ in his read of the wave to the camera line
on the Brighten the Corners song Stereo. I love the big
inhalation that begins AT&T. I love the rst line, maybe
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148

someones gonna save me. I love the idea of a heart made of

gravy. I love the primitive drum ll on room service calls.
I love the high guitar that runs under the second verse.
I love how Malkmus alludes to Random Falls, the very
studio hes recording in, and how that name calls to mind
both disorder and wonder, water hurtling over large high
cliffs. I love the way he shouts GO! into the chorus. I love
the chorus itself, whenever whenever whenever I feel ne
Im gonna walk away from all this or that, the implication
being that not feeling ne at the moment is okay, theres
really no rush, whenever you get your shit together or
feel better, thats the right time to move on. I love the line
come along, lads, half-buried in a momentary blur. One two
three GO! Tonight the lights blaze up and down Second
Avenue. The sidewalks teem with beauteous mobs. On
Ninth Street two foxy women pass trailing perfume
and smoke. Dimly you hear their voices, brief laughter,
and then they are gone. One life, one face, always hides
multitudes. No one ever laughs the same way twice. I
showed up here tonight hoping to see you. I wanted to
tell you I had a dream that we kissed. We were standing
in a hallway, the party noise was crazy, I touched your
arm with a trembling hand. The dream was so real I woke
in the street covered by a quilt of old love notes. Some
neighborhood kids were lighting the best ones on re,
throwing them into the starless sky
My father returned with a bowl of ice cream. He ate
it. The spoon clinked as he scooped up the last melted
bits. He set the empty dish on the coffee table. Boy
that really hit the spot, he said. He put in a CD of Eric
Claptons greatest hits. He started talking about his dead
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149

wife. A moment later he paused. He looked away. The

room was dimly lit but I thought I saw tears in his eyes.
Clapton sang I dont wanna fade away. I retreated to the
bathroom and stared through the mirror into history. I
touched the panic button in my teeth with my tongue. I
rematerialized in a record store in Broad Ripple Indiana.
I was flipping through the used vinyl, saw a copy of
Wowee Zowee and paused. Something compelled me to
take it out of the bin. It was a double LP with a gatefold
cover. I removed the second record from its sleeve and
put it on the turntable. When I lifted the needle the
record started to spin
Pavement like to sex it up sometimes too and Flux=
Rad has a sinister sexual quality, a jittery riff, an anxious
seducer speaking close to your ear saying he doesnt
wanna let you go. Then in the next verse dropping all
ambiguity, telling you straight-up no hes not going
to. His tautly controlled voice shoots into hysterics.
Is this what its like to be loved, a bass drum thump-
ing up and down your spine? A dark room with a bed
with cool sheets and a fan going? Thats what I would
long for at three a.m. in the paper mill as far away you
slept bathed in murderous dreams. I stood with a hose
spraying paper pulp and cockroaches into the grates.
Burning oil dripped into my hair. I walked to the break
area and bought a sausage-gravy-lled biscuit from the
vending machine. I zapped it in the microwave for two
minutes on high. Tony Buck was there. He asked what
I was studying in school. English, I said, writing. What
do you wanna be, a author? he asked. I guess so, yeah,
Im not too sure itll pay the bills though, I said. Paid
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150

Hemingways bills, said Tony, and he blew his head off

anyway. We laughed. I nished my biscuit. I walked out
to the loading dock and stared at the night. One of the
times I saw Pavement at Irving Plaza in 99 Malkmus said
something like, this songs old but its still good, well not
the lyrics maybe but the musics still good, dont listen
to the lyrics. Then they played Fight This Generation,
which is more like two and a half songs, the rst a stream-
of-consciousness dirge haunted by Sibel Firats cello,
the second a faster almost paranoid-sounding number
whose keyboard wavers like a police siren under the
words ght this generation, a mantra. The last minute or
so is as close as Pavement gets to funk, a steady shufing
bass line, a tight beat punctuated by drunken keyboard
stabs and wild squiggly guitar. I always thought the title
was Malkmuss way of deflecting some of the slacker
bullshit. You think Im a part of this but I am not. The
whole deal was born in a conference room anyway. Lets
put Eddie Vedder screaming on the cover of Time with
a probing essay about the bleak future inside. Well you
were right. It made everyone feel special. I called my
mom and told her punk rock was changing my life. And
look at us now, twenty years later, twenty light years
from hip, connoisseurs of a thing known to marketers
as content. Passionate readers of ceaseless ickering ads.
Along the way there were intimations of mortality, easy
enough to ignore. What has changed, what has changed?
We wont die today and maybe not ever. Kennel District
burns with a dazzling phosphorescence thats all the more
remarkable for the songs simplicity, just the same three
notes in a drop-D progression played over and over for
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three minutes, perfect pop song length. You could be in a

city walking the streets slightly buzzed squinting into the
headlights and rush of faces or in the country gazing
heavenward with stars in your teeth. Either way you feel
a tug of regret. Why didnt I ask, why didnt I ask? Scott
Kannberg pulled a neat trick later, moving the Kennel
District chords down a step, inverting the progression
on the verses and laying on some Byrds jangle. The
result was Date with IKEA, another one of his gems. You
could wash your face at night and slip into bed without
a clue as to what transpired that day or wake the next
morning feeling vaguely thankful you still exist before
remembering with a shiver all thats left to be done. I
dont wanna be young again but jesus I sure as fuck dont
wanna get any older. Is there a third option? Yes but it
takes a certain type of individual. Curtis, Cobain. You
are not like them. Youre too fond of that sweet ache, the
little electric moment pre-kiss. In a small room in a law
ofce at 120 Broadway I had a temp gig entering lawyers
timesheets into a database, moving only three ngers
on my right hand. Information Center, I said whenever
I answered the phone. During slow times I imagined it
was all a movie. I leaned back in my chair and stared at
the ceiling as a camera lmed from above. The song on
the soundtrack was always Pueblo. The opening guitars
and rst verse telegraphed a pleasant ennui. The piercing
note that drives the chorus hinted at deeper agonies. I
never found a way to end the scene, it merely drifted on
like the middle part of the song. When you move you dont
move you dont move. The vocals at the end of Pueblo
are some of my favorite on the record even though its
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152

not clear what if anything is being said. Probably the

voice there is meant only to compliment the swirling
guitars that dominate the mix. Malkmus has been end-
lessly and rightly praised for his linguistic gifts. But hes
equally adept at creating moments of pure feeling using
few if any discernible words. As he does at the start of
Half a Canyon, a drawn-out screech culminating in the
delightfully world-weary aw shit, baby. Later he unleashes
a series of terrifying screams. Oh my god I cant believe
Im still going. Only for another moment. Weve arrived
at the end. Twin visions of California. A desert red-
ness falling over Spahn Movie Ranch. Setting out under
cover of night for a creepy-crawl in the Hollywood Hills.
In another view wave after wave of strip malls ripple
out from a dying town center. Living room windows
ash TV glow. Western homes are locked forever, the new
frontier is not that near. Down these streets with English
country manor names well skateboard. On pale lawns
well huddle and plan our escape. There is no escape.
We were fools to believe it. Yet there never was anyone
more hopeful than me, bounding through the static, a
song on my lips. Unchain your heart, honey. I like you.
I am en route

153

Acknowledgments
Thank you: David Barker, Paul Bayer, Nils Bernstein,
Brooklyn Writers Space, Sam Brumbaugh, Trish
Chappell, Dianne Charles, Gerard Cosloy, Doug Easley,
Bryce Goggin, Danny Goldberg, Mark Ibold, Scott
Kannberg, Steve Keene, Dan Koretzky, John Liberty,
Chris Lombardi, Anna Loynes, Stephen Malkmus,
PJ Mark, Rian Murphy, Bob Nastanovich, Matthew
Perpetua, Wendy Raffel, Jacob Slichter, Richard
VanFulpen, Mark Venezia, Steve West, Karla Wozniak.
BUYING BOOKS IN BOOKSTORES IS COOL.
Also available in the series:
1. Dusty in Memphis by Warren
Zanes
2. Forever Changes by Andrew
Hultkrans
3. Harvest by Sam Inglis
4. The Kinks Are the Village Green
Preservation Society by Andy
Miller
5. Meat Is Murder by Joe Pernice
6. The Piper at the Gates of Dawn
by John Cavanagh
7. Abba Gold by Elisabeth
Vincentelli
8. Electric Ladyland by John
Perry
9. Unknown Pleasures by Chris
Ott
10. Sign O the Times by
Michaelangelo Matos
11. The Velvet Underground and
Nico by Joe Harvard
12. Let It Be by Steve Matteo
13. Live at the Apollo by Douglas
Wolk
14. Aqualung by Allan Moore
15. OK Computer by Dai Grifths
16. Let It Be by Colin Meloy
17. Led Zeppelin IV by Erik Davis
18. Exile on Main St. by Bill
Janovitz
19. Pet Sounds by Jim Fusilli
20. Ramones by Nicholas Rombes
21. Armed Forces by Franklin
Bruno
22. Murmur by J. Niimi
23. Grace by Daphne Brooks
24. Endtroducing . . . by Eliot
Wilder
25. Kick Out the Jams by Don
McLeese
26. Low by Hugo Wilcken
27. Born in the U.S.A. by Geoffrey
Himes
28. Music from Big Pink by John
Niven
29. In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by
Kim Cooper
30. Pauls Boutique by Dan LeRoy
31. Doolittle by Ben Sisario
32. Theres a Riot Goin On by Miles
Marshall Lewis
33. The Stone Roses by Alex
Green
34. In Utero by Gillian G. Gaar
35. Highway 61 Revisited by Mark
Polizzotti
36. Loveless by Mike McGonigal
37. The Who Sell Out by John
Dougan
38. Bee Thousand by Marc
Woodworth
39. Daydream Nation by Matthew
Stearns
40. Court and Spark by Sean
Nelson
41. Use Your Illusion Vols 1 and 2 by
Eric Weisbard
42. Songs in the Key of Life by Zeth
Lundy
43. The Notorious Byrd Brothers by
Ric Menck
44. Trout Mask Replica by Kevin
Courrier
45. Double Nickels on the Dime by
Michael T. Fournier
46. Aja by Don Breithaupt
47. Peoples Instinctive Travels and
the Paths of Rhythm by Shawn
Taylor
48. Rid of Me by Kate Schatz
49. Achtung Baby by Stephen
Catanzarite
50. If Youre Feeling Sinister by
Scott Plagenhoef
51. Pink Moon by Amanda
Petrusich
52. Lets Talk About Love by Carl
Wilson
53. Swordshtrombones by David
Smay
54. 20 Jazz Funk Greats by Drew
Daniel
55. Horses by Philip Shaw
56. Master of Reality by John
Darnielle
57. Reign in Blood by D. X. Ferris
58. Shoot Out the Lights by Hayden
Childs
59. Gentlemen by Bob Gendron
60. Rum, Sodomy & the Lash by
Jeffery T. Roesgen
61. The Gilded Palace of Sin by Bob
Proehl
62. Pink Flag by Wilson Neate
63. XO by Matthew LeMay
64. Illmatic by Matthew Gasteier
65. Radio City by Bruce Eaton
66. One Step Beyond . . . by Terry
Edwards
67. Another Green World by Geeta
Dayal
68. Zaireeka by Mark Richardson
69. 69 Love Songs by L. D. Beghtol
70. Facing Future by Dan Kois