Tag Archives: wowee zowee

#1093: Pavement – Rattled by the Rush

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This song does have an official music video, but because it uses its radio edit, the guitar solo is cut out entirely. It’s only right that I have the album version up here first. I’ll embed the video after the final paragraph, though. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get into this properly. ‘Rattled by the Rush’ is the second track on Pavement’s Wowee Zowee, the band’s third album, released just over a year after Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain. Story goes that critics couldn’t wait for Wowee Zowee to arrive because Crooked Rain… was just that good, but when it came around they were somewhat disappointed in its sprawling, eclectic direction, coming to the conclusion that Pavement were trying to sabotage their careers and were afraid of success. Stephen Malkmus replied to these notions, stating that it was mainly the marijuana usage that steered things along. It was also the marijuana that made ‘Rattled…’ sound like a smash hit to him, which resulted in it being released as the album’s first single.

If I tried to explain on here what I think ‘Rattled by the Rush’ is about, it’d probably be a waste of your time and mine. And no matter what Genius might have to say about it, I think this song is one of those occasions where the lyrics are just what they are and don’t have to be interpreted to any length or depth. There’s a clear stream of consciousness technique to them, the second verse in particular is a favourite of mine in terms of the rhyming and the words used in general, with ideas of one line running into a different idea in another (“cross your t’s, shirt smell”), and the words are accompanied by this stop-starting rhythm that makes it all sound very awkward, like it’s struggling to get going, before cascading into these heavy guitar breakdowns after the choruses. It’s a strange, strange song for sure. Especially one to choose for a first single. ‘Grounded’ was right there. But you’ve got to give it to Pavement for sticking to their principles.

The music video for the song caused some controversy back in the day. The band chose the guy who directed their former drummer’s ‘Plant Man’ music video to do the same job with ‘Rattled…’ (If you have questions about that linked song, don’t ask.) Band members mentioned that it wasn’t the greatest experience filming the video, and when it was shown on MTV2, it was banned for making people too dizzy because of the constantly spinning/zooming in and out camera work. An additional music video was made to make it more “pleasant” to watch, where the original video is shown on a bathroom tile next to a grotty bathtub. Fair to say, the track deserved better in terms of visuals.

#1068: Pavement – Pueblo

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For a while in 2018/19, I was into buying 33 1/3 books that had been written and dedicated to albums that I greatly appreciated myself. Off the top of my head, I own the ones written for R.E.M.’s Murmur, The Village Green Preservation Society by The Kinks, Talking Heads’ Fear of Music and Television’s Marquee Moon. I’m sure there are a few others too. Being the Pavement fan I am, it only made sense to get the edition dedicated to Wowee Zowee. Now, at this moment in time, I can’t really remember anything much from it. I read it the one time and felt that I didn’t really need to again. But I did learn a few things that I would have never thought about before. Like how Malkmus recorded the guitar solo for ‘Rattled by the Rush’. Or how he played all the instruments on ‘AT&T’.

A large amount of the book is taken from an interview with Stephen Malkmus in which he reveals all this stuff. While mentioning the things noted in the paragraph before, he also stated that when time came to record the vocals, the majority of them were made on the spot with a mix of also having some stuff written down to help guide him along. I have a clear memory of reading this, anyone can correct me. But I do recall him mentioning that ‘Pueblo’ was one of the songs to receive this treatment. You can probably tell by looking at the lyrics anyway. What Malkmus is singing about here is anyone’s guess, but the melody mirrors that of the guitar during the verses so at least that gets into your head during the initial listen.

The track consists of a verse and a chorus and another verse and chorus, separated by a chill instrumental break with a few guitar freak outs. Probably the most notable part of the whole song is when Stephen Malkmus amps up the intensity of his vocal from the second verse into the final chorus, in which he’s more yelling at the listener rather than singing. After all this, the song funnily ends on a bit of a damp squib – like the band had no idea to properly end everything, so they sort of just stop playing. But in the context of Wowee Zowee, its oddities should come as no surprise. If any reader out there is a big, big fan of the song, it’ll be worth to check out the work-in-progress versions of the song that were released on the Crooked Rain deluxe edition from 2004. The ‘Beach Boys’ take makes sense when you hear it, and the ‘Domain’ version is something that sounds like it could have fit on Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain itself.

#692: Pavement – Kennel District

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Wowee Zowee isn’t my favourite Pavement album. Not because it’s bad. It has some of the band’s best songs on there. ‘Grounded’ being one…. ‘Grave Architecture’ another. And today’s song, ‘Kennel District’, written by Scott “Spiral Stairs” Kannberg. The record is a hard one to get through at times because for every two perfect indie rock come these other compositions that throw the flow out of the window. And yet, that specific thing is the main reason why a lot of people consider it a classic and the most ‘Pavement’ album.

I wanted to get closer to it and so I purchased the album’s 33 1/3 book in 2018. It’s a fantastic read. I learned a lot of new things about the album and the songs on there. For example, ‘Kennel District’ was written when Kannberg had broken up with his girlfriend and was simultaneously becoming friends with a woman who was feeling trapped in her own marriage. That’s where the line ‘Can’t believe she’s married to rope’ comes from. The song title also has nothing to do with the lyrical content, and was inspired by a thought Kannberg had about New York having its own district where all dogs were kept.

One thing’s for sure. If I didn’t like the song the first time I listened to the album the whole way through, I’m very sure I did after the second listen. It’s one of the most easy-listening, digestible, perfect indie-rock cuts on there. Apparently, the band’s record label wanted to make the track a single but not without re-recording it first. The track is led by a fuzzy bass and a roaring guitar in the left channel that more or less play the same chord sequence throughout. On top of that is a weird keyboard that plays its own little riff on top of that. And with this some great music is made. It worked so well in fact that Kannberg pretty much rewrote the track and made ‘Date w/ IKEA’ for Brighten the Corners a few years later.

I don’t know. I don’t think I have much else to say about it. I admire its simplicity and its ability to still give me some chills after all this time. It was initially recorded during the sessions for Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain and it didn’t make the cut, but I’ll put that version below so you can check it out and compare to the version that everybody knows.

My iPod #476: Pavement – Grounded

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“Grounded” is a Pavement song that can be found on the band’s third album Wowee Zowee, released in 1995. The album is loved many a fan of the band due to its complete randomness ranging from structured, melodic and accessible tracks such as this one to the bizarre, humourous, on the spot takes like “Brinx Job” for example. There are many reasons why it’s considered to be the band’s “White Album”.

“Grounded” is track five on Wowee Zowee after the silliness in “Brinx Job”, and after a slow count-in by Stephen Malkmus comes a beautiful twinkling guitar riff that makes use of only three notes but combined with Mark Ibold’s simple descending bass line (which interestingly doesn’t change one bit during the whole song) and Steve West’s drums makes for the most comforting and mellow musical moments on the whole album.

One thing that Stephen Malkmus tends to do is sing the same melody as a guitar pattern that repeats during a section of a song. Listen to “Unfair” or “Rattled by the Rush“. Well, there’s another instance of this occasion. This time during the verses where he sings in unison with the Drop-D tuned guitar. These then increase in intensity climaxing in the track’s climactic instrumental refrain, which slowly climbs up and up before falling face-first with an emphatic crash. These are all repeated once more, and the opening riff arrives again – this time faster and accompanied by the rest of the band – to close the song out for the last minute.

Love this song. One of their best. And one about doctors too if that does anything for you. An underrated indie anthem.