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Pavement :: "Summer Babe (Live)"From Wowee Zowee: Sordid Sentinals Edition (Matador; 2006)
So that new Wowee Zowee reissue is going to annihilate in ways only Matador know how. When pre-ordered from obliging retailers, not only do you get the now-requisite fifty-track remaster of Pavement’s middle finger to the mainstream, but you’re also kitted out with a rare 7” and an even harder-to-find bootleg of the band’s incendiary 1994 performance at The Palace in Hollywood. Awesome doesn’t really do justice to this package. But, lest we forget, it would be nothing without Malkmus and co.’s unparalleled aloofness, the group hitting their stride here on the Crooked Rain tour, introducing riotous new songs and deploying the classics with the gusto and cock-eyed faith of bastard missionaries. “Summer Babe” busts out sensationally, the pawn shop Velvets of Slanted’s opening cut swapped to cater to the band’s newfound jocularity. Malkmus laces the hook with the trademark jib jab of his guitar, navigating the bum notes, the whole track a full-throttle leaping dive. Unlike the tamer ’92 Brixton Academy bootleg, the band works more as a unit here. The instruments coalesce more comfortably to create that great, untamed wall of sound, a potent and arch reminder of how fun, and enlivening, this genre can be.
Alan Baban :: 25 October 2006 |
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