A self-described "companion" to
R. Stevie Moore's first album after moving to New Jersey from Nashville, The North,
Pow Wow sounds a little more like leftovers from the same sessions. The material is uniformly pretty good -- and there's a stretch in the center of disc one that's superb -- and unlike the covers-heavy The North, it consists almost entirely of original material, barring a terrific version of the
Elvis chestnut "Marie's the Name (His Latest Flame)" and a playful run-through of the early
Mothers of Invention nugget "Let's Make the Water Turn Black." Still, the album doesn't quite have the conceptual unity of The North, and there is a bit of filler here. For example, the minimal, falsetto-sung "Blasted" would be a charming diversion if it was under two minutes long, rather like those little link tracks and interludes on many of
Paul McCartney's '70s albums. At nine minutes and 13 seconds, it's just kind of annoying. Similarly, nearly a third of the second disc consists of the 14-minute "SMGoodies," an audio-verite collection of tape fragments and found-sound instructional records that recalls the similarly disjointed and rambling
Grease. (Fans of the seriously obscure outsider music genre should know that there's a segment featuring the late Chris Palestis, aka
Wizzo, toward the end of this.) On the upside, however, there's yet another treasure trove of prime
Moore, ranging from good (the working-stiff blues "Misplacement," which prefigures the cult comedy film Office Space by a full two decades; the quirky and hilarious love song "Debbie") to great ("The Residents," a love letter to
Moore's like-minded heroes that just happens to mention the supposedly anonymous group's two masterminds by name; the two-part suite "I Feel So Bad I Feel Good"/"Sand in My Eyes," which shifts from a weirdly echoing piece of anguished psychedelia into
Moore's own white-boy-from-Nashville take on '70s love-man soul in the
Al Green/
Barry White tradition; the a cappella "No Talking," which invents the sound
They Might Be Giants would eventually turn into a career) to brilliant (the punky "Jesus Rocks," positing listening to rock & roll on a lazy Sunday morning as a more viable spiritual activity than going to church; the beautifully melodic "Copy Me"; the utterly sublime "Hearing Aid," which marries a cheap rhythm box, overdubbed circa-1967
Kinks harmonies, and a melody that recalls, no kidding, Rubber Soul-era
Beatles). Though it's not one of
Moore's best albums from this era,
Pow Wow still beats a lot of his contemporaries' highest achievements.