Go Back Snowball: Calling Zero
2002
Fading Captain Series/Luna Records
Format I Own it on: Compact Disc
Track Listing: 1. Radical Girl 2. Calling Zero 3. Never Forget Where You Get Them 4. Red Hot Halos 5. Again the Waterloo 6. Climb 7. Go Gold 8. Lifetime for the Mavericks 9. Throat of Throats 10. Ironrose Worm 11. It is Divine 12. Dumb Luck Systems Stormfront
Fading Captain Series #17. This is a collaboration between Robert Pollard (who provides the vocals) and Mac McCaughan (who supplies the music). Mac is definitely in his bedroom/indie Portastatic mode (lots of processed guitar effects, vintage-sounding keyboards and plush atmosphere) as opposed to his more rollickng Superchunk mode, which is a slight shame, since the idea of Bob fronting Superchunk is too tantalizing an indie-rock dream team to pass up. Still the results are super decent and I forget how much I enjoy this one until I pull it out and give it another spin.
Favorites: Two big 'uns here that I love love love...First up, "Go Gold," which on the surface doesn't look like much. Just a stridently strummed acoustic guitar and some buzzy atmosphere but Pollard sells the shit out of a triumphant vocal melody, turning it into an unexpected fist-raiser. The second big 'un would have to be "It Is Divine," which has the same immediately recognizable sense of bittersweet nostalgia that you find in some of Bob's past masterpieces like "Dayton, Ohio" or "Official Ironmen Rally." On the surface it appears to be complete and utter nonsense but suddenly you'll find your mind wandering back to magical childhood summers and long-lost friends. And all this from a song advising us to "Piss on the hot street/Like Transistor Sun Man..." This is why I'm a GBV fan.
Runner ups: I really like the horns on "Radical Girl," which I believe is a first on a Pollard album. Can't recall many horns on "Vampire on Titus" or "Choreographed Man of War." The song is also notable in that it appears to be a clear-headed character-sketch and not of the surreal "Ha Ha Man" quality. "Ironrose Worm" has an intriguing feel that's exists somewhere between a playground and a funeral. Very far outside of Bob's usual wheelhouse but intriguingly so, which is why this Go Back Snowball collaboration/album is so memorable. It suddenly strikes me , that his two best postal-rock projects (Go Back Snowball and the later Keene Brothers project with Tommy Keene) find Bob in two completely different poles: The Keene Brothers found Bob paired with such a like-minded collaborator that they were able to carve out their own little piece of heaven and Go Back Snowball finds Bob in a lot of territories he hadn't traveled before and fascinated by the pillowy, bedroom flora and the dangerous indie rock fauna, if that makes sense (spoiler alert: It doesn't.).
Not everything 100% works, for example, when the opening line of "Never Forget Where You Get Them" kicks in you're absolutely convinced that it's going to be the most perfect, kick-ass bit of rock n' roll ever recorded but then it sort of just spins endlessly around and around. "Lifetime For the Mavericks" is another one that starts out sounding cooler than it ends up being, with a raw, paint-peeling guitar riff but the song ends up in a sort of cow-punk shuffle...And it feels like Bob has no idea what to do with the human beatbox drum-machine and zoopy guitars of "Again the Waterloo" so he just sort of stumbles around the odd furniture. But the mistakes and stumbles are at least interesting and really that's just the price you pay for plumbing unfamiliar depths...
So yea...If you're into either Bob's solo material or Mac's Portastatic stuff, then you'll like this. It might not knock you out or anything but it might put a couple of new melodies floating around your head...It took me a few listens to process it all, but about the third spin it was all very easygoing and found it to be one of the more interesting of the collaboration albums to come out of the Fading Captain series...
Here are the updated rankings...I'm putting it at number 19. It's solid, surprising and engaging but probably not the undisputed triumph that it could have been considering the two greats involved. Which really isn't a knock. It doesn't feel like it was created to be the greatest album of all time or anything. It feels like a couple of guys just having some low-stakes fun, knocking out bizarre little ditties at home...
1. Guided by Voices: Alien Lanes
2. Guided by Voices: Isolation Drills
3. Robert Pollard With Doug Gillard:Speak Kindly of Your Volunteer Fire Department
4. Guided by Voices: Bee Thousand
5.Guided by Voices: Under the Bushes, Under the Stars
6. Guided by Voices: Propeller
7. Tobin Sprout: Moonflower Plastic (Welcome to My Wigwam)
8. Robert Pollard: Waved Out
9. Tobin Sprout: Carnival Boy
10. Guided by Voices: Do the Collapse
11. Guided by Voices: Same Place the Fly Got Smashed
12. Robert Pollard: Kid Marine
13. Guided by Voices: Tonics and Twisted Chasers
14 Guided by Voices: Sunfish Holy Breakfast
15. Robert Pollard: Not In My Airforce
16. Guided by Voices: Mag Earwhig!
17.Robert Pollard and His Soft Rock Renegades: Choreographed Man of War
18. Tobin Sprout: Let's Welcome the Circus People
19. Go Back Snowball: Calling Zero
20. Guided by Voices: King Shit and the Golden Boys
21. Guided by Voices: Self-Inflicted Aerial Nostalgia
22. Guided by Voices: Vampire on Titus
23. Guided by Voices: Sandbox
24. Airport 5: Tower in the Fountain of Sparks
25. Guided by Voices: Forever Since Breakfast
26. Guided by Voices: Devil Between My Toes 27. Nightwalker: In Shop We Build Electric Chairs: Professional Music by Nightwalker
