Guided by Voices: Mag Earwhig!

Guided by Voices: Mag Earwhig!

1997

Matador Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1.Can't Hear the Revolution  2. Sad If I Lost It  3. I Am a Tree  4. The Old Grunt  5. Bulldog Skin  6. Are You Faster?  7. I Am Produced  8. Knock 'Em Flyin'  9. Not Behind the Fighter Jet   10. Choking Tara  11. Hollow Cheek  12. Portable Men's Society  13. Little Lines  14. Learning to Hunt  15. The Finest Joke Is Upon Us  16. Mag Earwhig!  17. Now to War  18. Jane of the Waking Universe  19. The Colossus Crawls West  20. Mute Superstar  21. Bomb in the Bee-Hive


The first post-classic line-up album. Pollard uses Cleveland-based band Cobra Verde as his new backing band, although the old band is still lurking in the album's fringes. Tobin Sprout made it pretty far into the sessions, taking some of the songs he wrote for the album over to his "Moonflower Plastic" album.  This also happens to be the first GBV album I'd ever heard. Y'see, I was watching MTV one day and happened to catch the video for "Bulldog Skin." It's no surprise I immediately liked "Bulldog Skin," because underneath my slick, Bipedal, city-dwelling exterior beats the deep-fried heart of a backwoods hick, steeped in Molly Hatchet 8-tracks, Hee-Haw re-runs and FM radio. So the twangy, hick-ish southern-rocking "Bulldog Skin" was right up my alley. 

Looking back on my initial impressions of the album always amuses me. I can kinda feel for the people who can't quite wrap their heads around Pollard's prodigious output.I remember being head over heels knocked out by half of it ("Bulldog Skin," "Jane of the Waking Universe,""I Am a Tree") and found the other half completely inscrutable. I can recall listening to "The Old Grunt," "Hollow Cheek," "The Colossus Crawls West," the title track, etc and thinking they were sort of a bizarre, tuneless spoken word. It sounded like an old man rambling over random nonsense. And I could almost smell cigarette smoke when I listened to these songs...I had no idea that someday Pollard would constitute roughly 70% of my listening habits...

Listening to it now, I think it's a slight step back from "Under the Bushes, Under the Stars" but still solid and enjoyable. This marks the point where GBV's sound shifts from whimsical, slightly-psychedelic indie rock to a crunchier hard rock. Less Beatles, more Who. Like all the cheap beer was finally kicking in. And boy, did Pollard hit the jackpot with new guitarist Doug Gillard, who was the only member from the Cobra Verde lineup to last (he's still in the band, I think). He's very melodic and rocking and adept at reeling off succinct, memorable little guitar solos. The nimble riffs in "I Am a Tree" and the solo on "Bulldog Skin" are on a whole nother level when contrasted with previous GBV albums. 

Favorites: "I Am a Tree" rocks harder and more skillfully than ever before. "Jane of the Waking Universe" feels like the classic lineup going supernova in one final, cataclysmic blast of warm poppiness. I'm also adding "Now to War" to my official pile of "Greatest GBV songs." Bob hadn't done anything like this in a long while. It's a lonely, acoustic meditation on drinking and isolation that brings back the sorrowful solitude that made me fall in love with the "Box" era stuff in the first place. A damn masterpiece, in my opinion. I also have to point out "The Finest Joke Is Upon Us" which is a song that took 20 years for its greatness to sink in! Seriously! I first heard this song back in '97 and was always kinda, "eh" about it until last year I was listening to the single version on the "Hardcore UFO's" boxset when the song suddenly morphed before my ears into the biggest pile of beautiful hooks I'd ever heard! Pollard's stuff can sometimes take a while to sink in but this is ridiculous... "Choking Tara" is a beauty too, although I prefer the full-band "creamy" version released elsewhere...

Weak spots: Surprisingly few. It's relative drumlessness works against it somewhat. I think having the "creamy" version of "Choking Tara" might have helped. I've also always felt like the album doesn't really kick in until "I Am a Tree," with the first two songs having an introductory build up feel.

Overall, this album is almost like a big, flat, even plane. Not much stands out but there are no low points either. I think it's why I often overlook it. I don't pull it off the shelf much, but when I do I always think to myself, "Oh, yea. Why don't I listen to this one more?"  It feels very transitional. It has a little bit of the warm, comforting glow of the classic line-up and a bit of the bombastic sheen of the Gillard era. You can feel Pollard wanting to go bigger but not quite committing to it 100% yet, which gives the album an interesting and distinctive feel. This marked the end of the Cobra Verde line-up. Everyone except for Gillard gets replaced for the next album, which is a whole nother ball o' wax...

Alright. Let's listen to some music. Here's "Now to War" by Guided by Voices. Enjoy...

Here's the revised rankings. I'm putting "Mag Earwhig!" slightly below "Not in My Airforce" and slightly above "King Shit."  It doesn't have the effortlessness that "Not in My Airforce" exudes but it's more consistent than "King Shit" (which is fairly ass-kicking collection of outtakes). 

1. Guided by Voices: Alien Lanes

2. Guided by Voices: Bee Thousand

3.Guided by Voices: Under the Bushes, Under the Stars

4. Guided by Voices: Propeller

5. Tobin Sprout: Carnival Boy

6. Guided by Voices: Same Place the Fly Got Smashed

7. Guided by Voices: Tonics and Twisted Chasers

8. Guided by Voices: Sunfish Holy Breakfast

9. Robert Pollard: Not In My Airforce

10. Mag Earwhig!

11.  Guided by Voices: King Shit and the Golden Boys

12. Guided by Voices: Self-Inflicted Aerial Nostalgia

13. Guided by Voices: Vampire on Titus

14. Guided by Voices: Sandbox

15. Guided by Voices: Forever Since Breakfast

16. Guided by Voices: Devil Between My Toes