Tobin Sprout: Let's Welcome the Circus People

Tobin Sprout: Let's Welcome the Circus People

1999

Recordhead Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Tuck Everlasting:  1. Smokey Joe's Perfect Hair  2. Digging Up Wooden Teeth  3. Mayhem Stone  4. And So On  5. Making A Garden  6. Vertical Insect (The Lights Are On)  7. Maid To Order  8. Liquor Bag  9. Who's Adolescence  10. Lucifer's Flaming Hour  11. 100% Delay  12. And Then The Crowd Showed Up


Oh yea. I like this one. It's not as initially welcoming as his first two solo outings but it's got an interesting, hermetic quality that draws me in. It's very dry, cold and brittle which lays bare every stumble but it's also oddly compelling to hear Tobin sing about room layouts and furniture in such a stark setting. The warm, fuzziness is mostly gone.  Imagine an eccentric hermit recording a homebrew version of "154" and you're not way off...

There are a couple of so-so tracks (the alright-ish "Smokey Joe"  and the incredibly bizarre "Making a Garden," where Tobin appears to be singing over the waltz setting on a casio keyboard)) but for the most part it's all moody, slightly off-kilter, hummable indie pop. 

Favorites: "Digging Up Wooden Teeth" is incredibly effective. I can't really determine what's the verse and what's the chorus but when he moves back into the verse from the bridge section (y'know the, "How do you expect me to dig wooden teeth?" part?) it just gets me and the ol' arm hairs start standing up... I also love the rickety piano popper "Who's Adolescence," "Maid to Order" also strikes me as super-solid Sprout with subtle hooks landing one after the other, and the closing "And Then the Crowd Showed Up" ends the album on a perfect note. The album suddenly lifts its melancholy  mood and feels celebratory in a warm, relaxed way.  Oh yea, I should probably mention that "Lucifer's Flaming Hour" rules too. Mainly because of those closing "doot doot doot" backing vocals. 

Y'know, I've been listening to this album for 18 years now and I still don't know what to think about "Liquor Bag." The song is ludicrous, with its forced rhymes and Tobin wheezing like some weird hybrid of Tom Petty and ancient Bob Dylan (there's definitely some Wilbury-ness to his vocal performance). I'm simultaneously fascinated by it and repelled by it. I can at least say I've never skipped it, which is more than I can say for "Making A Garden."

Overall, this is a good album and although I don't think it tops the first two Sprout albums, I've probably listened to it more than any other one. It's an interesting listen for sure and the songs get stuck in your head like crazy...

Let's listen to some music. Here's "And Then the Crowd Showed Up" by Tobin Sprout. Enjoy...

This was a hard one to rank. I listen to it way more than "Mag Earwhig!" but it doesn't have any moments as transcendent as "Now to War" or "Jane of the Waking Universe" so I'm putting it right below it. Looking at this list kinda bothers me at this point, cos it makes me out as one of those people who immediately dismiss the "Box" era albums, which (for the most part) I flat out love. I think you'll see the overall standing of those "Box" albums go up as Pollard's output gets a little more diluted during this Fading Captain era...I don't know though. Sometimes as I go through these GBV-universe albums, certain ones will rise in stature and other ones aren't as shiny as I remembered...If I had done these rankings without re-listening to each one as I do them, I think I would have ended up w/ a much different list...

1. Guided by Voices: Alien Lanes

2. Robert Pollard With Doug Gillard:Speak Kindly of Your Volunteer Fire Department

3. Guided by Voices: Bee Thousand

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

5. Guided by Voices: Propeller

6. Tobin Sprout: Moonflower Plastic (Welcome to My Wigwam)

7. Robert Pollard: Waved Out

8. Tobin Sprout: Carnival Boy

9. Guided by Voices: Do the Collapse

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

11. Robert Pollard: Kid Marine

12. Guided by Voices: Tonics and Twisted Chasers

13. Guided by Voices: Sunfish Holy Breakfast

14. Robert Pollard: Not In My Airforce

15. Guided by Voices: Mag Earwhig!

16. Tobin Sprout: Let's Welcome the Circus People

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

18. Guided by Voices: Self-Inflicted Aerial Nostalgia

19. Guided by Voices: Vampire on Titus

20. Guided by Voices: Sandbox

21. Guided by Voices: Forever Since Breakfast

22. Guided by Voices: Devil Between My Toes 
23. Nightwalker: In Shop We Build Electric Chairs: Professional Music by Nightwalker