Airport 5: Life Starts Here

Airport 5: Life Starts Here

2002

Fading Captain Series

Track Listing: 1. Intro  2. We're in the Business  3. Yellow Wife No. 5  4. Wrong Drama Addiction(...and Life Starts Here)  5. However Young They Are  6. The Dawntrust Guarantee  7. Forever Since  8. Impressions of a Leg   9. How Brown?  10. Natives Approach our Plane  11. I Can't Freeze  12. Out in the World  

Having a blog means never having to say you're sorry about the endless space of time between posts: 

Yea, I've been averaging about a post a month at this point (and this one is recycled!). I guess I'm going to officially call it: I'm semi-retired at blogging. And by semi-retired, I mean putting in endless hours at work and busy with my band again. Oh, and watching a lot of TV. But I haven't given up on the Friday Night Record Party. No, sir. I can't let shit go! But the once or twice a month thing will be the new normal. But there's a vast backlog of posts if'n you ever get bored (just don't go too far. The early posts are nigh unreadable and boring as fuck)...My love of records is undiminished though! In fact, I just hit up the record store last weekend and walked away with an armload of treasures. Maybe I'll start doing more stuff like that, rather than the straight alphabetical shit...Toss in some more spontaneous haul posts...Who knows...

But enough about my existential crises...Let's listen to some Airport 5...


This one is possibly as weird as "Tower in the Fountain of Sparks," but comes off as less so because it's so consistently strange. The previous album had a couple of obvious pop songs that threw the flow of the album off, but it was hard to complain because the pop songs were so damn good... 

Pretty much no pop tunes here, but that's not to say this isn't memorable. There are bizarre chants in the form of "Native Approach Our Plane" and "Wrong Drama Addiction," and a fistful of bleary slow tunes, the best of which "How Brown?" is oddly stirring when Robert Pollard earnestly sings "And we must be adventurers! Partners in Shit-heeled Glory!" How those lyrics can come across as touching, I'll never know, but take my word for it, they are. I also love the moment on "Out in the World" when those mighty power chords crash in and Pollard belts out "Move onto it! Unshakable! It's a cinch!" Just a fine, fine moment.

My only real complaint would be the 3 minutes of  droning noise at the end of the fourth track. It sounds like a refrigerator humming and kills any momentum the record had built up to that point. Otherwise, "Wrong Drama Addiction (...and Life Starts Here)" is a cool suspenseful song, with a riveting Bob vocal...Y'know that tightened screw style he busted out on "#2 in the "Model Home Series" back on "Vampire on Titus"...

This is the last Airport 5 record to date, and they go out with a pretty solid outing  It is hard to believe Robert Pollard and Tobin Sprout worked on a record together that isn't brimming  with  killer hooks, but I don't think that was the point of Airport 5. I think they were mining for something deeper and darker here...Again, recommended for fans of Pollard's more esoteric work, who should definitely get a kick out of this...

And let's check out "Yellow Wife No. 5"

This is a tough one to rank. It doesn't have the initial excitement that the first Airport 5 had and it doesn't have any big-tent songs, yet in a way it feels a little more cohesive than the debut. I possibly like it more than "Tower in the Fountain of Sparks," yet I don't listen to it as much. I'm putting it right next to its partner...Too close to call...

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. Airport 5: Life Starts Here

26. Guided by Voices: Forever Since Breakfast

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