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

Robert Pollard With Doug Gillard: Speak Kindly of Your Volunteer Fire Department
1999

Fading Captain Series/Luna Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. Frequent Weaver Who Burns  2. Soul Train College Policeman  3. Pop Zeus  4. Slick as Snails  5. Do Something Real  6. Port Authority  7. Soft Smoke  8. Same Things  9. And I Don't (So Now I Do)  10. Tight Globes  11. I  Get Rid of You  12. Life Is Beautiful  13. Messiahs  14. Larger Massachusetts  15. And My Unit Moves



Fading Captain #4. I know you're all going to think I'm completely fucking insane but this is one of my very tip-top favorite Pollard albums. I don't mean just solo albums either. I'm saying I probably like this more and listen to it more often than "Bee Thousand" even...I'm calling it his most consistent album. I can only think of two (very brief songs) that aren't absolute knock-outs (the back-to-back hazy oddities "Soft Smoke" and "Same Things.". Outside of those two questionable minutes the rest of the album is comprised of top shelf stuff. It's kind of a shame they didn't slap the "GBV" name on this thing and get it a larger audience but these types of moves are expected when you're exploring the Pollard-verse. 

This album is Bob singing over Doug Gillard's stellar instrumentals and houses the largest collection of chimy, Big Star power-poppers Pollard's has ever released. So if you're interested in that side of the band, you need this. I'm still not feeling very well and I have to go to Home Depot to pick up some bags of exciting dirt, so I'm making this brief (although I could probably ramble about how fucking amazing this album is all day). Here's a pithy list of my favorite things about "Speak Kindly of Your Volunteer Fire Department." 

 1. "And I Don't (So Now I Do)" is possibly Bob's finest Alex Chilton tribute. It's probably tied with "Slick as Snails" for the album's best track. "Slick as Snails" is a melodic wonder,  by the way. It's got the easiest, slow-rolling melody I've ever heard. Something about it makes you hang onto every (admittedly bizarre) lyric.  When the line "Gorilla of your dreams..." hits you right in the gut, you know magic is happening....

2. All of Doug Gillard's best riffs are piled here. The lithe, sprightly riffs on "Pop Zeus" and "Messiahs" are hall-of-famers for real...

3. Man. Have you ever shouted along to Bob's "ELECTRIC NEWSPAPER BOYYYY!!!" climax in "Pop Zeus" while delivering actual newspapers? At that point, I didn't know if I'd ever felt more ready to take on the world...

4. On "Port Authority" Gillard actually gets a song out of that one unusable guitar pedal setting. You know the one....When you're going through the settings on a Zoom pedal and suddenly you run across the sound of a sad, addled 1970's robot jabbering away while melting down? It's the wingdings of guitar  settings. No one uses it. Except they use it here and it works...A cool, moody, proggy entry in an album full of shiny pop. 

5. "Life is Beautiful" actually makes good on its promise. Life becomes a little more beautiful when you're listening to it. I was listening to  this on headphones the other day, riding the lightrail to work and looking out the window. And right around the time that angelic  "Death of a Clown"-esque backing vocal occurs the trash-strewn alleys started to glow. 

6. Whether they love, hate or are indifferent to GBV (usually the latter) anytime I show anyone "Do Something Real" they instantly get it. There's something about that oddly-gaited riff that catches the ear. The whole thing rocks so much that the message cleanly punches right through Pollard's usual obfuscated lyrics. 

7. "I Get Rid of You." Bob's vocal harmony when he sings, "The sight of you is starting up a war inside of me..." Beautiful stuff. This song always reminds me of The Doors for some reason...

Alright. I gotta head out. Here are the updated rankings, try not to hate me too much for this one. Like I said, it's my personal ranking and has no regard for historical importance or other people's taste. And I highly recommend making your own list. It's super fun! Yea, I'm putting it at the number two slot. I love everything about this album and next to "Alien Lanes" it's the one I pull off the shelf most often. Infinite replay value. Instantly catchy songs that somehow never lose an iota of their magic even on the 500th playthrough...

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. Robert Pollard: Waved Out

7. Tobin Sprout: Carnival Boy

8. Guided by Voices: Do the Collapse

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

10. Robert Pollard: Kid Marine

11. Guided by Voices: Tonics and Twisted Chasers

12. Guided by Voices: Sunfish Holy Breakfast

13. Robert Pollard: Not In My Airforce

14. Guided by Voices: Mag Earwhig!

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

16. Guided by Voices: Self-Inflicted Aerial Nostalgia

17. Guided by Voices: Vampire on Titus

18. Guided by Voices: Sandbox

19. Guided by Voices: Forever Since Breakfast

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

Alright. Enough rankings. Let's listen to some music. Here's "Pop Zeus" by Robert Pollard With Doug Gillard. Enjoy....

Nightwalker: In Shop We Build Electric Chairs: Professional Music by Nightwalker

Nightwalker: In Shop We Build Electric Chairs: Professional Music by Nightwalker

1999 

Fading Captain Series/Luna Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. Drum Solo  2.The Fink Swan (Swims Away)  3. Kenneth Ray  4. Dogwood Grains  5. Amazed  6. Signifying UFO  7. Ceramic Cock Einstein  8. U235  9. Weird Rivers & Sapphire Sun  10. Trashed Canned Goods  11. Those Little Bastards Will Bite


Sorry, about the lack of posts recently. I got really sick and have just been Hibernol-ing it. I'm finally feeling human again and so I'm going to celebrate my wellness by treating myself to a half hour of caustic noise...

" In Shop We Build Electric Chairs: Professional Music by Nightwalker" is Fading Captain #3. I actually don't own a copy of Fading Captain #2, which was the Lexo and the Leapers EP. If I track down a copy of that, I'll go back and do a post on it. Remember, I said I had a lot of Robert Pollard, but not all of it. Cos bills and groceries and shit...

Alright. You get home from a long day at work...You stopped by the local record shop on the way home and picked up the latest Robert Pollard album.  You fix up a martini, throw the album on the hifi, loosen your tie, stare at the album cover and read, "Track 1, 'Drum Solo.' Ah, this ought to be good..." 

You prepare yourself for some sweet Ginger Baker cannonades but wait! This isn't eight-armed Keith Moon flailing! This isn't even a Peter Criss Side-3-of-Alive level drum solo. It's just some dude ineptly banging away at a drum kit. Like when your drummer steps away from the stool for a minute and the guitarist swoops in and has a go at it. Loping, stumbly and unsteady. And that's pretty much the world of Nightwaker...

Y'see, this is one of those late night noise jams that are a hell of a lot of fun to participate in but probably not as much fun to listen to. If you've ever listened to any of those Guided by Voices "Suitcase" releases you'll be familiar with the style immediately. The dank, bleary, tuneless, incoherent fucking around where you have to ask yourself, "Why did he see fit to release this?" Well, this is a whole album of those...

I can see why some people were pissed off at this release. I can imagine if I bought it when it came out and paid $15.00 for it, not knowing what I was getting into, I would been pissed off too. Luckily, I bought it off the Rockathon website for $5.00 years later, knowing full-well what its reputation was. I'd say there's about $5.00 worth of entertainment here...I actually sorta enjoy this type of thing but I can easily imagine how something like the squalling feedback and irregular, sporadic drumming of "Ceramic Cock Einstein" might put someone off...I tend to focus on the positive things, so here are they are:

The Pros: 

1. The vocal melody of "The Fink Swan (Swims Away)" actually gets stuck in my head from time to time. Which I suppose is good, cos the song is really nothing but a (very loud) vocal melody. 

2. "Dogwood Grains" is a much needed oasis in the middle of the junkyard. Just a lovely, little acoustic ditty, where the "living in an airport" theme (which would later be explored on later records) first pops up. Probably the most enjoyable song on the disc. 

3. "Ceramic Cock Einstein" is nothing but a bunch of aimless fucking around until a song-ish type thing eventually emerges from the muck. And that song-ish type thing just happens to be the noisy snippet that opens "Paper Girl" from the "Self Inflicted Aerial Nostalgia" album! Awesome! 

4. This album ends with the 11-minute epic "Those Little Bastards Will Bite"  which is (surprise! surprise!) more aimless, feed-backing, fucking around until suddenly 7 minutes in, you realize you're witnessing the live birth of "Postal Blowfish." 

And there you have it. There are the 4 good things about "In Shop We Build Electric Chairs." No, wait, the cover is cool. That makes 5 good things...







 I'd recommend this only to the hardest of harcore Pollard fanatics. In fact, while I was listening to this, my wife (who is a GBV fan, but not as rabid about the whole thing as I tend to be) made a disgusted face at the ear-splitting feedback and muttered, "This is horrible..."  But if you're fascinated by grimy, audio weirdness this might hold your interest. I find I bust it out once a month or so, when I'm feeling particularly antisocial and un-song-like...

Alright. Let's listen to some music. I'll go easy on you. Here's "Dogwood Grains." Acoustic guitars. Gentle singing. No screaming feedback and random drum hits...

Here are the updated rankings. This one was a no-brainer. "In Shop We Build Electric Chairs" goes straight to the bottom-ass bottom and there's a fair chance it's staying there. "Devil Between My Toes" has much more to recommend than this album. As a look back at this list, I can't shake the feeling that I have "Kid Marine" ranked too low. I dunno. What do you guys think? 

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. Robert Pollard: Waved Out

6. Tobin Sprout: Carnival Boy

7. Guided by Voices: Do the Collapse

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

9. Robert Pollard: Kid Marine

10. Guided by Voices: Tonics and Twisted Chasers

11. Guided by Voices: Sunfish Holy Breakfast

12. Robert Pollard: Not In My Airforce

13. Guided by Voices: Mag Earwhig!

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

15. Guided by Voices: Self-Inflicted Aerial Nostalgia

16. Guided by Voices: Vampire on Titus

17. Guided by Voices: Sandbox

18. Guided by Voices: Forever Since Breakfast

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

Guided by Voices: Do the Collapse

Guided by Voices: Do the Collapse

1999

TVT Records

Format I Own it on: Shiny Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. Teenage FBI  2. Zoo Pie  3. Things I Will Keep  4. Hold on Hope  5. In Stitches  6. Dragons Awake!  7. Surgical Focus  8. Optical Hopscotch  9. Mushroom Art   10. Much Better Mr. Buckles  11. Wormhole  12. Strumpet Eye  13. Liquid Indian  14. Wrecking Now  15. Picture Me Big Time  16. An Unmarketed Product


Oh, yea. I remember going to a Best Buy or something in the summer of '99 and picking up Pavement's "Terror Twilight" and GBV's "Do the Collapse" on the same day.  I first listened to the band with "Mag Earwhig!" and in between that album and "Do the Collapse" I bought every damn speck of GBV and GBV-related music I could get my hands on. I was insatiable. Buying up lo-fi by the truckload. And finally, after two whole years without a new GBV album, here it was..."Do the Collapse" emblazoned across its shiny, shocking white cover. 

I remember promptly throwing it into my car stereo and what came out of the speakers was Robert Pollard's voice for sure. Sounding kinda tin-canny over some keyboard pulse. "Alright, I can roll with this," I thought. "I've heard 'At Odds With Dr Genesis.'"  But then "Teenage FBI" suddenly explodes.  Guitars roaring, keyboards a-weedle-whoo-ing, stereo all separated, no ball of hiss between the instruments and my ears. My head almost spun around a full 360 degrees. I had kinda assumed "Under the Bushes, Under the Stars," was as slick as this band was going to get. No one told me that GBV were going slick! Nobody mentioned any Ric Ocasek production! It sounded so...wrong. 

I continued to drive around and listen to it. I couldn't shake the feeling that this felt like a Foo Fighters album or something. I got to "Hold on Hope" and it was a damn power ballad. Like Matchbox 20 or Collective Soul or Aerosmith would do.  The songs also seemed to repeat themselves over and over and over. Where was the brevity of old?  "Zoo Pie" and "In Stitches" each felt a million years long.  My only anchor were the lyrics, which still maintained their signature wordplay. So I would spend the next couple weeks cranking the album and chuckling along to "Dragons Awake!" (where the absurd lyrics and the straight-faced slickness felt hilariously incongruous) and "Liquid Indian" (where the evocative line, "I'm a born-again boot-stomping witch-humper!" won me over instantly). 

Then one day (a good 15 or so listens later)  I was showing someone "Liquid Indian" and that subtle, sneaky chorus suddenly hit a huge pleasure center in my brain. Goosebumps suddenly grew on my arms and my eyes grew wide. The slimy slickness suddenly felt like a nice, cool breeze blowing through my skull. I had learned to love "Do the Collapse."

I was uncomfortable with this at first and still maintained it only had a handful of good songs and that while listenable, it was still nowhere near classic GBV quality. But the goose bumps kept slowly coming. I had traditionally found that the goosebump phenomena manifested itself when sudden shifts in intensity or volume occurred (the end of VU's "Heroin" for example) but I found that I was getting goosebumps from nothing less than Pollard's well-modulated vocals (particularly in "Surgical Focus"'s pre-chorus and all throughout "Picture Me Big Time"). I have to give Ocasek huge credit in this area. This entire album is Pollard's best vocal performance, hands down. Oh, and listen to the guitars on this fucking thing. They're beautiful. Constantly shifting from chiming to crunching. Listen to the acoustic detail on "Wrecking Now" or the moody fills on "Mushroom Art" or "Picture Me Big Time" where Doug Gillard busts out every move in the classic rock playbook. 

Favorites: "Picture Me Big Time" is probably the single most overlooked, least-heralded GBV song. It's fucking perfect. Starts out carrying that minor-key, moody loneliness and just goes bigger and bigger until the final chorus where it feels like the wheels have all fallen off and the whole thing's going to explode as Pollard belts out "There are words that speak to everyone, which I will deliver to you..." in the most arena-ready, Roger Daltrey-esque fashion he can muster. Pollard finally nails universality.  There are the goosebumps, my friend. "Liquid Indian" is also an absurd masterpiece, which aside from maybe "Subspace Biographies," sports my favorite Pollard chorus. A well-polished beauty.  And more than possibly any other song, "Things I Will Keep" fulfills the promise of major-label GBV. When I would dream about a no-expenses-spared, big-budget GBV album, this song was what I  was hoping for. So packed with melody and melancholy that you can't help but push that "replay" button over and over. I would probably lump "Surgical Focus" in the same "idealized" GBV category. It's a flawless pop song.  Oh yea, and "Much Better Mr. Buckles" rocks. I crank the fuck out of that song whenever it comes on these days. 

Listening to this recently, I was also surprised at how much I loved "Wormhole." I had remembered it incorrectly as a silly, kid-boppy nursery rhyme but when that song kicks into the "Into the wormhole" section it's so damn powerful. So much good guitar. This was the album that made me a huge fan of Doug Gillard's work. "I Am a Tree" on "Mag Earwhig!" certainly perked my ears up, but it was his sustained performance on "Do the Collapse" and this song in particular that solidified his placement as my...gulp...favorite Guided by Voices guitarist (ducks). 

Least Faves: I'm still going with "Zoo Pie" and  the arena-progger "In Stitches." Either song would have made a decent 30 second snippet but 3 minutes? (Oh yea, I meant to mention this earlier. There are no song snippets. The closest thing is the quick, punky closer "An Unmarketed Product" (which rules, btw) clocking in a little over a minute). I know y'all are expecting me to say "Hold on Hope," but I kinda like that song. Again, I think it's the bizarre lyrics juxtaposed against the radio-ready power ballad that makes it work. GBV would never really do a song like "Hold on Hope" again, but I'm glad they did it at least once...

I think "Do the Collapse"'s main legacy was that it ended all the old speculation of "Just imagine what Pollard could do in a real studio." The fantasies of what professionally-recorded versions of "Bee Thousand" or "Alien Lanes" would sound like were officially over. This was it. This was widescreen GBV.  It turns out it was still an acquired taste and still not quite accessible. Still flawed and still beautiful. I'm not sure what the consensus is on "Do the Collapse." Not sure if GBV fans still dislike it. If so, I'd urge them to give it a few more listens. Bob was still on a roll...

Here's the updated ranking. I'm ranking this pretty high. Lots of top notch stuff and the songs that aren't' great are at least fairly hilarious. 

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. Robert Pollard: Waved Out

6. Tobin Sprout: Carnival Boy

7. Guided by Voices: Do the Collapse

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

9. Robert Pollard: Kid Marine

10. Guided by Voices: Tonics and Twisted Chasers

11. Guided by Voices: Sunfish Holy Breakfast

12. Robert Pollard: Not In My Airforce

13. Guided by Voices: Mag Earwhig!

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

15. Guided by Voices: Self-Inflicted Aerial Nostalgia

16. Guided by Voices: Vampire on Titus

17. Guided by Voices: Sandbox

18. Guided by Voices: Forever Since Breakfast

19. Guided by Voices: Devil Between My Toes 

Robert Pollard: Kid Marine

Robert Pollard: Kid Marine

1999

Fading Captain Series/Luna records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. Submarine Teams  2. Flings of the Waistcoat Crowd  3. The Big Make-Over  4. Men Who Create Fright  5. Television Prison  6. Strictly Comedy  7. Far-Out Crops  8. Living Upside Down  9. Snatch Candy  10. White Gloves Come Off  11. Enjoy Jerusalem!  12. You Can't Hold Your Women  13. Town of Mirrors  14. Powerblessings  15. Island Crimes


Now we're getting into some really interesting stuff. This was the release that kicked off the sprawling Fading Captain Series that saw Bob releasing any damn thing he wanted over a 44-album sprawl (ending with 2007's compilation "Crickets.") See? This is what I like. Ambition! I can't even begin to calculate the toll the Fading Captain Series took on my wallet (colloquially known as "Ol' Empty"). 

I remember ordering this when it came out on the Rockathon website in the late 90's, anxiously checking the mail for my new fix. It eventually came and I remember driving around, delivering pizzas and rocking out to it. However, it seemed somehow underwhelming and disjointed. Knotty and missing the candied melodies of the GBV hits I loved and cherished. Hell, most of these songs didn't even bother with choruses! 

I did have to admit, it sounded nice when it was playing though and it rocked sufficiently but that incessant jabbering loop that kicks off the album always gave me an uneasy feeling.  There's an abundance of weirdness here. The cracked falsetto on "Far Our Crops." The stream of conscience  melodies that drifted all over the places. Ugly-as-fuck rockers like "Television Prison." There's also a definite nautical theme, featuring submarines, mussels, islands, brine, swordfish etc that made the album a soggy and salty experience.

But over the next couple of weeks it started to slowly grow on me and eventually became another favorite. There's just something so great about "Kid Marine." For starters, I'd say it hangs together as an album better than any other Pollard album I can think of. He's always had a knack for sequencing, but this is a real standout in that department. I can't imagine these songs in any other order. Plus the concept is so promising. You see that squadron of beer-gutted, middle-aged dudes hanging out, dragging cigarettes in front of a chain link fence? Well, this album is about one of those guys! The smell of watered-down domestic beer positively wafts out of the album artwork... 

Cut-off sleeves! Unironic mullets! Sharks! This stuff is my bread and butter!

Oh, and a couple of my favorite Pollard tracks are on here: "Powerblessings" was a song that went in one ear and out the other for awhile, but then suddenly it clicked with me in a major, major way. It's all in that free-flowing melody, that wanders from sweet spot to sweet spot with no concern for your ability to follow or make sense of it. But listen to it enough and eventually you can figure out where it's going and suddenly see what a lustrous little ornament it is. The lyrics are really beautiful and at the end when Pollard sings, "Powerblessings to you and all of you..." it has real power and warmth. Like some slightly-askew Christmas carol from an alternate universe. Don't overlook this one. "Town of Mirrors" is another favorite of mine. Again, it's oddly touching considering I have no effing idea what is actually being said (although he gives us a clue on the live version of the song that appears on "LIve at the Wheelchair Races" that it's a tribute to his children which, to me, makes the song especially interesting  considering the ambivalence conveyed in the words). 

To me, this is probably the quintessential example of non-pop Robert Pollard. It's sometimes easy to reduce him to a writer of immediate and poppy rock songs cos he's so damn good at it, but part of what makes those pop songs so appealing is the weirdness and the sense of melancholy that is lurking behind the pleasing melodies. By subtracting the obvious pop trappings we get a more-rounded look at Pollard's work. It's really singular stuff and a unique voice in rock music. And this captures a moment on his monumental roll where he's confident to wallow in some  arty, chorus-less, rock that only invites us to sing along after a handful of deep-ass listens and multiple trawls through the lyric sheet. I sorta think it's a key album and  if you can listen to and enjoy "Kid Marine", the slick pop of "Do the Collapse" and the caustic noise of Nightwalker (both of which were right around the corner), you can take any Pollard album. It's the ice-water plunge for sure but you'll have an easy trip through the vast Pollard discography at that point... 

Let's blast some "Kid Marine." Here's "Powerblessings." Enjoy...

Oh yea. I almost forgot the rankings! I've gone back and forth over where this one goes, to the point where I almost had to question the rankings altogether. For a few seconds I placed it above "Same Place" but ultimately decided that "Same Place" while not as consistent as "Kid Marine," has more ceiling-scraping highlights. For some unknown reason, I've found "Same Place" to be my baseline comparison for every other Pollard album. The yardstick by which other albums are measured. My eye immediately goes there and I have to weigh whether or not it tops "Same Place." I think it's because "Same Place the Fly Got Smashed" has such clearly defined flaws and virtues. huh...

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. Robert Pollard: Waved Out

6. Tobin Sprout: Carnival Boy

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

8. Robert Pollard: Kid Marine

9. Guided by Voices: Tonics and Twisted Chasers

10. Guided by Voices: Sunfish Holy Breakfast

11. Robert Pollard: Not In My Airforce

12. Mag Earwhig!

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

14. Guided by Voices: Self-Inflicted Aerial Nostalgia

15. Guided by Voices: Vampire on Titus

16. Guided by Voices: Sandbox

17. Guided by Voices: Forever Since Breakfast

18. Guided by Voices: Devil Between My Toes 

Robert Pollard: Waved Out

Robert Pollard: Waved Out

1998

Matador Records

Format I Own it on: Kompact Dusk

Truck Lusting: 1. Make Use  2. Vibrations in the Woods  3. Just Say the Word  4. Subspace Biographies  5. Caught Waves Again 6. Waved Out  7. Whiskey Ships  8. Wrinkled Ghost  9. Artificial Light  10. People Are Leaving  11. Steeple of Knives  12. Rumbling Joker 13. Showbiz Opera Walrus  14. Pick Seeds from My Skull  15. Second Step Next Language


I consider this to be one of the top-tier solo Pollard albums. Which is odd, because it took a looong while for this one to grow on me. It's initially much less appealing than "Not in My Airforce." Darker, murkier, less front-loaded. The only thing that really caught my ear the first couple of listens was the bombastic opener, "Make Use" and the universe-ruling "Subspace Biographies" which isn't only one of Pollard's all-time best songs, but one of the best damn songs ever recorded by anybody. With a spare, chugging verse slowly ramping up to one of the most unexpectedly great choruses I've ever heard:

 "I am quail and quasarI picked you up on radarI do my job each day Empties crushed and filed away..."

It reads as raw nonsense, but trust me, you'll be singing along in no time. Pollard's harmonies just make the shit hit. 

It took a few listens to realize another one of my favorite Pollard songs was lurking in the album's grooves: "People Are Leaving" sounds like a huge mess on first listen. It's Bob singing over a song that already has vocals. So its difficult to discern exactly what's happening but once your ears adjust, the saddest, most delicate little song slowly emerges, raising a glass to friends lost. Again, Magic Eyes for the ears. The whole album has this really dark, mournful vibe about it. "Rumbling Joker" wallows in its bleary-eyed inebriated state: 

"May we always cry
May we drink them dry
May we wake up small and pale..."

Sung not as an exultant declaration, but as a grim statement of purpose...Another moment that always strikes me is when the seemingly dissolute acoustic shamble "Pick Seeds From My Skull" suddenly crystallizes into a moment of startling beauty as Bob sings, "I am alooooone foreverrrrrr...."  When I listen to it by myself (and in the right state of mind), this very slight shift has the ability to raise the hair on my woolen Chewbacca arms...

There are moments of lightness, though. The good-natured pop of "Wrinkled Ghost" is so thoroughly GBV-ish that I can't help but smile the whole time it's playing. "Whiskey Ships" is good rocking fun. Still, this is a Bob album to be listened to alone late at night, head spinning from cheap booze. 

Weak Spots:  Any lesser tracks are kept to brief snippet length and add to the album's air of dark mystery. Major exception being the endless "Showbiz Opera Walrus," which during the first 30 seconds or so is a humorous Magical Mystery Tour"-esque psychedelic/waltz piffle, but it slowly dawns on you that this thing is about 2 minutes too long. 

Yea, I highly recommend this, just don't expect to be blown away immediately. Some of Pollard's best albums are slow-growers. Some patience required...

Let's listen to some music. Here's "Subspace Biographies." If you've somehow never heard it, by God! Crank this shit up!

Here's the revised ranking: This goes pretty high on the list. One of my favorite Pollard releases. It has a deep melancholy vibe that finds Pollard at his most appealingly bizarre, yet still incredibly relatable. 

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. Robert Pollard: Waved Out

6. Tobin Sprout: Carnival Boy

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

8. Guided by Voices: Tonics and Twisted Chasers

9. Guided by Voices: Sunfish Holy Breakfast

10. Robert Pollard: Not In My Airforce

11. Mag Earwhig!

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

13. Guided by Voices: Self-Inflicted Aerial Nostalgia

14. Guided by Voices: Vampire on Titus

15. Guided by Voices: Sandbox

16. Guided by Voices: Forever Since Breakfast

17. Guided by Voices: Devil Between My Toes

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