Month: June 2018

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #9: STATIC AIRPLANE JIVE

Guided by Voices
Static Airplane Jive
1993, City Slang

When it comes to the merry deluge of 7″ EPs by Guided by Voices in the early 90s, no one remembers exactly when they came out. So, when a serious archivist like myself (takes another swig of Maker’s Mark, belches) tries to sort this shit out, we have to wing it. We don’t have Paypal records. We don’t have website archives. We don’t have any of the nerd details.

All we have are some of the best records released under the Guided by Voices name, usually with a handwritten copyright year found somewhere in some corner of the sleeve art–and that’s more than enough, Charlie.

WHY are there so many EPs during this time? Because after Guided by Voices made waves in the underground and weren’t yet under contract with anyone, several small labels came to Robert Pollard with an interest in putting out something new and he said yes to every last one of them sons o’ bitches.

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A Few Modest Thoughts about MODESTY BLAISE

Peter O’Donnell
Modesty Blaise
1965 (1984 reprint, Mysterious Press)

In the 80s, there had to be newcomers to the long-running Modesty Blaise series who picked up the Mysterious Press reprints and were disappointed that the books were not the pornography promised by the outrageous new covers. I don’t think a publisher could put out cover art like this today, which is why I collect them. They’re true relics. I guess the editor just hired a model to stand in a black leather bikini (with holster) while the photographer shot detail images of every hill and valley on her body and then spread out the results over several volumes. Man, from the looks of it, these books must be just full of flesh and fluids, right?

Nope, they’re just regular old spy novels full of gunplay and globetrotting. There’s exactly one sex scene here and it’s short and “she used her splendid body to give joyously and without restraint, ranging from glad submission to urgent demand” is as steamy as the prose gets.

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GUIDED BY VOICES at Trees, Dallas, TX, 6/19/18

Shitty IPhone pic, courtesy of yours truly.

I swore off live music years ago. I don’t like crowds. I don’t like the concrete litter box vibe of most rock clubs. I don’t like having to shout over jet engine-levels of noise when I want to order another Tanqueray and tonic from the bar. I don’t like waiting in line to piss. And I don’t like paying $50-100 for it, when all is said and done, between admission, drinks and parking fees or a Lyft ride.

Also, as a world class eavesdropper (seriously, I love to eavesdrop; I’m all up in everybody’s business), rock clubs are the worst places to do it. Almost every conversation you hear is just people talking about the bands they’ve seen. Or it’s some guy trying to get into some girl’s pants… by talking about the bands that he’s seen. BOR-ING.

In another life, rock clubs were the coolest places in the world to me. Today, in my delicate years, I’ve completely turned around. Now, the coolest place in the world is my couch with a book in my hands or a movie on TV.

I’m not agoraphobic, by the way. I’m just an asshole.

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BLOOD SUCKERS FROM OUTER SPACE at “Tuesday Night Trash” at the Texas Theatre, 6/12/18

I’ve got to stop sleeping on these Tuesday Night Trash shows. And I mean literally sleeping. As I slide further into the “old bag” stage of life, your humble reporter prefers to be in bed late Tuesday nights with a book in his hands and two cats sleeping on his legs like the old woman that he never thought he’d become.

That said, I’ve been to Tuesday Night Trash before. I saw Blood Freak for the first time there. And Decoder. It introduced me to Roller Blade. And it was where I finally got to see Plan 9 From Outer Space on a big screen. And those are just a few of the favors that Tuesday Night Trash has done for me at absolutely no admission charge (it’s a FREE SHOW, folks).

For the most part though, I choose to stay in instead of hitting I-35 toward Oak Cliff come Trash night to make the usual 9:15 start time.

However, maybe it’s time to change my ways because last Tuesday’s screening of Blood Suckers From Outer Space was hilarious fun. Inspiring, even. And I want to do it again.

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A Laurel and Hardy Party #5: THEY GO BOOM!

(1929; director: James Parrott)

There’s got to be at least one critic who’s written about how Laurel and Hardy are actually a subversive gay couple in their films, right? I’m not ready to drape a rainbow flag over the boys’ shoulders just yet, but the hints are there if you want ’em. Have at it, folks. Let’s make Laurel & Hardy hip new gay icons. Fine with me.

Exhibit A: They Go Boom!  It’s the two-reeler short in which Oliver Hardy comes down with a case of the sniffles and it’s a problem for both him and Stan Laurel because they sleep in the same bed together. Shoulder-to-shoulder almost. Closer than the Clintons have slept together in forty years and closer than the Trumps have probably slept together ever.

Now, I don’t know, maybe in 1929 two men could bed down under the same blanket and it didn’t mean anything other than that they were sleepy. I’m not sure. I was only four years old in 1929.

Also, one could argue that Stan and Ollie are simply poor and this is how they save money. Their room, which is about the size of–ahem–a closet is pretty shabby.

Or maybe they’re hiding out from their wives to live their secret life and are simply on a budget.

Anyway, while Ollie suffers through his cold, Stan tries to help out by applying antiquated home remedies that lead to the usual giant mess. The pratfalls are plenty, Ollie loses his temper, the police show up because of the noise and an air mattress explodes. It could happen.

It’s a bad night for our heroes, but a good time for us as this is easily one of the funniest of the team’s early shorts, all the more impressive because the production couldn’t be more economical. It’s just two guys in a room with brief appearances by a few bit players, including old school comedy stalwart Charlie Hall as the angry landlord.

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #8: VAMPIRE ON TITUS

Guided by Voices
Vampire on Titus
1993, Scat Records

There’s a great Pollard quote in issue 82 of Magnet from 2011 on the occasion of GBV’s upcoming Let’s Go Eat the Factory album. Talking about his longevity in music, Pollard says:

One loses one’s innocence because of public acceptance. You become cognizant that the whole world is listening, and you’re not just writing for yourself. You have to maintain the attitude of a child… You have to make records for yourself… It means you’re not trying to make records for the whole world, and the record will be better because of that. I see people to this day complaining about how they keep sending stuff out and banging their heads against the wall and not getting anywhere, and it’s because they’re trying too hard. We don’t try too hard… We try not to try. That should be our motto.

That seems to sum up the journey of early Guided by Voices. They were a band learning in obscurity to not try. And they got a little better at it with every album. A little weirder. A little looser. To get more rough and ragged was their idea of progress. They were stripping everything down and they were serious about it.

Serious enough to make Vampire on Titus, the most fucked-up, wrecked and trashed Guided by Voices album ever, their most lo-fi cry in the night.

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The Meaningless Fun of THE MEANDERING CORPSE

Richard S. Prather
The Meandering Corpse
1966, Pocket Books

Reading a Richard S. Prather novel is like eating steak while drinking bourbon, smoking a cigar and playing with a loaded gun as you place a long-shot wager on a boxing match. There’s nothing healthy going on here. You don’t learn anything. You didn’t get here by following good advice.

No, all that these books have going for them is that they’re crackling, fast-paced entertainment and that’s that. They’re from a time when trash was trash and no one, neither the writer nor the audience, ever needed to apologize for it. No one came to these books looking for a message.

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