Robert Pollard-Mania! #23: TIGERBOMB

Guided by Voices
Tigerbomb
1995, Matador Records

So, we’ve talked about how Guided by Voices went into a studio and recorded shined-up versions of a few Alien Lanes songs, presumably as offerings to the gods of radio, MTV, and licensing.

But then they (or maybe it was Matador’s decision) did something that I still think is weird and released those recordings only on vinyl, a format that was next to dead in 1995. Some cooler indie stores in cities or near universities still stocked it, sure. You could also get an envelope and buy a fuckin’ stamp and send a check or money order to Matador Records in New York City and get this in your mailbox six weeks later, okay (no Paypal yet, kids). The big chain stores though, where Joe Schmoe bought his music, had been done with it for about five years.

So, color me confused on what they were thinking here. Not that I take great issue with it. GBV’s vinyl-only releases motivated a shy young man named Jason to buy his first turntable in 1996. It was a year for me when every dollar was vital and a plastic $100 Sony from Sears was a major purchase at the time, but I did it. I was done with being locked out of the 7″s that I was reading about in magazines like Puncture and CMJ. When I learned that Guided by Voices had new vinyl-only releases, it became essential that I become equipped to play them.

So, I took the plunge. I bought a turntable and very quickly became a real freak for the needle.

As for the record, I would call Tigerbomb the least essential of the band’s 90s EPs.

Part of the beauty of GBV’s earlier EPs was that they were the work of a band who were excited at the very prospect of being heard. This was all new to them. They made those EPs like they were the first Guided by Voices record that somebody might hear and Pollard intended to make a killer impression.

The band was past that stage here. They had albums out all over the world. They’d been on MTV. Rolling Stone and Spin had written about them. They were on a high-profile label. And perhaps that’s why this 7″ doesn’t have the vitality of the others. It’s not terrible, but it’s the first EP that feels like it’s simply made up of rejects.

Or you could look at it as a weird double-extra-maxi-single for the beefed-up remakes of “My Valuable Hunting Knife” (they even made a video for this version of the song) and “Game of Pricks”.

The new version of “Knife” here is good, drum machine and all. It’s a pure pop song. As long as the melody is there and it sounds like Betty from The Archies can shake a tambourine to it, it works. And this works. No lo-fi snobbery in this house.

By contrast, the louder take on “Pricks” here is a shadow of the album version. It’s a studio stab at the band’s live arrangement of the song. It works on stage, but on record, the big riff stomps all over the naked emotion that made the song such a highlight on Alien Lanes. 

We’re deep in lo-fi territory for most of the rest. “Mice Feel Nice (In My Room)” is only notable for being Doug Gillard’s first contribution to a GBV record. Pollard caterwauls something that sort of resembles a song over a slowed-down Gillard guitar instrumental. “Not Good for the Mechanism” is more Pollard shouting over a slowed-down piece of music (you can easily tell it’s slowed by the opening countdown), but this time he sounds like Paul Rodgers as opposed to the demented soul singer from “Mice”. It’s not bad if you’re into fucked-up, train wreck GBV.

Matters improve on “Kiss Only the Important Ones”, a lovely, solo acoustic message from a father to a daughter.

Things improve even more on “Dodging Invisible Rays”, one of Tobin Sprout’s greatest GBV songs ever. It’s all one big chorus and a model of perfect pop. I want to play hopscotch while licking an ice cream cone to it. The song is short enough that I could probably do that, too, before somebody sees me, gets concerned, and calls the police.

If Pollard cut this record down to nothing but “My Valuable Hunting Knife” on the A-side and “Dodging Invisible Rays” on the B-side and saved the rest for Suitcase (well, okay, you could probably squeeze “Kiss Only the Important Ones” on the B-side, too), I wouldn’t mind at all.

If this is one of the band’s lesser 90s EPs, it’s at least got the best cover art of the batch. There’s something hopeful and dreamy and comic book-y about it. That’s Robert Pollard’s brother Jim Pollard thinking big thoughts and attracting lightning in the nice clean front collage. He looks more than capable of dodging invisible rays. On the back collage, kids from decades past read books while lost in the cosmos.

And what the hell’s a Tigerbomb? Fucked if I know.