Month: May 2019

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #31: PLANTATIONS OF PALE PINK

Guided by Voices
Plantations of Pale Pink
1996, Matador Records

As I said way back about a hundred years ago when we talked about the group’s 1987 album Sandbox, Guided by Voices to me are a psychedelic band. They’re drunken Midwestern psychedelia. Robert Pollard can craft a hell of a pop song, but he also likes the kind of noise, distortion and weirdness that can scramble your eggs harder than you might like if you came here expecting The Power Pop Skinny Tie Homecoming Dance Revival. The songs may be short, the budget may be low and the equipment might not be the best, but the vision is expansive.

Even better, there’s nothing pretentious about GBV’s brand of fuckery. They don’t have that art school thing going, despite having two visual artists in the band, master of the collage Pollard and painter Tobin Sprout. They’re not from New York City or San Francisco. They’re from Dayton, Ohio. Their roots are blue collar–and it shows.

When they get weird, it sounds like nothing more or less than regular guys fucking around in the basement, shutting out the rest of the world and accidentally creating their own worlds. Those are some of my favorite GBV records.

I’m talkin’ the lovingly wrecked Vampire on Titus. I’m talkin’ the supremely drunk Clown Prince of the Menthol Trailer. I’m talkin’ the band’s majestically screwy 2012 comeback album Let’s Go Eat the Factory (can’t wait to get to that one in this series; I consider it a major work).

And I’m talkin’ the nightmarish Plantations of Pale Pink. It’s the best of the band’s EPs that happened after their 1993-94 explosion of 7″s. It’s a bad trip in the best way.

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THE PRISONER #2: The Chimes of Big Ben

(October 6, 1967: director: Don Chaffey)

It’s episode numero dos and we’re still laying back and eating acid-laced bon-bons in a plush bed of mystery. We don’t know much of anything. Nobody knows much of anything. The keepers of The Village are still asking former secret agent Patrick McGoohan the same question over and over again: Why did you resign?

Patrick McGoohan is still asking the same questions over and over again: Where Am I? and Who’s in charge here? 

We in the audience have a lot of questions, too. For starters, What’s with all the lava lamps? 

Yep, Kafka has collided with Syd Barrett somewhere in The Garden of Earthly Delights and it’s all pretty, pretty colors everywhere. The results will take time to sort through.

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #30: SUNFISH HOLY BREAKFAST

Guided by Voices
Sunfish Holy Breakfast
1996, Matador Records

In 1996, Matador Records indulged Robert Pollard’s madcap work ethic. Yes, they passed on the weird solo acoustic EP that he offered them (which Pollard then merely stuck to the end of his Not in My Airforce album), but they went along with plenty of other madness, bless ’em.

When Pollard pulled the plug on GBV’s The Flying Party is Here LP at the last minute, just as it was being prepared to go to press, in favor of a new set of songs that he preferred (and which turned out to be Under the Bushes Under the Stars), Matador were cool with it.

Six months after the new GBV album, they put out Pollard’s first solo album.

Two months after that, in November, they also released a pair of Guided by Voices EPs on the same day. They were two oddballs that didn’t do much for the “Pollard needs an editor” crowd, but if you’d been bitten by the bug, they were sweet stuff full of those warm and familiar basement vibes.

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THE PRISONER #1: Arrival

(September 29, 1967; director: Don Chaffey)

Here is everything that I know about The Prisoner, the classic British TV series that originally aired from 1967 to 1968.

1) It’s a classic British TV series that originally aired from 1967 to 1968.

2) The PBS station in Dallas used to rerun it when I was a teenager a hundred years ago, but it was at an odd hour. 1 AM on Saturday nights or something like that.

3) I watched two or three episodes back then and liked them, but never managed to see the whole series of seventeen.

4) It’s got a great aesthetic that combines the late 60s fascination for slick secret agents with offbeat, trippy, “rocking horse people eat marshmallow pies” vibes.

5) It’s all streaming on Amazon Prime. For now, at least.

Also, I want to write about it. So let’s go, weirdos…

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Will Clarke’s THE WORTHY

Will Clarke
The Worthy
2006, Simon & Schuster

Gotta admit, I am very NOT curious about what goes on behind the closed doors of college frat houses. It’s a bunch of rich young douchebags being the best douchebags they can be, right? And everyone’s too incomplete, immature and dedicated to being conformists to be interesting.

I’m prejudiced. I admit it. My knowledge of fraternities comes entirely from Animal House and having worked in two restaurants near colleges where the frat menace was real.

They weren’t more rude than any other group in particular; they were just more demanding and they always came in packs. They’d order cheap drinks and then guzzle them down in ten seconds. Every time you walk past them, they need another. They’re also more likely to do stupid shit, such as the time I worked in a place that had an all-you-can-eat special and a band of brothers of the toga showed up and ate and ate and ate until one of them vomited at the table.

Also, they were always seperate checks and you could barely tell them apart, as they tend to look, talk and behave alike.

So, I gave this novel, which is set entirely within the Louisiana State University frat bro world, very little time to win me over. I aimed to be strict and I aimed to be harsh.

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #29: NOT IN MY AIRFORCE

Robert Pollard
Not in My Airforce
1996, Matador Records

I can tell you exactly when I went from being a casual toe-dipper fan of Robert Pollard’s music to being the mental case presently on display before you.

It was in the fall of 1996 when I got hooked big time on Pollard’s whale of a first solo album, Not in My Airforce. 

This record kept me up nights, was a constant companion and it still feels like a part of me nearly twenty-five years later. I sank deep into my headphones for this one. For years, I considered it my favorite Pollard record of all, GBV or otherwise.

So, what’s the difference between Guided by Voices and a Pollard solo album?

In 1996, not a whole hell of a lot.

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