Month: January 2020

Posted on

Robert Pollard-Mania! #45: DO THE COLLAPSE

Guided by Voices
Do the Collapse
1999, TVT Records

Mainstream American rock radio in 1999 was the shittiest thing ever. It was the frat party of your dullest nightmares. There were no “artists”, just warm and breathing piles of tattoos. It was the land of Lit and Smash Mouth and Korn. Bad facial hair was everywhere. Whiny singers. The worst production ever. Nothing sounds like human hands made it. Guitars and drums have such little personality that they come off like they’re on a programmed loop (and they probably were). The singers sound electronically pitch-corrected (and they probably were). And all of this nonsense is turned up WAY too loud and compressed to death.

There were few real songwriters there anymore. Bombast was all they had.

It was bad bad bad, is what I’m trying to say. It was terrible. It was awful.

You’re probably still wondering how bad it was.

It was so bad that when The Strokes debuted two years later, people actually thought that they were GOOD.

How anyone thought that Guided by Voices stood a chance at fitting in among that crowd, I’m not sure, but from Robert Pollard’s perspective, I think he needed to at least TRY.

Continue reading “Robert Pollard-Mania! #45: DO THE COLLAPSE”

Posted on

Frank Black-O-Rama! #1: Introduction and COME ON PILGRIM

I still call him Frank Black.

Maybe you call him Black Francis, the stage name under which he made his most famous music. It was the name he began his career with, then changed, and then later assumed again.

Maybe you’re one of those weirdos who call him by his real name, Charles. I’ve seen people do this. It’s fine if you know him personally, but kinda creepy if you don’t. Just sayin’.

Whatever name you use, you know who I’m talking about. The Pixies guy. Aloof. Likes to cultivate an air of mystery. Never looks like he’s happy to see you, not that you can tell since he often hides his eyes behind a swanky pair of shades. Sings about surrealism and UFOs, space girls and the apocalypse, Ray Bradbury and Pong, Los Angeles and lost love.

Blessed with a loud and versatile voice, he can scream a door off its hinges, but he almost never speaks to the audience when he performs. Over time, the ol’ waistline expanded and he went bald, but he wore it well and it only enhanced his status as an unconventional rock icon. If your songs are good, you don’t need to be a pin-up. If your songs are really, really fuckin’ good, whatever you look like becomes cool.

Cool is not a thing to which you conform; it’s a thing that you create.

Continue reading “Frank Black-O-Rama! #1: Introduction and COME ON PILGRIM”

Posted on

Things I Will Keep #19: JIMMY SCOTT, The Source

Jimmy Scott
The Source
1970, Atlantic Records

You ever get lonely? I’m talking about that big, dark feeling where no one cares about you and the serpent is about to strike. That bleak silence. That cold wind that blows through your soul.

Nothing seems important anymore. Nothing matters. The daytime sun hurts your eyes. The night is too dark. Nothing is satisfying. You don’t belong.

It’s a big, big world, but somehow there’s no room in it for you.

Maybe in the past you had some ideas about how this life could all work out, but that fell apart somewhere along the way. Maybe you know exactly when that happened. Or maybe you have no idea. It just happened. 

A million dollars couldn’t solve it. You don’t even know how to talk about it.

You’re broken, baby. And nobody knows how to put you back together. Not even you know how to do it.

I can’t think of a single singer on Earth who conjures up that feeling better than Jimmy Scott.

Continue reading “Things I Will Keep #19: JIMMY SCOTT, The Source”