Airport 5
“Stifled Man Casino”
2001, The Fading Captain Series
Tobin Sprout brings the snap-crackle and Robert Pollard brings the pop for this second single from their Airport 5 project. “Total Exposure” is the quiet one and “Stifled Man Casino” is the loud one.
It’s the anthem. It’s the mic-swinger. On the surface, it could pass for power pop circa 1981 from a band of young new wavers in jeans and T-shirts. Maybe one guy in the group rocks the loose skinny tie look. Didn’t Airport 5 open for The Pretenders a few times way back when?
“Stifled Man Casino” kicks like that sorta thing. It’s surging and youthful–and then you tune in to the lyrics and you hear the truth.
This is another one of Pollard’s divorce songs. These aren’t a young man’s words. They’re grizzled around the edges. I hear a guy who’s just moved out of his house (“Up go the stakes/In Stifled Man’s Casino”) and finds some perfect pop while pondering the walls of his shitty new apartment.
And is he drinkin’? Oh, he’s drinkin’ (“Street lights blurring/ Speech patterns slurred/ Passed out/ On apartment complex lawns”), but he’s seasoned enough to not drown in all of that alcohol. His chorus lands on a sober point: “No one gets the breaks/ That’s the breaks, baby”.
Still in the Stifled Man Casino, you never know what you’re gonna get. Pull the lever on the slot machine. Am I gonna be feeling good or sad or angry today?
A Stifled Man Casino could also be the old house, the scene of the withering marriage. What mood is she gonna be in THIS morning? What’s gonna piss her off TODAY? Spin the roulette wheel and see.
That’s my interpretation, at least. I’m probably wrong. It’s probably about football.
On the B-side, “Peroxide” is an odd little rocker that spends at least half of its time slowly fading out. Tobin Sprout’s swaggering music is mixed in the background like it’s a ghost and Pollard’s vocal is almost uncomfortably up front. It sounds produced by a crazy person. It’s rough, but right. Robert Pollard likes weird stuff. Tobin Sprout likes weird stuff. I like weird stuff. If you’re digging deep into Pollard B-sides, you probably like weird stuff, too.
Tobin Sprout gets the second and final B-side to himself. His piano instrumental “Eskimo Clockwork” comes off like Vince Guaraldi spitballing ideas for an upcoming Peanuts special.
Both Airport 5 singles were vinyl-only when they came out in the spring of 2001. Later that December, Pollard closed out this busy year with a CD collection called Selective Service. It gathered the first three Fading Captain Series 7″ releases (this, “Total Exposure” and Dayton, Ohio-19 Something and 5“) in one convenient space back in a time when CDs still mattered.
To sweeten the deal, Pollard also threw in an exclusive song called “In the Brain”, a track that shows off Airport 5’s psychedelic side (it wouldn’t have fit in well on the LP). Sprout’s music ramble-shambles nicely while backwards guitar parts invade like UFOs. It’s Beatles-style psych. Not too heavy. It goes down easy. Meanwhile, Pollard sings lines such as “In the brain, where the spokesman sits/ In the brain, where the nation sleeps/ And the suits carouse for a new pleasure zone/ So roll away the stone” like he just ascended from a mountaintop and has new wisdom to share.
Like all Pollard songs though, “In the Brain” has an unpretentious heart. It’s fun. With colorful words, Pollard conjures up the texture of something far out and mystical. The mountain is papier mache and the sun and stars above it dangle from strings.
(Sidenote: I love this fan video from ten years ago. How have I not seen it until now?)