The Moping Swans
Lightninghead to Coffee Pot
2005, The Fading Captain Series
Every now and then, Robert Pollard gets together with some guys he knows and they form a band who last long enough to record an EP, usually in one day.
That was Lexo and the Leapers in 1999. That was The Howling Wolf Orchestra in 2000. That will be a project called The Sunflower Logic coming up in 2013.
In 2005, that was The Moping Swans and they made my favorite record in this little subgenre of Pollard music. All of them are different. Lightninghead to Coffee Pot is the post-punk blast of the batch, but with a classic rock kick.
It sounds like something that you’d find in a cool record store in 1979. I wish that I could visit a cool record store in 1979. but there are probably better things to do with a time machine. So I guess I’ll just listen to this.
Alongside Pollard, The Moping Swans are Greg Demos on bass and Jim MacPherson on drums. They’re the same crew who made Kid Marine and Choreographed Man of War, but this time, Tony Conley joins on lead guitar.
Robert Pollard and Conley go WAY back. I’m talking Little League days. They grew up together and when Tony Conley was in a hard rock cover band called Anacrusis who booked their first gig before they had a singer, Conley persuaded his buddy Bob Pollard to do it mere days before the big night. That was in 1977. It was Conley’s first band and Pollard’s first band. Mitch Mitchell was also in the group. Maybe I’d use my time machine to go see Anacrusis, actually.
Tony Conley is no longer with us in the conventional sense. He got ill and crossed over to the other side in the fall of 2020, but he left behind a terrific blog that goes into detail about his history with Robert Pollard in between pieces about Blue Oyster Cult and Uriah Heep and interviews with the likes of Pete Way and Frank Marino.
His article about the Anacrusis days is worth your time. (“I believe our greatest night at The Domino Club was the evening that we hosted the class graduation for the Northridge High School class of 1978. Yes, they held their graduation party in a bar. Welcome to Dayton, Ohio, 1978.”)
He also wrote about the origin of the Moping Swans. In summary, they began how I imagine more than one collaboration with Robert Pollard has started, with talk over drinks. Conley moved back to Ohio after a spell on the west coast. He reconnected with Pollard and in time the conversation turned to collaborating on music. Shortly after, Pollard handed over a 6-song cassette demo and, according to Conley, told him to come up with band arrangements. When it came time to record, the group blasted through everything live in an afternoon, never needing more than two takes, which Conley largely credits to MacPherson’s great drumming. Pollard added his vocals the next day and producer Todd Tobias added keyboard parts on a few tracks and next thing you know, you have a new record to collect and enjoy.
The music sounds exactly like its backstory.
It sounds like guys who know each other well. It sounds like guys who came up in the 1970s and remember everything. It sounds like old record stores and Ohio sunsets. It simultaneously sounds like a band’s debut and Robert Pollard’s ninety-fourth record.
Demos and MacPherson are a reliably versatile team on rhythm. Wherever a song needs to go, they can go there. Pollard’s guitar work is raw melody while Conley’s guitar is a powerful and mature muscle. He leans comfortably into dirges and the occasional flashy lead. Conley’s guitar is the sound of a guy who’s been around the block and knows how to serve a song.
The easy highlight is the side B kick-off “Look at Your Life”. It sums up the record’s tug of war between classic rock and post-punk. Plenty of people in the world have surely stepped up to a record store counter with both Wire and Deep Purple in their stack. I’m probably one of them. We’ll get into this track’s post-punk simmer and guitar solo assault the most.
Opening track “Beaten By the Target” is a classic anthem, all hard edges, sharp angles, and big hooks.
“Shame Me No Further” is a place for Tony Conley flex his guitar hero prowess and light up your joint in this song’s tidy (and mighty) 2:45.
Side A ends with the group’s theme song, “The Moping Swans are Home” because why not?
My sleeper favorite is “Keep the Gutters Fresh”. It has great words (just don’t ask me to explain what they mean) and its stuttering tension is how a band like The Moping Swans would come down from a big song.
As for the eight-and-a-half minute title track, it’s exactly how this band should send us off, with a true dirge. Repeat, repeat, repeat until the listener nearly forgets their name. All that exists is this groove. Zone out. Let your neck muscles relax. Do not operate heavy machinery.
When it’s over, you might be in the right mood for another Pollard release that came out the same day in May 2005. The two records have been linked in my own mind ever since. If I play one, I’ll often play the other. It feels right.
Yes, in my world, The Moping Swans are not only a cool one-off, but they’re also the opening act for Circus Devils and their feverish fourth album, Five, coming up next.