Robert Pollard
“Spider Eyes” b/w “Battle for Mankind”
2007, Happy Jack Rock Records
Robert Pollard and Todd Tobias both have brothers who’ve been important to their work.
Jim Pollard has co-songwriting credits throughout the early days of Guided by Voices, was a part of Acid Ranch, has picked up a guitar here and there, and has knocked over an amp here and there while tape was running.
Tim Tobias has been in bands with his little brother forever and created the music for many standout Circus Devils tracks.
Brotherhood is a theme in Pollard’s songs and his history and when he and Todd Tobias get together, they sometimes make records that are brothers. Same DNA, different results. Bonded but sometimes clashing. Romulus and Remus. Thor and Loki. Gallagher and Gallagher II.
From a Compound Eye and Normal Happiness are brother albums. One brother is into being expansive and epic, the other reacts by going leaner. But they both still look alike, were raised in the same home, and generally get along.
The next two solo LPs are brothers as well, but in a Cain and Abel, Hamlet and Claudius kind of way. Coast to Coast Carpet of Love and Standard Gargoyle Decisions are twins separated at birth, or a double album that got split in two and released on the same day in October. One got all of the warm pop songs, the other got all of the evil rockers and weird stuff. Definite rival siblings (though one could also argue that they have a Basket Case type of relationship). Not everyone will hear the charms of both. More on that later.
Right now, “Spider Eyes”.
It’s the second 7″ from the Happy Jack Rock Records Singles Series, the first song released from Standard Gargoyle Decisions, and it’s a clear (evil) brother to the previous month’s installment, “Rud Fins“. The family resemblance is uncanny.
Both “Spider Eyes” and “Rud Fins” go without a chorus. There’s a splashy intro and then a couple of verses that build toward a climax that finds itself in repetition before it halts to a quick ending. “Rud Fins” is well under three minutes, “Spider Eyes” barely squeaks over three minutes. Both songs come from a free, oddball mind that never lets the listener get too comfortable with predicting where he goes.
But ah, the differences.
“Spider Eyes” answers the sparkle of “Rud Fins” with a sound that evokes a car in a Mad Max movie. It’s caked with grime, constructed with scrap metal, and has an engine full of dirty oil.
“Spider Eyes” rolls its eyes at the anthemic ending of “Rud Fins” and instead closes with a drone (“And your mind… and your mind…”). A record is skipping. HAL 9000 just got deactivated. “Rud Fins” has a hard ending like a football game. “Spider Eyes” fades out like life is being slowly drained from it.
“Spider Eyes” raises a middle finger to “Piss Along You Bird”, the spectacular flipside of “Rud Fins”, and instead brings the out-there noise collage “Battle for Mankind” to the party. Recommended to defenders of The Beatles’ “Revolution 9” like me.
Have I mentioned yet that “Spider Eyes” is a good song? It is. It sounds like a car driving straight off a cliff and crashing and exploding and cascading down an incline in a spectacular show, no survivors, but, you know, in a way that rocks.
It’s a weird choice for a single, but when you hear Standard Gargoyle Decisons, it makes sense. The evil twin would want it this way.
Also the “Spoonful” swipe in the intro always makes me smile. Robert Pollard is not a bluesy guy and I suspect that his creative partner here, Todd Tobias, isn’t either. This is not a heartfelt nod to Willie Dixon. No, it’s record nerd stuff, a callback to the blues fixations of 1960s rock bands. The version that I think of first is from Cream in 1966, but there are others. It’s one of those songs that you’re going to run into here and there while deep-digging.
The opening riff here is an homage to a recycle of a nod to a copy. It’s a hunk of steel found on the side of the road and applied with electrical tape and chains to a whole other machine. And it’s so confident and oddly funny.
What can I say? Pollard’s weirdness has always resonated with me. I can smell the old records. I can see the 1960s B-movie flashing on the TV from an Ohio UHF station. I can feel the wind in the street from decades ago.
I can hear two brothers and the friction between them and also the love and how an artist can get to feel that it’s important that he give his works companions and rivals as he sends them out into the world.