Category: music

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #38: MAG EARWHIG!

Guided by Voices
Mag Earwhig!
1997, Matador Records

For indie rocker kids, there was an uncomfortable truth about Guided by Voices and in 1997 they finally had to face it.

Robert Pollard likes and is very much influenced by prog-rock.

And not in a “math rock” way, which was cool back then. Bands who were into crazy time signatures and got compared to King Crimson and their LP was out on Touch & Go. That was okay.

Pollard probably digs that stuff, too, but he’s more into Peter Gabriel’s Genesis. He likes concept albums and all of that mystical, pastoral British junk. Fantasy imagery and songs that might kick in with the good part after about four minutes of build-up because kids in 1973 (a year when Pollard turned 16) had the attention span for that. Or at least they were stoned enough to go with it.

Yep, the guy known for recording songs that barely last a minute in his basement was influenced by the most long-winded and indulgent rock genre around.

Artists. They’re complicated.

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #36: GUIDED BY VOICES / COBRA VERDE Split 7″

Guided by Voices/Cobra Verde
1997, Wabana Ore Limited

What, ANOTHER 7″? What year is this? 1994?

No, this is definitely 1997. There’s no mistaking this record for the Guided by Voices of ’94.

All of those guys were out and were replaced by an already-existing band who didn’t sound much like them. The newcomers were Cobra Verde outta Cleveland. Mean guys. City guys.

Old Guided by Voices had that small town thing happening. They were weirdos in the basement rocking while their neighbors slept.

By contrast, Cobra Verde hailed from urbanity and they kicked up the kind of confrontational roar that rises from street noise. Most of them had been in bands and put out records for as long Pollard had (a little longer, actually). They were seasoned and versatile, sometimes quiet, but often hard, mean and spiked with classic big balls 70s rock and a few splatters of punk. The also had a smokin’ lead guitarist (Doug Gillard).

In them, Robert Pollard heard the future of Guided by Voices.

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #35: WISH IN ONE HAND

Guided by Voices
Wish in One Hand
1997, Jass Records

Two years before Ric Ocasek shined up “Teenage FBI” for mainstream radio, the song appeared on this small-press 7″ that only indie dorks and GBV fan mega-dweebs, such as myself, knew about.

Two years before “Teenage FBI” acquired synthesizers and glittery Doug Gillard guitar work, it was a skeletal minute-and-a-half piece of raw indie pop, barebones and dog-simple.

Two years before “Teenage FBI” was the first song on the slickest GBV album ever, it sounded like an Alien Lanes outtake.

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Things I Will Keep #15: BETTY BLOWTORCH, Are You Man Enough?

Betty Blowtorch
Are You Man Enough?
2001, Foodchain Records

I’m just your regular, everyday, Miller Lite-drinking, heterosexual guy who happens to have “Size Queen”, an anthem about big dicks, permanently stuck in his head.

It’s a nuclear-powered rock song from the greatest, raunchiest AC/DC album ever made by an all-girl band from Hollywood. I can turn it up in the car and not be embarrassed one tiny bit by lyrics such as “I want a man with man-size toys” and “Pull it out and I’ll be the judge/ I’ll let you know if you’re well-hung”.  That’s all fine with me. I’m not fragile. Get me drunk enough and I’ll even sing along with that shit. I don’t give a damn.

No, the thing that makes my asshole pucker is when a raucous and ready for action Vanilla Ice shows up for a quick guest spot during the bridge and throws out bon mots such “You know I got it all/ A long white dick almost ten inches tall!”

It’s not a moment for the faint for heart, but Betty Blowtorch doesn’t make music for wimps or critics. Their sole album is a monument to high-flying tastlessness. They miss the glory days of hair metal. They don’t understand why anyone would even want to make music that ISN’T about sex and good times and bad times on The Sunset Strip and settling old grudges. Betty Blowtorch pack humor, hooks, and attitude onto this album like a chick with DDs might fill out a Kiss tank-top that’s at least two sizes too small.  Vanilla Ice slips in neatly between Betty Blowtorch’s cleavage and plays a small part on one of my favorite rock records of all time.

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #34: FIREHOUSE MOUNTAIN

Nightwalker
“Firehouse Mountain”
1997, no label

Only a real asshole band would put out a one-sided 7″ with one song on it. They couldn’t cough up some piece of garbage for the B-side? B-sides are the place to put garbage. There are no rules for B-sides. B-sides can be anything. Not having a B-side on your 7″ feels like arrogance. I don’t think they’re saying that they don’t have anything for the B-side; I think they’re saying that YOU don’t deserve it. They WANT to let you down. You expected two songs? Fuck off, you’re getting one.

What kind of band does that? What kind of jerks are we dealing with here?

Ladies and germs, I give you Nightwalker.

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #33: JELLYFISH REFLECTOR

Guided by Voices
Jellyfish Reflector
1996, no label

I don’t know exactly when this double live LP came out, so I’ll slide it in at the end of the year like I’ve done for most of the others. As with the band’s previous pseudo bootlegs, this didn’t have a formal release date. It wasn’t announced. It just appeared in the racks one day at some of your better vinyl-friendly record stores.

All I know for sure is that I bought it at Bill’s Records and Tapes in Richardson, TX in the summer of 1997 and that it blew my mind about a thousand feet skyward.

This was the first time that I ever heard how Guided by Voices sounded live.

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #32: TONICS & TWISTED CHASERS

A rare CD photo in this series

Guided by Voices
Tonics & Twisted Chasers
1996, Rockathon Records

In 1996, we thought that two albums, two EPs and a couple of singles from Robert Pollard in one year was a lot.

We were so innocent back then.

It was a year in which Guided by Voices ran Matador through their paces and released so many records that it became an issue for some people. The “Bob Pollard needs an editor” cliche started up around this time. Critics were running out of things to say about the band and ho-hum’d their way through reviews. I still remember a guy in my dorm in ’96 who said “I liked Guided by Voices for awhile and then Pollard got musical diarrhea”.

And it was in this climate that GBV put out ONE MORE FUCKING ALBUM at the tail end of the year.

The way I remember it, it was a surprise release. No ramp-up. It just showed up one day for sale on their website, announced first through their e-mail list. Mailorder only. Vinyl only. 1,000 copies in a variety of colors. Nothing that would compete for rack space with their other releases (and, thus, not annoy the Matador folks). The artwork was a crude black-and-white photocopy of the Sunfish Holy Breakfast cover photo pasted onto a plain white sleeve. The band put it out themselves just like the old days. The aesthetic was the pseudo-“bootleg” style that they used for live albums such as For All Good Kids, but this time it was an LP of nineteen new songs.

As for the music, Tonics & Twisted Chasers is the sweetly weird work of savages who never sleep. It’s a pile of lo-fi nutcase stuff that stands apart from the year’s other LPs.

It plays like Under the Bushes Under the Stars was a dream that never really happened.

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Things I Will Keep #14: THE MONKEES, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd.

The Monkees
Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn, Capricorn & Jones, Ltd. LP
1967, Colgems

Guilty pleasures are the best. I love everything about guilty pleasures. That’s why I have about 9,000 of them. Meanwhile, some others outright hate the very expression. “Why should I feel guilty about the things I like?” goes the usual argument. They seem to interpret it as a feeling of shame and ostracism, best avoided. In spirit, I agree, but I still think these people are all mixed up.

Guilt is an exciting emotion and I prefer to savor it.

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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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