Robert Pollard-Mania! #40: WAVED OUT

Robert Pollard
Waved Out
1998, Matador Records

In 1998, Robert Pollard was 40 years old and his plan for Guided by Voices was that he was gonna at least take a stab at mainstream success while he was still spry. It was cool with me. I was rooting for him. A slick, Ric Ocasek-produced GBV album was something that I was curious to hear.

One might have wondered though if maybe we were losing the eccentric psychedelic genius that we’d been following. Part of GBV’s character was a curious freedom on record. Noise. Accidents that sounded cool. Albums in which strange, misfit songs found a comfortable home next to killer hooks. A very uncommercial sort of beauty. It wasn’t mere indie/lo-fi snobbery. Robert Pollard found his voice (and his audience) embracing rough edges and home recording. It was how his songs sounded good. It was why he didn’t sign with Warner Brothers in 1994 and remake Alien Lanes for radio like the suits wanted.

How was any of Ocasek’s studio magic gonna compete with that?

If you were paying attention though, you didn’t worry about that much. Robert Pollard does his job each day and new songs are not a problem. He was still writing little oddballs and making low-budget recordings. Pollard had stacks of fresh goodness that didn’t fit on Guided by Voices albums anymore. Great songs, haunting songs, shadowy moods, alien vibes and psychedelic nutcase stuff that the deep-diggers want to hear.

Sounds like a great idea for a solo album, to me.

Sounds like Waved Out. 

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Things I Will Keep #17: THE MUFFS, Happy Birthday to Me

The Muffs
Happy Birthday to Me
1997, Reprise Records (original vinyl on Telster Records)

The news of Kim Shattuck’s sad and unfair death at age 56, due to ALS complications, knocked all of the wind out of me last week.

I first saw it on Twitter and I couldn’t believe it (“Huh, Kim Shattuck is trending? I wonder wh–OH, FUCK!”). Total punch in the gut. Her illness was kept private. It was a complete surprise to us in the peanut gallery. At the moment, other people were around me and I had to walk away from them and find a quiet place to sit and think.

The deaths of musicians rarely get to me like that. Even if I liked them. For the most part, I tend to figure that they made their mark and will live on through their work. I might get a little wistful and misty, but I don’t feel hurt.

But Kim Shattuck’s passing hurt. 

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #39: I AM A TREE

Guided by Voices
I Am a Tree
1997, Matador Records

Robert Pollard writes tons of anthems on his own so it was a major endorsement of GBV’s new lead guitarist Doug Gillard when Pollard not only recorded Gillard’s “I Am a Tree” for Guided by Voices, but also consented to it as the second and final single from Mag Earwhig!. Until Tobin Sprout scored a few A-sides about fifteen years later when the old line-up reunited, “I Am a Tree” was the only GBV single not written by King Shit himself.

Pollard still sings it like it’s his own, though. He thinks it’s a great song. You can tell. Meanwhile, Cobra Verde summon thunder and the song itself is powerful and yet unpretentious. It’s total pop with Godzilla guitars. In 1975, it might have been a hit. In 1997, it was the sound of a band known for lo-fi brevity taking its boldest step yet in shedding its old skin.

“I Am a Tree” is almost five minutes long and recorded to fill a stadium.

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Things I Will Keep #16: GEM, Hexed

My cracked CD case says “hi”.

Gem
Hexed
1995, Restless Records

Happy September, folks.

August will probably always be a slow month on this site. I write everyday, but in the drag days of late summer in Texas, my brain takes a vacation. I won’t repeat my rant from the beginning of my Jill Cunniff piece from last year, but I always spend the 100-plus degree days of August annoyed at everything. I make notes and write fragments for new articles for this site, but in my cranky, sweatball state they rarely feel like anything worth pursuing. If this was my job, I could work my way through this misery, sure, but this is not my job, so I can say “fuck it” with impunity and just not update for a few weeks.

Now, it’s mid-September and it’s still fucking hot (Texas), but the nights are getting more pleasant. The supermarkets have Halloween displays up. Changes are happening, however slowly. The leaves here haven’t yet changed color, but as the world around me slides back into routine, I feel myself receiving good energy again.

What I’m trying to say is that I’m in the mood for some for some killer back-to-school rock and Gem’s shotgun blast of a debut album nails it. Maybe none of these guys had been in school for awhile when they made it. Maybe main songwriter Doug Gillard had been in bands for about fifteen years at this point. Nevertheless, they still kicked up the kind of blare and had the kind of songs that, in a better world, would have shouted out of high school parking lots in 1995.

From the cynical, misfit kids, at least. The kind of kids who could hear a song like “Your Heroes Hate You” and it just confirmed what they suspected about the world already.

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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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