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Robert Pollard-Mania! #24: FOR ALL GOOD KIDS

Guided by Voices
For All Good Kids
1995, no label

Guided by Voices have a bunch of live albums, folks. And we’re going to talk about ALL OF THEM.

Because I’m very serious about my Robert Pollard survey. Also, I don’t have anything better to do.

Here’s one of the first things that you need to know: Despite what a lot of sources say, including virtually every music database website, NONE of them are bootlegs in the normal sense. None of them were put out by some scofflaw with a tape recorder up his ass. These are all official records that just LOOK like bootlegs–and sometimes sound like bootlegs. There’s usually no record company mentioned anywhere. The covers are crudely assembled. Photocopied sheets glued to plain white sleeves are common. I’m talkin’ very stark, simple presentations, often with no track list even. Vinyl only, sneaked into mid-90s era record stores under cover of night and shadow. If you stumbled upon one of these in the bins back then, you might have thought “What the fuck is this?”

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Things I Will Keep #11: MEN WITHOUT HATS, Pop Goes the World

Men Without Hats
Pop Goes the World
1987, Mercury Records

This Things I Will Keep series is missing something and I think I know what it is. Other than a better writer, I mean.

So far, we’ve hung out in the thrift store bins and we’ve knocked the dust off some cool old stuff. We’ve gone glam. We’ve gone R&B. We’ve gone psychobilly. We’ve praised the goddess Bobbie Gentry. We’ve reached out to the misfit soul of Tiny Tim. We’ve reached out to the misfit psychedelic soul of The Negro Problem. We’ve loved both seasoned veterans who just want to chill out and we’ve loved hungry and dangerous young bands.

But I’ve yet to talk about anything that is truly and completely, unequivocably and absolutely 250% UNCOOL. I’ve been a little shy with you, I think. (Some might say that Tiny Tim is certifiably uncool, but I disagree.)

That ends here. It’s time to stop pulling punches. It’s time to finally reveal what a wimp I really am. It’s time to admit to the world that I am a walking bowl of egg noodles.

It’s time to say that I think that Pop Goes the World by Men Without Hats is a masterpiece and it’s one of my all-time favorite albums and I’ve been obsessed with it for almost twenty years.

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #23: TIGERBOMB

Guided by Voices
Tigerbomb
1995, Matador Records

So, we’ve talked about how Guided by Voices went into a studio and recorded shined-up versions of a few Alien Lanes songs, presumably as offerings to the gods of radio, MTV, and licensing.

But then they (or maybe it was Matador’s decision) did something that I still think is weird and released those recordings only on vinyl, a format that was next to dead in 1995. Some cooler indie stores in cities or near universities still stocked it, sure. You could also get an envelope and buy a fuckin’ stamp and send a check or money order to Matador Records in New York City and get this in your mailbox six weeks later, okay (no Paypal yet, kids). The big chain stores though, where Joe Schmoe bought his music, had been done with it for about five years.

So, color me confused on what they were thinking here. Not that I take great issue with it. GBV’s vinyl-only releases motivated a shy young man named Jason to buy his first turntable in 1996. It was a year for me when every dollar was vital and a plastic $100 Sony from Sears was a major purchase at the time, but I did it. I was done with being locked out of the 7″s that I was reading about in magazines like Puncture and CMJ. When I learned that Guided by Voices had new vinyl-only releases, it became essential that I become equipped to play them.

So, I took the plunge. I bought a turntable and very quickly became a real freak for the needle.

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A Laurel and Hardy Party #7: NIGHT OWLS and LADRONES

(1930; director: James Parrott)

I’m not a laugher. Never been a laugher. Even when I was a kid. I remember watching old Looney Tunes cartoons with my younger cousins while they were LAUGHING HYSTERICALLY. They were falling to pieces. Every time that Bugs got the upper hand on Elmer Fudd or The Coyote got flattened by another anvil, these kids lost their shit.

Meanwhile, I, age 9 or 10, just sat there quietly. I liked the cartoon, too. I was enjoying it. I was entertained. It was good. I was happy. I probably had a smile on my face.

But I didn’t have the physical reaction that my cousins did. And to this day I still find myself in the same situation all of the time and I don’t know why. I have a sense of humor. I like to laugh, but I’m very stingy about it for some reason. I mostly laugh at real-life mishaps and accidents rather than jokes or movie gags. For that stuff, I tend to smirk and think “yeah, that was good.” I rarely cut loose and explode.

I guess I’m just a creep.

And I mention this because Night Owls made me laugh my face off. It bored a hole through the stone wall. This is my favorite short so far on my Laurel and Hardy journey.

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #22: GUIDED BY VOICES / NEW RADIANT STORM KING Split 7″

Guided by Voices/New Radiant Storm King
“The Opposing Engineer (Sleeps Alone)” b/w “I Am a Scientist”
1995, Chunk Records

In the vast Sargasso Sea that is Robert Pollard’s body of work, there are remarkably few cover songs. My guess is that there are less than ten, but I don’t have an exact count. I could spend a few minutes researching the matter, but I’m not going to do that because these reviews are already geeky ENOUGH.

This 7″ offers one of those rare specimens. It’s one of those cute split-singles that indie rock bands sometimes do where they cover each other’s songs. You know the drill.

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Okay, So What the Hell Happened to Fandor? (Also, I Prattle On About Arthouse Theaters)

Maybe the most arthouse-y streaming service of them all, Fandor, looks to have gone the way of the Chevy Nova in December and NOBODY is talking about it.

Was I their only subscriber?

Or are we all still numb from Filmstruck’s demise last November?

Fandor’s deal was (is?) that it was all about independent films. They made a big thing about their selection of Werner Herzog classics. They had Hal Hartley movies. Oodles of short films from all eras. A scattershot, but interesting, selection of deep, deep catalog stuff, like 1940s cliffhanger serials, old B-westerns and Pakistani movies from 1963. You could browse movies by what country they were from. You could browse movies by what festival it played in, from Cannes to Venice to SXSW to the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #21: MOTOR AWAY

Guided by Voices
“Motor Away” b/w “Color of My Blade”
1995, Matador Records

“Motor Away” is the song for all of the people who doubted Robert Pollard’s rock ‘n’ roll pursuits over the past ten years. All of the family members and co-workers who said that he was wasting his time. All of the people who thought that he should give up. All of the townies who felt that he was just dreamin’.

This song is for them and its message is simple.

Its message is “Kiss my ass, I was right, I did it.”

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