Tag: tobin sprout

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Things I Will Keep #13: TOBIN SPROUT, Carnival Boy

Tobin Sprout
Carnival Boy
1996, Matador Records

I’m one of those goofballs whose favorite Beatle is George. Also, my favorite Beatle solo album of the early years after the big break-up is Harrison’s All Things Must Pass. Sure, it’s not perfect. It’s a triple-album set and, like most people of good stock, I ignore the “Apple Jam” instrumental garbage on the third LP. And “I Dig Love” might be the worst song ever written. And I don’t know why the hell Harrison figured that we need two versions of “Isn’t It a Pity?”.

The headline though is that it’s the work of the underdog guy in the band now doing his own thing and killing it. The highs of All Things Must Pass reach such peaks that they can lead a guy to forget the low points.

One also imagines that All Things Must Pass is a stockpile of songs that got left off of Beatles records. Great stuff that might have fit right in, but never got the chance.

That’s part of the appeal of Tobin Sprout’s first solo LP outside of Guided by Voices, but with a difference.

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #27: UNDER THE BUSHES UNDER THE STARS

Guided by Voices
Under the Bushes Under the Stars
1996, Matador Records

In music, even a well-liked band runs the risk of nobody talking about them anymore in a few years. Whatever charms they may have had at their peak fade away for audiences and critics. Maybe the music business itself kicks them around so hard that they lose their drive. Maybe they coasted on an exciting new movement and then slipped everyone’s mind when everyone got over it. And that’s just off the top of my head. There are as many ways for today’s music sensations to become tomorrow’s nobodies as there are ways to die.

That wasn’t going to happen to Guided by Voices. This was their ninth album (tenth if you count King Shit and the Golden Boys). By this point, Robert Pollard was playing the long game and in the long game you can’t be lo-fi forever.

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #6: PROPELLER

Guided by Voices
Propeller
1992, Rockathon Records
Reissue (via the vinyl version of the Box set): 1995, Scat Records

The final Guided by Voices album. The closing chapter. The grand exit. One last blast before Robert Pollard retires his mic, packs up his guitar, throws his songwriting notebooks in a drawer, never makes Bee Thousand,  never makes From a Compound Eye, never makes Space Gun, and kisses his dreams goodbye.

That was true for about five minutes in 1992, at least, when Pollard caved to pressure from his family who didn’t think that a 34-year-old man with a wife and kids should be wasting his time and money making records that nobody except Byron Coley hears.

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