It takes quite a lot for me to feel completely ripped off by Robert Pollard, but consider it done. His latest release, a re-release, actually, of the Hazzard Hotrods album Big Trouble (dubbed Bigger Trouble for this expanded CD re-issue), is horrible. I have heard a lot of demo tapes from a lot of friends' bands over the years, and they have many things in common with this disc: they are the tossed off, inside-joke filled creations of a bunch of guys having fun. The one thing they don't share? None but Pollard deemed them worthy of release.

The music here was recorded on a boombox at the back of a Dayton video store in 1990, well before anyone outside of a handful of locals and hipsters had even heard of Pollard's main gig, Guided by Voices. The one-off group featured GBV stalwarts Tobin Sprout and Mitch Mitchell, so there was reason to expect that the music, while likely rough, lo-fi and primitive, would still hold some interest. Add to that historical pull the fact that the initial release of the music was on a 10-song vinyl-only album in a limited edition of 500. That scarcity, coupled with the rabid nature of Pollard collectors (present company included), meant this became a must-have.

If only I had done my homework. Three of the best (I use that term loosely) songs here showed up on the Suitcase 4-CD box set from a few years back, so I already owned the cream of the crop and hadn't found myself compelled to pull that set out much to listen to them. Hearing the rest, I'm amazed that Pollard saw fit to release this. Yes, he has a reputation for clearing his closets, releasing any bit of sound caught on tape. In his 35-releases-and-counting Fading Captain series, there are only two outright duds before this. The Howling Wolf Orchestra's Speed Traps for the Bee Kingdom and the Nightwalker disc In Shop We Build Electric Chairs. Both were more collage art than rock music, and while I'm sure there are those who find them interesting, they certainly hold none of the off-kilter psych-influenced rock that most people expect from Pollard's pen.

The Hazzard Hotrods disc is another matter all together. The fidelity is atrocious, the songs half-baked (it has been suggested that the lyrics were made up on the spot as Pollard drew inspiration from the titles of movies on the videotapes surrounding the band) and the whole thing simply not worthy of release. Yes, I'm free to skip Fading Captain releases as I see fit, and it's understood that they will include some marginal juvenilia that won't appeal to everyone; that's part of the game. But it seems that Pollard has an unwritten compact with his fans -- he combs the recesses of his archives in search of releasable music, and we dig through what he releases in search of the gems. That assumes there will be some gems to find. That's not the case here.