Bally Hoo

Two things set this nice little tune apart from the others on the Soft Rock Renegades' disc Choreographed Man of War. For starters, the music echoes that of disc-opener "I Drove a Tank." That song's mighty hook is slowed down here, easing into the song unsuspectingly. In that song Robert Pollard sings:

I drove a tank in a running war
I didn't know what the shit was for
You brought me out from your old chest drawer
So baby hold on

Here, at about half speed, it becomes:

So now you know what the deal is for
You'll never know who to break it to
I'm really out there, but I like the view
So baby hold on

And the second thing? Pollard gives a shout out to fellow Ohio popsters The Mice, a band that put out a couple of records in the 1980s before splitting. "Going to see The Mice play some rock n' roll. It's going to be real nice," he sings.

The Mice are one of those undiscovered gems that people like to keep as their own. Their music runs the gamut from short bursts of poppy punk to rustic, lo-fi folk (sound like anyone else you know?), and leader Bill Fox headed in that latter direction on his two wonderful, 1998 solo albums. Every once in a while the band and/or Fox threaten to pop up onto the radar. Scat Records (home to Guided by Voices' Vampire on Titus and Bee Thousand LPs) reissued the entire Mice discography a few years back on Almost Forever Scooter, while the Believer in its 2007 music issue featured a great first-person piece by a big fan of Fox's who tried in vain to track down the reclusive singer in Dayton.

All of this inhabits a catchy little song buried at the end of a one-off LP from one of Pollard's many side projects. One wishes Fox was as prolific as Pollard; at least the few songs he did record might be discovered thanks to a timely shout out from a peer.