Pure Hot Tar

There are those who scoff at releases like this that clearly scrape the bottom of the barrel. You'll find no pop hits on an Acid Ranch disc, and Robert Pollard is clear and up front about this. Still, those of us who comb through every song in search of something meaningful, who parse nonsense lyrics for nuggets of wisdom, find even these discards worth hearing, at least once.

"Pure Hot Tar" aspires to the term throwaway. Musically it doesn't do much but provide a bed over which Pollard reads an ad for a place that sells, you guessed it, pure hot tar. It's reminiscent in that way of R.E.M.'s "Voice of Harold," where Michael Stipe sings the liner notes from a gospel album over the backing track for "Seven Chinese Brothers." There are differences. Stipe sang, Pollard recites. There is no melody, nothing engaging about the backing track.

And still, I've spent time Googling the details in the hope of learning the story behind this, all to no avail. It includes a phone number that I can't quite make out, a name that sounds like Busch Asphalt (which doesn't exist in Dayton or the surrounding area. Yes, I checked) and an address, 4422 Canyon Rd. That appears to be a house, not an asphalt company. It is just a few blocks from Needmore Road and Titus Avenue, important streets in Guided by Voices lore, so it's clear that at one time Bob could practically walk to visit this business.