Curse of the Black Ass Buffalo

For a short little B side, "Curse of the Black Ass Buffalo" has some interesting things to offer.

It seems like the tale of a band, or perhaps a record label, Pioneer Chambers. As usual with Robert Pollard's lyrics, it's unclear (though a key hint or two from him would probably unravel the whole thing).

It does have some great lines, like "would rather throw parties than stones, would rather break virgins than bones," and, "Now this is just a theory, but I sincerely believe that if you're into rock & roll you've got to sell your soul."

As for Pioneer Chambers, a quick Google search finds that, save for pages with Guided by Voices lyrics, the few mentions are for an office building in Hyderabad, India. Wonder if there are any GBV fans toiling away, there, cranking their copies of the I Am a Scientist EP whenever this song comes on.

Do the Earth

If memory serves, "Do the Earth" was the first time I realized that Robert Pollard was a genius. Here he had just released an album with Guided by Voices, Bee Thousand, that seemed as full of great little pop songs as an album could be, and a scant four months later out pops an EP with t least one song that was better than a lot of the already fantastic songs on that album. Pollard would spend the next several years proving that this was no fluke.

It wasn't just that he was writing so much that one album couldn't contain all the recently penned songs he had (though that was true) or that he was writing so fast that he was coming up with great stuff just as soon as the old great stuff was issued (though that also was true). It was simply that he was a great songwriter and we were lucky to be a live to experience it in real time. No B-side throwaways for this guy; everything, at least at that moment, was worth hearing.

As for the song itself, it feels at times like one of the first instances on record (literally) of Pollard kicking at the traces, wishing he could rock for a living instead of teach.

I'm a human costume with veins of gold
I'll face the punching bag -- do what I'm told
'Til I get old and have to dwell
In the valley of ironmen

Are these the same ironmen he would rally a few albums later? Perhaps. It's just one of many questions conjured by this song, another being, what exactly does this dance called "The Earth" look like? Only the guy in Robert Pollard's head (wouldn't that be strange, in a sort of "Being John Malkovich" sort of way, to be in Uncle Bob's head?) knows for sure.