Mute Superstar

I've never really bought the idea that Mag Earwhig! is a concept album, but there are tracks whose lyrics seem explainable no other way. "Mute Superstar" is a case in point. It's a song that usually gets lost in the shuffle, coming as it does as track 20 on a 21-track album. It has a nice little riff, a good melody and a compact arrangement that makes me want to hear it again on those rare occasions that I make it that far on the album.

But the lyric is both strange and specific. In their entirety:

I see them in the dark
Fairy wings are green
Chemical minx disguises
Significant pink UFOs I'm not up there!
Approach me now!
We hope these cables will serve you well
We hold these truths and they're not to sell
I'm not up there!
Approach me now!

If I recall correctly, the story has to do with insects, and the "fairy wings" and "significant pink UFOs" could certainly refer to such. The lines that really make me think that Robert Pollard has something specific in mind are those about the cables and truths. That seems part of a larger story, but the meaning is elusive.

I Am Produced

When Mag Earwhig! arrived, it was comforting to see the names Tobin Sprout, Kevin Fennell and Mitch Mitchell in the credits. They don't play together on any one track, and their contributions are minimal, but this link with the past at a time when Robert Pollard had completely remade Guided by Voices was reassuring. In hindsight, while this was one of the more radical changes in the band's lineup, it had always shifted and changed, meaning there was no such thing as a true GBV lineup. Some have dubbed the version with the above-mentioned musicians "the classic lineup," however, and given the uniform quality of their output, it's hard to differ.

Sprout had moved on to his own solo career by this point, so it was a pleasant surprise to see him involved, and even more so that Pollard chose to lead the album with one of the duo's eight-track creations. Another, "I Am Produced," seemed to comment directly, and somewhat pointedly, on the new direction Pollard was taking the band. He seems keenly aware that his basement noodling and weekend fun was turning into a business. Over Sprout's acoustic guitar and Casio, Pollard sings:

I am pressed, printed, stomped
And strategically removed
I am everybody
Insane without innocence
I am trapped, tricked, packaged
And shipped out
I am produced

He could be singing from the point of view of a CD, or any other manufactured product, of course, but given the trajectory of GBV's career at that time, deeper meaning seems almost assured, particularly given the presence of terms like "trapped" and "tricked" in his recitation. As the short song fades, Pollard begins to chant "pressed, printed, stomped, tripped ,trapped, tricked, packaged, shipped..." in a near monotone. Has he resigned himself to this fate, perhaps?

Jane of the Waking Universe

Mag Earwhig! is full of epic songs that sound like epic songs: Robert Pollard's compositions are finally given the big-rock sound that many of us always secretly hoped for, despite the charms of the lo-fi past. Songs like "Jane of the Waking Universe" teeter on the edge between those two aesthetics. You can still hear what might have been had this been recorded on Tobin Sprout's four-track in Steve Wilbur's garage, a majestically tinny tune with tons of arena-rock promise. Instead, it is given some room to move; this is a spacious recording that allows the various guitar parts to remain distinct, while the drums are more propulsive, driving the entire song forward.

Yet a listen to this followed by something from, say, Isolation Drills, reveals this to still be somewhat lo-fi. There is no scorching Doug Gillard solo, no thunderous bass drum heartbeat or snare drum crack. It's as if, with Mag Earwhig! Pollard sought and found the happy medium, able to walk the fine line between past and future. He does so with some killer tunes. The hook on "Jane" is large, the verses and chorus instantly catchy. It's the kind of song seemingly built for the stage, but the band only performed it a couple dozen times on the tour in support of the album. The problem, it seems, is that there are too many great songs, particularly from the era that was coming to a close with this album, and it appears to have fallen through the cracks.

The Finest Joke is Upon Us

While Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes are understandably seen by most as high water marks for Guided by Voices, I think songs like "The Finest Joke is Upon Us" are proof that the two albums that followed -- Under the Bushes, Under the Stars and Mag Earwhig! -- are really the product of Robert Pollard's strongest period. Both albums have their standouts, but each is uniformly great in an ambitious way that their two predecessors, while fantastic in their own ways, were not.

"The Finest Joke..." is a great chugging rocker with strong hooks, a song that sounds like a better fit with UTBUTS than with this more arena-rock sounding ME! Pollard seems to include a self-critique within the lyrics, singing, "It's a long song and I can't play it so give me a pick now collector of bones," surely not commenting on the fact that GBV songs were growing longer (for the first time since Same Place the Fly Got Smashed, and not counting the medley of "Over the Neptune/Mesh Gear Fox" on Propeller, a song topped the four-minute mark here).

Regardless, Pollard's songwriting is at a peak here, taking a fairly pedestrian two-chord chugger and making it a compelling track little more than melody and words. He offers some great images here, including the one that gives the song it's title:

Worlds of smoke
Distorted, mirror broken
Paradise is open but I choke
One of these days when I see through the smoke
There'll be the day I get the joke

Learning to Hunt

"Learning to Hunt" is one of the sweetest songs in Robert Pollard's catalog. It's clearly a song about a father coming to grips with his child growing up. Against a background of spacey, phased guitar sounds (probably made by dragging a pick up and down the strings) and some light picking, he sings in the first verse about his reservations:

"You were a child reaching out brave and true
for big things in the next room
and I couldn't step into such open sky
where on the crest of uncertainty you loom."

In the second verse, he seeks assurance from his child that things won't change too much:

"Say that you'll never run too far away
even with all the answers out there
where it's brighter but no one will care
half as much as I care about you."

As each verse closes, he assures his child that "I'm learning to hunt for you," which can be taken two ways. He might be learning how to provide for the child, acknowledging his role in the father-child relationship, or he might be saying he is preparing to look for the child, to seek him or her out if they wander. Either way, it's the rare truly gentle song from Pollard's pen, and a quiet little gem on the otherwise rocked-out Mag Earwig.

Can't Hear the Revolution

This is Guided by Voices big rock record? After Robert Pollard jettisoned (or as he put it, accepted the resignations of) the "classic lineup" of the band and took on the glam-rocking Cobra Verde in its stead, word was that Mag Earwhig was going to be a statement, an album that would take the band to the next level and show what Pollard could do with a studio and professional players.

So, what does he do? Subvert expectations, of course. While much of the album is bit and certainly rocks harder than nearly everything that came before it, the opener, "Can't Hear the Revolution," is a song that would have fit comfortably on any of the previous three GBV discs.

The first sound you hear is a high-pitched Casio keyboard note wavering along in lo-fi splendor, soon joined by a crunching guitar power chord progression and a snare and kick drum. Then Pollard and Tobin Sprout (making one of his last few appearances on a Guided by Voices song) begin to sing: "Can't hear the revolution."

Then Pollard, doing his best Michael Stipe, begins to intone in a mumble buried in the mix: "God rolls the sun as he walks down the highway" and so on and so forth (the GBV database seems off base on this one). There is a short guitar solo, followed by Pollard and Sprout singing the title a couple more times before the song is over, all accomplished in a brisk 1:36.

It's a strange way to start the album, though perhaps it's all simply part of the "concept" that I've never been able to figure out. According to Matador's press release at the time, "Pollard is the main character in this sprawling narrative, an insectile cartoon figure named the Magnificent Earwhig, who interacts with a wild cast of characters in songs evoking nostalgic memories of an Ohio boyhood, starting one's first band, and inhaling American roadside pop culture." OK, sure. Whatever you say.

I Am a Tree

Perhaps an odd choice for first song to cover here, considering the fact that it's one of the few Guided by Voices songs not written by the guy whose head looms over this blog. But that doesn't mean that it isn't his now. "I Am a Tree" was written by Doug Gillard, the guitarist who came on board the band with the rest of his bandmates in Cobra Verde in between Under the Bushes, Under the Stars and Mag Earwhig in 1997. Robert Pollard was looking for a tougher, more professional sound, so he sacked the "classic lineup" (Tobin Sprout stepped down of his own accord to work on his solo music and painting) and recruited Cleveland's finest.

"I Am a Tree" came from a Gillard side project, Gem, that had released the song on a 12" single. Gem was a bit more straightfoward than Cobra Verde, less glam inspired and more power pop. In "I Am a Tree," Gillard had penned a good song with a great riff. By giving it to Pollard, he turned it into a fantastic song. Though the framework of the song stayed the same, the differences are startling. The GBV version is faster, crisper and rocks much harder. Then there is Pollard. Gillard has a decent voice, but his vocals on the Gem version seem an afterthought. Pollard inhabits the track, propelling it and giving the vocals equal weight against Gillard's majestic riffs.

I picked up Mag Earwhig, if memory serves, on the same trip to Best Buy where I purchased a DiscMan to use in my new (to me) car. Using a Guided by Voices disc to test the fidelity of a new sound system would have been a crapshoot before this point, but much of Mag Earwhig has a huge, hi-fi sound. Yes, there are lo-fi gems sprinkled throughout as well, Pollard seemingly unwilling to fully embrace the studio. But "I Am a Tree," with its high-pitched single note intro, massive guitar riff and pummeling drums was a fitting trial for my new car. There are better songs in the GBV canon, but few I've listened to and enjoyed more.