Double Standards Inc.

Some songs get buried at the end of a disc for a reason. Not sure what the value of "Double Standards Inc." is, really. Robert Pollard does some interesting things within the confines of lo-fi recording, adding heavy reverb to his vocals and playing a stabbing guitar figure at low enough volume that tape his becomes an actual element of the song, but there's not much of a hook here.

Perhaps the most interesting thing here is that he drops the title of Guided by Voices fourth album, Same Place the Fly Got Smashed, into the lyric. And I know from reading up on GBV lore that the "same place the fly got smashed" refers to Pollard seeing a spider (commenters, correct me) on the same spot of his basement wall where he had earlier smashed a fly. What that has to do with a hot day in Kansas, the smell of money or double standards, I'm not sure.

Maggie Turns to Flies

It took me a long time to get into Robert Pollard's first solo album, and the opening track is the main culprit. The opening 40 seconds, to be precise. The disc begins with some lo-fi tub thumping (courtesy Mitch Mitchell and Jim Pollard, as if Robert Pollard couldn't have done this himself) followed by some backward tape of Pollard singing. Then, the actual song kicks in, and it is as dense as a song can be, as if Pollard wanted to see exactly how much sound can be crammed onto tape. It was off-putting, and though I dabbled a bit with the disc, the fact that there was plenty of Guided by Voices-related product already on my shelf (and plenty more guaranteed to follow shortly), I put it aside.

When I revisited the disc, I was surprised to find I loved "Maggie Turns to Flies." The song found me at the right moment and everything clicked. The opening was easily ignored, and the dense swirl of the music seemed the perfect bed for Pollard's forceful vocals. Now, I consider it a highlight of the album.

Beyond that, two things strike me as interesting about the song. First, that Pollard censors himself, offering the much more palatable title of "Maggie Turns to Flies" despite the fact that the line from which that title derives is about maggots turning to flies. And second, that he can use the maggot-to-fly process as a spot-on metaphor: "Tradewinds blow where maggots turn to flies/ What a better life!" Indeed, how could it not be better to be a fly than a maggot, and who but Pollard would think to turn such sentiments into a song?

King of Arthur Avenue

When taking a random spin through Robert Pollard and Guided by Voices songs, I'm usually drawn to those that rock and/or offer some musical quirks. Yet a long listening session leaves me longing for tracks like "King of Arthur Avenue," a song that is little more than Pollard and a guitar for most of its run time, but which offers just enough of a melody that it keeps my attention and allows for a short mental rest before the manic hooks return.

Musically, there isn't much here until the end, when drums and electric guitar arrive to kickstart things. Before that, Pollard strums and sings of the King. Curious about the geography at play here, I mapped Dayton's Arthur Avenue on Google Maps, then sought the distance between there and Pollard's famed Titus Avenue. It's about a four minute drive, a mile give or take, and so clearly puts the two streets within the same general neighborhood. It's safe to guess, then, that the King of Arthur Avenue may be a rival to the Vampire on Titus.

The lyrics seem to bear that out. "Just after the tin can laughter dies down, I will hoist my vulgar flag everywhere you are," he sings, seemingly claiming victory over an opponent. Later, he declares himself "a leopard leaping out into your life, crashing your nerve." He ends with the fairly mean spirited, "The world will be better when you fall, you will recall," which feels like a slap at the King to be sure. The guitar and drums emphasize the point, making the song a great lead in to the next rave up on the playlist.

Quicksilver

It isn't hard to recast the opening lines of this song as a capsule review of my feelings about the album on which it appears: Looking at my window, at first I didn't like you. And now I need time, now I know." I'm not sure what it was about Not in My Airforce that failed to connect with me, though I would imagine that opener "Maggie Turns to Flies" didn't help. After that disjointed blast that was more claustrophobic than what had come before (at least that I was familiar with at this point just a few years into my Guided by Voices fanship), this song, with it's stripped-down, demo-quality sound, didn't hook me. I had enough Robert Pollard music, even at that point, that I felt fine setting the album aside in favor of more compelling music.

In a way, I'm glad I did, for it means I have an album of good-to-great Pollard songs from my favorite era of his career to rediscover. With that rediscovery has come new appreciation. "Quicksilver" still isn't a stunner by any means, but in the context of the album, it's a well-sequenced palate cleanser between the frenetic "Maggie" and the arena-rock bombast of "Girl Named Captain."

Girl Named Captain

Just now listening to my iPod on shuffle while doing some mindless work, one song faded out and another began, this one with a big rock bass drum thump-snare drum-double bass drum thump-snare drum figure repeated twice, all with a ride cymbal sizzling underneath. On someone else's iPod it could have been any number of bad hair-metal power ballads. On mine, I knew it was Robert Pollard, and my mind immediately cued the big guitars and vocals of "Girl Named Captain."

I'll admit I had to check the screen to see what Pollard song I was hearing, and was surprised to see that it was from his solo debut, Not in My Airforce. As you can tell from the continually growing number of posts here, I've been listening to a lot of Pollard lately, and sometimes the provenance of the deeper album tracks blur in my mind. As this song unfolded, I thought to myself that I needed to go back and listen to Do the Collapse again because I'd forgotten this little gem.

Why did I think this? It's probably the big, arena rock sound of the track. I long thought Not in My Airforce to be a flawed step backward for Pollard. While I love the old GBV albums that mixed short lo-fi songs, scraps and more fully fleshed-out work, I felt like Pollard should continue growing and explore new territory. Thing is, he was, and I have come to realize that my first impression of the disc is what was flawed. Not in My Airforce is full of some fantastic songs, and "Girl Named Captain" is among the best. Here Pollard was toying with a sound that would largely populate GBV releases for the next decade. It's a near-anthem with big drums, a loud wall of guitars and a soaring, clarion call of a vocal.

Prom is Coming

"Prom is Coming" is among many, many songs in Robert Pollard's back catalog that simply hold space between other songs. His largely atonal lyrics contain interesting images, but it tells no coherent story, and Pollard's acoustic guitar jabs convey no melody. It seems Pollard is trying to say something here, repeating the closing line of the lyric: "I will stay to help you prepare for what it was you said I could not afford to miss," but what it is is beyond me.

The song then, is really only remarkable for what came after, a decade after, to be precise. Rabid Pollard fans recognize the title as the name of the musician's new record label, Prom is Coming. It replaces the Fading Captain series that came to a close with the recent release of the Crickets two-disc best of.

The reuse of the song title is just the latest example of Pollard's re-appropriation of his own work. A perusal of song lyrics reveals band titles, album titles and Guided by Voices-related promotional efforts. It seems that Pollard, while endlessly able to come up with new ideas, doesn't like to part with a good one until it has done its full work. "Prom is Coming" obviously had more life than it spent as the title of a throwaway tune, so it was recycled. That will become a common theme here, one that I'm sure other uber-fans will help me to uncover as I work my way through his catalog.