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.

Lie to the Rainbow

In an interview I did with Robert Pollard a few years ago for PopMatters, we talked about the instant collectibility of some of his releases, in this case, the very limited edition of the Acid Ranch LP, Forever. He was unapologetic, both about sending fans who missed out the first time to eBay to buy it for $150 or more, and for releasing such marginal music in the first place. "Acid Ranch is the bottom of the barrel crap," he said. And yet, there are things of interest to be found there for the most obsessive Pollard fans.

I'd never go so far as to suggest that "Lie to the Rainbow" from the third Acid Ranch LP, The Great Houdini Wasn't So Great, is a good song, and from Pollard's comment above, he wouldn't either. Still it's interesting to hear Pollard sing with such abandon here. There's no trace of the uber-cool British accent, just spirited, full-throated performance. He oversings, purposefully, it seems, in such a way that almost everything save for the lyric that gives the song its title, is unintelligible. In fact, he comes as close to yodeling as I've heard him get, and closer than I ever want him to again. I do make out the word "mama," one rarely heard in Pollard's lyrics (the only other instance, according to the Guided by Voices Database, is in another Acid Ranch song, "Cherry-Ann Doesn't Love Me No More" from Some of the Magic Syrup Was Preserved), which would give this a decidedly '70s rock feel, if the music came anywhere close to supporting it.