Make Use

In 1998, Guided by Voices was poised at the edge of a fairly significant change. It had signed to a mini-major label, had enlisted Ric Ocasek as a producer and was clearly making a stab at the big time. So, it would stand to reason that Robert Pollard's solo album, Waved Out, would act as a sort of transition, coming as it did between Mag Earwhig! and Do the Collapse. I suppose in hindsight that it does, but at the time I wouldn't have thought so.

It's more hi-fi and polished than what came before, but it still sounds more raw than what was soon to follow. It's as if Pollard was taking a stand or making a statement: "Guided by Voices may become that, but I'll always have this to fall back on."

The first track on that album, "Make Use," shows that Pollard is perfectly capable of creating well-crafted, accomplished pop songs in the studio with little outside help. Save for drumming by Jim MacPherson, Pollard does everything here. From the hard-charging guitars to the pitch-shifted keyboard solo to the swirling multi-tracked vocals. It's a great album opener, not too overpowering, but scene-setting with a solid hook.

Lyrically, it can be read in hindsight as a commentary on the band's pending leap to the big leagues (or rather, leap toward the big leagues that left them clawing at the edges before falling). Pollard opens with this gem: "A bold night for my new rock shirt/ expected a burn-hole, expected the worst."

He goes on to reference someone has "suffered the changes again," but assures the listener that while you can "guess what they've been spreading/but we're not forgetting," which would seem to indicate that while calls of sell out rang out, the band wouldn't forget its roots.

"Make use" is a decent manifesto for someone like Pollard who clearly craves success but doesn't want to be seen pursuing it. "Make of the bold proposition/ make use the vast fashions/ the passion is soon to burn out," he sings. Make use of the resources the bigger label offers, but be aware that it surely won't last. Wise words, NostraBobus.

Just Say the Word

When Robert Pollard has long instrumental passages in songs, they usually offer some sort of moody scene setting or a bit of wacky experimentation.

With "Just Say the Word," that's not the case. The song is built on a severely strummed electric guitar and what sounds like a 1980s-era Casiotone drum beat. This goes on for half a minute before Pollard begins singing, and for nearly a minute after he is done. It doesn't do much differently at any point than it does at the outset, and it's never joined by another element. The only variation in the entire song is his double-tracked vocal on part of the second verse and a sort of bridge that serves, in the absence of a real one, as the chorus.

On the screen, that doesn't seem very appealing, and it certainly isn't the kind of pop nugget that earned Pollard his reputation as a songsmith. But there is a sort of insistent appeal to the track. Too often, eager to get to the towering tune that is "Subspace Biographies," I skip through this track to get to the next one. Spending time with it now, I'm drawn to it, impressed with what Pollard can do with such spartan elements.

People Are Leaving

When "People Are Leaving" begins, you can't help but wonder if Robert Pollard isn't covering some old Brill Building chestnut. The light piano, cocktail drums and late night jazzy vibe feel of another era. Can he do this? I mean, this is Uncle Bob we're talking about, not some aged crooner.

Never fear: he subverts things, to a degree, almost from the start. Not content to offer one vocal, he instead offers two, one atop the other, creating a distorting swirl of sound that actual enhances the song. My guess? He recorded the song with a scratch vocal, then decided to change the lyrics but forgot to erase the first vocal before recording the second. Liking the accidental improvement, he decided to keep it.

The second vocal is the more prominent of the two, giving the song its title and generally offering the stronger melody. Yes, that's the other thing: these two lyrics don't follow the same melody. Pollard created an entirely new melody for the second lyric. The most interesting points in the song are when the two melodies intersect, creating a sort of unplanned harmony. R.E.M. used this to great effect early on, with Mike Mills often singing a counterpoint line to Michael Stipe's main vocal (and Bill Berry would occasionally add a third part to further complicate/enhance things).

Steeple of Knives

The latest issue of Mojo came with a great psychedelic rock sampler that has spent a lot of time in my CD player lately, and I would guess you could slot "Steeple of Knives" somewhere in the tracklisting and most listeners wouldn't bat an eye.

The song isn't the real heavy psych that most think of when they hear the word, but rather the somewhat spacey garage rock purveyed by most bands thought of as psychedelic. It is built almost entirely on a peppy little guitar riff from Robert Pollard that is nudged along by some drums that are so far down in the mix as to be more notion than motion.

The lyric is short and doesn't do much, though by the time Pollard gets to the chorus it more than ably carries a sweet little melody. "Will it fall on me? A steeple of knives," he sings. It's an arresting image: is a "steeple of knives" an exponentially worse threat than Damocles' sword dangling from a string?

All of this transpires in a minute and a half, with Pollard doing some guitar noodling -- the effects of which do as much to put me in mind of psych music as anything else -- to pad out the run time to over two minutes.

Rumbling Joker

"Rumbling Joker" is a quietly brooding song with few obvious hooks that is carried largely by one of his most successful attempts to marry atmosphere, music and lyrics.

The song is built on simple instrumentation -- Pollard's guitar, Jim Macpherson's drums and John Shough's bass. Pollard adds several other elements, however, that add to the spooky tone of the song without overwhelming things.

Lyrically, Pollard introduces two characters: Rumbling Joker and Rum Professor. It isn't clear what either is doing, or why they've been joined together in this song, but the short sketches he offers of each in the two verses of this song make me wish he would have been more expansive. All we know is that the Rumbling Joker hides a lot, lies a lot and leads a calibrated life. The Rum Professor, meanwhile, gathers wounds hidden in frozen dunes and is dead before the ink dries.

They come together in the chorus, which offers a Jonah-like tale of woe:

May we always cry
May we drink them dry
May we wake up small and pale
Asking very good questions
Justifying an existence
In the belly of the whale

These feel like some of Pollard's more well-thought-out lyrics, despite their cryptic nature. Perhaps some day he'll clue us in on their meaning.

Caught Waves Again

What at first sounds like Robert Pollard solo reveals itself to actually be Pollard and latter-day Guided by Voices guitarist Doug Gillard. It makes sense. While "Caught Waves Again" is a simple little acoustic tune, the guitar picking seems a bit more sophisticated than Pollard could accomplish.

As for the lyric, it seems to start with an accounting of the efforts of "Metal Man:"

Metal Man buzzing
Made it through customs
Into the void and over the goal post
Went up north
To where the city lights shine
Like strobes of aurora on bottles of wine

But the perspective changes in the chorus, where Pollard sings "I think I'm catching waves again," seemingly now inhabiting the Metal Man. This point of view remains for the rest of the song, the Metal Man telling about how he "went out west and spoke to the sky, took unsolemn vows that here shall I die." Pollard sings this in a voice that can only be described as weary, as if Metal Man is sitting on a chair in your living room, saying, "I can't tell you what I've seen, I've seen too much," all while Gillard picks a languid figure on his guitar while sprawled on the couch.

Wrinkled Ghost

Robert Pollard's second solo LP, Waved Out corresponds roughly with the period between Mag Earwhig and Do the Collapse, the most hi-fi period of Guided by Voices' career. Still, on tracks like "Wrinkled Ghost," Robert Pollard mines territory covered nearly a decade before, with a sound that apes that of albums like Sandbox. It's the combination of the simple guitar figure and the limited range of the verse that does it. It feels like early GBV's approximation of early R.E.M. and college rock in general.

The demo found on Pollard's web site isn't much different from the finished product, save for the tinny drums that drive things on Waved Out. Pollard has certainly made it a habit to subvert expectations and to experiment enough that one could hardly predict a move with any confidence. Still, the song has a vintage feel that was strange at a time when he seemed to be fairly openly making his stab at the big time. Then again, Waved Out seemed more like a "for me" indulgence, as there is little beyond a few tracks that would fit sonically with the work being done by GBV at the time.

None of this is to slight the song in the least. It's among my favorites on Waved Out, and I personally can't get enough of Pollard's quieter, more seemingly heartfelt moments like this.