Artist : Robert Pollard
Album : Blazing Gentlemen
Year : 2013
Genre : Indie
Quality : 251kbps / 44.1KHz / Joint Stereo
Source : CD
Playtime : 0h 33m
Size : 63.90mb
Label : Fire Records
Catalognr : FIRECD336
Tracklist:
01. Magic Man Hype 2:37
02. Blazing Gentlemen 3:21
03. Red Flag Down 2:51
04. Storm Center Level Seven 1:27
05. Return Of The Drums 2:12
06. Piccadilly Man 0:57
07. Professional Goose Trainer 1:38
08. Extra Fools' Day 1:37
09. 1000 Royalty Street 1:49
10. My Museum Needs An Elevator 3:19
11. Tonight's The Rodeo 1:53
12. Tea People 1:36
13. Faking The Boy Scouts 2:44
14. Triple Sec Venus 2:00
15. This Place Has Everything 1:10
16. Lips Of Joy 2:06
Releasenotes:
'Blazing Gentlemen' is the last Robert Pollard record, which was released in
2013. It is also the finest Pollard-related record to come out in this or
several years, aural evidence of a rock mage reinvigorated by the fact,
according to the man himself that he's "finally figured out how to write a song
after 55 years."
Which may come as a surprise even to casual fans of Pollard's thousands-strong
catalog, and fair enough, Bob's certainly hip to the irony, but it's no joke.
While he's explored pretty much every highway, toll road and dark alley of
songcraft in his long career, including spontaneous "drum contests" where every
member of Guided By Voices would be given the opportunity to come up with a
drumbeat, over which he would then improvise a spontaneous melody based on
semi-random lyrics from his ever-present notebook (for example), he's never
before applied one consistent approach over the course of even one record. The
new technique is considerably more disciplined: he first collects - in the
(figuratively) selfsame notebook - phrases and titles, bits of overheard
conversation, snatches of misheard movie dialogue, thus providing an assortment
of lines all of which he considers strong enough to serve as potential song
titles. He then assembles these song titles into lyrics, which because each line
is strong enough to stand on its own, contain neither bloat nor the least
misstep. When he's happy with the lyrics, he writes a melody for each lyric. He
then sits down with the guitar and figures out chords that fit the melodies.
Sounds pretty straightforward, but for Pollard the result provides a structure
uniquely suited to his muse. The proof is in the "excellent cake, so happily
done, and quick to bake," as he sings (recalling to those with long memories the
"freedom cake" of Propeller's classic "Weedking") on "Tea People," represented
in sixteen exquisitely crafted slices on Blazing Gentlemen. From the rollicking
Anglophilic "Extra Fool's Day" to the pithy, elegiac "This Place Has
Everything," Blazing Gentlemen is no mere confectioner's conceit. Veiny with
Pollard's signature depth-charged melodic inventiveness, multiple listens reveal
multiple meanings, shape-shifting moods, and lyrical twists that will delight
even the word-shyest rockphobe.
The music itself is standard-issue Pollardian guitar wizardry, unusual chord
progressions made up of unusual chords jutting against off-kilter rhythms in
ways that shouldn't work but never do not, only to be overshadowed by another
bravura vocal performance, occasionally larded with (unusual) harmonies or plain
weird delay/reverb/compression effects that only ever add to the tremendous
bustle of joy (see "Lips of Joy" for an on-the-nose demo) applied liberally like
primer to the multi-hued tracks.
Robert Pollard fans are fond of making extreme statements in support of their
favorite songwriter. Let's pile on: with Blazing Gentlemen, one of America's
greatest living artists has fairly reinvented himself. That is no little feat.
That is a triumph, and deserves to be celebrated with the same zeal with which
Pollard celebrates and honors his own gifts on this complex, architectonic
wonder of an album. Drinks for everyone!
http://www.firerecords.com/site/index.php?page=release&releaseid=00000001074