|
Edited on Fri Dec-30-05 02:45 PM by RandomKoolzip
This makes for five box sets in GbV's career, more than The Police or Nirvana ever got. Regardless....
"Suitcase 2: American Superdream Wow" is a sequel of sorts to GbV's previous "Suitcase: Failed Experiments and Trashed Aircraft" four-disc array from 2001, and yet in some basic ways it's startlingly different. Gone are the fawning (yet deserved) lauds from the New York Times, Byron Coley, et al. all over the accompanying booklet. It's not meant to be experienced as an overview, it's meant to be experienced as a new album in its own right. Let that sink in: GbV have just released a NEW FOUR-CD ALBUM. Previous anti-brevity statements from the likes of Half Japanese or Fushitsusha are now left masturbating in the dusty dregs of the kulturally kaput; GbV mastermind Bob Pollard has trumped the underground again.
The most amazing thing about "Suitcase 2" is that, like the last "Suitcase," each song is given a title AND a credit to a fake band name. Last time around saw some of Pollard's most bent offerings in this department ("Eric Pretty," "Styles We Paid For," "Ricked Wicky," etc.) But on "Suitcase 2", not only do the fake bands contribute each track, but Bob has drawn up and designed album/7" covers with original artwork (and sometimes liner notes and phony detailed histories) for the bands that exist only in his head. Truly, there is no precedent for this in American art, apart from some of the more obsessed outsider artists; Pollard is now Rock and Roll's very own Henry Darger, with all the skill, derangement, poignancy, and fumblebum-amateur craft that title brings with it. Anyone who's seen the "Watch Me Jumpstart" video knows he's been doing this in his free time since high school; now he's released a full box set for these bands who'll always be famous and legendary, if only to one man dreaming.
The music: erratic as usual. The first disc has the most clunkers, from patience-flogging instrumentals to failed arrangements for songs that would turn up on later albums in much superior form. There is, however, a staggeringly beautiful pop gem (from 1978!) called "Somewhere, Somehow" that points at a certain majesty Pollard COULD have carved out for himself had he not been blessed (cursed?) with his particular bedsit hermeticism and dissonant proclivities. The second disc is less erratic: in fact, it's downright unmemorable. There's too much dross on here to pick through, and the worst tracks seem to drag on for mini-eternities.
The third disc (credited to "The Fun Punk Five," of course) could stand as Pollard/GbV's best album since "Bee Thousand" (no joke!) had it been released seperately. Non-coincidentally, most of the material on disc 3 hails from Bob's magic late 80's years, around the time of "Self-Inflicted Areil Nostalgia." It was strange, picking through the leftovers on the first two discs, fast-forwarding more than I hoped, then popping in the third Cd and sitting gape-mouthed in awe of the lead-off track, "A Proud and Booming Industry." In fact, I had to listen to it four times in a row to make sure I had indeed just heard the best song to come out of Pollard in a moose's age. (I had.). Just to convince you that he's human, though, he sticks on a few melody-less throwaways from 2004-2005 that honestly suck like an infected dry socket; the underlying sad story here is that the most recent tracks do not hold up well. Everything from 2005 sounds like a careless tossoff, improvised, inspirationless, while the tunes leftover from his 80's albums shine like finely crafted diamonds. Bob.....please stop drinking.
The fourth CD is more of the same, offering a few nice melodies stuck like American flags in a pile of tuneless dog poop.
So, as always, the GbV muse is an inconsistent and haughty one: it insists that scratchy, garbled noise and drunken stumbling is as valid as bolt-from-the-blue beauty and mountaintopped rock majesty, and scoffs at any suggestion that some pruning or even some cutting back on the intoxicant intake might assist in the music making process (Pollard said it best when he named one of the fake bands on the first "Suitcase" "Too Proud to Practice.") Recommended for GbV diehards, of course. It's a shame that that third CD in the set isn't available individually, since it'd be more than likely to turn on non-fans as well.
In any case, R.I.P G.b.V. Say goodnight, Bob.
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
