Mars Classroom
(Rockathon)
Two legendary songwriters - Guided by Voices Robert Pollard and Big Dipper's Gary Waleik -- join together here in one more swing for the fences. They're a natural pair for a whole lot of reasons, the kind of forehead-knocking combination that makes you blurt out, "Why didn't I think of that?" Both are more cultish than mass popular, both are prone to submerging sharp hooks in soft fuzz, both unnaturally obsessed with sci-fi imagery. Both are also long-time appreciators of each other's work. Pollard is said to have been instrumental in getting Merge to reissue Big Dipper's catalogue via the wonderful Supercluster: The Big Dipper Anthology. One of Big Dipper's rare recent live appearances was on a double bill in Boston with one of Pollard's other projects, Boston Spaceships.
Yet more to the point, both Pollard and Waleik are blessed with songwriting credits on a string of artfully tailored, sloppily played songs that, in some alternate universe, are massive, massive hits. (Imagine Casey Kasem counting down and hitting "She's Fetching" and "Hot Freaks" in the top ten. Yeah, I want to live in that world.) New Theory of Everything extends this list by a couple of songs, tempering Pollard's natural Who-like power-chord bluster with an unexpected sweetness and vulnerability.
"New Theory" opens up with disc, with a rain of guitars and a promise to "ring out the old break up the bland." The song is classic Pollard, a folk-ish modal melody braced up with rackety, aggressive guitar, but uncharacteristically inward looking. The song is not about really about string theory, as the title suggests and as Pollard's Ed Wood-ish preoccupations might suggest, but about his and Waleik's struggle against obsolescence. The final verse follows an incandescent guitar solo, even that bright certainty leading into rueful contemplation of how things are and how they should be. "With all the glittering concepts/all the myriad headtrips now in demand/the kids are not going to try it/the public's not going to buy it/they won't understand," sings Pollard.
New Theory of Everything is more lyrical, romantic and personal than most of Pollard's recent efforts - with Lifeguards, Boston Spaceships and on his own account - which may reflect the influence of Waleik. "There Never Was a Sea of Love" jangles on wistfully, its pretty melody shot through with melancholy and recognition of missed opportunities. "I Am an All-Star" is likewise reflective and subdued, and "It Had to Come From Somewhere" is the kind of song that could only be written by a dad, its lyrics littered with all the things that have to be paid for.
There are, naturally, some rockers, too, as prickly and strident and electrified as anything in the GBV catalogue. "(It's Good to be) Bug Boy" is, perhaps, the best of these, its sharp-edged riffs running roughshod over abstract imagery ("It's good to be bug boy/freedom and madame psychosis" whatever that means). "Pre Meds A Trip" is a good blast of friction, too, its distortions howling in waves as Pollard sets off couplets and quatrains of rhyming absurdity. Yet even here, in the loudest, most rock-friendly cuts, there seems to be a bit more mellowness behind the edge.
New Theory of Everything sounds a lot more like Pollard than it does like Big Dipper, but you can sense the influence of Gary Waleik in a thread of lilting pop melancholy and personal reflection that runs through these songs. No one should expect Pollard to ditch his electric and head out on the stool-and-coffee-shop circuit, but it's nice to see him show some vulnerability once in a while.
DOWNLOAD: "New Theory," "I Am An All-Star", "(It's Good to be) Bug Boy" JENNIFER KELLY
