The Releases: Earthquake Glue (LP—Matador, 2003) / My Kind of Soldier (Single—Fading Captain Series, 2003) / The Best of Jill Hives (Single—Matador, 2003)
One of the great things about being a new Guided by Voices fan is that—unless you got into the band during their lengthy 2005-2010 hiatus—you never have to wait long for your first new GBV record. As I’ve mentioned in earlier entries, I first heard Mag Earwhig and Isolation Drills in the early summer of 2003, which made that year’s Earthquake Glue—released just a couple of months later—the first GBV album whose release I anticipated in real-time.
Granted, when Earthquake Glue arrived that August, I still had a lot of GBV discovery ahead of me. I can’t remember definitively, but I’m about 90% certain that I purchased Earthquake Glue before ever listening to Bee Thousand—they were procured in close enough proximity to be more-or-less concurrent acquisitions—and I’m positive that I owned it prior to hearing Alien Lanes. But while those twin pillars of Guided by Voices’ catalog loomed large in both their lore and in my own imagination, there was something more immediately ‘exciting’ about getting in on the ground floor of a brand new record.
And I undoubtedly would have been encouraged by the enthusiastic review that Earthquake Glue received from Pitchfork. After all, the years of 2003-2005 represented an equilibrium point in which the self-proclaimed “most trusted voice in music” held the most sway over my purchases and where I didn’t yet have the easy ability to sample said purchases before release. Even with a cooler reception, I would’ve been plenty curious to check out the latest work from a band that I was just becoming a fan of, but Eric Carr’s ‘8.5’ score hit me like the proverbial fish in a barrel.
And while I’m plenty cynical about present-day Pitchfork, I still hold a fair amount of reverence for their work of that particular era. Not only did their reissue reviews and decade-spanning album lists clue me into previously-unexplored corners of the rock/pop world—And Don’t The Kids Just Love It, Dusk at Cubist Castle, Low, and The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society are just a few examples—but their coverage of contemporaneous releases not only tended to speak my musical language, but teemed with a wit and sarcasm that landed straight in my wheelhouse.
And all things considered, I inadvertently picked a fruitful moment in which to hop aboard the Robert Pollard Express. Earthquake Glue managed to find a sweet spot between my proclivity for British Invasion rock—okay, it mostly just recalls The Who—and a genuine interest to put my ear to the ground of all things just outside of the mainstream. GBV’s latest opus merely ushered in a lucrative fourth-quarter of 2003: one that introduced me to the likes of The Wrens, Ted Leo, The Decemberists, The Shins, Death Cab for Cutie, Grandaddy, Sufjan Stevens, and plenty of other indie stalwarts.
But more than any of the contemporary records by those artists, Earthquake Glue still has an innate ability to conjure up vivid images of that late-summer/early-fall of 2003. And this was a particularly consequential period of my life. My wife and I—along with our one-year-old—had just returned to Arizona, after a failed, ten-month attempt to set down new roots in Oregon. While I was returning home with an air of defeat and dejection, it was also with the confidence of having secured my first full-time teaching job. And coming back after an unsuccessful sojourn in the Pacific Northwest also managed to rekindle my creative impulses; as such, Earthquake Glue would soundtrack multiple trips down to Tucson, for the purpose of recording sessions with my longtime collaborator.
And while I imagine that any decent record which accompanies the closely-held memories of a formative period in ones’ life is bound to carry some nostalgic value, Earthquake Glue manages to kick all manner of ass, regardless of any personal context in which it arrived. These songs are sharp and hooky. The ever-shifting GBV lineup had found something of a platonic ideal, in a lean, but plenty muscular quintet. The guitars—whether in jangly, crunchy, or shimmery mode—all sounded spectacular. Robert Pollard was confident enough to match his signature head-scratching imagery (like ‘trophy mules’) with genuinely direct sentiments.
Earthquake Glue is a record of subtle charms: the corroded rhythmic thrust of “I’ll Replace You With Machines”; the Keith Moon fills of “She Goes Off at Night”; the new wave sheen of “Mix Up the Satellites.” However, there are plenty of overt knockout moments as well. The layered guitars and circular chorus of the opening “My Kind of Soldier” place it among GBV’s finest examples of power pop. The closing movement of “Secret Star” is downright triumphant. “Useless Inventions” is a hook-laden blast—one that, in my 2021 Catalog Crawl feature, I tagged as “what Foo Fighters might sound like if they were remotely interesting.” And topping it all off, “The Best of Jill Hives” is a genuine, first-rate Guided by Voices classic. Yeah, any GBV fan is likely to hold a special affinity for their first ‘new’ record from the band; but unlike a lot of the others, mine is outstanding.
But I read that Pitchfork review today, and the second half of 2003 seems so bygone. It’s hard to imagine a latter-day Robert Pollard album receiving anything resembling a rave from Pitchfork; in fact, they haven’t even bothered reviewing the past eight GBV records. The early-to-mid-2000s ‘guys with guitars’ zeitgeist that Guided by Voices were (at best) elder statesmen for has receded into niche nostalgia for bands that were (at least) fifteen years their junior. And even the notion of a singular entity like Pitchfork being the arbiter of such a zeitgeist smacks of a mono-culture that feels as distant and quaint as the first Obama term.
But of even greater significance—at least to me—is the fact that I’m now nearly the exact same age that Robert Pollard was when Earthquake Glue was released. And while it comforts me to know that he’s still at it—despite strong hints that Guided by Voices is done as a touring entity—it’s a bit difficult to fathom that I’ve known this record for nearly half my life. If this were just an album that I came upon at some nondescript point in its post-release life, I might think of it in an entirely different way. But, for better and worse, this is the first GBV record that I have such personal associations with. It’s the first GBV album that I can hold up as a mirror to my own self.
And so much has transpired since I first heard this album. The one-year-old that I mentioned earlier is now a full-fledged adult—as is her younger sister. The teaching career that was just getting underway when I purchased Earthquake Glue is nearing the end of its twenty-second year. That failed attempt to relocate to Portland was eventually followed by another far more successful effort. Some folks that I loved then are now gone; and many others who I didn’t yet know are now fundamental to my very being.
But despite all of these personal changes—not to mention a cultural and political landscape that would’ve been unrecognizable to that younger version of me—the songs still remain. And Earthquake Glue is no mere benefactor of nostalgia. The guitars still sparkle. The rhythm section is still pummeling. The non-sequiturs still manage to bring a smile. The ass is still thoroughly kicked. And Robert Pollard—God bless him—is still doing it, after all these years.
Ratings: Earthquake Glue (8.5) / My Kind of Soldier (★★★★1/2) / The Best of Jill Hives (★★★★★)*
*Singles are star-rated by their A-side; albums and EPs use the “Russman Reviews” scale.
Bob-ism of the Week: “Feed on a stroke of brilliance sometimes / To cover up the oldness in your eyes / From noticing the coldness in our lies / Don’t know if it’s a miracle or a curse / Maybe we can help you to feel worse” (“Useless Inventions”)
Next Week: The end is nigh, but not before Bob Pollard assembles the ultimate GBV mixtape.
