The Release: Vampire on Titus (LP—Scat, 1993)
When my wife and I moved our family from Arizona to Oregon over twelve years ago, I symbolically left our snow shovel in the garage of our soon-to-be short-sold home. On the surface, this may strike some as odd, but we left Northern Arizona—specifically the town of Flagstaff, which sits at approximately 7000 feet above sea level—for the Portland metro area, which generally receives little annual snowfall. In fact, I often say that my own decision to leave Flagstaff came during the winter of 2009-2010, as I stood on the clearly marked “NOT-A-STEP” of a semi-unstable ladder, shoveling enough snow from the edge of my roof to where, hopefully, the majority of what I couldn’t reach would be encouraged to slide down into our yard. That week, three separate storms had dropped fifty-five inches of snow on Flagstaff, forcing Northern Arizona University to cancel its final exams, and leading to several roof collapses across town—including the ice rink where my then-seven-year-old played hockey, and the used book/record/video game store that I spent countless hours at as a teenager, and continued to frequent with my own kids.
I’m thinking of this today, because as I write this latest entry in “The GBV Project,” I’m looking out the window of my home office at a blanket of snow. Granted, we might’ve gotten two inches over the past thirty-six hours, but it doesn’t take much to grind this city to a halt. But, while I’d like to chide my fellow Portlanders for going into near-panic at what Northern Arizonans would describe as a ‘light dusting,’ things do get nasty here, and quickly. Rather than the snow itself, it’s the freezing rain and/or melted-off and refrozen snow that makes even a slight slope nearly impassable. A particularly fast-advancing storm eight winters ago caught the city woefully unprepared, turning my typically twenty-five minute drive home from work into a five-hour, white-knuckle ordeal, in which my kids and I saw two vehicles on fire as my car crawled along the northbound lanes of I-205; this hellscape was at least offset by the sight of multiple (presumably) short dudes in “monster trucks,” hilariously incapable of climbing the same gentle hills that my Jetta ultimately summited.
While I would definitively describe the average Flagstonian—or Flagstaffer, if you must—as a better winter driver than their Portland counterpart, much of this is a product of the preparations taken by my former hometown, compared to those of my current city. As a result of its more frequent encounters with the stuff, Flagstaff sets its citizens up reasonably well for driving in snowy and icy conditions, but not without some controversy. For many years, city officials have forgone using salt on the town’s roads—with the most-frequently-cited reason being the protection of the largest Ponderosa pine forest in the world, of which Flagstaff sits at the center. In lieu of salt, Flagstaff’s streets are annually covered with several tons of cinders—originating from nearby volcanic deposits—to both melt snow and provide additional traction to drivers.
Though the environmental impact of cinder use is far lesser than that of salt or other de-icing chemicals, it’s not entirely without drawbacks. As the snow eventually melts, these cinders are inevitably left behind. Driving on Flagstaff’s streets through the winter and spring, one can hear these porous rocks crunching under their tires, ricocheting inside of their wheel wells, deflecting off of their windshields, and—if not necessarily damaging their car—audibly accelerating the process of ‘wear and tear’; not that salt, or chemicals, would necessarily be any less taxing. There’s also the issue of the fine dust that is left behind when these cinders are ground down underneath months of traffic. In Flagstaff, and other communities that engage in cindering, there is considerable debate—but little in the way of scientific conclusion—about the long- and short-term impacts of this dust on humans, animals, and the environment; again, salt and other chemicals pose known risk, but often, cinder usage is simply accepted as harmless, despite few actual studies.
There is, however, at least one observable issue with cinders: they make for an aesthetic nightmare. Sitting at the base of the San Francisco Peaks—and in the middle of the aforementioned pine forest—Flagstaff is a beautiful town. Largely due to the presence of Lowell Observatory—founded by Boston transplant Percival Lowell in 1894, and located on the appropriately-named Mars Hill—Flagstaff was designated as the first International Dark Sky City in 2001. Below that hill is a charming downtown: defined by its relatively-narrow, tree-lined streets; brick multi-story buildings that house small businesses at street level and apartments above; a welcoming town square; a quaint train station; murals that nod to the region’s diverse cultural heritage; and of course, the requisite parks, library, and city hall. Across the railroad tracks stands the sprawling and highly-walkable N.A.U. campus: its Old Main and Cline Library plenty capable of evoking nostalgia—perhaps even among non-alumni. Even the infamous smell from the local Purina plant is only noticeable on certain days, and only on the east side of town—far away from all of the ‘touristy’ stuff. However, because of the length of Flagstaff’s winter, and the liberal spreading of cinders, for much of the year the town’s streets, sidewalks, and many of its buildings are covered in these tiny volcanic rocks and their sludgy black residue. As lovely as the first snowfall of the year can look, eventually…not so much.
The thing is, aesthetics are borne from context and necessity. And, a city must be able to function before it can please the eye. As Maslow’s famous hierarchy suggests, our personal aesthetic priorities can’t even be addressed until our most basic physiological needs are met. Things like creativity, respect, and individuality must always take a backseat to more pressing essentials, such as food, water, and air. We can’t create if we can’t first survive to create. But what if some among us need to create in order to survive—or at least to function? Is that even possible? If so, does form take such a back seat to function that aesthetic qualities don’t even matter? Wait, weren’t we talking about cinders and snow?
There may in fact be a creature among us that needs to create in order to survive. And in the latter part of 1992, he was grappling with a new reality. After his creations had gone essentially-unnoticed for what must have seemed like a lifetime, they were now the subject of talk amongst scenesters, line items on record label budgets, and think pieces by cultural critics. Robert Ellsworth Pollard Jr. was suddenly hot—or at least hip. However, in his zest for creation, his ‘next big move’ had already been plotted out, largely before this new reality had set in. Months earlier, while drinking together, Jim Shepard—a friend, and guitarist in the Columbus band V-3—had referred to Bob as a “vampire on Titus [Avenue], sucking songs out of the earth.” And in that moment, Pollard acquired a vision for the sixth Guided by Voices LP.
While its back cover clearly states that Vampire on Titus was recorded in two different locales/mediums—Steve Wilbur’s eight-track garage studio and Tobin Sprout’s Tascam 4-track—there is a uniformity to the album that was largely unheard-of for a GBV LP. First off, the revolving-door personnel that had created the band’s earlier records—in particular, Propeller—had stopped. Each of the new album’s eighteen songs were recorded by some combination of Bob Pollard, Jim Pollard, and Tobin Sprout. Secondly—and most immediately apparent—Vampire is an uncompromisingly harsh sounding record.
By 1993, “lo-fi” was a term of the times. Pavement had broken through with Slanted and Enchanted. Beck would hit the radio with his slacker anthem “Loser” by year’s end. But, notably, neither of those acts had achieved this crossover success with their most caustic material. For all of their ‘rough around the edges’ charm, both Slanted, and Beck’s eventual major label debut, Mellow Gold, were ‘post-buzz’ compromises, in that they traded their creators’ willful obscurity for radio-ready hooks; okay, ‘willful obscurity’ was still a big part of the equation for both, but mostly in a lyrical sense. By contrast—whether intentionally or inadvertently—Guided by Voices would be following-up their own hype with a record that made the decidedly-homespun Propeller sound like Rumours in comparison.
But unlike Rumours, Propeller wasn’t lame. Its production may have struck some as ‘anti-pop,’ but its hooks were anything but. These were stadium-sized melodies on a basement-sized budget. There was a reason why Propeller was able to cut through the noise of early-nineties, post-Nevermind indie rock: it would only take a single listen for a good half of the record’s sixteen tracks to begin worming their way into a listener’s head. And, given half a chance, the best of them—”Over the Neptune/Mesh Gear Fox,” “Metal Mothers,” “Quality of Armor,” “14 Cheerleader Coldfront,” “Exit Flagger”—would find themselves permanently lodged there. However, Vampire on Titus was an entirely different beast—and a beast it was.
Sticking with an earlier theme, looking for the hooks in Vampire on Titus can initially feel like trying to find a single snowflake in a blizzard. For instance, take the album’s opening track: “”Wished I Was a Giant.”” While rightfully considered a classic by most GBV fans, Robert Pollard’s distorted vocals are nearly inaudible, and hard to parse without the included lyric sheet; one is left wondering why anybody would willingly mix them so low—especially when the guitars and drums (both likely played by Pollard himself) aren’t exactly virtuoso performances. Here, and on many of Vampire‘s eighteen tracks, one could argue that mechanical sounds—the grinding gears of a four-track recorder; the ever-present hiss of consumer-grade cassette tapes—are as prominent as some of the actual instruments.
This same mixing approach largely holds for all of Vampire‘s ‘rock’ tracks: “Expecting Brainchild,” “Dusted,” “Sot,” “Unstable Journey,” and “Perhaps Now the Vultures.” The “record in red” mentality is common amongst dedicated four-trackers, but coming in the wake of earlier sing-along anthems—”Captain’s Dead,” “Quality of Armor,” “Exit Flagger,” and “Shocker in Gloomtown”—it sounds like little short of career suicide, as each of these song’s strongest virtues are rendered practically unintelligible. Among these tracks, the closest thing to a hook to emerge upon first listen is a descending guitar figure toward the end of “Sot,” which cuts through the haze just enough to sound like a deliberate homage to R.E.M.’s “Green Grow the Rushes,” from that band’s own famously-murky Fables of the Reconstruction.
But while these six songs go a long way in establishing Vampire on Titus‘ sound and lasting reputation, they only account for one-third of the track listing. The remaining dozen numbers are nowhere near as obscured, and several of them are, in actuality, quite fetching. Take Robert Pollard’s “Jar of Cardinals”: an eighty-two second gem, built upon a melody and lyrics that might both be described as ‘nursery rhyme-adjacent.’ While one could describe its meaning as abstruse, it’s not impossible to imagine Pollard singing “Cardinals” for his young children at bedtime. Perhaps even more endearing is Tobin Sprout’s “Gleemer (The Deeds of Fertile Jim),” which is built around a similar chord change, but manages to up its appeal with the inclusion of a full-blown chorus—and some of GBV’s finest harmonies to date. Then there’s the Pollard/Sprout joint effort, “Wondering Boy Poet,” which—in just under a minute—proves to be nearly as indelible. Clearly Propeller‘s similarly-melodic Pollard/Sprout collab, “14 Cheerleader Coldfront,” had unlocked a powerful new archetype for the group—one that was especially effective when juxtaposed with their grittier tracks.
The remaining half of Vampire largely splits the difference between these two sonic extremes. Aside from the uncharacteristically crisp and catchy closer, “Non-Absorbing,” these tracks tend to lean toward the more experimental end of the Guided by Voices spectrum—another developing form for the band that would soon yield far more impressive dividends—while fully embracing a fidelity that could best be described as exceedingly low. Interestingly—even as an experienced home recorder—it’s difficult to tell exactly which of Vampire on Titus‘ songs were captured in Steve Wilbur’s ‘professional’ studio, and which were merely the result of spontaneous sessions in the Pollard and Sprout basements.
But while the learning curve of Vampire on Titus is notoriously steep, once its code has been cracked, the album proves to be—aside from Propeller—GBV’s most rewarding release to date. It’s a record that requires a certain amount of calibration between its listener’s head and heart. One probably needs to first accept that its rough exterior was a product of necessity, before they can put in the requisite time and effort to uncover its many virtues. But eventually, the sonic soot that covers these eighteen tracks can either fade into the background, or even be seen as a feature, rather than a bug.
Because even when a great song is presented with an uninviting exterior, the essential elements that made it great to begin with are still present and accounted for. Bob Pollard and Guided by Voices followed up their critical breakthrough with a noisy and crudely-recorded album, largely because they had to. Pollard had an insatiable need to create, and he instinctively resorted the resources that were available to him. In order to function—at least as he knew it—Pollard had to commit those songs to tape, so that he could move on to the next batch. And—when you think about it that way—the tape hiss and noise that define Vampire on Titus upon first listen can actually be quite beautiful, in that they’re merely the sludgy bi-product that allowed Robert Pollard to function, and that allowed these songs to exist.
Rating: 8.5
Bob-ism of the Week: “Superman died tonight / Ate a pound of Kryptonite / Drank a quart of brotherly love / Fell straight from the sky above” (“Expecting Brainchild”)
Next Week: Robert Pollard simply cannot say no, as GBV spend the rest of 1993, and the first few months of 1994, releasing four new EPs on four different record labels.
