By: Circus Devils Appears on: Laughs Last Quick! Has Robert Pollard written more songs with the word “cock” in the title, or with “whiskey” in the title? I didn’t bother to find out, but “Cockroach Whiskey” from the Circus Devils release Laughs Last contains both, and that’s the song we’re working on today. You need […]
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Males Of Wormwood Mars
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Cool Planet “Males Of Wormwood Mars” incorporates a “quiet verse/loud chorus” dynamic (although I’m not sure if the loud part is technically the “chorus”) with a very Robert Pollard riff in the verses. There are some other sections that I’m also not sure how to label…multiple bridges, maybe? You […]
Dusted
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Vampire On Titus, Fast Japanese Spin Cycle “Dusted” is played using a few simple guitar chord shapes that contain fretted notes on the lowest three strings, but the addition of the open third and second strings make for some unique chord voicings. This transcription is for the version heard […]
Dayton, Ohio-19 Something And 5
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Tonics & Twisted Chasers As with many of the songs on Tonics & Twisted Chasers, the songwriting for “Dayton, Ohio-19 Something And 5” is credited to both Robert Pollard and Tobin Sprout. In this case, it sounds to me like a Sprout musical composition that Pollard added lyrics and […]
Warm Up To Religion
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: August By Cake “Warm Up To Religion” features a terrific arpeggio riff in the classic Robert Pollard style: a fretted note on one string that changes to carry the melody while the two strings higher than it are played as open notes. You need to be logged in to […]
Headache Revolution
By: Boston Spaceships Appears on: The Planets Are Blasted One of the great aspects of the Boston Spaceships project was that it gave us so many excellent re-workings of songs we already knew from Suitcase. The subject of today’s post, “Headache Revolution,” was first heard as a Robert Pollard demo on Suitcase 2: American Superdream […]
Romeo Surgeon
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Welshpool Frillies Floating chord shapes is the preferred guitar technique Robert Pollard used in composing “Romeo Surgeon,” with the open position D and E chord shapes being played in various positions on the fretboard. Other than that, there are just a few power chords, so it’s pretty easy and […]
Chain Dance
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Welshpool Frillies It’s always fun when Guided By Voices includes a couple of Robert Pollard’s boombox demos alongside the more polished tracks on an album. On Welshpool Frillies, we get “Chain Dance” and “Mother Mirth,” the former of which we’ll look at in this post. You need to be […]
Drinker’s Peace
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Same Place The Fly Got Smashed Robert Pollard doesn’t “do” alternate guitar tunings; is this true or false? I can’t imagine a scenario in which he’s sitting around tuning his guitar to DADGAD, open G, or another non-standard tuning such as that, so in that sense I’d say the statement […]
Space Gun
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Space Gun The Space Gun album was a pretty big deal when it came out, if you recall. The band decided it would be their only album released that year (2018), which is not saying much for most bands, but of course Guided By Voices typically releases two or […]
