Pollard Chirps With One Release, Takes Over With Another

In the canon that is the voluptuous catalog of Robert Pollard, there are songs after songs that the man churns out every morning. As he awakes with the sunrise, he sits next to his boiled pot of coffee, grabs his guitar and notebook before setting up the boombox, and hitting the record button. In 1999, well in to the career of his main project, Guided By Voices, Pollard erected his own imprint, The Fading Captain Series. For the next seven years, Pollard used it as a creative outlet, showcasing his solo output and many side projects which mainly were configurations of line-up's made up of GBV members past and present, instead they were under a different moniker. The Howling Wolf Orchestra featured Bob's brother Jimmy and guitarist Nate Farley, while the still going Circus Devils was Bob collaborating with producer Todd Tobias and his brother, ex-GBV bassist Tim.

After 43 albums, EP's, singles, and rare 7" what have yous, Pollard closed down the FCS , but not without immortalizing. On the two-disc retrospective, cleverly titled Crickets, Pollard goes through the FCS discography over 50 songs. Fans of Bob (myself included, obviously,) were so thrilled by this release that the majority of them did not want to see the tracklisting until they purchase it, giving the uer that feeling one used to get in the days before file sharing. But for those who put their life savings in to owning #1 (Robert Pollard-Kid Marine) through #43 (Psycho & The Birds-Check Your Zoo EP,) Pollard has included six bonus tracks, previously unreleased and exclusive to the comp. What, like I'll give those away, either.

What I will give away is the follow-up to one of the greatest FCS releases. The Takeovers (Pollard and last GBV bassist Chris Slusnarenko) are issuing their second album, Bad Football, on June 12. Featuring another dozen collabs from the Northwest to Dayton, Slusher was able to coerce such famous friends as Stephen Malkmus and Jon Moen of The Decemberists to collaborate with them on the follow up to last year's Turn To Red (greatest FCS release, ever?) Since the FCS has closed for business, though, Slusher is putting it out through his own Portland-based Off Records.

Download: The Takeovers - "My Will" [mp3] /// [Buy Here]
Buy: Crickets [Here]