After witnessing a particularly uninspired performance by a
usually-pretty-good local band (who shall remain nameless), my friend Curtis
turned to me and said "sounded like they were trying to phone it in long
distance, but they forgot the number". Such is the problem with Airport 5,
the long-distance collaboration between Guided by Voices principal Bob
Pollard and ex-GBV mainstay Tobin Sprout. The idea for the band is that
Sprout composes music for the songs at his rural Michigan home, which he
then mails to Pollard at GBV Central in Dayton, OH, who then overdubs vocals
on top of Sprout's instrumentals.
There are many problems with this sort of operation, and Airport 5 pretty
much exhibits all of them. While, in his GBV days, Sprout was responsible
for a few of the band's most memorable cuts (revisit the masterful "A Good
Flying Bird" or "Little Whirl" from Alien Lanes if you have your
doubts), his solo work has been comparatively lackluster -- relatively
uninteresting, uninspired, generic indie pop. It seems that he needs the
fire of a real rock and roll band to light a fire under his ass and motivate
him to write great, memorable songs. The same applies to Pollard. While his
relentless productivity is legendary to anyone with even the most basic
knowledge of indie rock, what comes along with this is his seemingly
complete inability to separate the wheat from the chaff in his work. When
someone writes hundreds of songs a years, as Pollard reportedly does,
there's just no way that they're all going to be worth hearing.
Unfortunately, Pollard doesn't seem to understand this, and feels the need
to foist even the most dubious of his creations on his rabid fans, who
slavishly collect every fart and whistle that the man produces.
A collaboration between Sprout and Pollard could have potentially
produced some great material -- if either part had actually spent some time
in its creation. Unfortunately, what we end up with here is some typically
uninteresting instrumental stuff from Sprout, which, unsurprisingly, recalls
the stuff he's done on his solo records, with Pollard spouting his typical
nonsensical non sequiturs on top it. While Pollard has always specialized in
completely batty, stream of consciousness lyrics, the stuff presented on
Life Starts Here is obviously tossed-off and sub-par, especially when
compared with the increasingly more coherent, much more personal work
showcased on the last GBV record, the fabulous Isolation Drills. For
the most part, his vocal melodies are half-assed and unmemorable as well,
and save the chiming "Yellow Wife No. 5", there's just nothing here that
stands even the remotest chance of getting stuck in your head. To add insult
to injury, Pollard's vocals and Sprout's instrumentation simply do not mesh.
Even if you had no idea that this was a long-ddistance collaboration,
you'dbe able to tell that something was amiss in the creation of this
project. Pollard simply lays his nonsensical rants on top of Sprout's
instrumental beds, with a seeming complete disregard for the flow of the
songs. The result is jarring and unpleasant, and simply not worth bothering
with.
While this project may have been fun for Sprout and Pollard, it sure as
hell isn't for the listener. A suggestion: boys, Michigan and Ohio aren't
that far away from each other. Bob, spring for a fucking plane ticket
and visit your old pal face to face, and actually write some songs
together. Perhaps then the results will actually be worth listening
to. As it stands, Life Starts Here most definitely is not.
— 24 May 2002
