Thursday, June 20, 2013

Lightninghead to Coffee Pot (2005)

Lightninghead to Coffee Pot
(2005, Fading Captain Series)


For this lone side-project release, Pollard teamed up with Greg Demos (GBV), Jim MacPherson (GBV, The Breeders), and Tony Conley (ex-Anacrusis, Pollard's first band in the late '70s).  Described as a full-on post-punk outfit, The EP remains the only release under The Moping Swans moniker to date. A short, and a rather inconstant outing to say the least.  Produced by long-time collaborator Todd Tobias (Circus Devils).



SIDE A:
Beaten By the TargetThe single unveiled publicly before the release of the EP, and labeled as post-punk, still kind of sounds like a Who Sell-Out thing to me. Can picture a few guitar arm spins. Easy catchy hook on this, and a promising start. 

Shame Me No FurtherJittery verses, with awkward crawling choruses with seemingly randomly placed accents. Forgettable, to say the least. And I will say the least. 

The Moping Swans-  Annoyingly catchy ping-pong guitar riff. Irritating circus wrangler Pollard vocals regaling listeners with spoken word parts in exaggerated accents. No wonder these swans are always moping. hardy har har.




SIDE B:
Look at Your LifeSpacey, sprawling number full of moody synths, melodic bellowing, and more flapjacking around. Not terrible, but not very memorable either. Background music for a bad day.

Keep the Gutters FreshAnnoyingly simple hammer-on guitar riff played over and over. Quite bland and mildly irritating background music.


Lightening Head to CoffeepotOver 8 minutes long!  First warning, right there.  Bad, drum sample sound effects popping up. Uggh. Irritating as shit.  Proceed with caution.

4 comments:

  1. Harsh, man.

    I judge this to be one of the better one off solo side-projects. Most of the rocking moments beat the majority of similiar cuts on his solo albums.

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  2. listening to this right now. not that great. label says 45 rpm, but it's actually 33 1/3.

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    Replies
    1. yeah, not one I revisit often... Hell, maybe I'll put it on tomorrow now!

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  3. yeah, i wonder if Bob came into this band w/ "beaten to the target" and was like "the moping swans are so great, we don't need to write songs!" yeah not so much

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