Bad Side of the Coin (2020)

 Bad Side of the Coin

(2020, Shit and Shit Records) 

Talk about wearing out your fucking welcome. Cash Rivers is like that actual drunk uncle that came to stay for the holiday weekend and is still sleeping on your couch in mid March. You keep kicking his feet off the cushions and telling him it's the last night, but he keeps showing up with shiny gifts of cheap plastic and empty promises of leaving "soon". In other words, I can not believe I am sitting here again writing this sentence... "This is the final Cash Rivers LP" God, 2020 sucks. 

What began as a surprise limited 17 "song" joke 7'' in 2017 has now spanned a 3 year haul of endless blue humor and bar room tidbits about panties, truck driving, overweight women, cell phones getting wet, obscure slang, and everything else in between. In all of this madness, these limited Pollard comedy country records have turned into some of the hardest to find on the secondary market due to their limited pressings. 

But before I disown the entire fictional world of Cash Rivers, when all is said and done, the impressive 69 track Do Not Try To Adjust Your Set I Am The Horizontal and the Vertical remains as a dizzying accomplishment in Pollard's vast catalog; a record that hurdles past bad taste and fart jokes and should be held in its mysterious own regard as some one of a kind, gold standard psych splatter of nightmare inducing humor. 

The rest of the Cash Rivers output though has been endlessly ho-hum, good for a spin or two and then left to rot. The newest, and again purported LAST (we shall see...) installment pretty much picks up were Loose Shoes left off (mostly quick snippets, some with little to no thought, and decent backing by the boys of GBV). What the point of dropping another one of these during GBVs prolific 2020 run leaves me scratching my skull from the inside out?

Perhaps what hurts most about this limited to 1000 on 3D coin shaped cover is the $40 price tag slapped upon it. My philanthropic spirit hopes that this was some sort of added payment to the band for missing out on playing GBV shows during this pandemic affected year. Whatever the case, it sold out from Rockathon Records in less than 24 hours, proving that Cash may never die.  

SIDE A:

Do It Real Good- 1 Acoustic strumming with drunk scatting and growling. It is not good.

Whatever We Give You (Is What You Get)- 2 Yes, indeed. Whatever you give us. And here are again. Electro Bonnie Rait. Has a nice Travis Harrison crunch, but damn this one's devoid of a joke.

The Purple Hair- 2 Another song that forgets to insert any sort of joke, and goes on over  2 minutes with otherwise standard country rock backing. 

Breaking Her In For You- 4 A surprisingly Byrds-esque jangle pop song with Pollard sounding golden voiced like some Bee Thousand era b-side. A goddamn pleasant early gift, and damn good song!

She's Smoking Crack In the Synthesizer Room- 3 Feels like Circus Devils are back. A one trick idea of a title repeated over some synth swells. Fairly cool song in its own right. 

Pango Bye Bye Juice- 1 Country hopping with nonsensical word play that's on par with infant babbling. Make it stop. 

Hard Living Little Liver- 1 More country hopping nonsense

Tindall Tables- 1 Sounds like a Pollardian take on The Residents. I don't get it. 

She Grows Me Out- 1 Motorcycle video game rock as Pollard repeats the title over sterile honky hard rock. 

To The Waistband- 2 "Shit stains to the waistband." Yes, I guess sometimes that could happen in life? Almost chuckled so I'll give this one an extra point and make mental note of the song's "greatness."

Sugar Boogey Baby- 1 Nice homage to Bob Dylan's "You'll Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine." Musically, it's the same track on helium. Pollard sings like he's got his lips around the ol' helium tank a bit as well. And then it's over. 

Sir Wackinoff- 1 An ode to getting caught masturbating. Minor kudos to the rooster noises. 

Run With It- 2 This could possibly, almost, just sorta be a Pollard demo with it's slurred lyrics, reverberating vocals, and piano. For that it almost sounds like a "classic" here. 

Eggs Make Me Sick- 2 Originally from The Takeovers' Turn To Red LP. For whatever reason, this isn't credited on the LP as being written by Pollard. This song was ridiculous then although I sing it about once a week. So its nice to take a trip down memory lane with Cash Rivers in 2020 here, I guess? 

Baby Let Me Buy You Lunch- 1 The first single by Quick Hotdog? oh fuck, please don't tell me there's another comedy record coming anytime soon. My wallet has run dry. Also, this single is number 1 with a bullet (between my eyes).

Evil Mustard- 1 Like waking up with a drunk dude whispering in your ear about that goddamned evil mustard again. 

Baby's Takin' a Shit- 1 Been down this fuckin' road before. 

SIDE B:

Kicker of Elves-2 Thankfully I get to turn the record over and hit with one of the lesser classics from Bee Thousand. A lounge act, after hours version with cut and pasted Pollard by way of Cash jazz delivery. A new take on a gone but not forgotten tune that no one asked for. 

Struggling Wizards Juggling Lizards- 2 Sounds like a classic GBV progression over repeated song title. 

Computerized Eyes- 3 Synth driven new wave that actually sounds refreshing amongst this dung pile. Dig the backing music (would welcome side project one off in this style), oddly catch. Other than that, it's mostly wishful thinking I never knew I had until now...

Rip- 1 More video game rock n roll with Pollard cutting in doing a machine gun-like delivery. More kudos to rooster crowing in the background. 

Too Drunk For Facebook- 3 Song sounds exactly like the title and (un)fortunately catchy. 

23 Days Before Christmas- 2 Pollard cementing a new holiday classic into his catalog. Appreciate the Surrender Your Poppy Field cut in there of "20!" 

19 Push Ups- 2 A sweat soaked nightmare that's almost too good to be true. Sort of dig the creep factor present in the grooves here. 

Stipened Mills- 1 Pollard getting to revisit his REM sound that's been so sourly missed since the days of Sandbox and Forever Since Breakfast while delivering piss poor pun. 

Sucker Punch- 1 So forgettable I almost forgot to listen. 

Chico and the Man- 1 Pointless Jose Feliciano "cover." 

My Angel- 3 One of my favorites off Warp and Woof gets the Cash Rivers treatment. Essentially, a decent rendition in the easy listening sense with wonky noises and Pollard dipping into Mark E. Smith phlegm coated vocals in the middle and outro.  

Googling Pam- 1 Uplifting sounding nonsense that nearly feels like a real song. 

Poor Mrs. Blankenship- 1 Pollard throwing some yucks at GBV super fan Trader Vic's mother. Oh boy, he done got them Blankenships good. 

Aunt Ethel- 1 More fucking nonsense. 

Grandma Got Ta Ta Too- 1 Wait... No, THIS is more fucking nonsense. Why is this song so fucking long?

Them Other Too- 2 Dig this barebones garage stomp. The "lyric" line is pointless. 

Call the Dog- 2 Reminiscent of a grunge tune one might find on the radio circa '94-95, amounting to a song that's almost listenable for the fact that it's nearly a real song.

The Best Day Ever- 4 Fucking great title being that this record is finally fucking ending after 35 more brain pissing tracks. And holy shit, yeah, this track sounds like fucking "Echos Myron" compared to the rest of this record. 

Cash Rivers.... please stay down for the fucking count. I don't need anymore Jason Voorhees getting stuck by lighting and rising from a grave moments in my record collection in the upcoming years.