Elephant Jokes

I'm sick and tired of all you backward-looking crybabies. You know who you are: "If only it were 1994..." 1994? Were you even alive then? How alive? "Not as alive as Robert Pollard is right now - working the boards, finding the words still jump when he says jump and the guitar chimes when he forms the chords on the six-string with his honest-to-God DIY, home-made calluses. A clutch of these songs started out live in the studio, with Mr. Pollard on guitar, and they buzz with the charge of on-the-spot generation. All the secret ingredients go into the mix - even Mr. P's brother, the estimable outside shooter Jimmy Pollard, returns to tweak a few knobs - and the result is music that comes alive with that sui generis Dayton grit and sparkle. Check out the needling, obsessive riff on the intro to "When a Man Walks Away" - no mistaking the Pollard touch there-- or the distortion-drenched start of "Epic Heads" where one can just about smell the heat rise from the solid state circuit board.