The Takeovers
Bad Football
(Off Records, 2007)

I’m tired of things that are cute and brightly colored and harmonized and xylophoned. I’m tired of self-consciously bobbing my head to and fro, trying ever so gracelessly to feel breezy. I’m tired of trying to get into indie pop.

I mean no offense, really, because the indie pop bands of now are fun and seem like good people and good musicians looking to have a good time in the face of our world which is so fucked. But, in all truthfulness, I came up just a little too early to get with indie pop in earnest. My groundwork for getting into rock music is laid in the abrasive when you fall (c’mon, it’s good to at least feel something) yet generally there to help keep your footing, gray concrete slather of disaffected grunge and noise rock. You know, stuff like that band called Sonic Youth. Always slightly disillusioned with the things surrounding me, including myself—this mode of being—it’s real easy to get stuck here and think you see the truth better than others do. You know, even if you don’t.

While marooned over here, always one part at war with everything, the barrage of indie pop lately just doesn’t satiate me enough to get by, even if it is smartly laced with some juxtaposed melancholic lyrics. That, along with the summer light on releases; I’ve been traveling back in time to listen to the artful, raw tunes of TAD, Mudhoney, Dinosaur Jr., old school Soul Asylum, and the Melvins. So you can imagine that when the Takeovers CD came across my desk, what with the gun barrel pointing at me and all, I felt somehow vindicated. Like, okay, finally… my music.

Bad Football, the Takeover’s sophomore release, features the genius of the almighty Robert Pollard of venerable lo-fi indie rock band Guided By Voices and his other GBV counterpart, Chris Slusarenko. This album also sees the likes of Stephen Malkmus of Pavement, Tad Doyle of TAD (!), John Moen of the Decemberists, and Dan Peters of Mudhoney, who back up the duo with guitar and drums, contributing to a mix of songs that all verge on varying degrees of quirky-indie-rock-post-punk, but also remain uniquely Pollard. To that end, there’s also some barroom acoustical moments thrown in for when you’ve got nothing left to do but hang your head over a beer to reflect on some shit (“Music For Us”).

And, truthfully, my first thought upon seeing this roster was to wonder how much Budweiser had been consumed during the process of making Bad Football. Right from the start, the first track “You’re At It” features the main refrain: “This form of suicide’s not quick enough, what else you got?” It’s with that line that I became officially hooked. The fuzzy guitars overlaying the song “Pretty Not Bad” with the shouted lyrics, “I was born out of weirdness, an integrate science, I’ve got a fake English accent” recalls a more literate Cheap Trick (“He’s a Whore”). “Father’s Favorite Temperature” is like some old roadhouse classic that, when you take a look around the room, incites more folks than just yourself to mouth the lyrics. In fact, many of these 12 tracks feel anthemic in that way.

To touch upon the expected nutty yet no less confounding aspect of Pollard’s mind, is the one-minute song “The Jester of Helpmeat”, with the follow up lyric of “is not fucking around.” This is all Pollard says here lyrically; however, it very succinctly captures the Pollard essence. Perhaps it’s his gift, both creatively and then unto you, because maybe all he’s saying is to let go… stop trying to get it… just let all the weirdness of the world wash over us. That’s how I’d like to interpret it, anyway.

The last track “My Will” ends this beer and guitar fueled journey with a tune so good it displays, perfectly, what solid rock ‘n’ roll songwriting is all about. A song that carries with it the ability to give the listener this singular sort of glimpse into what it’s like to be a group of guys that seem to be effortlessly making the kind of music they want to hear. It’s like hearing some kind of truth in an otherwise slippery slope of trends and travesties. And, lucky for me, the Takeovers just so happen to make the kind of music I want to hear—a will that is, at once, both theirs and mine.

Listen: The Takeovers “My Will“  [at offrecords.com]