Heaven Beats Iowa
Robert Pollard would have been 10 years old when the Ohio Express’ inescapable “Yummy Yummy Yummy” hit number four on the charts in the spring of 1968. Across 32 albums and counting, the Dayton, Ohio musician’s Guided By Voices have often paid homage to the raucous windmill guitar work of the Who, but on the debut EP from Pollard’s new Cub Scout Bowling Pins project, it turns out that some 53 years later the bubblegum snap of the Super K Productions hit factory made an impression on him, too.
The staccato, introductory bursts of guitar and snare on “Heaven Beats Iowa,” for instance, match “Yummy Yummy Yummy” beat-for-beat; a jubilant Farfisa organ melody, meanwhile, might owe more to 1910 Fruit Gum Company’s “1,2,3 Red Light”. But while Cub Scout Bowling Pins have a knack for recreating this vintage feel, the song isn’t mere pastiche. In a true-to-GBV way, it’s deceptively complex, cramming countless chord changes into its sub-three-m