By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Earth Man Blues “The Batman Sees The Ball” is another in a long line of superb Robert Pollard compositions that contain a killer guitar riff in the key of A. This one reminds me a bit of the main riff in “Evolution Circus” since both are based around the […]
Category: tab

Send In The Suicide Squad
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Zeppelin Over China The real stars of “Send In The Suicide Squad,” in my opinion, are Robert Pollard’s vocal melody and performance (gotta love when he hits those high notes!), but there are also some great lead guitar fills and interesting chord progressions, so let’s take a look. You […]

A Flowering Orphan
By: Robert Pollard Appears on: From A Compound Eye “A Flowering Orphan” features a gorgeous string synth arrangement by Todd Tobias as the main instrument—it’s the kind of song that makes me forget that Robert Pollard originally wrote it on guitar. After hearing his demo for this song (released as part of the Hot Freaks […]

Supernatural Car Lover
By: Robert Pollard Appears on: Normal Happiness In terms of song structure, “Supernatural Car Lover” is pretty much all over the place. Especially after listening to Robert Pollard’s demo (made available via the Hot Freaks digital subscription), I get the impression this song was very much a “stream of consciousness” kind of composition, where he […]

Time Without Looking
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Styles We Paid For Whenever I hear a solid guitar riff in a Guided By Voices song, I always have to wonder if Doug Gillard conjured it up or if Robert Pollard included it in his demo by way of singing. In the case of “Time Without Looking,” it’s […]

Field Jacket Blues
By: Robert Pollard Appears on: From A Compound Eye Today we’ll take a look at some guitar tablature for “Field Jacket Blues,” a track from Robert Pollard’s From A Compound Eye that, in my opinion, is one of his great “odd-timing” songs. I’m sure someone out there knows what time signature all these different parts […]

(I’ll Name You) The Flame That Cries
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Sex She Said
By: Robert Pollard Appears on: Space City Kicks Robert Pollard employs his trusty arpeggio guitar technique to great effect yet again in “Sex She Said,” with a fretted note only on the sixth string and the open fifth and fourth strings. Of course, the arpeggio work is repeatedly interrupted by some rude power chords. You […]

Subspace Biographies
By: Robert Pollard Appears on: Waved Out The quail, the quasar, the empties crushed and fired away; “Subspace Biographies” has it all, plus some superb guitar work by Robert Pollard. Let’s dive right in! You need to be logged in to view the rest of the content. Please Log In. Not a Member? Join Us

Queen Of Stormy Weather
By: Boston Spaceships Appears on: The Planets Are Blasted If I could offer just one nugget of instruction for playing “Queen Of Stormy Weather” on guitar, it would be this: Strum furiously. All you’re doing in this song is strumming chords, and they just don’t have the same effect when played gently. You need to […]