History has seen many important summits bringing together some of the world's most powerful men. Who could forget the historic 1972 meeting of Richard Nixon and Chairman Mao in Beijing? Or the tense Cold War rendezvous between JFK and Nikolai Khruschchev back in '61? Even recently, we've seen George Bush I spraying his lunch all over the Japanese Prime Minister, and Vladimir Putin chopping wood with G-Dubs at the "Western White House."

Well guess what, indie rockers? Now we have our very own version of a presidential summit, an album-length collaboration from prolific boozehound Robert Pollard and the formerly hyper-enough Mac McCaughan. Okay, so maybe the analogy is a little ridiculous, as Pollard and McCaughan aren't brokering any arms treaties between Dayton and Chapel Hill on Calling Zero. But the project does reflect one key feature of most political summits, in that there's a whole lot of pomp and circumstance, but not much in the way of substantial results.

Calling Zero is the nineteenth album in Pollard's "Fading Captain" series, King Shit's wildly inconsistent quest to build up a solo catalog of Merzbox-like scope. And like many recent releases from the series, the album utilizes Pollard's favorite trick of late: soliciting instrumental tracks from friends and overdubbing liberal amounts of his trademark arena-rock-in-a-can vocals. Here, for the first time, he goes outside the very extended Guided by Voices family to choose Superchunk frontman McCaughan as a collaborator.

It sounds like the wet dream of a mid-90s college radio DJ, but unfortunately, Go Back Snowball's total does not add up to the sum of its individual parts. If, like me, you prayed that McCaughan would steer Pollard out of the increasingly clichéd slump he's been in since the heyday of the Classic Dayton Lineup, well, keep on prayin'. McCaughan's poppish ways and newfound restraint would seem to fill the gap that Tobin Sprout's departure has left in recent GBV work, but like the similar-concept Airport 5 albums with Sprout, the songs here sound largely half-baked and awkwardly constructed.

For this failure, I blame the device. It's hard to fault McCaughan, who, responsible for all the instrumentation on Calling Zero, submits a number of interesting musical ideas in the lighter vein of the last two Superchunk albums. Prominently using old keyboards and budget electronics, a number of tracks ("Climb," "Throat of Throats") have a distinctly Stephen Merritt-esque sound, while "Radical Girl" and "Dumbluck Systems Storefront" smartly incorporate brass sections.

But these airy constructions sound tailored to the fragile, high voice of McCaughan, not the cock-rock swagger of Pollard. Try to imagine Uncle Bob singing Here's to Shutting Up's "Late-Century Dream" and you'll get the idea. Even when McCaughan cranks up the old distortion pedal on "Lifetime for the Mavericks," the high-flying vocals sound strangely out of place.

"Mavericks" also supplies an excellent example of the other problem plaguing Calling Zero: the excessively thin and demo-like sound. In many cases, the songs would be improved greatly by the strident drumming of Superchunk's Jon Wurster, or the bass-playing of, well, anybody, since there's hardly any low-end to be found. A more lo-fi approach might've covered up these omissions as well, with the tape hiss of old GBV warming up the sparse decor, but the overly slick sound only highlights the shortcomings.

As such, Calling Zero is far too entrenched in the middle, not playing enough to Pollard's opposing strengths of microphone-swinging rock or four-track experimentalism. The bright spots ("I Am Divine," the title track) suggest a certain amount of chemistry between the quasi-famous duo, but the slapdash feel of the rest make one wonder if a face-to-face interaction would've been more rewarding than this collaboration-by-mail. I'm sorry to report we'll all have to continuing waiting for indie-rock's answer to the powerful Jay-Z/R. Kelly alliance. The best of both worlds, baby.

-Rob Mitchum, March 12th, 2002