Guided by Voices History
Part III: 1999-2004
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PICTURE ME BIG TIME:GBV's Stab at the Mainstream
For the first time, Guided By Voices had gone two years without releasing a proper album, but the swell of side-projects and solo material had sated fans to some degree. On August 3, 1999, TVT finally unleashed Do the Collapse.
Immediately, several radio stations that wouldn’t have played GBV in the past added the first single “Teenage FBI.” It had been reworked from the seven-inch version, and now featured pounding Cars-ish synthesizers, courtesy of Ric Ocasek. The album’s best out-and-out rock song, “Surgical Focus,” also appeared as a seven-inch single with “Fly Into Ashes,” a Shough-recorded tune. The album shot to the top of CMJ’s record chart and stayed there for four weeks.
“It doesn’t necessarily mean all that much sales-wise, but those are the kids that are really passionate about music,” said Adam Shore. “They’re the ones who listen to everything and understand everything. If they all think GBV is the best record out there for a month, then that’s quite an accomplishment.”
The reviews poured in from every source, overall mixed but marveling at GBV’s slick, polished new sound. People Weekly and Newsweek, even took notice, even if their reviewers were hopelessly out of touch. A few critics cried “sell-out,” pointing to Bob’s past work and wondering what happened to the DIY ethic. In Bob’s view, his songwriting could do nothing but mature, and his choice of recording techniques and settings had to follow in step. Otherwise, GBV might receive a far worse cry than “sell-out,” that of a stagnant band that couldn’t (and didn’t want to) take risks.
“My faith in Guided By Voices faltered when it seemed that Pollard wasn't willing to challenge himself, and is restored by the sound of him finding the courage to evolve,” wrote Glenn McDonald in The War Against Silence.
Don Thrasher responds in kind. “I don’t see it as a sell out at all,” he said. “I think it’s the same kind of record he’s been making all along. It’s bigger sounding, and there are a few more choruses, but I’ll be damned if I think he’s sold out. There are still those short crazy songs on there. Bob’s still got his obscure lyrics. If he started hanging out with Garth Brooks and trying to make pop country songs, that might be a little weird. But anything else, I would think, ‘Fuck, give it a chance’.”
Greg Demos, always the mercurial figure, played his last show with GBV at an Ohio State University concert and Bob augmented the live lineup once again. Nate Farley, a Dayton musician who had filled in for missing GBV members in the past, took over rhythm guitar. Tim Tobias, Doug Gillard’s band mate in Gem, stepped into Demos’ place on bass. Gillard and MacPherson now seemed like seasoned members, but the new lineup soon coalesced into a solid outfit. Concert reviews were more glowing than ever.
“At 10:45 p.m., the neon ‘The Club Is Open’ sign came on, and GBV took the stage,” wrote Steve McGowan in Creative Loafing. “They ripped through a bewildering number of songs, with almost no pretense or artifice, and this is rock and roll we’re talking about. By that I mean whole rock and roll careers are built on pretense, and this band had almost none. But Christ did they rock.”
“You’d be hard pressed to find some better musicians that are playing in the band right now with Bob,” Todd Robinson said. “I’ve gotten to the point of wanting to go out and see something really special, and with Guided By Voices, no matter what the lineup, it’s never disappointing. I’ve never seen a bad show by that band.”
In September 1999, GBV started opening for Bob's idols Cheap Trick at select dates. Bob enjoyed himself immensely, singing backup on a few songs and trading stories with the various members of Cheap Trick. Although many of the shows sold out, a large percentage of those in attendance were there to see GBV (echoing shades of the Urge Overkill debacle). Reviewers were less than impressed with Cheap Trick, and even suggested that they should open for GBV instead. This of course didn't sit well with Cheap Trick, who felt the members of GBV were too hard-drinking for their own good.
“Many fans might have left after Guided by Voices' set had not frontman Bob Pollard extolled Cheap Trick's virtues about a dozen times,” wrote Peter Zanko in a Washington Post review.
Again, GBV proved that despite its commercial obscurity, the band was a heavyweight when it came to its fans. GBV’s open-door policy for backstage gatherings was almost unprecedented for a band of their notoriety, and Bob’s patience with some of his more persistent fans was incredible. (I’ve personally collected many stories of how Bob used to put people up at his house that traveled hundreds of miles to see him).
“I think his fans are getting something from the music that they can’t get anywhere else,” John Shough said philosophically. “I think it’s mental and intellectual fulfillment. A lot of times you get the feeling that a song was written just for you, or at least like, ‘I know what he’s talking about it. I’ve lived that’.” Which would seem like quite a feat, considering Bob’s complex lyrics.
“When you listen to a (GBV) song, you start trying to relate to it,” Shough said, “and pretty soon you’re becoming your own artist trying to figure out what’s happening. You’re inventing certain things in your mind. It really involves you.”
The seeming contradictions in Bob’s work and life — the beer-drinking intellectual, the dichotomy between Bob’s constant revisions and his prolific output, the small-town/big-time indie-rocker – only added to the band’s mystique.
“I have a hell of a lot more respect for what Bob’s done that most of the people that are on Matador right now,” Don Thrasher said. “The kind of music Bob makes is exactly the kind of music I like. It’s shit that’s catchy as hell, but all fucked up with some nasty guitar in there. For me, it was exactly what I always wanted to hear, and there he was in my own backyard. Except he’s got like all these songs, millions and millions of them.”
The Cheap Trick experience over with, Guided By Voices geared up for its longest line of tour dates yet — a ten month international stint replete with promotional concerts and radio appearances. The shows continued to sell out, while GBV played with friends and peers like Britt Daniel (Spoon), Superchunk and 84 Nash. In the UK, Do the Collapse was released on Creation records, and a barrage of different singles, all with their own bonus tracks, found their way to the public.
As 1999 wound to a close, TVT’s next step in promoting GBV would the “monster” hit single “Hold on Hope.” Interestingly, the most commercially viable songs on the album were Bob’s least favorite, and he balked at the idea of remixing songs for radio-friendliness. Their inclusion on the album only occurred in the first place at the goading of Ric Ocasek and other friends.
“We (had) been going back and forth on the remix,” Adam Shore said. “But it’s an incredibly common thing. All bands on major labels do remixes to fit formats. GBV has always been so hardcore about doing things themselves that it’s a whole different game for them. The guy we hired to do it did remixes for the Goo Goo Dolls, The Verve Pipe, Semisonic and a bunch of other bands. He’s kind of like the master of the mid-tempo rock song. He’s got all these platinum records all over his walls, and he’s just like, ‘I can’t believe I’m working on a Bob Pollard song, this is so cool.’ So he’s a big fan. I just think ‘Hold on Hope’ is such a beautiful, universal song. I have to tell Bob not to be ashamed of the fact that he wrote it. It’s really a wonderful thing.”
On November 5, 1999, Bob released his fourth solo album, Speak Kindly of Your Volunteer Fire Department, a stunningly melodic collaboration with Doug Gillard on which Gillard played every instrument and recorded it to 4-track cassette. Tracks like "Slick as Snails," "Do Something Real" (which would later show up during the credits of Steven Soderbergh's Full Frontal) and "Tight Globes" recalled the loose yet melodically inventive feel of early '90s Guided By Voices. The album was #4 in the Fading Captain Series, and Bob’s fifth release of the year.
“Until (Speak Kindly) came out, my favorite GBV song was ‘Learning to Hunt’,” said Todd Robinson. “But Speak Kindly may usurp that with ‘Larger Massachusetts.’ I’m a sucker for a real pretty, melancholy song. I told Bob that it would be the last song I played before I went to bed at the end of the millennium.”
A compliment, to be sure.
“I love it,” said Adam Shore of Speak Kindly… “It’s so POP. I was talking to Bob at a CMJ show about Speak Kindly..., and he said, ‘Man, I’m done with the new GBV record.’ I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’ And he said, ‘I’ve written the entire new Guided By Voices record already. When I first brought the songs to Ric they were all these little songs. Now, I finally figured out how to write real songs.’ I asked him to describe them and he’s like, ‘One word: anthems. All anthems’.”
ARTIST OF THE DECADE: Looking Back at the GBV-Happy '90s
In the latter half of 1999, Guided By Voices began appearing on critic’s polls as one of the most important bands of the 1990s – not surprising considering the band's status as lo-fi kings, and Bob’s reputation as an overall brilliant songwriter. Nude as the News, Pitchfork, and Alternative Press named Bee Thousand one of the top albums of the decade, period. Shredding Paper (for which parts of this article were originally written) even named GBV its Artist of the Decade, slapping the band on its cover and devoting an entire issue to Bob and crew.
“It’s about time,” Tobin Sprout said. “I think Bob deserves this, and it’s great this is happening for him. He seems to be ignored quite a bit by some of the major magazines. I always got the impression that he didn’t follow the mold, so that’s why they ignored him. Spin and Rolling Stone are the leaders and they don’t want other people leading.”
John Shough qualifies his response to the Artist of the Decade title. “It’s hard for me to not have a personal opinion of their music, because I’m personally involved in it. But when I separate myself from that, I can’t think of anyone else who would deserve it more. It’s a positive thing for anyone who’s an artist, because it says, ‘Go ahead and express yourself. Not every song has to be a hit.’
"Of course, business has to be part of it, but when business overwhelms artistic freedom and the spirit of the music itself, the quality deteriorates," Shough continued. "Creation in general is good for the human spirit, and when you inspire that I think that’s a positive thing. And GBV is definitely inspiring. Bob has a way of getting you excited about what he’s doing, and it just happens to work on his behalf.”
“I think Toby would be quick to point out that Bob’s definitely inspiring in that way,” Todd Robinson noted. “Even to this day, if I go to the studio with Bob, whether he’s sequencing or recording something, I always come away with a new enthusiasm for whatever I’m doing.”
Having worked with Guided By Voices since 1996, Rich Turiel feels the band is in a unique position. His duties as webmaster for GBV.com allow him to constantly see the impact the band has made on its ravenous fans.
"There aren’t many bands that actually hang out with their fan base,” he said. “The band and the music is so genuine and honest and the fans see that.” And Turiel is probably one of GBV’s biggest proponents himself. “Bob Pollard is in my opinion the best songwriter there is. Ever. As soon as I heard Bee Thousand I knew that was what I had been looking for all these years musically. After Bee Thousand came Alien Lanes, which I loved just as much. From then on it has all been great to me.”
Don Thrasher says depending on the criteria, GBV may or may not be the Artist of the Decade. “If people judge it by record sales or cultural impact, they probably aren’t. But at least in the independent world, they’re kings. It amazes to pick up magazines and see references to them all the time.” Thrasher also called Bob the “Picasso of Rock” due to the variety of different media he works in.
Adam Shore recognized how uncommon Bob’s attitude toward music is. “There’s not a whole lot of people like Bob in this business. Bob is a real, true artist. He has this artistic flow that he’s almost not even in control of. He just has to get it out. The songs really flow out of him in this incredible, cosmic way.”
Simply put, Bob Pollard records and sings as a means of being able to do more recording and singing. And in that way, he cannot concern himself with minor mistakes or imperfections in the music. It must be expelled from his head, and he’ll deal with the results later. That is why Guided By Voices embodied lo-fi music, and why, to this day, Bob likes his art to be reflective of his personality, and not of an antiseptic, sterile studio environment.
John Shough, a musician himself, summed it up best: “It’s kind of like watching a home movie,” he said. “You can see the blips and the colors kind of fade, you can see various errors in the film, but there’s a warmth and beauty to that, a humanness, that you can’t get from an absolutely pristine recording. Just for acknowledging that alone, Guided By Voices should get an award.”
With all of Guided By Voices' memorable songs, it would be hard for any fan to pick a favorite. But an Oxford, Ohio-based FM station tried. In the end, six songs made 97.7 FM's "Y2K Top 2000," a list of the definitive modern rock songs of all time. The list was alphabetical, with no numerical standing given to any one song. GBV appeared with "Bulldog Skin," "I Am a Tree," "Jane of the Waking Universe," "My Valuable Hunting Knife," "Sheetkickers" and "Teenage FBI."
Not yet ready to rest of his laurels, Bob amped up his release schedule. The Plugs for the Program EP, a Newbury Comics exclusive, debuted a remix of "Surgical Focus" by Sugar producer Lou Giordano, plus a "Picture Me Big Time" demo and the unreleased "Sucker of Pistol City." The reluctant single “Hold on Hope” was treated to its own EP, which collected Do the Collapse B-sides and singles, and included unheard Ocasek-recorded tracks like “Underground Initiations,” “Tropical Robots” and the Doug Gillard-penned “Avalanche Aminos.” GBV would perform "Hold on Hope" - with a cellist - on its first Late Night with Conan O'Brien appearance on May 9, 2000. Later that same night, the band played a surprise show under the name Homosexual Flypaper at CBGB (a storied, much-bootlegged set). An old Tonics and Twisted Chasers song, the meandering, melodic “Dayton Ohio 19 Something and 5,” eventually was granted a vinyl-only release a few weeks later on the Fading Captain Series. The A-side sported a triumphant live version of said tune, backed with three bizarre, spoken-word acoustic tracks.
On September 9, Luna and The Fading Captain Series jointly released the long-awaited Suitcase boxed set, subtitled “Failed Experiments and Trashed Aircraft”. Culled from hundreds of unreleased songs of varying (and often dubious) sound quality, the four-disc, 100-song set included everything from the 1974 demo “Little Jimmy the Giant” to polished studio numbers like “Bunco Men” and “James Riot.” For the less hardcore fan, FCS/Luna also issued Briefcase – Suitcase Abridged: Drinks And Deliveries on vinyl and CD, featuring 19 of the best Suitcase tracks, plus an exclusive version of the Kim Deal collaboration “Sensational Gravity Boy,” originally recorded at Dayton’s Refraze Studios under the side project Freedom Cruise (another version can be found on Red Hot & Bothered: The Indie Rock Guide To Dating).
Pitchfork’s Matt LeMay wrote: “Pollard’s trademark oddball lyrics are in prime form (on Suitcase). And amazingly, so is his songwriting.” Still, the hipster backlash to Do the Collapse seemed prevalent in the tenor of LeMay’s words: “There's something inherently bittersweet about this massive compilation, in the sense that even the worst of its 100 tracks sound better than, say, ‘Zoo Pie,’ ‘In Stitches,’ or ‘Dragons Awake’… we can take comfort in the fact that (Bob) probably has enough decent material floating around his basement to keep us satisfied for years to come.”
On October 24, Artemis Records released More Light by J. Mascis & The Fog. The former Dinosaur Jr. leader had invited Bob to sing backing vocals on "All The Girls," "I'm Not Fine," and "Same Day." It was fitting, considering Bob's sometimes adversarial relationship with another former Dinosaur member, Lou Barlow. Mascis' strained relationship with Barlow is well-documented, and Bob has been quoted as saying Barlow is a "boring" songwriter that focuses too much on relationship-oriented lyrics. Can't you indie rock legends play nice?
TWILIGHT CAMPFIGHTER: A Darker Horizon
With all the glad-handing and fawning retrospectives, the 1990s would have seemed the indisputable Decade of Guided By Voices (at least for those reading mags like Magnet, Pitchfork or SPONIC). TVT's commercial clout landed Guided By Voices a spot on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer soundtrack and over the loudspeakers at soccer-mom retailers like J.C. Penny. But a darker side to Bob Pollard’s alcohol-fueled concert regimen would emerge after the lengthy Do the Collapse tour, which took GBV around the globe.
Not dark in say, the hardcore way – in which rape, murder or other unsavory details of the band's offstage life emerges – but for this typically upbeat, avuncular and fun-lovin' band from Dayton, Ohio, this was pretty damn close. After trying to suppress fan rumors on the Postal Blowfish message group, GBV management and insiders finally acknowledged that Bob was separating from his wife Kim. The details were sketchy, but one could assume it was the result of (or antecedent to) a Florida concert at which Bob kissed a young female audience member – notably not his wife – on stage for all to see. Other rumors swirled that Bob kept an Asian mistress in Manhattan.
"My wife cries every time I leave (on tour)," Bob had told Magnet. "I tell her, 'I'll be back.' She worries about me. My kids don't seem to mind, but kids are weird."
Bob moved out of his house and into a downtown Dayton apartment, shuttering his beloved Monument Club (the members of which still met at various locations around the Miami Valley) and practicing with Guided By Voices' existing lineup above a bar in Dayton's artsy Oregon District. Bob, who had two children by his former high school sweetheart, found ways to express his sadness and loss in a new batch of songs that would become GBV's second album for TVT Records.
Inspired as much by the breakup of his two-decade marriage as the long stretches Bob spent roadtripping across the U.S., the album (under the working title Broadcaster House) attempted to balance the polish and length of Do the Collapse with more eclectic efforts like Mag Earwhig! Bob also had a sour taste in his mouth from recording with Ric Ocasek, who had barred the band from drinking in the studio and had a Svengali-like control over the songs’ production.
Subsequently, GBV enlisted Rob Schnapf, known for his work with commercial and artistic heavyweights like Beck, Foo Fighters and Elliott Smith. The band flew to New York to record – this time with alcohol – and the results were more akin to what Do the Collapse should have been. Muscular and crunchy, Doug Gillard and Nate Farley's twin guitar attacks made songs such as “Pivotal Film” and “The Enemy” seem like the bizarro-world versions of Under the Bushes tracks. Elliott Smith guest-starred on three tracks ("Skills Like This," "Chasing Heather Crazy" and "Fine to See You"), with Tobin Sprout popping in for piano on the self-referential "How's My Drinking?" Melodic numbers ("Sister I Need Wine," "Twilight Campfighter") were interspersed with Who-influenced rockers ("Want One?" "Run Wild"), and the overall tone of the album was more consistent than any GBV had produced.
Featuring some of Guided By Voices' most ornate cover art to date, the album - renamed Isolation Drills - appeared April 3, 2004. The first pressings of the CD included a bonus disc that sent fans to a "bootleg" website with unreleased MP3s and video footage (quite a step forward for a band whose lead singer is on record as a neo-Luddite). Some indie rock purists had already abandoned GBV by this point, but positive reviews and pseudo-mainstream exposure continued, garnering a new (if slightly less voracious) round of admirers.
“Guided By Voices fans who embraced them as the saviors of lo-fi pop... had better learn to live with the fact those days are gone for good,” wrote Mark Deming. “(With) Rob Schnapf behind the controls, Isolation Drills sounds like the real rock album GBV have always wanted to make.” Others took a more canonical approach: “File this one next to Blood on the Tracks and Who's Next in a bin labeled: ‘Personal pain bleeds into masterpiece’,” wrote Peter Bothum in Rockpile. Even Rolling Stone gave Drills four stars, nothing that Rob Schnapf found, "the balance between frazzled serendipity and melodic luster that has long eluded GBV."
As if to reinforce the trajectory of Bob's career, San Francisco's Mayor Willie Brown declared April 4 "GBV Day." A week later the album would debut on the Billboard charts at #168, the best showing of any to date. The Dayton Music Hall of Fame honored Bob with its Lifetime Achievement Award. The award was given every year to someone, “that has left an indelible mark on Dayton's rich musical history.” However, to Bob it seemed premature and, on April 19, he respectfully declined. He was flattered, but felt he still had growing to do as an artist. His best work was ahead of him, he told them.
In that spirit, GBV kicked off its Isolation Drills tour April 25 at the Opera House in Toronto. It was not uncommon for the band of aging Ohioans to play three hour, 50-song sets replete with multiple encores and Beatles covers. Premature indeed.
Of course, it always helps to infuse young blood into the system. When Jim MacPherson left GBV to spend more time with his family in Dayton, Bob recruited young Jon McCann (a Canadian drummer for Rockathon Records' Herschel Savage & the American Flag) to fill in for Jimmy Mac. McCann would inadvertently cause the band to cancel a few tour dates in mid-July after supposedly breaking his hand at a wedding. Band friend and Superchunk drummer Jon Wurster filled in, and GBV was back on the road in July.
That fall, the ebullient Isolation Drills track "Glad Girls" was nominated for Pot Song of the Year in the High Times' 2nd Annual Doobie Awards. Other nominees included Afroman's "Because I Got High," and Weezer's "Hash Pipe." Afroman's song, with all the subtlety of a cluster bomb, eventually won.
Through all this, Bob somehow found the time to churn out releases on his mind-bogglingly prolific Fading Captain Series. Hazzard Hotrods’ Big Trouble was a full-length, vinyl-only rendering of a boombox-recorded GBV rehearsal in a video store. Howling Wolf Orchestra's Speed Traps for the Bee Kingdom EP dropped a handful of forgettable, vaguely experimental tunes into listeners' unsuspecting laps. Daredevil Stamp Collector gathered B-sides from Do the Collapse on shiny blue vinyl, while a pair of excellent 7-inches from Airport 5 ("Stifled Man Casino" and "Total Exposure") tantalized fans with the prospect of a new Bob Pollard/Tobin Sprout collaboration. The resulting Airport 5 album, Tower in the Fountain of Sparks, was uneven and lacked the vitality of earlier GBV four-track efforts, but satisfied loyal fans with new material from an old duo, as well as producing a handful of excellent singles (the aforementioned seven-inches and “Up the Nails”)
Bob’s next solo album, Choreographed Man of War, brought together mainstay bassist Greg Demos with drummer Jim MacPherson. After a slew of unremarkable releases on the Fading Captain Series, Choreographed was a ray of sunshine in an otherwise darkened room. "Cohesive up until its final seven-minute-long finale, the album contains at least two songs that should rank high on a list of Pollard's gems," wrote Tim DiGravina in the All Music Guide. Songs like "Edison's Memos" and "I Drove a Tank" began appearing on GBV's setlists, further blurring the distinction between GBV and Bob’s solo work.
Not content to let 2001 pass without another couple releases on Fading Captain, Bob unleashed one of his most bizarre collaborations yet, Circus Devils' Ringworm Interiors. On the 28-track CD/LP, Bob added lyrics and melodies to music from the Tobias brothers (GBV bassist Tim and multi-instrumentalist Todd). Underpinned by Todd's disturbing sound collages and Bob’s stream-of-consciousness lyrics, Ringworm Interiors was indeed, "like no other in (Pollard's) pop canon... Many of Tobias' instrumental beads could be effectively re-scored to works like Twin Peaks and Rosemary's Baby," wrote Bart Bealmear. Magnet's Patrick Bekery said the album was, "rampant with the scattershot blasts of guitar hiss, four-track fuckery and non-sequitur lyrical fragments that a long night of drinking, jamming and coming up with fake band names in the basement can give birth to." Messy and complex, it nonetheless opened the door for Pollard to collaborate with even more non-GBV related personnel.
Bob would finish the year with the Selective Service CD, a bookend release that amassed B-sides from the last few FCS seven-inches. Scattered fans cried foul at the double-charge (issuing "exclusive" vinyl versions, only to release a CD a few months later) but Selective Service was so under the radar that few noticed. Rockathon Records, Bob’s limping but still-standing in-house label, also issued the Some Drinking Implied video, a collection of never-before-seen footage including the "Weed King" video, studio clips from The Same Place the Fly Got Smashed sessions, backstage footage, Bob's high school movie "Wild People," and a live performance from 1992. Add to that the "Titus and Strident Wet Nurse" track (from Off Records' Colonel Jeffery Pumpernickel comp) and the "Chasing Heather Crazy" and "Glad Girls" singles, and 2001 was one helluva year for Bob. The sheer quantity may have diluted some fans' attention – and emptied their wallets – but the undeniable breadth of offerings was, at least, a sign that Uncle Bob still knew how to cater to the faithful.
BACK TO THE LAKE: GBV Returns to its Roots
Although amicable, Guided By Voices' departure from TVT Records seemed like an essentially financial decision. TVT had allowed Bob to release copious side project and solo albums, but like Matador before them, they worried that Bob’s prolific nature diluted the market for each new GBV album. If Isolation Drills had gone gold or platinum, there's no question the band would have remained with TVT. But since Drills sold tens of thousands of copies (good enough for an indie, but not enough for TVT) GBV ended its contract with the label as Bob - with TVT's blessing - shopped around for a new home.
Bob would tell Billboard.com: "It's just ridiculous how much stuff we have. My philosophy is, if you like to write and play music, why hold yourself back? I don't see it as being a diluting thing."
Nude as the News published an article in its Obsessions series chronicling GBV's ability to addict newcomers. "In much the way our D.A.R.E. counselors warned us about easily-available marijuana leading the way to harder drugs, you find yourself in seedier and seedier record stores, buying questionably packaged, even more questionably recorded Guided by Voices obscurities that probably even won't be that good," wrote a fan, identified only as Western Homes. "Virtually all Guided By Voices product is tailored for obsessives."
In other words, Bob Pollard, the true Lord of Overstock, knows exactly what he's doing. An obsessive record collector himself, he's aiming for most of his Fading Captain releases to be willfully weird and nearly impossible to find. And yet, even Bob couldn't have intentionally created the paradoxical mindset of the hardcore GBV fan.
"Bizarrely though, the GBV phenomenon has bucked economic law," wrote Western Homes. "In the case of this band's releases, increases in supply increase demand. Like drug addiction, a good Guided By Voices fix gets harder and harder to fulfill. The first albums you buy will be the best ones, then things get dicier and dicier. Cruelly, Robert Pollard, the Manuel Noriega of Dayton, Ohio, keeps pushing more and more product to market."
As promised, Bob continued writing new songs and touring. On New Year’s Eve, 2001, Guided By Voices joined the budding New York quintet The Strokes and indie-friendly comedian David Cross at Harlem's venerable Apollo Theater. Bob had helped break The Strokes by allowing them to tour with GBV over the preceding months. As the story goes, Strokes leader Julian Casablancas tossed a demo cassette onstage during a GBV show in NYC. Bob popped it in the tour van, liked what he heard, and invited the Strokes to tour with him. When the Strokes hit it big, they even returned the favor by inviting GBV to play Family Feud with them in the music video for “Someday.”
In January 2002, Guided By Voices entered Cro-Mag studios in Dayton and Waterloo Sound in Kent, Ohio with Todd Tobias – GBV’s producer extraordinaire and “unofficial sixth member” – to lay down Bob's latest batch of songs. The album was already sporting working titles like From a Voice Plantation and Heavy River. A month a half later, drummer Jon McCann was replaced by longtime GBV fan Kevin March (The Dambuilders, Those Bastard Souls).
On March 26, Matador Records (GBV’s home from '95 to '98), announced the band had returned to its roster. “It’s great to be reunited with our good friends at Matador,” Bob said in a press release, “…fellow rock geeks with the same basic philosophy on record artistry. We are very happy getting back to autonomously making records ourselves and have the ball back in our court.” By implication, Bob had felt frustrated by the major label oversight at TVT. Matador wouldn't fuck with cover art, that much was sure.
In advance of the record’s summer release, Guided By Voices performed the new single “Everywhere with Helicopter” on the Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn, a song they had also contributed to San Francisco's Noise Pop comp. All the while the Fading Captain Series continued issuing discs like Calling Zero (a long-distance collaboration with Mac McCaughan of Superchunk under the name Go Back Snowball), the new Airport 5 full-length Life Starts Here (another long-distance project with Tobin Sprout), and a vinyl, Internet-only double-album under the strange moniker Acid Ranch. Consisting of boombox demos, outtakes, and dirty basement recordings from the Mitch Mitchell/Jim Pollard days, Some of the Magic Syrup Was Preserved threatened to be forgettable overkill in a year already brimming with quickie Pollard projects.
"'Song Of Love' is a 30 second attempt at doo-wop," wrote Sean Wright in the Stylus review of Acid Ranch. "'Theory of Broken Circles' has Bob Pollard singing at his most bizarre, and 'Mongoose Orgasm' is an instrumental which consists of household appliance noises... believe-it-or-not it is not as bad as it seems."
Unafraid to fuck with this audience, and inspired by the pseudo-poetry he had been writing, Bob collaborated with idol, writer and Blue Oyster Cult lyricist Richard Meltzer on the Tropic of Nipples seven-inch EP for Off Records. The 12-song affair was at least as experimental as anything Bob had ever done.
“Writer Meltzer and drunk Guided By Voices singer Pollard alternate ranting/singing their poetry,” wrote Greg Burk in L.A. Weekly. “In true Beat fashion, the fuck-all musical ensembles Smegma and Antler respectively improvise walls of quite creditable electro-acoustic torture simulations. Pollard: 'I'll support your life system/ but you gotta do your part/ and hold me open the door.' Meltzer: 'I'm gonna go to one of those/ good places n' get some' ...GOODNESS." Terms like “Dada-esque” were liberally lobbed at the project, which would later see CD release with extra tracks.
In May 2002, Matador and the Fading Captain Series jointly issued four 7-inch singles from GBV’s impending full-length, each with their own exclusive B-sides. The inventive collage art and overall quality of the tracks signaled a new direction for the band. Bob’s ability to combine the professionalism of his major label experiences with quick ‘n easy, mid-fi recording approaches would yield one of GBV’s strongest efforts.
June 18 saw the release of Universal Truths and Cycles (formerly From a Voice Plantation) on Matador. On June 25, the album debuted at #160 on the Billboard charts, besting Isolation Drills. A true return to form, Universal Truths represented a mix of electric and acoustic elements, ballads and rockers, and Bob’s surreal, bittersweet lyrics. And once again, it was packed tight with ideas that floated between the fragmented and the fully-formed. CMJ’s Matt Ashare noted, “Pollard... split(s) the difference between the muscular-yet-tuneful guitar anthems of his hi-fi days, and the cryptic four-tracking quirks that got GBV off the ground in the first place.” The Washington Post observed: “Universal’s glimpses into Pollard’s dark side mix well with his playful word games. No matter how short or lyrically delicate the song, it usually packs a healthy punch. Robert Pollard continues to perfect his knack for making sad songs say a lot without sinking into the depths of self-pity."
Yet another tour brought the band across the U.S. and into Europe, where Bob routinely integrated GBV songs with his copious solo and side project material. But to say that GBV toured behind each album would be misleading. Indeed, the band never really stopped touring, and often began each of its sets with a plethora of never-released tunes from a forthcoming disc, befuddling fans. But Bob wouldn’t have had it any other way. His impatience with release schedules meant that by the time most fans had heard a particular song, Bob had already recorded 20 more he liked better.
As if compelled at gunpoint, Bob soldiered on with new Fading Captain projects, collaborative and otherwise. The Pipe Dreams of Instant Prince Whippet culled Universal Truths singles for CD and added a few unreleased tracks. As 2003 dawned, Matador announced a plethora of new side projects. The second Circus Devils album, The Harold Pig Memorial, reunited Bob with the Tobias brothers for a concept album about a late, lamented biker and his insanely surreal funeral. Released – as always – just before Bob’s October 31st birthday, the album was a disjointed but sporadically melodic mass of rough ideas. The diverse, vaguely experimental Motel of Fools EP gathered GBV members past and present (including Don Thrasher, Tobin Sprout and Jim Pollard), even airing a moldy, ultra-lo-fi snippet from Anacrusis, Bob’s first band with Mitch Mitchell.
"Though it’s largely missing the majestic choruses sought after by fans,” wrote Bart Bealmear in the All Music Guide, “Motel of Fools is evidence that Robert Pollard, nearly 20 years into his recording career, still has some surprises for the zealots.” CMJ took a slightly less reverent tone: “For sheer incoherence, (FCS) salvos #25 and #26 don't match last year’s Tropic of Nipples, a battle of the ids with rock scribe Richard Meltzer. But Motel of Fools comes close.”
In March, Bob released his second wholly collaborative project with Doug Gillard under the name Lifeguards. The Mist King Urth LP found Gillard playing and recording every instrument to four-track (same as the critically-lauded masterpiece Speak Kindly of Your Volunteer Fire Department). This time, however, Bob let Gillard write the music and left the lyrics and melodies to himself. A short but powerful testament to the DIY spirit, Lifeguards’ first (and only?) release was short on Bob’s singing but heavy on Gillard’s talent. And despite being one of Bob's best songs in recent memory, the aching, driving acoustic ballad "Society Dome" remained the stylistic anomaly of the album.
"It was designed to be a different project," Gillard said. "It was on Bob's request to give him some music and he wanted it to have a little heavier-bent, less poppy. So I came up with a batch of music and sent it to him. He did the vocals in Dayton at Cro-Mag and I did the music here at home."
With his zest for collaboration renewed, Bob embarked on yet another seemingly bizarre project: to re-record the vocals to Phantom Tollbooth’s admirably complex but somewhat unlistenable and overlooked 1988 album Power Toy. “For reference,” Slug Magazine wrote, “Phantom Tollbooth combine the artsier jazz and punk of someone like the Minutemen in songs that could last 20 minutes instead of the Minutemen's 20 seconds.” Bob gave the songs new lyrics, melodies and titles, and re-christened the album Beard of Lightning. Released May 27 on Chris Slusarenko’s Off Records (home of the Colonel Jeffery Pumpernickel comp and Tropic of Nipples EP), the album received mixed blessings from the music world. A few writers were compelled to wonder what other classic, seemingly inaccessible prog-jazz records would sound like with Bob’s surrealist lyrics and able vocal melodies.
“I was a big fan of that period of really heavy, hard psychedelic stuff,” Bob told Matt Hickey at Magnet “…like Phantom Tollbooth, Das Damen, Painted Willie, some of the Amphetamine Reptile stuff like Helmet and that kind of shit. But I thought Power Toy was the best record of that genre. The music is so complex. Parts of it are just completely jazzy and crazy, and other parts are really anthemic and Who-like. Not to say that the vocals were bad, because I liked them, but I thought it could use more of a classic-rock edge.”
Like clockwork, GBV had another full-length recorded and ready for release on Matador. Earthquake Glue appeared August 19, featuring a more straightforward mix of hard rock than the previous album - the stylistically schizophrenic Universal Truths and Cycles.
"The biggest things I notice are Todd's (Tobias) ambient keyboard ideas. He makes his own samples," Doug Gillard said of the differences on Earthquake Glue. "He strives to use sounds that haven't been heard before, or sounds that he's created, rather than pre-sets on a keyboard. He has a way of making parts that stay out of the way of the vocals and everything that's going on. But you can still tell it's a high-fidelity recording."
Magazines like Playboy, eager to laud the band's work, misstated the context: "Often, we wish bands that have played together for 20 years would just stop. But the 14th recording from these indie rockers is their best yet due to a newfound confidence in their lo-fi sound." Those paying attention in the interim gave more intelligent responses. Erasing Clouds' Dave Heaton wrote, "Earthquake Glue is the group's best attempt yet at getting a hold on the many personalities of GBV and merging them into one cohesive sound. It's a gloriously huge rock album that leaves room for eccentricity, that manages to be powerful and melodic, heartfelt and weird, as the best of GBV's 'lo-fi' recordings did in their own way."
Ten days after Earthquake Glue erupted, the Fading Captain Series released the “My Kind of Soldier” seven-inch single, backed with the non-LP track “Broken Brothers.” A subtle, mid-tempo melodic rocker, “My Kind of Soldier” was one of the only tracks on the new album not recorded by GBV and Todd Tobias. (And the only one with a music video, featuring the dance stylings of legendary St. Louis hipster Beatle Bob.)
“We were on our way to join the Cheap Trick tour," Gillard remembered. "We played four dates with them and Bob had just come up with (that) song a few days earlier. We were trying to see if we could record it in Ohio before we left. Since Chicago was on the way, we set it up two or three days ahead of time to record at Albini's. Steve had a session downstairs that day, so we recorded in Studio B with Greg Norman, his assistant. We learned it right there that day. We kind of stopped in, learned it, I saw what the rest of the band was doing, developed my part and played it all at the same time.”
In early September, on the eve of its tour to support Earthquake Glue, GBV announced the departure of bassist Tim Tobias, an integral member of the band (and Bob's side projects) since 1999. Repeated attempts to clarify the circumstances of Tim's exodus were rebuffed by the tight-lipped band and its staff, adding to the air of weird mystery surrounding it. Drugs? Trouble with the law? Mental problems? No one would say. But in an interview, Bob said Tim's behavior had been strange for some time, and that no one in the band really knew what was going on with him. Internet rumors pointed to a dispute between Bob and Tim over one of Bob's ex-girlfriends.
Fortunately, Bob had an endless supply of musician friends that, at some point, had probably put the bug in his ear about playing in GBV (or at least dreamt about it, considering the ever-revolving lineup). Bob recruited Superdrag bassist Sam Powers for the European tour leg, and Off Records' Chris Slusarenko (Sprinkler, Svelt) for the rest. The band's first big gig would be the 10th anniversary party for Magnet - a publication that had always been kind to GBV over the years, even putting Bob on the cover four times. The September 5 show in Philadelphia also featured indie rock heavyweights The Shins, The Wrens and My Morning Jacket.
"What a long, strange weekend it was," wrote Magnet senior editor Matthew Fritch. "There was no stranger moment than being backstage in Guided By Voices’ dressing room (before they played) and not being able to find a beer. And people say there’s not enough irony in indie rock."
The Best of Jill Hives single, available only in the U.K., appeared September 23 with the unreleased tracks "Free of This World" and "Downed." GBV continued to tour behind Earthquake Glue, playing to enthusiastic crowds in Germany, Amsterdam and England, then heading back to the States in October.
Although few remarked on it, 2003 was a milestone year for Bob and the band. "It's like the stars are all aligned, man, and this is the year of GBV," Bob told Free City Media. "This is Guided by Voices' 20th anniversary. It's Dayton's 100th anniversary of flight. It's Ohio's 200th anniversary, (the) bicentennial."
In celebration of 20 years of GBV, Matador issued the massive career retrospective Hardcore UFOs: Revelations, Epiphanies and Fast Food in the Western Hemisphere. The boxed set had been announced a couple months prior on Matador's website, but Bob had actually been compiling it two years earlier for another label (the deal fell through when the label folded). The five-disc release included GBV's first Best-Of disc (Human Amusements at Hourly Rates), a Watch Me Jumpstart DVD with bonus materials and music videos, Live at the Wheelchair Races (unreleased live tracks compiled by Bob GBV.com's Rich Turiel), Delicious Pie and Thank You for Calling (unreleased studio gems), Demons and Painkillers (B-sides, 7-inches, and out of print singles) plus the obscure debut EP Forever Since Breakfast, which Bob had originally deemed to R.E.M.-derivative to include on Scat's 1995 Box reissue.
Later that month, The New York Times gave Guided By Voices its due with an article on the front page of its Arts section: "The Band that Can't Stop Recording." Based on an interview conducted before GBV had played Brooklyn's Warsaw, it covered familiar topics like Bob's prolific songwriting and release schedules and the maniacal devotion of his fans.
Reinforcing his dependable prolificacy, Bob published EAT, a 48-page literary magazine of collages, leftover lyrics, poems and band names. The full-color digest also contained original cover designs for Waved Out and Alien Lanes.
As 2004 rolled around, the band had to cancel a slew of tour dates due to a back injury Bob sustained. Although not the first time Bob had hurt himself in the line of duty (others included poorly-timed high kicks, tumbles into drum risers, and off-stage crashes), it nonetheless hinted that maybe the Captain was getting too old for this shit.
Or maybe not. On February 2, Matador announced Guided By Voices was back at Waterloo Sound in Kent recording the follow-up to Earthquake Glue with Todd Tobias. Consisting of 14 songs, the album visited old themes while veering in new directions. The jumpy lead-off track ("Everybody Thinks I'm a Raincloud [When I'm Not Looking]") plucked melodies from Gillard and Farley's layered guitars, while lo-fi screams and sampled drums graced the schizophrenic "Sleep Over Jack." The buoyant anthem "Girls of Wild Strawberries" nodded to Bob's early solo albums and '60s influences and reintroduced Tobin Sprout's guitar work to the GBV canon.
"Gonna Never Have to Die" sounded like a spontaneous moonshine party on the front porch of a cabin, steely-eyed and ragged at the same time. In fact, Doug Gillard liked Bob's Allman-esque acoustic solo in the demo so much that he matched it note-for-note on the album version. "Window of My World" mashed a lilting verse against a jaunty garage-rock bridge. The heartbreaking "A Second Spurt of Growth" taunted Bob's personal demons with picked acoustics. "Huffman Prairie Flying Field" - ostensibly the last GBV song ever released - married Bob's bittersweet coda, "For far too long," with a guest appearance from an old friend.
In a posting on Peephole, GBV's email fanlist, session witness GBV.com webmaster Rich Turiel noted, "This was the first album since I have been around that was finished and sequenced and never changed from the last day of mixing. No songs added, no sequence changes." Bob floated Dreaming of Sleeping around as a possible album title. But the world wouldn't know it was GBV's last effort until a couple months later.
On March 6, an amusing bit of news filtered into the GBV camp: NASA had broadcast "Motor Away" to one of its robots on Mars to initiate its daily programming download. Interstellar rock, indeed. Bob then announced two new Fading Captain releases for May: Pinball Mars, the latest vinyl-only Circus Devils release and Fiction Man, a new solo album on which Todd Tobias played all instruments and Bob handled vocals. Scat announced plans to release a vinyl-only 10th anniversary edition of Bee Thousand, subtitled The Director's Cut. With outtakes and original, unseen artwork, it was both a celebration of the album and another sign of the band's hero status.
On April 24, Bob's banter at a New York show revealed that the next Guided By Voices album would its last. "That's it. You can't be the Rolling Stones. You've gotta quit while you're relatively handsome," he said from the stage at the Bowery Ballroom. "We are the kings of indie rock. When we quit, indie rock will die."
Two days later, Matador announced what many had felt was coming for a long time: after the release of Half Smiles of the Decomposed on August 24, GBV would tour and disband. A cross-country jaunt would culminate in a two-night stint at Chicago's Metro. The last show would fittingly be on New Year's Eve, with Detroit garage rockers The Go. Sometime in the drunken early hours of 2005, the GBV moniker would officially be retired. But a Matador press release assured fans that Bob would continue doing what he did best.
"Pollard will continue writing, recording, and (possibly) touring as a solo artist," it stated.
In late May, Half Smiles of the Decomposed leaked over the Internet. Fans perked up when they heard familiar elements like Tobin Sprout's guitar solos and Bob's infamous sound collages. "I've always said that when I make a record that I'm totally satisfied with as befitting a final album, then that will be it," Bob said on the Matador website. "And this is it. I love the guys in the band, but I'm getting too old to be a gang leader. There's a sense of maturity, and even integrity, I think, in continuing as one's own self."
In the bio sheet for the album, Bob continued: "Some people have said our albums have gotten progressively weaker since, say, Under The Bushes, Under The Stars. But actually they’re misinterpreting a common human tendency to grow tired of something if it hangs around too long... I need to get back to a lack of professionalism where there’s a certain degree of awkwardness. In order for that to happen, I need to become much more actively involved in the studio."
In early June, GBV.com announced Bob had returned to Waterloo Sound to record his first batch of post-Guided By Voices songs. Never one to waste time, Bob had collaborated with Todd Tobias for a double-solo album originally titled American Superdream Wow (Pollard would later change it to From a Compound Eye and use American Superdream Wow as the subtitle of the 100-song Suitcase 2). Two members of the Kent, Ohio band The All Golden (including Waterloo Sound owner Scott Bennett) contributed instrumental talent to the batch of older, more personal songs Bob had held back from Guided By Voices. But mostly, the album production came entirely from Bob and Todd. Bob eventually inked a deal with Merge Records for an early 2006 release of the album. He also compiled Suitcase II, the second box set of basement tapes and unreleased tracks culled from his massive trunk of cassettes (thanks to a new CD burner from his girlfriend) and worked on new albums from the Circus Devils and Hazzard Hotrods. And a soundtrack for Steven Soderbergh's short film "Bubble." And god knows what else.
"When I do start (touring with) this solo thing, I’m going to tell people they can still yell GBV if they want," Bob said. "Either that or come up with something else. 'Cause I kinda like that."
Half-Smiles of the Decomposed received an affectionate welcome upon its August 24 release. The cover art of the disc featured the "Ashes to Ashes" collage previously published in Bob's "literary magazine" EAT. Pitchfork, while typically dismissive of the band's later output, saw a kernel of hope for the future. "While retiring the name of GBV may be no more than a symbolic move, it's possible that leaving behind the franchise, its expectations, and its faded momentum is just the thing to relight a flame in the man of 10,000 songs," opined Rob Mitchum. Rolling Stone's Greg Kot noted Half Smiles was, "Packed to bursting with sometimes inscrutable pleasures: melodies with the whiff of half-remembered classics, misbegotten home-taping experiments, (and) arrangements that appear to collapse before resolving in brave choruses."
CMJ patronizingly likened Bob's late '90s output to, "a drunk girl looking for affirmation," but then asserted Half Smiles struck the right balance of oddity and sentimentality befitting a final album. "Fired with confidence, Pollard serves up some of his most polished songs," wrote Chris Molanphy. The UK Sunday Times' Stuart Lee recognized the practicality of GBV's long career arc. "Perhaps it’s the years of critical acclaim, coupled with never quite making it big, that convinced Pollard to surrender the GBV brand," he wrote. Kevin Elliot, frontman for Ohio indie heroes 84 Nash (a former Rockathon band) said the album was, "the culmination of a million great ideas poured into one glorious goodbye," in his Columbus Alive review. But No Depression, those self-appointed keepers of the underground Americana flame, may have put it best. "What in the name of Maybelle Carter is a band that was the principal architect of American indie-rock in the ‘90s... doing in these here pages?" wondered Jim Desmond. "Well, I have a theory, based on unscientific polling, that GBV is a favorite with the type of music fanatics who read this magazine. Why? Maybe alt-country fans appreciate GBV’s respect for tradition (rock history) and also their risk-taking spirit of invention. At a more basic level, GBV may win you over by taking a smart and often intricate musical idea and then simply pummeling you with it until you submit. Pollard crams more good ideas and pop hooks into one song than many writers do into entire records."
Early in the hours of Jan. 1, 2005, Bob officially disbanded Guided By Voices with a 63-song, 4-hour set at Chicago's Metro. Old friends and band members like Don Thrasher, Tobin Sprout, Jim Greer and others joined Bob onstage for various songs. Bob ended the final, final (we mean it) finale with "Don't Stop Now." Appropriately, Bob introduced it as "The Ballad of Guided By Voices."
EPILOGUE: Shrine to the Dynamic Years
Despite the official breakup of Guided By Voices, it's likely Bob Pollard will continue recording (and possibly touring) with the same eight to ten people that he always has. If Bob's proven one thing over the years, it's that he sticks close to home because he needs to. Even his collaborations consist mainly of mailed contributions. Virtual bands allow him to stay in Ohio, where he works best, and probably always will.
But psychologically, it's the end of an era that produced some of the best recorded music in rock history. The majority of Guided By Voices' early '90s peers (Pavement, Sebadoh, Palace Bros., Superchunk, Dinosaur Jr., Neutral Milk Hotel) have broken up or faded into other projects. Guided By Voices was a lone rawk juggernaut, routinely playing three-hour sets of 50-plus songs while downing copious amounts of beer and liquor. If that's not a blueprint for the rock stars of tomorrow, I don't know what is.
Rob Heater and I essentially founded the zine SPONIC in early 1997 as a Guided By Voices and Dayton-centric fanzine. Both natives of Dayton and in high school when Bee Thousand was released, we were not only hardcore GBV fans (I was a bit more hardcore than Rob), but fans of the unique and - at the time - thriving Dayton indie scene that included Swearing at Motorists, Brainiac, O-Matic, The Breeders, Prettymouth, Johnny Smoke, Ten O'Clock Scholar, 84 Nash, Cage, Mink and others. My first GBV show - a hard-hitting set at Special Occasions in Dayton on Sept. 30, 1994 - immediately convinced me GBV truly understood rock 'n roll, both as a form of entertainment and as a religion.
It's hard for SPONIC not to feel personally invested in the band. SPONIC writer Charlie Meyer snapped a photo that appeared in the liner notes for Waved Out (originally the cover pic of SPONIC's first issue). We contributed song titles and hung out with the members of the band at home and backstage. We put out a seven-inch single in 1998 with a track from Bob's side project, Nightwalker, which also featured some of his original collage art, and ran the first (and only) interviews with elusive frontman Jade Radar. We watched Guided By Voices practice in Mitch Mitchell's basement in 1995 and went to Bob's son's college graduation party a few years later. We even tried (unsuccessfully) to best the brothers Pollard in basketball at the Monument Club hoops.
That probably sounds like we're bragging, or trying to crowd in on Guided By Voices' legacy, but we're not. We felt lucky to be close to such normal people. For all the pomp, fake British accents, marathon drinking and occasional run-ins with the law, Bob and the rest of GBV never betrayed their roots. They never moved to L.A. and started wearing shitty clothes and drinking imported beer. They always remembered Dayton, their place of inspiration, even if Dayton sometimes forgot them.
Bob Pollard is a songwriter's songwriter. A drinker's drinker. A record collector's wet dream. A down-to-earth guy that's as astounded by Guided By Voices' success as anyone else. GBV's legacy is too young to assess, but there's no denying that the band towers over its contemporaries. A steeple of knives in a sea of cotton. A legitimate team in a game of pricks. A fast Japanese spin cycle in a slow American crawl.
Or something like that.
JOHN WENZEL | John is a Denver-based writer and former editor of Sponic magazine. John currently works for The Denver Post and Rockpile and has contributed to such noble but non-paying enterprises as Shredding Paper, Aversion.com, and Erasing Clouds. He's obsessed with the Dayton, Ohio '90s music scene but likes to think he's keen on some of the new bands the kids are listening to these days. John also helps run the Friendly Psychics Music recording collective. Email.