Artist bio

Guided By Voices is the primary vehicle for Dayton, Ohio-based rocksmith Robert Pollard, and has proved one of the most tireless, exciting rock bands of its time.

Pollard, a former elementary school teacher, formed the group in 1985 around a group of Dayton musicians and friends, including frequent collaborator Tobin Sprout. Their first four albums didn't cross many radar screens, but 1992's excellent Propeller earned the group a modicum of national recognition, with such musical notaries as Kim Deal and Thurston Moore naming themselves fans.

Two years later, the group's second breakthrough came with Bee Thousand, a home-crafted epic, classic rock and roll album that exploded the group's popularity and almost overnight, instituting GBV as "the" quintessential indie rock band. The group signed a big record deal with Matador, and then proceeded to make their next album at home and keep the money. Smart guys, these Ohians.

But rock aspirations got the better of them. The group began experimenting with "real studios" and fleshing out their songs into full-on rockers and such in the late '90s. Pollard solidified his role as the band's driver in 1997, after Sprout left and Pollard kicked out the rest of the members, hiring indie rockers Cobra Verde as their replacements. CV guitarist Doug Gillard stayed on as Pollard's favorite post-Sprout sideman thereafter, while other members came and went and stayed and left, the most volatile seat being on the drum riser.

And last we heard, Pollard and his merry band of mischief-makers were still swilling Bud Light and rocking long into the night at a club near you. Get up slowly, and tear yourself away from your computer. You might be able to get there in time to catch set closer "My Valuable Hunting Knife>Baba O'Riley".

Albums by this artist

Half-Smiles Of The Decomposed (2004)

Human Amusements At Hourly Rates (2003)

Universal Truths And Cycles (2002)

Isolation Drills (2001)

Suitcase (2000)

Do The Collapse (1999)

Mag Earwhig! (1997)

Bulldog Skin 7" (1997)

Tonics and Twisted Chasters (1997)

Sunfish Holy Breakfast (1996)

Under The Bushes, Under The Stars (Recommended) (1996)

Alien Lanes (Recommended) (1996)

Bee Thousand (Recommended) (1994)

Crying Your Knife Away (1994)

The Grand Hour (1993)

Propeller (Recommended) (1992)

Concerts

March 18, 2002
The Dublin Pub, Dayton, Ohio

December 30, 2001
Apollo Theatre, New York

Features

Guided By Voices History: Part II: 1994-1999
Published October 31, 2005

Guided by Voices History: Part III: 1999-2004
Published October 31, 2005

Guided By Voices History: Part I: 1983-1994
Published October 30, 2005

GBV: A Eulogy: Or, Pollards We Have Known
Published December 30, 2004

NATN's Wholly Subjective Top 100 GBV Songs Of All Time:
Published December 30, 2004

The Top 100 Songs Thingy: Um, The Second Half.
Published December 30, 2004

Interviews

Doug Gillard
October 23, 2003

Rock Of Ages
March 27, 2001

Guided By Voices

Mag Earwhig!

» TROY CARPENTER | CO-DIRECTOR

Guided By Voices

Mag Earwhig!

Matador, 1997

RiYL: Frank Black, Gem, Cheap Trick

Mag Earwhig! is the one Guided By Voices album that consistently polarizes the group's fans, and the most likely culprit for such a distinction is the album's place in GBV chronology. Up until directly prior to the album's creation, GBV had been a solid band. Granted, there was member turnover, and guest musicians in many incarnations. But you could count on Bob Pollard, Tobin Sprout, Kevin Fennell and Mitch Mitchell, for the most part, being in the group.

At some point in 1996, however, Pollard's increasing frustration with the capabilities of his band came to a head, and he essentially fired his friends, aping already-existing Cleveland indie rawk group Cobra Verde as their replacements. Guided By Verde, however, was a short-lived band itself, Pollard essentially becoming GBV's abbot, firing and forming band lineups around him as he pleases.

But Mag Earwhig! came right in the midst of that period, and its jumble serves as Pollard's true coming-out party as the embodiment of GBV. "I am produced," he sings on the song of that same name, and his music certainly exhibits slicker production values than ever before, at least in the Cobra Verde-backed segments. But Mag Earwhig! also features material with the "classic" GBV lineup, as well as Pollard semi-solo experiments.

It's a confusing mish-mash of material, not close to the slick coherence of latter-day efforts like Isolation Drills or even earlier, more tone-consistent works like Propeller and Under The Bushes, Under The Stars. But a GBV album need not be judged by its cohesiveness, if it has great songs. And Mag Earwhig! has its share. There's the boisterous "Bulldog Skin" and the Doug Gillard-penned "I Am A Tree," two of the group's all-time great rockers. There's the ultimate Pollard rock scream, in the coda of "Are You Faster?" and the zinger lyrics ("did his wife in with dueling banjos") in the otherwise-acoustic-throwaway "Old Grunt." And lesser-appreciated but still stellar tunes like "Not Behind The Fighter Jet," "Little Lines" and "Mute Superstar." Even "Choking Tara" was still appearing in GBV setlists in late 2001.

Is Mag Earwhig! among GBV's finest? Not neccesarily. But it deserves more credit than a lot of opinionated fans give it. Bob Pollard is Guided By Voices, and no one would deny it at this late date. That this album found him struggling to right the GBV ship and take the helm completely should not be reason to decry it, as one of the best songwriters of the '90s hid a few fine examples of his craft within. Oh yeah, and the "mag" is short for "magnificent". That was killing me.

TROY CARPENTER | Troy Carpenter founded NATN from a Chicago apartment during the ambitious winter of 1998 with co-conspirators Ben French and Jonathan Cohen. After a five-year stint in New York, he and wife Lourdes have recently relocated to Indianapolis, where he spends days listening to music and nights in the kitchen at Elements restaurant. Musical heroes: Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, Super Furry Animals. What else makes life worth living: Sushi, Phucty, runs in the park, and the Atlanta Braves.