I enjoy writing my Robert Pollard-Mania! series, but due to its chronological nature, I’m always rummaging through Pollard’s past and I don’t get much chance to talk about his fascinating present. Right now, my modest li’l project is up to the year 2000. Yep, I’m here gabbin’ about twenty years ago while Pollard and maybe the most powerful line-up of Guided by Voices ever is putting out epic masterworks such as Zeppelin Over China, hyperactive tornados of song such as Warp and Woof and juicy cuts of Midwestern psych such as Surrender Your Poppy Field right NOW.
So let’s talk about the present for once, goddammit. This killer live show sent out to the internet in the Age of The Pandemic is a perfect excuse.
In 2020, Pollard is throwing it all into Guided by Voices, something that I never would have predicted ten years ago. He hasn’t put out a solo album in four years. And he closed the book on Circus Devils–his longest running side project–three years ago.
And all of that is fine. It’s all the same to me. I still buy the ticket, I still take the ride. Every Robert Pollard record IS Guided by Voices in my world. The different names on the various record sleeves are just there to keep things interesting. It’s like an author who writes so much that he’s got to publish under a few different names to not look like an asshole.
In July of 2020, Pollard is 62 years old. I imagine that he likes comfortable things. He’s also not competing with anyone. He owns his world. It also helps that he’s also got this great, versatile band who know what to do with anything that he throws at them, whether it’s a quick pop song or one of his multi-part prog nutcase things that squeeze five different song ideas into three minutes. They’re also great on stage and it looks like everybody’s getting along like peanut butter and jelly. Ah, comfort.
Old trusted cohorts Doug Gillard and Kevin March are here. The relatively new kids are Bobby Bare, Jr. and Mark Shue.
As of this writing, Pollard has released seven albums in a mere three years with this band (and two of them are double LPs and they’re both lethally good). The eighth, Mirrored Aztec, is just about to come out. At least two more albums are in the works.
AAAAAAND if you really want to sink deep into this particular shag carpet, Pollard’s three albums (so far) as Cash Rivers and The Sinners–his only side project for the past couple of years–are essentially Guided by Voices albums, too, because the same crew is the backing band of what might be Pollard’s strangest shit ever. They’re sort of a country band, but they also have disco songs and punk songs and at least one reggae song and most of them are about a minute long. Pollard’s coloring outside of the lines for that one and it’s insane and great. Look for Robert Pollard-Mania! to get to Cash Rivers sometime in 2076.
So that’s potentially TEN albums from this lineup of Guided by Voices that are out right now, depending on how you’re counting.
They’re all amazing. Even the ones that I haven’t heard. Even the ones that they haven’t recorded, yet. I’m sure that they’re great, too. These albums are the sound of a master at work. Pollard has become a real magician over the years. He’s learned from everybody’s mistakes. He’s never lost his taste for rock ‘n’ roll as something wild and strange and mysterious. He’s still ecstatic about his new ideas. The body is old, but the mind is young.
As I knock on the door of middle age, Robert Pollard is one of my aging idols. He’s up there with with Alejandro Jodorowsky and David Lynch and Neal Barrett Jr. I want to age like them.
What I’m trying to say is that this 2020 live set in which Guided by Voices play fifty-three songs to an empty room is exactly what I needed to keep my head straight in this insane year. I think just the live version here of “Cat Beats a Drum” (my favorite song from Surrender Your Poppy Field, an album that mystifies me more, in a good way, every time I play it) could carry me through the whole coming decade of shit. I’m not optimistic about anything, except for more good Robert Pollard music and that I’m going to do my best to stay alive. (I’m trying out the keto diet right now. I’m not sure about it, but I’m trying it. Man, I miss bread.)
Okay, sure, when I watch this show, no stranger is gonna spill their beer on me and then throw their arm around me while we sing along to “I Am a Scientist”. I’m not going to get to see this great band turn an audience into tapioca pudding over two hours like I’ve seen many times before. I’m also not gonna fly out of a rock club late at night with a new appreciation for every little thing around me, feeling good and bopping around to thirty great melodies in my head all at once.
The whole Coronavirus thing going around–maybe you’ve heard about it–kinda fucked that up.
But I can watch this in my underwear while drinking cheap wine and petting my cat and that’s a fair trade, I say.
The band are fierce here. They play like this could be their last show. It’s not how anyone wanted it to end. Guided by Voices thrive on crowd reaction. Pollard has a little bit of a stand-up comedian in him and he likes to mouth off to the crowd here and there. Watching the band play to an empty room, except for a camera crew and a few friends (you can hear ’em hollerin’ in the background a couple of times here), you don’t get that. Also, you can’t blame the band for this. That’s just how it is now.
Meanwhile, Guided by Voices make up for what’s missing with real energy. This is not a phone-in. It’s a blistering performance, full of new songs and classics. It’s the sound of a band who WANT to perform. Their noise is raw electricity, loud and dangerous.
And the optimism in Pollard’s songs carries me through it and eases me back into the real world after the show is over. We’re all gonna be okay. I think so, at least. I hope so.
Favorite setlist surprise: “Moses on a Snail”, the mean-eyed title track from Pollard’s 2010 solo album of the same name. It’s a heavy motherfucker, exploding toward the end into a big arena guitar solo, but this band throws it over their shoulder and carries it easily.
This set is streaming 24 hours a day at Noonchorus.com from July 17 to July 21. I paid $30 and I don’t regret a penny. I would’ve paid more. I needed this. An audio download is forthcoming, I’ve heard, when the stream goes down.