Guided by Voices
Live from Austin TX
2007, New West Records
We’ve talked a lot about why Guided by Voices went on a farewell tour in 2004, but there’s another reason that was in the air at the time that we haven’t sunk our claws into yet.
Robert Pollard addresses it twice during this set, notably during “Secret Star”. The song is one of the giants from Earthquake Glue and it’s built with a quiet section that, during the Electrifying Conclusion tour, became the platform for him to deliver what amounted to a sermon about the legacy of Guided by Voices while the band rumbled beneath. Much like the always-changing setlist (a mark of a good band), Pollard’s spiel wasn’t the same every night. It rose out of the moment. Ending this chapter of his life was a heavy thing and he didn’t need a script to talk about it.
(Does some crazy collector out there have a dusty CD-R on the shelf of nothing but Electrifying Conclusion tour versions of “Secret Star”? I hope so.)
In the sermon on November 9, 2004, before television cameras and under the bright studio lights of PBS’s Austin City Limits, Pollard says this fascinating thing:
“Rock ‘n’ roll is for the kids. And all of the adults who think it’s for them, get out of the way. It’s for the kids. The kids are confused…”
That’s a 2004 time capsule moment. That’s a statement from when it was still considered undignified to grow old in rock music. One might get away with it as a solo act, particularly if their music “matures” for the effort (Pollard himself would soon play around with making his solo records more stark and singer-songwritery). Hardly anybody made fun of Lou Reed or Neil Young for aging, but performing under the guise of a band as the wrinkles around your eyes set in was somehow unbecoming.
Read interviews with Pollard in 2004 and when he explains why he’s ending Guided by Voices, he repeats the idea that he’s too old now to be a “gang leader”.
Today, nobody seems to care about that stuff. Why?
Maybe it finally hit us that our beloved musicians won’t be among us forever so we now try to appreciate them, and see them, while we can. Nobody thinks it’s sad that Paul McCartney still tours in his 80s. Most are amazed at how he can still do it.
Maybe it’s because the generations of smartasses that used to look down on graying rockers got old ourselves and no longer have room to talk shit.
Maybe we simply ran out of Rolling Stones jokes while Charlie Watts and company kept going and going, unfazed. They won.
“How long should a band be around? Forty-five years like The Rolliing Stones? Or twenty-one years like Guided by Voices?”, Pollard quips here before the band launch into “Navigating Flood Regions” and it’s clear what his answer is at that moment.
Things change though, because if things aren’t changing you’re not really living.
SO, if you already have the four-and-a-half-hour epic Electrifying Conclusion DVD, do you need this shorter set (just over ninety minutes) from a little less than two months earlier, too?
Yes, but I would say that. I’ll also tell you that every Circus Devils album is essential and that you don’t truly know GBV until you’ve sat back and listened to Acid Ranch with your eyes closed. I’m nuts. By all means consult your pastor for a second opinion.
Here’s what I’ve got for you, the ten best reasons to flash back again to the 2004 tour:
1. Thanks to the resources at PBS, the DVD looks a lot sharper than The Electrifying Conclusion (if that matters to you). Until Live at the Brightside gets a physical release (and I have no idea if it will; it’s a COVID-era performance without an audience), this is the best-looking official GBV concert video that you can buy and put on a shelf.
2. You can also get Austin on CD and vinyl. Not so for the Conclusion.
3. The performance is a barn-burner. The Electrifying Conclusion tour was short, didn’t leave the US, and had a lot of breaks in it and the band made that work for them. They sound refreshed and powerful. This show is from the mid-point of two weeks of road work that covered the south and then went up the west coast. After that only six dates for all of December, including two-night stands in New York City and Chicago. The band weren’t wearing themselves out. Every show was special and this one is special, too.
4. “Hey kids, let me tell you something that Guided by Voices taught the world: that you can suck and still rule. It can get out of sync… it doesn’t sound good… but it still rules” – Robert Pollard, after a ragged, but right, take on “My Kind of Soldier”.
5. On that note, we must address the off-the-cuff appearance by Pete Yorn. Or as Bob drunkenly calls him “Tom Yorn”. Meanwhile, Pete “Tom” Yorn seems drunk enough himself to not notice or care about the gaffe. He’s in the audience and, at Bob’s urging, jumps on stage to hug Nate Farley, get another beer, forget how mic stands work, and sing along with two songs that he doesn’t seem to know. Actually, he might be familiar with the verses of “Sad if I Lost It”, but when the band follow with “Cut-Out Witch”, Yorn proceeds to growl out an improvised death metal song. The band roll with it because that’s what Guided by Voices do. Their shows were parties and it’s worth remembering that.
6. Any chance to see Doug Gillard throw his whole body into the manic solo of “Gonna Never Have to Die” should be taken.
7. Hey, sometimes you don’t want four-and-a-half hours. We’ve all got things to do. Austin does a capital job of representing what a GBV live set was at the time, but in condensed form. If you saw the band in 2004, you heard classics, a healthy selection from the new album, and some crazy deep cuts (“Do the Earth”, “Murder Charge”) that were so important on that tour. That’s all here.
8. Bob Pollard is funny as hell throughout the whole thing. This is secretly a comedy show.
9. Austin City Limits isn’t just any TV series. It’s an American institution that’s been going on for over fifty years now. Built on a beginning of a showcase for 70s outlaw country music, it’s gone on to host legends. Guided by Voices being on it is a great moment, for the show and the band.
10. There are a lot of contenders for the best performance here and my vote right this minute goes to “Redmen and Their Wives”. “It’s a lovely song… about Ohio”, Robert Pollard says. When you talk about Guided by Voices live, you can talk about the beer and the fist-pumper singalongs and Nate Farley falling off the stage (yes, that happens here), but you haven’t covered the whole experience until you also talk about how beautiful, and delicate even, it can be. We come for the rock, we stay for the melodies, and then complex and transcendent moments like this one make this stuff a fixture in our lives.
In conclusion, we’re all getting old. Or we’re already old. And there’s no one way to do it gracefully.
Demons are real. They are standing still. So don’t do that. Keep moving.
Break up the band. Bring them back. Break up again. Fall off the stage. Fuck up Pete Yorn’s name and then invite him up to butcher your song. Make fun of the Rolling Stones and then keep going on stage into your 60s yourself. Speed up, slow down, go all around in the end.
And don’t regret any of it. It all made sense at the time.