Robert Pollard-Mania!: Treble of Consequence

1. Introduction and FOREVER SINCE BREAKFAST
I am not a fanboy; I’m a fanman.

2. DEVIL BETWEEN MY TOES
Pure, beer-buzzed Midwest psychedelia. 

3. SANDBOX
For Guided by Voices in their early DIY days, each record is a fresh start. 

4. SELF-INFLICTED AERIAL NOSTALGIA
There’s a certain yearning, a kind of air around the notes and chords and verses 

5. SAME PLACE THE FLY GOT SMASHED
Yes, it’s a concept album, but one that’s so down to earth that it’s on the floor. And curled up around a bottle.

6. PROPELLER
It’s the sound of a band who have found their place in the universe. 

7. THE GRAND HOUR
 Confident noise-makers.

8. VAMPIRE ON TITUS
Cheap tape and a shoestring. 

9. STATIC AIRPLANE JIVE
One of the great things about these 90s EPs is that the band always sound so happy to be there. 

10. FAST JAPANESE SPIN CYCLE
If this was the first Guided by Voices record you ever heard, it would tell you everything that you need to know.

11. GET OUT OF MY STATIONS
The real world keeps blowing in through the crack under the door, but the band make it work. It’s just more noise on top of their noise.

12. CLOWN PRINCE OF THE MENTHOL TRAILER
You can see the basement walls. You can see the mazes of empty beer bottles. You can see the moonlight out the window.

13. LUCIFER’S ACHING REVOLVER b/w CRUISE
 The “Evil Guided by Voices”, darker and noisier.

14. GUIDED BY VOICES / THE GRIFTERS Split 7″
Two sides of late-bloomer rock from a pair of bands who were in high cotton at the time.

15. BEE THOUSAND
Decades later, it’s still a twenty-story tower of melody.

16. I AM A SCIENTIST
Robert Pollard’s mission statement.

17. CRYING YOUR KNIFE AWAY
The slips, trips, bravura, and camaraderie of the inebriated state.

18. KING SHIT AND THE GOLDEN BOYS
Hidden rooms and long hallways, lost songs found, forgotten things discovered.

19. BOX
Things that have gone away…

20. ALIEN LANES
Rock ‘n’ roll is about mystery. This album taught me that.

21. MOTOR AWAY
One “Motor Away” keeps the demons away.

22. GUIDED BY VOICES / NEW RADIANT STORM KING Split 7″
In the vast Sargasso Sea that is Robert Pollard’s body of work, there are remarkably few cover songs.

23. TIGERBOMB
No lo-fi snobbery in this house.

24. FOR ALL GOOD KIDS
This is machine gun rock. 

25. BENEFIT FOR THE WINOS
Good, old-fashioned SPITE.

26. THE OFFICIAL IRONMEN RALLY SONG
It’s constantly ascending, but never too high. You can still reach up and touch it.

27. UNDER THE BUSHES UNDER THE STARS
Shedding their lo-fi underdog skin 

28. CUT-OUT WITCH
 A band favorite, a fan favorite, one that gets the kids jumping.

29. NOT IN MY AIRFORCE
A big, splashy patchwork executed with a collage artist’s sense of freedom and contrast.

30. SUNFISH HOLY BREAKFAST
 Rock music’s most messy perfectionist.

31. PLANTATIONS OF PALE PINK
It’s a bad trip in the best way.

32. TONICS & TWISTED CHASERS
The sweetly weird work of savages who never sleep. 

33. JELLYFISH REFLECTOR
These are guys who’ve been around the block. They probably saw The Who and Cheap Trick in the 70s. They also saw punk bands in the 80s. Along the way, they learned how to put on a rock show.

34. FIREHOUSE MOUNTAIN
Nightwalker didn’t sell out. Nightwalker kept their jobs at the factory.

35. WISH IN ONE HAND
They’ll say it’s just a case of lust. They’ll tell you that your adolescent emotions don’t count.

36. GUIDED BY VOICES / COBRA VERDE Split 7″
Somebody wants to blow up somethin’.

37. BULLDOG SKIN
To have bulldog skin is to not only wear your years, but be comfortable with it.

38. MAG EARWHIG!
If you’ve got a band who can play the shit out of anything, it’s time to go big and make that art-rock record that you’ve been dreaming about.

39. I AM A TREE
A beautiful kaleidoscope of guitar riff and melody with a pornographic center.

40. WAVED OUT
Great songs, haunting songs, shadowy moods, alien vibes and psychedelic nutcase stuff that the deep-diggers want to hear.

41. KID MARINE
Pollard’s lyrics turn everyday Midwestern life into a strange dream.

42. ASK THEM
It’s all punch and roar. You hear electrical hums and analog hiss and picks hit strings. 

43. IN SHOP WE BUILD ELECTRIC CHAIRS: PROFESSIONAL MUSIC BY NIGHTWALKER 1984-93
Rock music died ragged and lo-fi in Bloomington, Indiana.

44. SURGICAL FOCUS
It fulfills the promise of big-studio GBV.

45. DO THE COLLAPSE
The first thing you need to know is that it ain’t a sell-out. 

46. TEENAGE FBI
It’s one fizzy sip o’ soda pop.

47. SPEAK KINDLY OF YOUR VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT
A news report and a scrapbook about the state of Guided by Voices at the time.

48. PLUGS FOR THE PROGRAM
 Songs like “Sucker of Pistol City” earned Pollard the kind of crazy fans who want to hear it all and who want to collect it all.

49. HOLD ON HOPE EP
The sleeper classic of the TVT years.

50. DAYTON, OHIO-19 SOMETHING AND 5
Home can be a happy place. It can also be a miserable place.

51. THE WHO WENT HOME AND CRIED
The bittersweet final show for bassist Greg Demos.

52. SUITCASE: FAILED EXPERIMENTS AND TRASHED AIRCRAFT
The crazier the contrasts, the better. Suitcase is powered by friction. 

53. BRIEFCASE: DRINKS AND DELIVERIES
GBV should be weird as hell always.

54. HAPPY MOTHERFUCKERS AND SAD CLOWNS
The final show of the tour. What more is there to say?

55. BIG TROUBLE
No one was ever supposed to hear it. We are intruders, you and I.

56. SPEEDTRAPS FOR THE BEE KINGDOM
He never uses the word “divorce”. Instead, he paints abstract pictures of decay and frustration. 

57. CHASING HEATHER CRAZY
It chews bubblegum and skips rope better than a 43-year-old songwriting genius trying to appease a silly record label should.

58. ISOLATION DRILLS
Pollard did what he did. What happened happened. And fuck me if I can judge. 

59. TOTAL EXPOSURE
The simple beauty of day turning into night, but as viewed through an eccentric lens.

60. STIFLED MAN CASINO
It’s surging and youthful–and then you tune in to the lyrics and you hear the truth.

61. GLAD GIRLS
It’s half-song, half-thunderbolt.

62. CHOREOGRAPHED MAN OF WAR
In rock ‘n’ roll, noise always matters.

63. TOWER IN THE FOUNTAIN OF SPARKS
Pollard’s darkest album of 2001

64. RINGWORM INTERIORS
Meet the demon.

65. SOME DRINKING IMPLIED
This is a midnight movie. You’ve got to get real relaxed.

66. LIVE AT THE ATHENS TIME CHANGE RIOTS
At least half of it are gems from the fringes, songs that were soon to be phased out of the setlist.

67. THE TROPIC OF NIPPLES EP
Pollard’s peers are the poets and crazies

68. LIFE STARTS HERE
Go to sleep, wake up, make art. Life starts here.

69. CALLING ZERO
The sun is a jillion years old, but every sunbeam is young. It hits you mercilessly.

70. SOME OF THE MAGIC SYRUP WAS PRESERVED
Be like Acid Ranch

71. BACK TO THE LAKE
The band seemed to hardly take a breath between labels

72. CHEYENNE
A song that only Robert Pollard would write

73. EVERYWHERE WITH HELICOPTER
As commercial a single as Guided by Voices ever put out

74. UNIVERSAL TRUTHS AND CYCLES (the single)
The A-side is upstaged here, but it’s a good one

75. UNIVERSAL TRUTHS AND CYCLES (the album)
Breathe in that fresh air. Smell those flowers.

76. THE PIPE DREAMS OF INSTANT PRINCE WHIPPET
Punchy pop that didn’t fit on the LP’s sprawling trip

77. THE HAROLD PIG MEMORIAL
After you’ve taken us to Hell maybe the most interesting place to go next is back to Earth.

78. MOTEL OF FOOLS
He goes for mystique on a budget. He dangles the stars and the moon from strings.

79. MIST KING URTH
Pyrotechnics and the pastoral.

80. BEARD OF LIGHTNING
Only the boldest and weirdest hearts can hang with this heat

81. MY KIND OF SOLDIER
Sunlight in every note and chord

82. EARTHQUAKE GLUE
The world is falling apart and rock music has fuck-all to say about it and no one wants that anyway. So what now?

83. THE BEST OF JILL HIVES
I like that even he doesn’t know what it means.

84. PINBALL MARS
An alien shows up. So does God.

85. THE BEST OF GUIDED BY VOICES: HUMAN AMUSEMENTS AT HOURLY RATES
Great rock bands are ones that open up new worlds

86. HARDCORE UFOS: REVELATIONS, EPIPHANIES AND FAST FOOD IN THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE
There are parts of the Guided by Voices story that future generations who get into them may not understand at all.

87. EAT
A full-color, psychedelic happening.

88. EDISON’S DEMOS
Pollard’s guitar sound is all melody, but he wanders into it naturally

89. FICTION MAN
It’s a handmade, Midwestern Revolver

90. HALF SMILES OF THE DECOMPOSED
A sunset to admire.

91. BEE THOUSAND: THE DIRECTOR’S CUT
Trap doors and strange trails

92. RELAXATION OF THE ASSHOLE
Fuck you, Elvis!

93. ZOOM
It was like a year full of B-sides and I mean that as a compliment

94. LIGHTNINGHEAD TO COFFEE POT
It sounds like guys who know each other well. It sounds like guys who came up in the 1970s and remember everything.

95. FIVE
Dirt, shadows, hisses, screeches, and bug bites

96. EAT II
Today, it feels like a resistance outpost against the cyber-dystopia.

97. MUSIC FOR “BUBBLE”
“I have some songs that are in a movie. Here they are. I made my own art for it. Enjoy.”

98. SUITCASE 2: AMERICAN SUPERDREAM WOW
You should like fragments and mystery, back roads and deep lore

99. BRIEFCASE 2: THE RETURN OF MILKO WAIF
We want madness on our shelves

100. THE ELECTRIFYING CONCLUSION
Guided by Voices isn’t supposed to go away. Its fate is to survive anything and everything.

101. AS FOREVER: A MANIFESTO OF FRACTURED IMAGINATION AND RECKLESS LIVING
Presentation and mystique count for a lot.

102. I’M A STRONG LION
Coming soon