Tag: Robert Pollard

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #102: I’M A STRONG LION

Robert Pollard
I’m a Strong Lion
2005, Must Destroy!!

“The label in the UK wanted to put out a single for From a Compound Eye and THAT was the song they picked. They wanted to put out a single that was one minute and five seconds long, And that’s why they were a GOOD LABEL! I agree with that!”

–Robert Pollard in Dallas, Texas, June 2018, as remembered by me, after Guided by Voices played “I’m a Strong Lion”

“I’m a Strong Lion”, the shortest track on an epic double album, is definitive Pollard.

The melody? Bubblegum-worthy. The tempo? In a rush! The lyrics? Straightforward for him, as well as personal and cutting. It’s like an Archies song except from an artist with something to get off his chest.

Here, he addresses his reputation, among some critics, as a tyrant who can’t keep a band together. His words offer no apologies. “Sure as I’m dyin’ here/ The problem is solved/ And it hurts to know/ You won’t be involved/ But I can beat you to the strong side/ Right away/ I’ll meet you today”. 

Pollard refuses to keep a band going that isn’t working out (or that he feels has run its course). Life is too short for that. He’s too old for that. Interpersonal drama within a band rarely makes the music better anyway. If you don’t like that, he doesn’t care. His lyrics might be directed toward an ex-bandmate or even to a fan who can’t hang with the latest change. Either interpretation fits.

The brief run-time is part of the statement. A little over one minute. That’s all the time that he’s going to spend talking about this. Pollard moves on and so does this song.

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #101: AS FOREVER: A MANIFESTO OF FRACTURED IMAGINATION AND RECKLESS LIVING

Image swiped from the indispensable gbvdb.com

Acid Ranch
As Forever: A Manifesto of Fractured Imagination and Reckless Living
2005, no label

The secret ingredient of this Robert Pollard-Mania! series is that it’s only half about Robert Pollard.

The other half is that it’s about being a fan of Robert Pollard, which means that it’s also about me and maybe you. Us nutcases.

I’m not a professional critic and these pieces aren’t “reviews”. I don’t have that kind of objectivity when it comes to Pollard. I would even say that my opinions about him are boring (because I like everything). What I offer instead are reflections, interpretations, and information in order to build a story that I wish more people told, which is the story of a body of work, but from the point of view of a regular person walking up to record store counters again and again.

I’d love to read about Bob Dylan or Miles Davis (or any artist with a convoluted history) from a passionate amateur who’s followed the music for decades and has maybe gone back and forth on some albums and can speak from first-hand knowledge about the time when they came out and how the music fit into it (or didn’t fit into it). Done well, from a human being who dives into their own memory and heart more than they look up facts on Wikipedia, that could be fascinating.

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #100: THE ELECTRIFYING CONCLUSION

Guided by Voices
The Electrifying Conclusion
2005, Plexifilm

No one cares today that December 31, 2004 at The Metro in Chicago was not the end of Guided by Voices.

When the 90s lineup reunited for a tour in 2010, it was good news. Nobody called foul in any way that mattered. People loved it. I loved it.

Guided by Voices has had several endings after all and each one has its own story.

The story of this one is that Robert Pollard wanted to retire the band on a high note, go out while everyone still got along and middle-aged bones and vocal chords could still deliver the three-hour beer blast that crowds expected when GUIDED BY VOICES was on the marquee. A big part of it was also that Pollard had an unreleased new solo double album that felt to him like the next frontier. Closing out GBV at the time was a personal decision and an artistic decision and the big fans understood.

The Electrifying Conclusion tour was light compared to the band’s last five years of punishing road work. It began in August and ended in December with only a few dozen stops in between, all in the US, with multi-night stands in New York City, Portland, and Chicago.

Bottom line: This was a tour from a leader who was done with this, but needed to at least say goodbye to the crazy crowds, to the lovefest that erupted whenever this band got together and plugged in. Past GBV lineups went down in drama and this was a rare chance to have a happy break-up, one that closes with a blowout celebration with guests galore (everyone from Tobin Sprout to Jim Greer to Jon Wurster turning up for a song or two).

For a band who always made every show a party, this was the only way to go out.

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #99: BRIEFCASE 2: THE RETURN OF MILKO WAIF

Guided by Voices
Briefcase 2: The Return of Milko Waif
2005, The Fading Captain Series

It’s nearly always a bad idea to emulate the perceived lifestyles of your rock ‘n’ roll heroes. You might could fill a cemetery with those who died too young trying to be Keith Richards.

But if you’re looking to cut and paste an artist’s personality onto some void within yourself, I guess that Robert Pollard isn’t so bad of a role model.

Let’s see, you’ll have to…

1. Drink light beer.

2. Wear regular dad clothes. A Who T-shirt and some khakis are as wild as it gets.

3. Be able to do a high kick in your 50s and 60s (this might be the most dangerous thing on the list).

4. Write a few thousand songs.

5. Collect vinyl records.

That last one influenced me for years. I bought my first turntable (late 1996) partly because of Robert Pollard. GBV had many vinyl-only releases that I needed. I also loved interviews where Pollard talked rock. Pollard’s knowledge and his enthusiasm for music, some of it unfashionable (namely prog-rock, deeply unhip in the 90s), made my record stacks a little bit larger. And it had to be vinyl. It was cooler. It was what Bob collected. It was also much cheaper than CDs back in the day, which helped a lot.

Meanwhile, Pollard’s own crazy body of work was, and is, a product of how collectors think. We’re into tunnels and secret passages. We don’t want to merely listen to our favorite bands. No, we want to put together puzzles and figure them out. We want to defend the difficult. We want to follow the secret histories of our favorite artists as told through B-sides and bootlegs.

We want madness on our shelves.

That’s where the Briefcase LPs come in. Does an abridged Suitcase on a single vinyl record serve any practical purpose in the world? Other than the obvious (the money made when the limited pressing sells quickly), probably not.

But who’s into rock because it’s practical? Briefcase 2 does exactly what it needs to do.

It brings madness.
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Robert Pollard-Mania! #98: SUITCASE 2: AMERICAN SUPERDREAM WOW

Guided by Voices
Suitcase 2: American Superdream Wow
2005, The Fading Captain Series

Bad reviews of things I enjoy don’t bother me and I rarely argue with them because the story of a piece of art is never over. It goes on forever. It can outlive all of us. What people think about music the week it comes out is such a small part of what it might become. This is one of my favorite things that I’ve observed as I spiral into old age.

Tastes and trends change. Freaks for culture seek out the obscure and offbeat and then spread the word. People age and get nostalgic for the oddest things. A record that you bought from a cut-out bin becomes a rare classic years later. Next thing you know, something that was neglected or disliked or considered frivolous in its time becomes important in a generation or two. I’ve seen it before, I’m gonna see it again. It’s the normal flow of things.

You can see this play out with Robert Pollard today. Parts of his work once seen as off-putting have arrived at a new respect over time.

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #97: MUSIC FOR “BUBBLE”

Robert Pollard
Music for “Bubble”
2005, The Fading Captain Series

My idea of a great movie double-feature is two films that have little in common on the surface, but that talk to each other in an interesting way when seen together. The more far apart the movies are, the better. Different genres, different eras, different countries.

For an obvious example, when I lived in a college dorm circa 1997 or ’98, some of us got together and watched Taxi Driver and Manhattan back to back (and in that order) one night. They’re two very different movies with opposite visions of the same city set at around the same time. The main characters of each live on the same island, but not in the same world, and would hardly be able to function in the other’s world. Both films have a troubled male lead who has a very different relationship with a much younger girl. You can go deeper.

Robert Pollard’s two solo EPs of 2005 are a little like that. It’s all Robert Pollard music that reflects his psych-pop influences so they’re not night and day. They’re not Martin Scorsese and Woody Allen. But they are companions in my mind that twist and tease the same form, which (speaking of movies) is soundtrack records.

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #96: EAT II

Robert Pollard
EAT II
2005, Rockathon Records

In 2023, anytime someone tells me that Artificial Intelligence will take over the arts and replace human creations with digital patchworks, I stop listening to that person.

There are a few drops of truth in it, probably. I’ll give them that.

A popular song birthed entirely from an algorithm isn’t far-fetched these days. The awkward clickbait articles that I get suckered into reading online never seem to come from human beings. Life is in a weird place now, for sure. This is not the same world that my Generation X ass grew up in.

But if someone sincerely believes that HAL 9000 will be the new Mozart, I think that they just hate people. That’s the only explanation I have for why it makes sense to anyone that human connections through music and writing will simply fade from fashion. We will no longer care about what others are feeling, thinking, and seeing. We won’t be hooked when someone who shares our experiences makes something great out of it.

Instead we’ll be satisfied with artistic blow-up dolls.

I don’t buy it. I don’t buy it at least for oddballs like you and me. Us deep-diggers. Us crazies who get into EAT.

That’s what I think about in 2023 as I go over this second issue of Robert Pollard’s long-running art magazine. Its X-Acto knife cuts and its occasional visible Scotch tape, and even its poems, have human fingerprints all over them. Today, it feels like a resistance outpost against the cyber-dystopia.

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #95: FIVE

Circus Devils
Five
2005, The Fading Captain Series

I listen to the fourth Circus Devils album, Five, only at night and never during the day.

Listening to Five with the sun in your face feels as wrong as watching Eraserhead at noon in your living room with the blinds open and the sound of kids playing outside.

Some things need darkness and nothing else going on around it. It’s about your attention and how it’s focused. Some things will never come alive for you if it’s not allowed to pummel your senses.

Speaking of Eraserhead, I saw it in a theater last May. I’d seen David Lynch’s 1978 landmark many times before, but this was my first big screen viewing. 35mm print. Beautiful analog image and sound. Respectful audience. Perfect mood. (Love ya, Texas Theatre.) What struck me most in that setting was how LOUD the movie is. The sound of Eraserhead–hums, hisses, squeaks, wind, industrial noises–hangs heavy in the room and envelops you. At moments, I found myself thinking more about the sounds I heard than what I saw on the screen.

There are many extraordinary things about Eraserhead and one is how much it builds its world on sound. Lynch is intense about that and it’s something that’s easy to lose outside of a darkened theater.

What I’m getting at is that when you listen to Five, I recommend shutting off the lights, Pick your favorite immersion method. Maybe it’s kicking back with headphones and your eyes closed or driving at night or going for a walk in the moonlight with a set of earbuds in your skull (all great ways to listen to music). Do whatever works for you to get into the cinema of this record. It’s my favorite Pollard release of 2005 and it deserves that.

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #94: LIGHTNINGHEAD TO COFFEE POT

The Moping Swans
Lightninghead to Coffee Pot
2005, The Fading Captain Series

Every now and then, Robert Pollard gets together with some guys he knows and they form a band who last long enough to record an EP, usually in one day.

That was Lexo and the Leapers in 1999. That was The Howling Wolf Orchestra in 2000. That will be a project called The Sunflower Logic coming up in 2013.

In 2005, that was The Moping Swans and they made my favorite record in this little subgenre of Pollard music. All of them are different. Lightninghead to Coffee Pot is the post-punk blast of the batch, but with a classic rock kick.

It sounds like something that you’d find in a cool record store in 1979. I wish that I could visit a cool record store in 1979. but there are probably better things to do with a time machine. So I guess I’ll just listen to this.

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The 100 Best Robert Pollard Songs, Ranked

As of this writing, Robert Pollard has somewhere in the neighborhood of 120 albums out, plus another tall stack of EPs, singles, and box sets. The first Guided by Voices record came out in 1986 and he’s refused to shut up ever since. This scares off some people while others have the time of their lives geeking out over it all.

I’m one of the geeks. I love it. I mean, aren’t most great rock icons crazy? Or at least appear to be? Little Richard was crazy. David Bowie was crazy. Glitter and punk and rockabilly were whole genres of bands aggressively looking crazy. Looking crazy, like you don’t follow the normal rules, is what makes a band cool. Looking crazy is a test for the listener. Not everyone gets it, but those who do will cling to it.

Ex-college jock, ex-schoolteacher, current rock ‘n’ roll cult hero Robert Pollard (born on October 31, 1957) doesn’t seem too crazy if you look at him, but take the long, strange journey into his records and that’s when you see it.

Yeah, he’s crazy. He’s as crazy as any of ’em.

The sensible way to make a list of 100 songs from this Sargasso Sea of music would be to apply a filter to it. Stick to his flagship project Guided by Voices maybe. That would be smart. Or make separate lists for different eras of Pollard’s work. That would be smart, too.

I’m not smart, though. I had to do things the hard way.

I had to be the guy who tries to jump his Kawasaki motorcycle over a few too many cars and then needs to be rushed to the hospital.

This list has one rule: Robert Pollard must have a songwriting credit. That’s it. Songs from Guided by Voices, his solo albums, Boston Spaceships, Circus Devils, and assorted other projects are all welcome. There’s even one song here that Pollard wrote yet doesn’t sing or perform on the record.

This also means that the work of other songwriters aren’t here. If I made a dedicated Guided by Voices list, some choice Tobin Sprout moments would sit in the ranks for sure (“Dodging Invisible Rays”, “To Remake the Young Flyer”, “Waves”), as would Doug Gillard’s “I Am a Tree”.

I made this decision because the Guided by Voices of 1986 and of 2023 have only one thing in common: Robert Pollard. The story of Guided by Voices is fractured because there is no definitive lineup. Pollard’s songs are the one thing that connect the various eras, so that’s where I direct my surgical focus and his songs are found in many different places.

The BIG problem with a list like this though is that there are many more than 100 great Pollard songs. In ten minutes I will change my mind about nearly everything here.

In the spirit of Pollard’s music though, there are times when it’s best to blurt out whatever you’ve got and then move on. Sometimes good things are about the moment and perfection isn’t so important. Moments can mean a lot and lists are one of those things that will never be perfect.

So, this is my list, as of this moment at 10:58 AM on May 24, 2023.

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