Tag: Robert Pollard

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #17: CRYING YOUR KNIFE AWAY

Guided by Voices
Crying Your Knife Away
1994, Lo-Fi Recordings

I’ve been writing about Guided by Voices in 1994 for four months. What the fuck is wrong with me?

Anyway, that year they put out five, six, or maybe even seven records depending how you’re counting the 7″s. In fact, there’s one record from this year that I, Mr. Fanboy Weirdo himself, don’t have: a split single on Anyway Records with Belreve. The GBV side is “Always Crush Me”, a song that turned up the next year on Alien Lanes, so I don’t feel much urgency to get it though I’d certainly buy it if I ran across it at a good price.

In any case, I think we here at The Constant Bleeder have this crazy year’s output covered well enough.

And now, a party…

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #16: I AM A SCIENTIST

Guided by Voices
I Am a Scientist EP
1994, Scat Records

“I Am a Scientist” is Robert Pollard’s mission statement. If you’re confused by his voluminous output, his five albums a year, and his thousands of songs, just put on “I Am a Scientist” because it explains it all in plain language and with a perfect pop melody that soothes savage beasts. Gun to my head, it’s the definitive Guided by Voices song.

This EP offers a different, hi-fi take on in it. It’s a different version than one on Bee Thousand, but it’s still on the rough side. The band recorded it live in the studio with old school punk rocker Andy Shernoff working the knobs, and it naturally reflects the way the band played the song on stage. It’s louder and more driving, shined-up just enough for mainstream radio, but not obnoxious in the slightest. It still serves the melody. It does what it should do.

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #15: BEE THOUSAND

Guided by Voices
Bee Thousand
1994, Scat Records

My favorite story about discovering Bee Thousand came from a guy who claimed that he hated it the first few times he listened to it. The lo-fi didn’t bother him. The songwriting simply didn’t hit the mark for his ears. Fair enough. This music isn’t for everybody. He wrote off the album and moseyed on his way. However, over the next week, he kept getting these catchy hooks stuck in his head and he couldn’t remember where they were from. He was your regular music geek, always picking up new stuff and wasn’t sure exacty where he heard lines like…

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #14: GUIDED BY VOICES / THE GRIFTERS Split 7″

Guided by Voices/The Grifters
1994, The Now Sound

The last time we discussed Robert Pollard here at The Constant Bleeder (or Da’ Bleeder, as the kids at the mall like to call it), it was for a fake split single; now on the table this time is a real split single.

The Grifters were one of the few relatively fresh indie rock bands at the time–and by “relatively fresh”, I mean they’d been making records for five years or so–who were about the same age as Guided by Voices. 30s, pushing 40, somewhere in that neighborhood. I don’t know their exact ages, but The Grifters were older than the average pipsqueak and were in the middle of putting out their two best albums of noisy jaded wooze, One Sock Missing and Crappin’ You Negative.

So, here you’ve got two sides of late-bloomer rock from a pair of bands who were in high cotton at the time. Sign me up.

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #13: LUCIFER’S ACHING REVOLVER b/w CRUISE

NIghtwalker/Freedom Cruise
“Lucifer’s Aching Revolver” b/w “Cruise”
1994, Simple Solution Records

Newcomers to Robert Pollard’s work–or fans who lead a more eventful life than I do and haven’t religiously kept up with it all–are inevitably confused by the side projects. It’s understandable. As of this writing, Pollard has recorded and released music under almost two dozen different names and with a variety of collaborators.

As I  make my way through his body of work and write way too many words about each record, I intend to explain every side project and tell you why each one is a little different. I will use my nerdiness to illuminate. I will use my geekiness to elucidate. Summoning the power of my autism, I will demystify and hopefully clarify.

Because I know everything. I am an armchair expert in all things Pollard. There’s not much that you can get by me.

Except for what the deal is with THIS record.

None of the books or interviews, as far as I know, tell the story of this fake split-single for two bands (Nightwalker and Freedom Cruise) who both are clearly Guided by Voices in disguise.

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Getting CLOSER to Robert Pollard

Matthew Cutter
Closer You Are: The Story of Robert Pollard and Guided by Voices
2018, Da Capo Press

The rock star fantasy rests on the myth that none of it is hard work. Maybe a musician’s early starving-artist days provide some strife to talk about, but even that’s often told as a romantic story of young, untethered bohemians who can afford to scrape by on disposable dayjobs and stay up all night in pursuit of their art and/or fortune.

If you can make it to the next level, life becomes a permanent vacation. Go on tour to applause every night. Tell your life story to journalists. Be on magazine covers. The kids all think you’re cool. When you’re feeling exhausted, take a year off. Play golf with The Red Hot Chili Peppers. Take up a drug habit, even. Some of these big rock bands nowadays go three, four, five years or more between their next album of twelve measly songs. Hell, anybody could do that… some regular schmoe like me might think while we punch the time clock, straighten our tie for the office or put on our hardhat.

The refreshing thing about the story of Robert Pollard is that it’s the opposite of all of that. It steps square on the myth’s head.

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #12: CLOWN PRINCE OF THE MENTHOL TRAILER

Guided by Voices
Clown Prince of the Menthol Trailer
1994, Domino

The most fucked-up of the early ’90s 7″ EPs. I bet this one is STILL controversial, but I love it. I’m all about it. I’d get it tattooed on me, but the title is a little too long and I’ve never gotten a tattoo before and I’m a little jittery about the idea and I’d rather stay home and make tacos.

Nevertheless, this record’s rickety madness speaks to my soul.

Now, I don’t know where exactly this fits chronologically into Robert Pollard’s EP freak-out of 1993-94, but my sixth sense (which is wrong six out of seven times) places it toward the end because it sounds like a band who are tired of selling themselves.

They’re tired of proving that a lo-fi band can still rock and deliver songs that should be singles. They’re also, for the moment, tired of building weird fuzzed-out worlds. All they want to do now is rant directly into the tape recorder, everything laid bare and raw. You can hear fingers hit the guitar and bass strings. You can see the sticks hit the drums. You can hear Robert Pollard pop his “p”‘s on a cheap microphone.

On this EP, it’s way past midnight and everyone’s too drunk to give a fuck. And that’s a place where Guided by Voices thrive.

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #11: GET OUT OF MY STATIONS

Dora says, “Get out of my sleeping station”

Guided by Voices
Get Out of My Stations
1993, Siltbreeze

We’re still in the early 90s in this survey–and we will be for about fifty more entries because this was a busy time–so that means another EP. This was a period in which Guided by Voices were determined to claw their way up in the underground, seven inches at a time.

The difference here is that this record came out on Siltbreeze, the far-out Philadelphia label who also worked with the likes of The Dead C, V-3 and Harry Pussy. Serious, lo-fi, noise-rock stuff. Bands who don’t give a fuck. Bands who make you feel stupid for having a Monkees album in your collection. Bands who make music that you listen to alone at 3 AM while planning either a suicide or a homicide.

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #10: FAST JAPANESE SPIN CYCLE

Guided by Voices
Fast Japanese Spin Cycle
1994, Engine Records

Okay, I know that I said before that I’m undecided about my favorite Guided by Voices 1993-94 EP and I meant that, BUT…

If someone ever holds a gun to my head and demands an answer (by the way, I hope that nobody ever does that), I would stake my reputation in City Hall on this one.

You can’t go wrong with Fast Japanese Spin Cycle. If you like Guided by Voices, you’d have to be certifiably insane to not like this. You’d have to have mashed potatoes for brains to not like “My Impression Now”. You’d have to have bees in your ass to not like “Indian Fables”. This is another overachiever EP in which Robert Pollard sticks as many songs as he can onto a little 33 rpm 7″ (he managed eight this time). If this was the first Guided by Voices record you ever heard, it would tell you everything that you need to know.

There are two things that stand out here:

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #9: STATIC AIRPLANE JIVE

Guided by Voices
Static Airplane Jive
1993, City Slang

When it comes to the merry deluge of 7″ EPs by Guided by Voices in the early 90s, no one remembers exactly when they came out. So, when a serious archivist like myself (takes another swig of Maker’s Mark, belches) tries to sort this shit out, we have to wing it. We don’t have Paypal records. We don’t have website archives. We don’t have any of the nerd details.

All we have are some of the best records released under the Guided by Voices name, usually with a handwritten copyright year found somewhere in some corner of the sleeve art–and that’s more than enough, Charlie.

WHY are there so many EPs during this time? Because after Guided by Voices made waves in the underground and weren’t yet under contract with anyone, several small labels came to Robert Pollard with an interest in putting out something new and he said yes to every last one of them sons o’ bitches.

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