Robert Pollard - The Constant Bleeder

Guided by Voices
Devil Between My Toes
1987, Schwa Records
Reissue (via the Box set): 1995, Scat Records

Box set reissue copy, ladies and germs. No, I don’t have an original. This is good enough for me.

When no one’s paying attention to me, I sit at home in pajama pants, drink Trader Joe’s wine and watch Youtube videos for nine hours.

When no one was paying attention to Robert Pollard and Guided by Voices, they wrote songs and made terrific, underrated records just for themselves pretty much.

Clearly, I have a lot to learn from Guided by Voices.

The one thing I do have in common with Guided by Voices circa 1987 is that neither of us get out much. At the time of this album’s release, they weren’t playing live. They weren’t seeking out a label or management. They weren’t auditioning for anyone or anything. They were working guys in Dayton, Ohio making music in basements and garages because that was how they got through the day. Pressing it onto vinyl, on their own dime, made it “real” and inducted them into the rock brotherhood, whether anyone heard it or not. The songs are the message, the album is the bottle, the outside world is the ocean.

Splash.

Continue reading “Robert Pollard-Mania! #2: DEVIL BETWEEN MY TOES”

Let’s face it, Robert Pollard is a sick man.

He puts out more records in one year than a lot of bands release in ten years. He has one of the most insane legacies in rock and it continues to expand all of the time. At his age (born on October 31, 1957), he’s learned just about everything that there is to know about rock music, but he somehow missed the lesson that said that your body of work should be neat and clean and not confuse people.

Terrible iPhone photo shot by yours truly, taken from Guided by Voices playing in Austin, TX, September 2012.

Robert Pollard also never learned that lo-fi isn’t all right.

Nobody ever told him that a songwriter who can write a brilliant pop melody shouldn’t write far-out psychedelic stuff, too.

And he never listened to anyone who’s ever made the point that rock music is a business and not the place for a restless creative mind that comes up with more than twelve songs a year.

Yep, we’re talkin’ a real sick-o-rama.

Continue reading “Robert Pollard-Mania #1: Introduction and FOREVER SINCE BREAKFAST”