Tag: Robert Pollard

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #26: THE OFFICIAL IRONMEN RALLY SONG

Guided by Voices
“The Official Ironmen Rally Song”
1996, Matador Records

I don’t have ONE favorite Guided by Voices song. I’m also not one to make lists of favorites. If you ask nicely, I could cough up a list for you, but when left to my own devices, I’m not a big list-maker. I think that the guy from High Fidelity is deranged.

Your humble servant here just wants to throw a bunch of records on the floor, open a bottle of wine and chill out. I don’t carve pronouncements onto stone tablets. I just drink too much and talk too much and if I like to spout off about history or analysis from time to time, I try to never stray far from the state of simply blissing out by the stereo, records tossed about like unswept confetti after a party.

What I’m trying to say is that we here at The Constant Bleeder are real INFORMAL. We’re loose and disheveled. We forget to put on pants before we answer the door. We don’t always get the wine and cheese pairing right. We’re stranded in the combat zone. We walk through Bedford-Stuy alone. We ride our motorcycle in the rain. We quote Billy Joel hits at odd times. We have a bad habit of referring to ourselves in the “editorial we” even though there’s zero reason for us to do that on our personal website in which we are the only writer.

I’m not organized enough to have a favorite GBV song, I guess. And my list of top ten GBV songs has about 127 songs on it that change daily depending on my mood and the direction of the wind and whether or not Venus is in Gemini.

However, if the Devil comes up to me one day and demands that I name one favorite GBV song or else I’ll be forced to watch every Logan Paul video on Youtube in an endless loop for all eternity (or some other cruel fate like that), I’d go with “The Official Ironmen Rally Song”.

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #25: BENEFIT FOR THE WINOS

Guided by Voices
Benefit for the WInos
1996, no label

With most bands, by the time you get to their twenty-fifth record, you might be done. Or at least almost done, even if you’re a maniac like me who counts EVERYTHING (singles, EPs, live records). Spring would turn into winter. They’d be well into their later years. Their State Fair years. Their Christmas album years. Their tell-all autobiography years. Their Celebrity Big Brother years. Their “arrested for drunk driving/ shoplifting/ domestic violence” years. Their “suing their old band mates” years. Their “getting into political arguments everyday on Twitter instead of working on new projects” years.

But this is Robert Pollard and Guided by Voices that we’re talking about and by THEIR twenty-fifth record, they were smack in the middle of their most celebrated period. I feel like I’m still only just beginning to talk about this man and this band and these records. We’re still in elementary school here. We’re still playing on the jungle gym. We’re still chewing on pencil erasers. We’re still awkward and farting in class while the other kids pick on us. We haven’t kissed a girl (or a boy, however you swing), yet. There’s still so much ahead and we don’t know shit.

So, it was June 2, 1995 and Guided by Voices were riding high. Every rock critic knew about them. Every insufferable indie rock dork had an opinion about them. Reviews might have been mixed here and there (as they always are for anything that’s interesting), but, overall, Guided by Voices were critical darlings.

EXCEPT in the band’s home town of Dayton, Ohio.

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #24: FOR ALL GOOD KIDS

Guided by Voices
For All Good Kids
1995, no label

Guided by Voices have a bunch of live albums, folks. And we’re going to talk about ALL OF THEM.

Because I’m very serious about my Robert Pollard survey. Also, I don’t have anything better to do.

Here’s one of the first things that you need to know: Despite what a lot of sources say, including virtually every music database website, NONE of them are bootlegs in the normal sense. None of them were put out by some scofflaw with a tape recorder up his ass. These are all official records that just LOOK like bootlegs–and sometimes sound like bootlegs. There’s usually no record company mentioned anywhere. The covers are crudely assembled. Photocopied sheets glued to plain white sleeves are common. I’m talkin’ very stark, simple presentations, often with no track list even. Vinyl only, sneaked into mid-90s era record stores under cover of night and shadow. If you stumbled upon one of these in the bins back then, you might have thought “What the fuck is this?”

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #23: TIGERBOMB

Guided by Voices
Tigerbomb
1995, Matador Records

So, we’ve talked about how Guided by Voices went into a studio and recorded shined-up versions of a few Alien Lanes songs, presumably as offerings to the gods of radio, MTV, and licensing.

But then they (or maybe it was Matador’s decision) did something that I still think is weird and released those recordings only on vinyl, a format that was next to dead in 1995. Some cooler indie stores in cities or near universities still stocked it, sure. You could also get an envelope and buy a fuckin’ stamp and send a check or money order to Matador Records in New York City and get this in your mailbox six weeks later, okay (no Paypal yet, kids). The big chain stores though, where Joe Schmoe bought his music, had been done with it for about five years.

So, color me confused on what they were thinking here. Not that I take great issue with it. GBV’s vinyl-only releases motivated a shy young man named Jason to buy his first turntable in 1996. It was a year for me when every dollar was vital and a plastic $100 Sony from Sears was a major purchase at the time, but I did it. I was done with being locked out of the 7″s that I was reading about in magazines like Puncture and CMJ. When I learned that Guided by Voices had new vinyl-only releases, it became essential that I become equipped to play them.

So, I took the plunge. I bought a turntable and very quickly became a real freak for the needle.

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #22: GUIDED BY VOICES / NEW RADIANT STORM KING Split 7″

Guided by Voices/New Radiant Storm King
“The Opposing Engineer (Sleeps Alone)” b/w “I Am a Scientist”
1995, Chunk Records

In the vast Sargasso Sea that is Robert Pollard’s body of work, there are remarkably few cover songs. My guess is that there are less than ten, but I don’t have an exact count. I could spend a few minutes researching the matter, but I’m not going to do that because these reviews are already geeky ENOUGH.

This 7″ offers one of those rare specimens. It’s one of those cute split-singles that indie rock bands sometimes do where they cover each other’s songs. You know the drill.

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #21: MOTOR AWAY

Guided by Voices
“Motor Away” b/w “Color of My Blade”
1995, Matador Records

“Motor Away” is the song for all of the people who doubted Robert Pollard’s rock ‘n’ roll pursuits over the past ten years. All of the family members and co-workers who said that he was wasting his time. All of the people who thought that he should give up. All of the townies who felt that he was just dreamin’.

This song is for them and its message is simple.

Its message is “Kiss my ass, I was right, I did it.”

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #19: BOX

Guided by Voices
Box
1995, Scat Records

To me, music is about more than just the sounds that come out of the speakers. There’s the sleeve art and presentation, sure, but for a weirdo like me it goes beyond even that. Permanently linked to the music that I love are things such as HOW I first heard about that music and WHERE I bought it.

I still remember those rare amazing thrift store scores from back when I was into that sort of thing. I have fond memories of record stores that closed fifteen years ago. I’ll never forget listening to the local indie/underground radio show on Sunday night in Dallas (The Adventure Club on the old KDGE) in the 90s and writing down the songs I liked so I could buy the album the next time I had $12 to spare.

All of that is a part of “the music” for me. I still think that flipping through record bins and making decisions based on intriguing covers and titles is the #1 best way to discover music. I’m not saying that you’ll strike gold every time, but it’s more fun and more crazy and it puts more original thoughts in your head than streaming Pitchfork’s latest list of picks that are carefully selected to make them look still relevant.

Music for me is partly about the hunt. It’s about running into the inexplicable and unexpected all on your own and taking a risk. That’s how I’ve always done it, at least.

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #18: KING SHIT AND THE GOLDEN BOYS

Guided by Voices
King Shit and the Golden Boys
1995, Scat Records

In 1995, the fourth weirdest thing about Guided by Voices was that they put out a great album last year that got attention from high places even though it sounded to most people like it was made on a Fisher-Price cassette recorder.

The third weirdest thing was that they were in their late 30s in an indie rock scene full of 25-year-olds.

The second weirdest thing was that Guided by Voices had already made a pile of records going back to 1986 and most of which nobody–not even the hippest, most annoying, know-it-all record collector jerk-off you knew–had ever heard about. That’s not even mentioning the blizzard of 7″ EPs in 1994, of which not many people in 1995 had a complete collection.

And the weirdest thing of all was that on top of the nearly fifty songs that the band put out the previous year (and their forthcoming new album in the spring), the band still had more great unreleased stuff, enough to fill a whole other LP.

They called that LP King Shit and the Golden Boys. 

Sounds like a masterpiece to me.

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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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