Guided By Voices History
Part II: 1994-1999
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MOTOR AWAY: GBV Takes the Fast Track
When Greg Demos graduated from law school, there was no question which of his careers came first. Greg's father worked as a corporate lawyer, and Greg had spent his summer breaks with Daniel O'Brien, a Dayton criminal defense attorney.
On good terms, Greg left the band in August 1994 and was promptly replaced with Spin senior writer and GBV fan Jim Greer. Kim Deal and Greer had been dating, and Bob knew the latter through the former. Although not a seasoned musician, Greer brought a certain critical perspective to the band that would enhance their interviews, even if he ragged on former members a bit.
“I thought Greg was great and thought he was stupid for leaving the band,” Greer said in an interview with Pussycat. “But that’s it. He made his choice and it was a hard choice for him.”
As 1995 dawned, Matador snatched up Guided By Voices as part of its official roster. Todd Robinson remembers Bob’s frequent trips to and from New York.
"Some of Bob’s friends in New York were saying, 'Oh, you gotta move up here,'" Todd Robinson said. "But Bob was like, 'I don’t want to move there. That isn’t where I’m from, it’s not what I’m about.' And I think somebody younger and certainly not as wise would really get sucked into that and lose touch with themselves. But Bob’s reaction was, 'No way. This is what’s important to me.' Because when you get out of Dayton, you realize how very special it is."
Bob invested money into his Northridge home, building a basketball court in his backyard and converting his garage into The Monument Club, a fully functional bar and game room where his friends could gather, drink, tell jokes and watch sports.
Scat, the label that launched Guided By Voices, said goodbye to the band with a five-CD, six-LP boxed set known simply as Box. It included everything GBV had released up to Vampire On Titus, although Bob opted to exclude the R.E.M.-derivative Forever Since Breakfast. Box also rewarded fans with King Shit and The Golden Boys, an album of 19 unreleased songs from 1988-1993, that cohered as well as any of GBV's albums.
Already finished with the forthcoming album, Alien Lanes (formerly Scalping the Guru), GBV began recording a video for the first single “Auditorium/Motor Away” in Dayton. It featured the band hanging around local haunts like Bob’s house on Titus Avenue, the Natural History museum and North Dixie Avenue. Nate Farley, a veteran local guitarist and friend of Bob's, drives a tow truck, occasionally spotting GBV in his rearview mirror.
"I first came across Nate when he was only 15 years old playing in a band call(ed) The Haunting Souls," Bob told Unpeeled magazine. Farley also played guitar in The Method, The Breeders, The Amps and Robthebank, and would later become GBV's rhythm guitarist. The video featured more cameos from Dayton musicians like Michelle Bodine (Brainiac, Shesus) and her brother Scott (O-Matic, The Igniters). According to Dayton Voice writer Paul Lane, the video's "object was to picture the familiar in an abstract and artsy way.” The video received scattered MTV airplay in anticipation of GBV's forthcoming full-length.
Alien Lanes, released March 28, 1995, was essentially received as Bee Thousand Part II, a sprawling, hissy album packed with miniature pop masterpieces.
Tobin Sprout names it as another one of his favorite GBV recording experiences. “There’s a lot of eight-track stuff,” he said, “but for the most part, that was the main time we were using the four-track not to be lo-fi, but to be more spontaneous and creative.”
The critics hailed Alien Lanes as GBV’s second masterpiece in as many years. Songs like “A Salty Salute,” “Game of Pricks” and “My Valuable Hunting Knife,” improved GBV’s cult status noticeably. “A Good Flying Bird” was one of Tobin’s most self-reflexive and catchy contributions thus far, among others he composed on the album.
A four-star review in Rolling Stone cemented GBV's growing reputation as critic's darlings. "If anything, Alien Lanes outshines Bee Thousand in its startling consistency; over the course of 28 songs, GBV explore nearly as many styles, in the process creating a magnum opus of pure pop for now people," wrote Matt Diehl. "Despite their indie-rock status, GBV are no Sonic Youth: GBV don't rebel against rock conventions, they revel in them, unafraid of intoxicating harmonies, smart melodies and chiming guitars."
On May 21, R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck flew the band to his Seattle home to perform at a private party. A week later, GBV were slated to play what should have been a triumphant homecoming show at Gilly's on South Jefferson Street. Columbus punks Gaunt, along with The Method (featuring Nate Farley), Candyass and Tammy and the Amps (Kim Deal's post-Breeders project) were slated to open. Usually decked out with circular tables, the normally low-key jazz club cleared the floor in anticipation of the rock to come. The openers performed tight 20-minute sets. Guided By Voices appeared, visibly drunk on whiskey and beer. They played an abnormally sloppy show. Fans began making their way on stage to sing off-key with the band. Bob viewed hometown shows as big parties, and didn't think much of it.
Near the end of the set, an amp blew and Bob fell to the ground to check on it. Gilly's turned the house lights on and fans started walking out. "Don't leave!" Bob implored. But people had already begun streaming through the double doors. The next day, music critic Dave Larsen published a scathing review in The Dayton Daily News, calling GBV's performance "sloppy and sad," and asserting, "the band's legendary insobriety took on an increasingly self-destructive pallor." He cast the end of the set as a pathetic, alcoholic breakdown and, from that point on, The Dayton Daily News remained intensely critical of GBV's hometown shows. So much so that some of Bob's relatives approached him with concern, wondering if he was drinking himself to death like a stereotypical, guns-blazing rock star. Bob theorized he had somehow pissed off Larsen, who'd previously traveled to New York with GBV to chronicle their rise from obscurity. The review was a way of getting back at him. Even before the performance, bassist Jim Greer had pegged Larsen as a "hack."
"It was a chance for all the Dayton bands to get together at Gilly's and celebrate," Kim Deal told Columbus' Moo magazine a few days later. "It was a party, and it shouldn't have been reviewed," added Amps drummer Jim MacPherson. GBV turned the event on its head by releasing a double-vinyl bootleg of the show called Benefit for the Winos almost a year later. The cover art was a blown-up reprint of Dave Larsen's defamatory article.
TV appearances, bootlegs, music videos, and another throng of EPs and singles followed. In July, Brian Mikesell, a Dayton web designer working for database company Lexis Nexis, started GBV.com. It quickly logged thousands of hits and allowed far-flung fans to network. Local champions of the band, such as Vic Blankenship (owner of the now-defunct record store Trader Vic’s and founder of Simple Solution Records), were thrilled and reassured with GBV’s success. And of course, success meant money, which meant security for Bob’s family and astonishment from his friends in Dayton. There was no disputing it: GBV had arrived.
"One of the most appealing things about Bob’s music is that it has the perfect combination of being instantly familiar but utterly original," Todd Robinson said. "I think that speaks to a lot of people."
An international tour rounded out the summer. In late October, Guided By Voices returned to the States to support Urge Overkill, with disastrous consequences. Already suffering from mild roadburn and rotating members, Guided By Voices was given the final insult by Urge Overkill’s security staff. After playing a set in Toronto, and egged on by adoring fans, Bob refused to leave the stage in favor of an encore. An angry security guard (whom Bob had been accidentally spilling beer on all night) didn’t see things Bob's way and proceeded to beat him into submission.
John Shough remembers Bob’s version of the story. “Bob said, ‘I didn’t know somebody could kick your ass and carry you down the hallway at the same time. He just kicked my ass all the way down the hallway!’” Shough laughed. “That’s just Bob. If he thinks he’s right, he’s not going to show any fear. He’s willing to get beat up over it.”
GBV dropped out and the tour was later cancelled. Urge Overkill failed to realize that most of the people had come to see Guided By Voices.
To round out the year, GBV released the Tigerbomb seven-inch on Matador. The handsome vinyl contained rerecorded (and noticeably smoother) versions of "Game of Pricks" and "My Valuable Hunting Knife." The band had done the same thing a few months earlier on the "Motor Away" single, backed with the four-track crusher "Color of My Blade" (or a New Radiant Storm King cover, if you were lucky enough to get the mispressing).
But Tigerbomb was notable for "Mice Feel Nice (In My Room)," a pseudo-soul rave on which Bob sang over a slowed-down guitar track from fellow Ohioan Doug Gillard. A member of seminal Cleveland acts The Children's Crusade and Death of Samantha, Gillard's band Cobra Verde was a labelmate of GBV's on Scat Records. Bob didn't know it at the time, but "Mice Feel Nice" was the first in a line of Gillard collaborations that would rival only Tobin Sprout in terms of contributions to GBV's canon.
THE NEW DRUNK DRIVERS: GBV Steers Towards Exhaustion
By the fall of 1995, Guided By Voices' writing and recording techniques had been covered ad nauseum in the press, and Bob began to fear that the band would be forever pigeonholed as a lo-fi indie rock outfit.
“It kind of amazes me that people get stuck on the production angle of the music,” Todd Robinson said. “To me, the genius of the songs is that you can play them on a ukulele and still the get the melody and how fantastic they are. The production is pretty much an afterthought of how they’re presented.”
But Bob didn’t want his choice of recording media to be labeled a gimmick. "I was happy with the fact that we were making music on a four-track," Bob said. "And I can thank Toby for that, because he knew what he was doing. We were able to make music that sounded good enough to put on records, and luckily for us the time was right, because there were a lot of other lo-fi bands around. But we did it because at first because we didn’t have money."
At sporadic moments in 1995, GBV traveled to Chicago and Memphis to record “big rock” songs with producers like Doug Easley, Steve Albini and Kim Deal. "I felt we had kind of exhausted everything we could do in the basement," Bob said. "What we could do with amplifiers and different mic techniques."
New songs like "Redmen and Their Wives," "Drag Days," and "Big Boring Wedding" joined older numbers like "Don't Stop Now" in the hi-fi treatment. Bob fleshed out his normally skeletal structures, repeating conventional choruses and lyrics for the first time in years. “It took a long time,” John Shough said of the sessions. “Bob’s used to working quickly, and Kim’s used to working slowly, so there was a bit of production fatigue.”
During GBV's subsequent European tour, Bob wrote a batch of songs he felt were superior to those he had recorded in Memphis and Chicago. He tested the new songs on his four-track at The Snakepit, but the results still didn't satisfy him. Finally, in December 1995 he called John Shough and arranged to record the new songs at Cro-Mag Studios in Dayton.
“There was a lot of traffic on the phone,” Shough said. “Bob scrapped a bunch of songs he was going to put on the new record and ended up putting on most of the new songs we did. And that was a big deal because the album had been mastered already. It really rubbed some people the wrong way.”
The album, tentatively titled World Series of Psychic Phenomena, landed far from the Big Studio opus Bob had been shooting for, but was still a sonic leap forward from the Tascam. John Shough recounts some of the inventive things they tried while they were snowed-in at Cro-Mag studios during December 1995.
“Bob wanted the vocals real super-bright. I mean, some of the EQs were ridiculous,” he said. “We had a hundred-year old piano and somebody would hold the sustain pedal down while someone else held an amp. It was a lot of work, but we put a mic on the back and used the speaker to blast it, so all the individual strings would ring. That’s how we got the effect for ‘Bright Paper Werewolves.’ The recording was very team-oriented.” Shough also played piano and guitar on the album, demonstrating his versatility and hinting at his future role as the band's de facto hometown producer.
Like all of GBV’s recording sessions, many of the Cro-Mag songs were never used. “Sixland,” one of Shough’s personal favorites, seemed to be about the messy politics of the time.
“That song was right after the European tour where there was a lot of drama,” he said. “Kim and The Breeders were really hot and Bob was just getting hot. If you listen to the words in ‘Sixland,’ you can kind of put things together. I think that’s one of the reasons he never released it, but this is just my speculation. I learned the song and played it for Bob on guitar. I asked him, ‘Do you remember that?’ because I was trying to get him to put it on one of their records. He was like, ‘I kind of do. Where’s the (master) tape?’ But we couldn’t find it anywhere. So nothing ever happened with it.”
Overall, Bob loved the results of the Cro-Mag sessions and retooled the album to feature the Dayton songs almost exclusively.
“Bob’s not afraid to scrap $20,000 worth of recordings for artistic integrity, and piss off his label,” Shough said. “And why does he do it? Because the integrity of the art wasn’t there, and he’s the artist in charge. He has to have it, or he’s shortchanging himself. I respect that and I think it shows in the music.”
Todd Robinson agrees. “To Bob’s credit, he doesn’t say, ‘I wrote that, I’m going to put it on the album.’ Instead he says, ‘No, it doesn’t fit the mood. I don’t care if it’s the best song you’ve heard, it just doesn’t fit the mood.’ That’s something I really find amazing.”
Under the Bushes, Under the Stars - the final title of the album - offered a wide array of songs. “Don’t Stop Now” and “Office of Hearts” were older tunes reworked for the big-studio treatment. “Man Called Aerodynamics” and “Cut-Out Witch” were pure rock ‘n roll, albeit with abstract lyrics and on-the-fly performances (the band literally recorded the songs minutes after learning them). Tobin’s strongest contributions yet, “Atom Eyes,” “It’s Like Soul Man” and “To Remake the Young Flyer” established him as the perfect foil for Bob, only exacerbating the Lennon/McCartney and Jagger/Richards comparisons.
As 1996 dawned, Greg Demos rejoined the band and Jim Greer departed amicably. Greer and Bob had been collaborating on a concept album called The Power of Suck that vaguely chronicled GBV's rise from obscurity. It was supposed to include most of the tracks recorded with Kim Deal and Steve Albini, but once Bob had decided those tracks were too stale, he canned the project.
Unfortunately, Bob’s strained friendship with Kim Deal would end a few months later, due in part to Kim’s paranoia, and comments both of them made in interviews with Columbus' Moo magazine. Kim, who wasn't exactly known for her easygoing personality, would even punch GBV Manager-for-Life Pete Jamison in the stomach after an Amps set March 2, at The Southgate House, in the northern Kentucky river city of Newport.
The early spring show included Radiolaria, Ditchweed, The Amps and Guided By Voices as the headliners. Kim believed GBV was trying to sabotage her set, which led to a protracted, childish fit. After performing, she stormed upstairs where the band was hanging out and relieving a private bar of its liquor. She threw lighters across the room, ranted at Bob, socked Pete in the gut and generally behaved like a spoiled rock star. It would be one of Bob's last encounters with Kim.
Following the Official Ironmen Rally Song EP and a handful of advance shows, Under the Bushes, Under the Stars appeared March 26, 1996, to hot and cold reviews. Although it contained some of GBV’s best material to date, many critics felt the album couldn’t make up its mind.
“The album's melodies are enticing, from simple acoustic guitar lines to fuzzy pop numbers, but have nothing to offer beyond a familiar rush; they eventually peter out like wet firecrackers,” wrote Lorraine Ali in The L.A. Times.
The seminal, now-defunct e-zine Addicted to Noise, which had always been kind to Guided By Voices, panned the effort. “For the record, there's only one song that grabs the listener from the word go, the Kim Deal-produced 'The Official Ironmen Rally Song,'” wrote Seth Mnookin.
Even a positive review in Rolling Stone couldn't make the impact it wanted to. At the last minute, the editors changed its rating from four stars to three, without the consent of author Michael Corcoran. "I'll never write for them again," Cocoran told the Austin American Statesman. "Unless they ask."
Musician magazine scolded Bob & Co. for the slapdash feel of the album. "They know they're good, but they'd rather be cool, indie-rock underachievers than clean up their act," asserted Ken Micallef.
In light of Bob’s recent decisions, this was the last thing he wanted to hear. Nevertheless, the band embarked on yet another international tour. This time the strain showed. “I think Under the Bushes changed things,” said Tobin Sprout. “A lot of it had to do with what was going on outside the band. Once we were in the public eye, we got a little bit hesitant about what we were doing. We were second-guessing and double-thinking instead of just running at it.”
As always, the band drenched their fans with EPs, singles and live albums, including Sunfish Holy Breakfast, which featured the first and only Jim Greer song ("Trendsetter Acrobat"), Plantations of Pale Pink, a minimalistic and noisy four-track affair, and an Australian split-release EP with GBV friends Superchunk featuring, among others, the Jim O’Rourke-produced nugget "He’s the Uncle" and acoustic standout "Key Losers." The split was intended to back up a GBV/Superchunk tour of Australia, but Bob's hatred of travel had kept the band at home.
"I didn't feel like flying for 24 hours again," Bob said, which was ironic since so many of his lyrics riffed on flight imagery. "I'm like Brian Wilson singing about surfing. You know, he does all those surfing songs - he doesn't know how to surf. He's afraid of the water. All the flight imagery is just because we come from the birthplace of aviation."
At times, Tobin Sprout had to leave GBV’s tour for family reasons, and internal conflicts between band members (some having to do with Kevin Fennell's spiraling heroin abuse) eroded their sense of camaraderie. Rumors of solo albums and breakups circulated. Bob recorded more tracks with John Shough at Cro-Mag, and Tobin poured himself into his family and painting career.
“Mitch, Toby and Kevin — talk about diverse personalities,” Todd Robinson said. “Not to mention Bob in the mix.”
The band came to a critical junction when, in September of 1996, Bob and Tobin simultaneously released solo records on Matador. Bob’s Not in My Airforce and Tobin’s Carnival Boy allowed the respective musicians to stretch their arms beyond the reach of GBV. The albums were generally reviewed together - as many critics had a hard time separating GBV’s work from its members - and the feedback was overall positive. Although, upon examining the liner notes, there appeared to be little difference between the solo albums and a GBV effort.
“If the solo debut by Guided By Voices' Robert Pollard sounds like his band, that's because for all intents and purposes, it is,” wrote James Lien in CMJ. “The only things that are tangibly different are a couple more microphones and a little bit more whump in the drum sounds on a few of the tunes.”
Most of the same musicians played on both albums (with Kevin Fennell being the primary drummer) but the tones were significantly different. Bob’s Not in My Airforce exhibited his sonic duality, with many of the prog-addled mini-epics getting the “big studio” treatment, while his acoustic toss-offs were recorded on boombox condenser mics. Carnival Boy also mixed Tobin’s four-track compositions with polished full-band numbers, but stuck to a more consistent and light-hearted pop tone.
“I was kind of surprised at the response Carnival Boy got,” Tobin said. “I mean, I was still in the band at the time, and my touring obligation was with them. When I left, I pretty much did it because of family reasons.”
Long-held fears were confirmed when Bob decided to dissolve the touring lineup. For a variety of reasons, it just wasn’t working anymore.
“The good ship Guided By Voices will continue on,” Bob said in a Dayton Daily News article in September 1996, “but the existing personnel has decided to split. We were getting a little sick of looking at each other. And there are certain things - personal goals - people need to do.”
Members of Postal Blowfish, GBV’s rabid group of online fans, bemoaned the passing of the “classic lineup” and speculated about the future.
“One of the things I’ve learned as a (Guided By Voices) fan, is that I never try to get too married to an idea,” Todd Robinson said. “About the time you count on something, you know it’s going to change. The one thing I can say, the only consistent thing, is that I trust Bob’s judgment. Because he’s certainly gotten us this far, and he knows what’s best.”
Guided By Voices' fan base only underscored this point, referring to Bob as Uncle Bob and Captain Bob. A few individuals even realized that despite the band’s breakup, Bob had done the same thing four years prior, only under less scrutiny. Guided By Voices had only been a band with definable members for three years, but they'd been recording and releasing material for ten. Robert Pollard could exist without Guided By Voices, but not the other way around.
EXPLODE ON DEMAND: The Guided By Verde Experience
In November 1996, Bob and his old friend Mitch Mitchell – the only remaining member of the previous lineup – traveled to Cleveland in November to record a batch of songs with the members of Cobra Verde.
Comprised of Doug Gillard, John Pektovic, Don Depew and Dave Swanson, Cobra Verde played an angular, square-jawed glam-punk hybrid that reeked of butterfly collars and incense. They had met Guided By Voices a few years earlier on Scat’s Insects of Rock tour. Although Bob admired Cobra Verde, he'd also been longtime fan of Doug Gillard's old bands (including the seminal Cleveland outfit Death of Samantha). Accomplished musicians and professionals to the core, Cobra Verde seemed just what Bob needed for the new incarnation of GBV.
But after the sessions wrapped, Bob secretly felt unsatisfied with the results. Don Depew, who had engineered and mixed the sessions, didn't seem to understand Bob's intuitively ragged style. Bob returned to Cro-Mag Studios to catch up with his favorite engineer, John Shough.
“I got the impression that Bob didn’t get his way enough,” Shough said. “Bob had just gotten back from Cleveland and he was like, ‘I want to play you these recordings.’ I listened to it and said, ‘Wow, the production’s really hi-fi.’ I told him the songs were really good, but they all kind of sounded the same. He said, ‘I know, that’s why I’m here. We need to open this up and break out of this sound a little bit.’ He ended up scrapping a lot of those songs.”
With Shough, Bob recorded a handful of short, unusual tracks that offset the uniform (some would say bland) feel of the Cleveland recordings. "We did ‘Hollow Cheek,’ ‘The Old Grunt,’ ‘Mag Earwhig!’ and bunch of those songs in the same night,” he said. “It was right after the Cleveland thing and you could almost see Bob breathing easier. It was like, ‘Oh, finally… something different, some artistic freedom’.”
Like the Under the Bushes, Under the Stars sessions, Bob’s notorious revisionist tendencies had driven him to scatter and rearrange sounds instead of stacking them. His penchant for experimentation and asymmetry could not be suppressed.
“It was him and Jimmy doing everything on that little group of songs,” Shough said. “At the time we were in a new studio, but we dragged everything back to the old studio. It was really primitive in there. We had nothing, no effects or anything. Bob was like, ‘We’ve got to be really inventive here.’ I grabbed a snare drum that was missing a head and said, ‘Stick this mic in here and sing two feet away from it, and I’ll catch the resonance off the inside of the drum.’ That’s how we got the vocal effect for ‘Hollow Cheek.’ When Toby came in the next time, one of the first things he said was, ‘How did you do that?’ It was nice to be artistic for a change.” For Bob, the Cleveland experience had been a battle for control. His vocals, especially, had seemed buried in Depew's hi-fi, ultra-compressed mix.
For an average band, Guided By Voices had recorded enough material from 1995 to 1996 for five years worth of releases. But in January of 1997, Bob decided it was time to release more. The first was Tonics and Twisted Chasers, a 19-song, four-tracked collaboration between Bob and Tobin Sprout. Only 1,000 vinyl copies were pressed, and the album quickly sold out - mainly over the Internet to GBV’s fan club. Tonics marked the second release on the revived Rockathon Records.
Tobin expresses his enthusiasm for the oft-overlooked LP, GBV’s last all-around lo-fi release. “I think it’s a great album. It’s a great follow-up to Alien Lanes. The progression goes right from Alien Lanes into that,” he said. “It’s kind of a lost album that maybe should have come out more publicly. Bob and I just exchanged tapes to make it. I would do recordings, and then we would get together and he put vocals over them.” Rockathon later re-released Tonics on CD with bonus tracks after the vinyl version quickly sold out.
Shortly thereafter, the Wish in One Hand seven-inch appeared on Jass Records. Bob, Kevin Fennell and Columbus musician Nick Shuld had assembled for three quick ‘n easy lo-fi pop tunes in Nick's basement. The release is notable for the introduction of the song “Teenage FBI,” still in a skeletal form at the time.
“Teenage FBI alone, that’s a hit single,” Bob told Charlie Meyer in a 1997 interview in SPONIC's first issue. “I’m sure we’ll start doing that one live.”
Recovered from the long winter and ready to tour again, Bob and Cobra Verde hit the road in support of Mag Earwhig! Released May 20, 1997, Mag was supposedly a concept album, though few fans were able to discern any coherent narrative. "This is a conceptual rock opera," stated the accompanying press release, "inspired by the Who's Tommy, the Pretty Things' S.F. Sorrow, Genesis' The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, and the Edgar Broughton Band's Wasa Wasa."
Bob has a more direct answer for the doubters: "You can always sit around and bullshit and get stoned and think of something."
Sonically, Mag Earwhig! was even less consistent than Under the Bushes, Under the Stars, but the quality of songs remained. The album featured eight tracks from the Cleveland sessions, eight John Shough-recorded tunes, three from Tobin’s 8-track and a couple recorded at Dayton's Refraze Studios with Tobin and engineer John Croslin.
“We did the song ‘The Finest Joke Is Upon Us’ for Bob’s first solo album,” John Shough remembered. “Now, that was my favorite song for the longest time, and I couldn’t believe Bob didn’t put it on the album. But he was like, ‘It doesn’t fit on here.’ So when he got to Mag Earwhig! it seemed perfect. I was like, ‘Ah, now I understand,’ because that album needed balance from the Cleveland recordings. They had a same-ness to them. You’re wanting a different sound to come on, and when you hear ‘Finest Joke,’ it does.”
Matador began promoting “Bulldog Skin,” the album’s first single and video, but Bob felt their effort was half-hearted. “I Am A Tree,” a song from Doug Gillard’s Cleveland band Gem, also received its own jewel case and bonus tracks. Fans and critics were a bit befuddled, but ultimately warmed to the album.
“With a little marketing savvy applied in the right places, this could be GBV’s Achtung Baby!” wrote Fred Mills in Magnet.
The London Times gushed over the album: “Pop music rarely gets more exciting,” wrote Stewart Lee. “GBV, who used to sound like they were rehearsing in your living room, now sound like they’re recording at the exact center of your forehead.”
The Chicago Sun-Times, CMJ and Rolling Stone also gave high marks to Mag, chiding those who longed for the old lineup and savoring the intensity of the new band. The summer tour that followed proved the band could indeed rock, drawing numerous comparisons to The Who and the Stones.
On the day of Mag's release, Bob invited Don Thrasher and Dave Doughman, as well as Tim Taylor and Tyler Trent of Brainiac, to the Monument Club to watch the just-completed video for "Bulldog Skin." He laid a vinyl copy of Mag on the group and told them to check it out. After partying at the Monument Club, the group returned to their North Dayton house - known as The Rock & Roll Bed 'n Breakfast - with members of other Dayton bands like Mink and Johnny Smoke, and spun the new GBV record.
Tragically, Tim Taylor was killed three days later in an early-morning car accident, effectively disbanding Brainiac, who were in talks with Interscope for a record deal. Tyler Trent and Brainiac guitarist John Schmersal (later of Enon) remember sitting in Tim's room after his death.
"We were looking through (Tim's) records and splitting them up. Bob Pollard was over at the house doing vocals on demos with (Dave) Doughman for Waved Out, his second solo album," John Schmersal said. "The only sound was Bob singing acapella on that song, 'Rumbling joker hides a lot, rumbling joker lies a lot to you... we are growing old as planned.' It seemed to make a lot of sense that day."
More misfortune lay ahead for GBV. After a late October concert in San Francisco, Bob spoke with Addicted to Noise e-zine about his desire to work with other musicians on the next album, including powerhouse drummer Jim MacPherson of The Breeders and Amps. Thinking the reporter wouldn’t print what he had whispered in “hushed tones,” Bob was shocked when everyone in Cobra Verde (except Doug Gillard) confronted him about the article. A tension-filled set with Superchunk at Columbus, Ohio's Newport Theater would be Cobra Verde’s last appearance with Bob. They disbanded in early November and Bob returned home.
QUAIL AND QUASAR: GBV Regroups
With a fresh perspective, Bob reassembled Guided By Voices in Dayton in early 1998. As rumored, Jim MacPherson stepped in to fill the drum seat.
“I worked with Jimmy in The Breeders a lot,” said John Shough. “He really has a way of keeping everything together. He was basically in the middle between Kim and Kelley, like the kid in the family that kept everything going — the functional member. I was glad to see GBV open up for him because I had thought before, 'that’s really the kind of band he should be in, where he can have some freedom.' He’s an amazing drummer and I saw him held back a lot (in the Breeders).”
Bob had fallen in love with former Cobra Verde member Doug Gillard’s guitar playing and overall musicianship, and their mutual admiration made Doug’s staying moot. Finally, Greg Demos returned from the legal world to pluck the bass, proving that it’s never too late to get the band back together. Bursting with new songs, Bob began playing out sporadically in Ohio and testing the material.
Although his patience with Matador’s promotional capacity had been waning for months, and his contract nearing completion, Bob prepared another solo album for a June 23, 1998 release on Matador.
Waved Out sounded much like Guided By Voices albums of yore: various recording techniques and locations, off-center songs and a spontaneous vibe. But it was also incredibly strong from start to finish. Recorded partly with John Shough and Tobin Sprout, and partly at Bloodbeast in Dayton (a.k.a. Dave Doughman’s house, a.k.a. The Rock & Roll Bed 'n Breakfast), the album was darker than Guided By Voices' recent material, but ultimately just as complex and satisfying.
"(Waved Out) and all the Suitcase box set stuff that I recorded was from that first session," Dave Doughman said. “(Bob) and I got together and in 10 hours recorded and mixed 15 songs. A few ended up being on Waved Out, and a couple ended up (as different versions) on Do the Collapse. We also did the song for the SPONIC seven-inch there, 'One Track Record.'"
A Dayton affair through and through, Bob thanked the many hometown friends and musicians that supported him and contributed to his music. Critics saw the album it as a return to Bob’s “lo-fi roots.” Those in the know gave a more seasoned response: “The new record’s maybe the best example yet at Pollard’s uncanny knack for compressing the complexities and ambitions of classic ‘progressive rock’ into a two-minute song,” wrote former GBV bassist Jim Greer in Raygun. “His devotion to prog isn't the nuanced irony of, say, Sonic Youth or Pavement, either: He genuinely digs the stuff.”
Matador also gave fans a treat with the release of the long-awaited documentary Watch Me Jumpstart, which had been traveling the festival circuit for a few months. Directed by Bob's longtime friend and former Chavez member Banks Tarver, the short-form video chronicled GBV from its inception to the release of Under the Bushes, Under the Stars. Notable for its in-depth interviews and rare live footage, the documentary focused mainly on Bob, Pete Jamison, Tobin, Mitch, Kevin and Jim Greer. It also compiled all five of GBV’s music videos, including the just-released (and horribly cheesy) “Bulldog Skin.”
Overall, it seemed like a time to look back and appreciate the impact Guided By Voices had made on the underground music scene. Simple Solution, Trader Vic’s label in Dayton, issued Blatant Doom Trip, a GBV tribute album featuring Thurston Moore, Lotion, Portastatic, Local H, Swearing at Motorists (the Dayton band comprised of Dave Doughman and Don Thrasher) and others. A long and troubled time in the making, the comp reminded fans of the sincerity and wit with which GBV had burst onto the scene a few years prior.
"I think it's flattering," Bob said. "The first time I heard somebody do one of my songs I flipped out. I couldn't believe it. In '87 we were recording in this guy's eight-track studio with The New Creatures. This guy was sitting in the yard, the (New Creatures’) bass player Bill Hustad - and I couldn't believe it. I started singing along and shit. I almost cried. It's nice when people want to do your songs. That's what a songwriter wants. I think of myself as a songwriter, period."
More rumors circulated about Bob recording the next GBV album with former Cars leader-turned-producer Ric Ocasek, who had helmed efforts from Weezer, Nada Surf and Bad Brains. Bob kept his eyes open for a new label, unsure of his future at Matador. Adam Shore, then A&R Director at TVT Records, remembers watching Guided By Voices at a New York show in the summer of 1998. A self-described GBV “freak” who had seen the band 12 times before, Shore was surprised to hear what Bob had to say that evening.
“I saw them at Tramps right before Waved Out came out, and Bob had mentioned from the stage that he was looking for a new record label,” he said over the phone from New York. “I couldn’t believe it. I found out who his manager was and called him up, and then I wrote a letter to Bob of what I thought TVT could do for him.”
A flurry of activity surrounded Bob as the summer drew to a close. He recorded a group of demos at Cro-Mag with John Shough and mailed them to Ocasek for feedback.
“I thought the demos were good enough to go on an album,” Shough said. “In fact, Bob said Ric Ocasek turned around and asked him how he got some of the vocal effects. That was a little shot of adrenaline right there.”
In September 1998, Bob, Greg Demos, Jim MacPherson and Doug Gillard traveled to New York to record with Ocasek at Electric Lady Studios. The result was played for the president of Capitol Records, then linked with Matador. Although received positively at first, Capitol’s president was soon replaced and the company changed their tune. They didn’t hear any “hits” and Bob again began the search for a more friendly label. In light of his recent contacts with TVT, Bob invited Adam Shore to visit Dayton.
“That was really the first time I met him,” Shore said. “It was funny, because I think Bob was really nervous. I mean, I was incredibly nervous too. It’s not like I go to Dayton all the time. So when I showed up Bob was immediately like, ‘We gotta get some pizza.’ So we went to Marion’s, which is this excellent pizza place. And Bob’s been going to Marion’s like every day for the past 40 years, but he got lost three times on the way there. He was kind of talking non-stop, and I was talking non-stop. It was like we were both on a first date.”
Despite minor complications, the visit was a success and Bob grew more confident in the future of GBV’s new project. However, he expressed apprehension at some of his friends’ behavior during Shore’s stay. One night, Bob decided to take Shore and some of Bob’s neighborhood buddies to The Pine Club, an upscale Dayton restaurant that’s mentioned in the liner notes of Alien Lanes – as in “God Bless the Pine Club.”
“His friends were really out of control and we got kicked out of the restaurant,” Shore said, laughing. “They took our IDs and driver’s license information and told us we’re never allowed back there again. It was funny because the whole time Bob was like, ‘God you guys! You’re ruining my whole career, you’re embarrassing me in front of this A&R guy!” I thought it was just classic that we got kicked out. And if you look at the liner notes of Do the Collapse, it says ‘God Damn the Pine Club’.”
Bob continued shopping the record around, though in many ways he felt he had already found a home for it on TVT. On Oct. 31, 1998, he hit the 40-year-old milestone, celebrating with a combination costume-birthday party at Dave Doughman's house. The Rock 'n Roll Bed & Breakfast, (named as such due to the number of musicians that lived, recorded and crashed there, including Brainiac's Tim Taylor and Enon's John Schmersal), was a two-story house on North Main Street in Dayton. It was the perfect venue for the occasion. The late Jim Shepard (V-3, Vertical Slit), whose own birthday was at midnight on November 1st, manned a bubbling keg in the backyard. Guests dressed as Guided By Voices song titles ("I Am a Scientist," "Kicker of Elves") and bands like Johnny Smoke played eardrum-shattering sets in the crowded living room. That is, until they were shut down by the cops.
"It was actually really weird, because it was like the last time I ever saw Jim Shepard," Dave Doughman remembered. "Quite a few people puked, pissed and passed out in (our) bushes."
As winter approached, Bob returned to Cro-Mag with Jim MacPherson and Greg Demos to record a new solo album. His inspiration came from a list of song titles he and some friends ("Title-ists," he called them) had written over the preceding months at The Monument Club. The record would be released as #1 in The Fading Captain Series, a label Bob created especially for solo and side projects. And along with the help of Pete Jamison and friend Matt Davis, Bob worked on his other label Rockathon, which already had releases by Herschel Savage, and Dayton rockers 84 Nash, to its credit, with another in the works from Columbus lo-fi punks Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments.
Back at Luna Music, Todd Robinson stayed busy reissuing out-of-print Guided By Voices albums and helping with distribution and Internet promotion.
“To me, I always felt like I couldn’t do any better than when I was allowed to reissue my favorite EP by my favorite band, Static Airplane Jive,” Todd said. “It’s amazing to me that my participation gets to be what it is. It’s certainly a thrill to release anything by them, let alone new material.”
Kid Marine appeared February 15, 1999 as one of Bob’s more low-profile releases. Recorded almost entirely at Cro-Mag with John Shough, the album was one of his more consistent solo efforts showcasing some of his weirdest lyrics, even if the cover art was lackluster by Bob’s inventive standards.
Critics again went nuts, often overstating the quality. The London Times called it “brilliant,” NME gave it a 9 out of 10 rating and Music365 wrote: “the songs find him reunited with brevity and stuffing his songs to bursting with hooks and the eccentric touches that won him his voracious acolytes.”
Not surprisingly, Kid Marine often got reviewed next to Tobin Sprout’s newest solo album, Let’s Welcome the Circus People.
“I’ve talked to Bob about it and he doesn’t know why people still do that. I think people are trying to keep me in the band somehow,” he said, laughing. However, at least one Tobin-recorded tune appeared on Kid Marine, the four-track tearjerker “Powerblessings.”
On March 20, 1999, Guided By Voices headlined Austin’s annual South by Southwest music festival, playing Waterloo Park in front of an estimated 10,000 fans. "Sticking to the band's more recent catalog, the concert was as close to the arena as indie-rock is likely to get," wrote Zac Crain in the Dallas Observer. "A foot-on-the-monitor, Bics-in-the-air, we-love-you-too light and sound extravaganza that was as good as GBV's previous performances at SXSW were bad."
Later in his review, Crain cut to the chase: "Almost more than anyone else at SXSW, Guided By Voices came to Austin looking for a deal, after Matador Records and Capitol both refused to release the band's new Ric Ocasek-produced disc. It's a shame for all three parties, because Human Amusements (the disc's working title) is the first GBV album that is fully realized, and it wouldn't sound too bad on the radio either. The last noise that could be heard at Saturday night's show was Matador and Capitol taking turns kicking each other in the ass."
Shortly after the concert, Bob signed a landmark contract with TVT allowing him to release any side projects he wished, with TVT getting the first option. He began preparing the new, hi-fi GBV album for international release. After going through titles like Daredevil Stamp Collector and Human Amusements, (both of which were later used), Bob decided on Do the Collapse.
“Actually, Do the Collapse (was) the first album I haven’t been on in some way or another, whether recording or playing an instrument,” said Tobin Sprout. “A lot of the songs that showed up on previous albums had been recorded for Under the Bushes, and Bob just finally felt like they fit. Do the Collapse was actually going to be an album title around the Under the Bushes period.”
As GBV geared up for the release of its most heavily-anticipated album, the press machine set itself in motion. In Dayton, Don Thrasher (also music editor of The Dayton Voice, a.k.a. Impact Weekly, a local alternative newsweekly) reported the details of Bob’s career trajectory. Online music mags and GBV’s official website disseminated song titles and recording anecdotes from Do the Collapse. A radio appearance on Oxford, Ohio’s 97X FM allowed Bob to showcase some of the new Ocasek tunes, as well as two side-project albums he recorded in Dayton: Nightwalker and Lexo & the Leapers (#’s 2 and 3 in the Fading Captain Series).
“Being a fan, you’re never bored with GBV,” Todd Robinson said. “In the store we get an awful lot of people who come in with a hang-dog look on their faces, saying how their favorite band hasn’t put an album out yet. Whereas, I think we’ve all been great benefactors in that Bob’s so prolific.”
In fact, CMJ had reported earlier in the year that Bob was busy collecting and organizing songs from his legendary “suitcase” of tapes filled with thousands of songs. “We have only gone through a tenth of the tapes and already have 150 unreleased songs,” Bob said in the article.
Don Thrasher notes that the hype is to be believed. “He literally has that suitcase of tapes, you know. It’s just amazing,” he said. “Most of what the guy has is innate talent. I’ve seen him make up songs at the drop of a hat that have stuck with me for years. Just these stupid little catchy things that are more of a joke than anything.” Thrasher paused and laughed. “Bob could have easily been making ‘hits’ his whole life. Three-minute, 15-second songs with catchy choruses and all that. But I think that’s too easy for him. There’s no challenge in that. He has to obscure it with little in-jokes and stuff that nobody else understands.”
According to Thrasher, Bob delights in constructing games, characters and scenarios for himself. “And half the fun is completing it. I mean, his mind never stops.”
Adam Shore, first and foremost a fan of the band, agrees. “You can’t possibly have everything Guided By Voices makes. As a record collector, it’s just unending. Everything I need out of rock music, I’m getting out of one band. To me, they’re the only important rock band this decade.”
JOHN WENZEL | John is a Denver-based writer and former editor of Sponic magazine. John currently works for The Denver Post and Rockpile and has contributed to such noble but non-paying enterprises as Shredding Paper, Aversion.com, and Erasing Clouds. He's obsessed with the Dayton, Ohio '90s music scene but likes to think he's keen on some of the new bands the kids are listening to these days. John also helps run the Friendly Psychics Music recording collective. Email.