December 2004 Archives

If you can cast your mind back 900 years--nine hundred years!!--to a time when Jesus Christ had died twice as recently as today; to a time when the black death (and all of Bocaccio's and Giotto's now-ancient responses to it) was still 200 years away--really, the entire number of years in the lifespan of the U.S.A. to date would pass before the black death even began -- in fact, to a time four hundred years before Columbus even set out on that fateful voyage which would eventually lead to the near-genocide of millions of people and the creation of Wal-Mart.

In this time, the year 1098 to be relatively specific, you will see the birth of a girl-child in Bermersheim, Germany. The Dark Ages were not a period of great enlightenment regarding women, and so this child would have been destined for a life of servitude and extreme motherhood were it not for the early manifestation of the Hand of God. This child was visited by graphic, intense visions of apocalyptic disaster; the fall of Lucifer; the voice of the Lord; the suffering of Christ. Slightly in awe of her abilities and her far-seeing eyes, this girl-child's parents sent her to a nunnery, where she began her career as the first woman to ever be credited with anything positive in the history of the world. Even Jeanne d'Arc's meteoric rise and fall was still nearly 400 years away.

Hildegard of Bingen is remarkable not only for the fact that she was the earliest recorded woman who did anything ever, and not only for the fact that she was widely respect and revered in spite of her unfortunate gender, and not only for the fact that she wrote really bitchin' monophonic plainchant and slightly-more-ornamented polyphonic chant. She was also a mystic, a seer, a scientist, an astrologist, a leader, an adviser to kings, and sort of a doctor. She helped pull Germany out of the Dark Ages with her writings which redefined man's relationship to nature. She wrote volumes on the use of plants and
animals in physical healing. If Hildegard were alive today, she would be Hillary Clinton, Bjork, Maya Angelou, Catherine MacKinnon, Billie Jean King, and Mother Teresa all wrapped up in one nondescript old lady wearing a wimple.

Hildegard began composing chants in praise of the Lord, and quickly gained prominence as a gifted artist. Over the course of her life, she wrote around 70 pieces of music. She is the earliest acclaimed woman composer by several hundred years, and many present-day artists such as Meredith Monk are still profoundly influenced by her work. Hers isin fact the earliest recorded biography of a composer, which really gives you an idea of what a big deal she was.

A complete history of Hildegard's life is difficult to piece together, since it all happened ONE THOUSAND YEARS AGO. Even the precise year of her birth remains in question. This is why music history is awesome to study. You can create a picture in your mind of Hildegard, and who knows? It might be true. Think of her, shrouded, walking by the misty Rhine at dawn, her eyes blank, her lips moving as she recites the messages from God that filter through her brain. See her, seated in a plain straight-backed chair by a window, dictating her visions to a scribe, who paints exactly what she tells him--the fall of Lucifer represented by giant black stars hurtling toward a wavy, ocean-like earth; a woman with one hand raised; rivers and fire and giant, horned depictions of satan. Now they say her visions were caused by severe migraines. But let us not think of her in pain, or unmasked in such a
banal way. Let us rather imagine the fear and wide-eyed shivering ecstasy of a woman in the grip of forces so incredibly out of her control and normal scope of existence; of her spirit, flung back and
forth through massive tracts of space and time, circling the cosmos, speaking to God, her veins burning with fire, her insignificant human frame a conflagration of glory, woe and heavenly spirits; her ears ringing with the paeans she would bring to life later, sung by angels, her voice an exalted tool of devoted encomium, her heart swollen with the magnitude of it all.

She awakens, and is silently tended to by one of her sisters. The scribe is called. A perfect four-part hymn of praise spills out of her mouth. The scribe's hand dutifully records it in neums, those early,
boxy, weirdly-rhythmed precursors to modern musical notes. She, exhausted, looks before her without seeing, and describes the sight of heaven using brilliant metaphor and imagery. Then she sleeps.

Hers was a humble yet fierce spirit. She resisted the Lord's call for her to write until He visited her with a sickness. In her own words:

" And it came to pass ... when I was 42 years and 7 months old, that the heavens were opened and a blinding light of exceptional brilliance flowed through my entire brain. And so it kindled my whole heart and breast like a flame, not burning but warming... and suddenly I understood of the meaning of expositions of the books . . .

But although I heard and saw whese things, because of doubt and low opinion of myself and because of diverse sayings of men, I refused for a long time a call to write, not out of stubbornness but out of
humility, until weighed down by a scourge of God, I fell onto a bed of sickness."

Finally believing in the Lord's injunction that she should write, Hildegard created volumes of work, the first of which was the acclaimed "Know the Ways of the Lord." These writings became well known throughout Europe, and she was often consulted by bishops and kings. The respect she garnered in her lifetime can not be adequately admired, considering how amazing she would have had to be in order to overcome the medieval attitudes about women, which were so far from what they are today that they make George Bush look like Andrea Dworkin. Hildegard's genius, and the hand of the Lord upon her, were so apparent that they could not be ignored. She cast a light of goodness and communion with heaven all about her.

Aside from all her well-documented academic and artistic qualifications, Hildegard was one tough lady. She was not content to play the role society foisted upon her; she answered only to God. Her
letters to her bishop were increasingly fiery on subjects where she felt he was being remiss in his duty. Hildegard finally decided that if her superiors were not working in the light of the Lord, she did
not have to do what they said. As abbess of the nunnery where she had lived for most of her life, Hildegard began clashing with the head monk of the corresponding monastery over issues of scriptural doctrine. Finally, enraged at his immoveable attitude, Hildegard led half the abbey across the river and founded her own cloister in Disiboden.

Though never formally canonized, Hildegard is listed as a saint in many religious texts due to the miracles performed in her lifetime and at her tomb. Several hundred years after her death, her bones were dug up and her name was carved on each one separately in a bizarre expression of love and fealty which, though actually kind of weird, still strikes me with its intensity. I think her bones were then placed in some sort of ark or cask, and buried under some cathedral, and the location was then forgotten. I believe that the location of her grave remains today a mystery, which makes the whole story just that much more awesome. You can visit that giant monument at Beethoven's final resting place any time you want--but Hildegard, she could be anywhere. Under any rolling meadow; swept into any stream or river; under rocks and the roots of trees; lying unknown under the hearth of a farmhouse near Dresden. We can think of her and send our pagan prayers to her wherever we tread, because she is in the earth now, and the earth keeps her secret. Dudes...Dark Ages Greatest Band of All Time.

First off, apologies for the delay in getting this all done. Writing these has been really awesome and it has felt right, but it has also been draining going through the thousands of songs and so much material to write about. I feel like I haven't talked enough about my experiences with the band as I have had so much actual material and music to get through. I maybe also haven't wanted to finish, because then I'm done, and I don't want to be finished with writing about/thinking about my favorite band. It is appropos to end it right now, though, as GBV itself prepares for their final two shows(on 30th and 31st). And now....THE ELECTRIFYING CONCLUSION!

We left off at the end of 2001 with GBV being dropped by their major label, TVT records, after dissapointing results. Their major label period had been very productive nonetheless with tons of great material seeing the light of day. The material was divided between the trying to be commercial material which was not very successful in that goal and the deeper, more artistic material which was awesome.

2002 opened with a pretty dreadful second album from Airport 5, the teaming of Robert Pollard and former GBV member, Tobin Sprout, called Life Starts Here. Another collaboration called Go Back Snowball, s later which was Robert Pollard along with Mac McCaughan of Superchunk and Portastatic, put out an album called Calling Zero only a few week. The album was quite different than anything else Pollard had ever done. Mac McCaughan's music was not out of the ordinary for him, but the bordering on electronic beats and heavy organs and synths make it really an interesting listen. It doesn't complelety work, but there are some great songs. These collaborations were pretty painless for Pollard as the collaborator (Sprout or McCaughan or Gillard or whomever else) would create all the music and they would send it to Pollard and he would just go into the studio and record his own melodies over top. These collaborations are cool, but almost too easy for Pollard.

Guided by Voices bounced back strongly after being dropped by TVT, and signed to their old home Matador records who were more than ready to welcome GBV back into the fold. Leaving TVT was best for everyone, as pollard realized that was not that best place for his band. He didn't really like recordings albums in the way that being on a major label required, and he didn't like not doing the artwork and having to push singles that he didn't he like and all that other garbage. So, GBV went into their old favorite studio in Dayton, Cro-Magnon Studios, and produced the albums themselves along with Pollard's Circus Devils partner Todd Tobias. They emereged with Universal Truths and Cycles, which is a really solid album that is just packed with great songs. This album is really underrated, i believe. They seemed to have taken some positive things from their times in the big studios with bigtime producers and also brought back some of the short burst style songs from their earlier days. This album was single after single from the power pop love ballad "Cheyenne," to the Zeppelin style bombast of "Christian Animation Torch Carriers," the rocking "Everywhere With Helicopter," the beautiful "Pretty Bombs," and the perfect jangle of "Universal Truths and Cycles." I really like this album.

A second Circus Devils album followed later in the year, entitled The Harold Pig Memorial. The edition was much less noise and more of a rock vibe, it's pretty good, and might be a little more listenable, but I missed the noise of the first album.

Pollard's first release of 2003 was weird. He took an album from the 80s progish rock band Phantom Tollbooth entitled Power Toy and re-recorded the vocals for it with new melodies and lyrics. The album was re-released with the name Beard of Lightning. The album is novel, but not that relevant to Pollard's career.

A Robert Pollard mini-LP, Motel of Fools, followed that. Only 7 songs long, but lasting over 30 minutes this was a dense affair. It really has it's moments, but I found it a little unpenetrable for some reason. The album is dissedent and there isn't as much to latch onto maybe as most of the other albums, but certainly not a failure.

Lifeguards, another band made up of Pollard and Doug Gillard, released their Mist King Urth shortly thereafter, and I really get a kick out of this album. This is another affair where Pollard just does the melodies and lyrics and the collaborator writes and records all the music. This album sounds straight out of the 70s. Gillard did an excellent job with the music, there are even a good 3 or 4 excellent instrumental jams, really making Pollard's contribution to this album the less significant of the two, but it's an excellent album any way about it.

GBV released Earthquake Glue in August 2003, another album that they recorded with Todd Tobias. Earthquake Glueis possibly the least remarkable of any Guided by Voices album. Nothing really makes it stand out. There are some good songs, but it's not overflowing with great songs, it doesn't make a huge statement in lyrics or sound/production. It isn't a huge departure or that interesting on any front. Kind of a bummer album. The original demos for most of the songs from this album were released later, and are actually much more intriguing.

A new Box Set and a Best Of album were released in the fall. The Box Set, Hardcore UFOs, featured the Best Of albums (Human Amusements at Hourly Rates which was also available on its own), a disc of reissued 7"s and B-sides and stuff, a disc of unreleased stuff, a live album, and the first appearance of their 1st EP Forever Since Breakfast on CD. Somehow not as fulfilling as the Suitcase box set.

In early 2004 Fiction Man was released. It was a new Robert Pollard album recorded with Todd Tobias. It was made up of songs that Pollard had written for Earthquake Glue but they decided to not record them for that album. This album is much more remarkable than Earthquake Glue and is probably a better album overall. Tobias uses some of his Circus Devils technics and noisiness and it works so well with the more pop centric songwriting of a Robert Pollard album instead of the weird dirge rock non songs of Circus Devils.

Guided by Voices hit the studio again in 2004 with Todd Tobias co-producing. When the finished the album Robert Pollard knew the time was right and proclaimed that it would be the final Guided by Voices album ever. Half Smiles of the Decomposed was released in August, and it was a huge improvement over their last album. A beautiful, somber album with really thoughtful lyrics with really strong production. This album has a number of songs that feel overtly political, a first for Pollard, which was really inspiring that even at this point Pollard is exploring new avenues for expressing himself. Many reviewers for years with every new GBV album would use the phrase "a return to form," which was never really true. That happened a lot with this album as well, but it was untrue again, this doesn't sound like Bee Thousand or Alien Lanes or anything. It is a band that has gone through so much, so many albums and song, and learned and changed. It does have great songs, like the album closer "Huffman Prairie Flying Field," which is just an absolutely perfect way to go out, even down to it's aviation title (by far the most common lyrical theme for Pollard throughout the years) and it's confident and triumphant melody.

Pollard absolutely made the best call in bringing an end to Guided by Voices. The band had run its course and Pollard was at times resting on his laurels. He said that it had become to easy, he wasn't really playing guitar on the records at all and he was relying to much on the band. He also knew that he couldn't continue to tour with the band and party the way that they do any longer, and to try to tone it down and still be GBV would just be sacrilege. He chose a perfect moment to go out, and now they are on their final tour, The Electrifying Conclusion Tour, and only have two shows. Robert Pollard will continue to record and release music, as he already has a new double solo album recorded that should be coming out pretty soon and another album planned after that. There is no stopping the man, but things need to be renewed and refreshed.

The thing about Guided by Voices that was so amazing was the contradiction. The band never really attained to be this perfect indie rock quirky thing. Pollard says that he always wanted his music to sound huge like The Who and play to big audiences, but when it came down to it, he wasn't fully comfortable with the full on rockstar thing. He made huge songs, but found the most pleasure in retaining a dense artistry to his work whether it be strange collages, weird wordplay, or odd noise that always kept some people away from his music but gave them greater depth. Their stage shows were these incredible endurance fests of loud rock and endurance with high kicks and beer swilling but Pollard always maintained his midwestern aww shucks mentality. He never was a rock star. He just this guy from Dayton who had kids and hung out with his buddies and wrote AMAZING songs but when he went out on tour he sorta played a rock star on stage. Man, I just love that combination. It just speaks of how incredibly self aware and smart Pollard has always been about his art.

Don't get me wrong, Guided by Voices hasn't always been a bed of roses to love. My big struglle with the band came around 2001 or maybe it was 02. I had been pretty obsessive about GBV since 96 collecting every release and going to dozens of shows. Some good friends of mine had been in a wicked GBV cover band, called Giant Bug Village. It was deep. My buddy Jake and I would travel hundreds of miles to go see GBV play. Well, one time we were in Seattle and hanging out before the show the audience was completely full of the GBV obsessive fans, and we knew a lot of them, and it felt so much like a SciFi convention or something. The conversations were so nerdy and unfulfilling and it was just weird. I turned to Jake and said, "Jake, we are too deep," and he replied "We just might be too deep." It was a great show that night, but at the next show I saw them play the vibe continued. The obsessive GBV fan is usually male in their 30s and balding and geeky and drunk. Sometimes the vibe can be weirdly misogynist and ugly even though there aren't really any overt misogyny in Pollard's lyrics or anything. At this same time, GBV wasn't putting out their best stuff and the excessive drinking was sorta feeling overwhelming and sad to me, and I had to back off for awhile. I never stopped loving the music, and I had a great time at these last two GBV shows I went to. This is another reason I think bringing GBV to an end is a good idea, as I hope it diffuses this Shrinking Penis disease that forced the overly masculine beer hoisting and mild fratish vibes at some GBV shows.

So all in all, Pollard has done so many right things, and the fact remains is that he is the greatest rock'n'roll songwriter of all time. Guided by Voices were truly legends, the best kind really, nas they were always legends in their own minds. They really came with this amazing "we don't have to prove anything to anyone vibe" that was so empowering. It was like they were doing us a favor just by coming out of the basements of Dayton to play shows. They did it for so long without anyone noticing, and then suddenly everyone noticed. Guided by Voices created more great songs than any band ever will. They created more than a handful of masterpeice records. Guided by Voices was my favorite band and will always be, and if Guided by Voices isn't the Greatest Band of All Time you can poke both of my eyes out.

He has known since 1998, but is in good health and says he feels better than ever. I hope him great health and happiness. I love Erasure and Andy Bell.

1999, what a year, it was filled with tension, that amazing mix of anticipation and fear. It seemed as though everyone was making moves, making sure they were happy, re-evaluating things, and securing things. Robert Pollard was antsy. He wasn't quite sure what he needed in his Y2K survival kit. He needed something more than the comfortable indie world he was existing in. He wanted more, he wanted to hear his songs on the radio, he wanted to write songs that were in movies, or something! He didnt just want to coast along in this safe world anymore. Guided by Voices signed to TVT records and started to record their major label debut album with uber producer Ric Ocasek. The thing that set Robert Pollard apart from almost every other band who signs to a major label is that he knew he wouldn't be happy just making a small amount of very commercial music, and had a relationship with TVT where he could release solo albums and other projects stuff without a problem. It was an unsure time, but it was this clause in the contract that let us all know that everything would be OK anyway about it.

Pollard's first release while signed to the major label was actually not on the major label, but one of the contract clause albums. It was a solo album by the name of Kid Marine and it was the first release on Pollard's own Fading Captain Series label. This album is truly a Pollard great. It really did let us know everything would be alright. No matter what GBV released as he reached for the stars there would always be material like this album for those of us who cared enough to search it out. This album brought Greg Demos, classic lineup bassist, back into the mix, as well as Jim Macpherson, former Breeders drummer who had also worked on the Waved Out album and was soon to become a full fledged member of GBV. One of the great things about Kid Marine is the inclusion of Jim Pollard as producer. It seems as though when Jim Pollard's name is involved with releases it always means there are some interesting noises and weird tones and textures. He is always credited for things such as "dropping an amp" or "detuned guitar" or things like this. I view this album as a more sucessful and more cohesive attempt at marrying a big rock sound to a bit of a strange narrative like GBV tried to do on Mag Earwhig. This album flows really wonderfully and seems to be telling a story of some type. Like on Mag Earwhig, Pollard give some songs more length, but on here it is done with more purpose than just adding another verse and chorus as here it allows different ideas to come into songs or songs to develop better or just even to drone on and I mean drone on in a positive way. I remember listening to this album near Lake Shasta on I-5 heading north on the way home from my first rock-n-roll tour and there is an road with an exit named Pollard Flat, and all things just seemed perfect.

Two more releases soon followed on the Fading Captain Series: a mostly forgetable weird noise CD by the Bloomington, IN band Nightwalker (which was actually Pollard), and Ask Them by Lexo and the Leapers, which was Pollard recording with a Dayton band called The Tastees as his backing band. Ask Them is a really great EP that features a few great songs that became live staples for years ("Time Machines" and "Alone Stinking and Unafraid) and one song ("Fair Touching") that was actually rerecorded for a GBV album down the line.

The major label debut, Do The Collapse, dropped in August of 1999. Everything about the album is foreign to GBV. All GBV albums upto this point had that creat collage artwork of Pollard, but this album featured some slick goofy art. It was a bit of a disaster. It, of course, has some amazing songs, but as an album it sounds pretty dry and flat (dry and flat???)and a bit dead. Apparently, Ocasek clamped down hard on the band's partying in the studio and was a bit of a taskmaster. Ocasek pushed hard for the pop tunes and as a result the big single pushed from the album was the schmaltzy ballad "Hold on Hope," which got some awkward plays on TV medical dramas and was performed equally as awkwardly on Conan O'Brien with shiny shirts and a string quartet. Pollard has denounced "Hold on Hope" completely since then and does not talk positively about recording with Ocasek. Even the weird Pollard stuff, like "In Stitches" sounds just so crisp and digital and yucky and neutered. And the cutesy, cloying "Wrecking Now," features strings used in the absolutely worst way. It's just too clean. The album doesn't work....BUT...it is still chock full of some great songs like the amazing anthem, "Teenage FBI," the beautifully wandering "Surgical Focus," and the mega melodic "Much Better Mr. Buckles." Overall, pretty much a train wreck, so let's move on quickly.

Continuing his recent trend Pollard followe up a big GBV release with a solo album that topped the GBV release. In November Speak Kindly of Your Volunteer Fire Department, which is a release credited to Robert Pollard with Doug Gillard, was released and it totally took our minds off of Do The Collapse. It has maybe more great pop songs than Do The Collapse has with "Frequent Weaver Who Burns," "Pop Zues," "And I Don't So Now I Do," and "Tight Globes." In between all the great pop jams are a handful of much more touching jams than any of the crud ballads on Do The Collapse. I was stop harshing DTC but listening to this great album makes you realize the failure that the previous was. All the instruments on this record were recorded by Doug Gillard, and he co-wrote a few tracks on this album. I think that Pollard works best and produces his best output when he is working with someone he is very comfortable with and the majority of the album is made by a small tight crew.

The major release for the year 2000 was the epic box set Suitcase. It was 4 CDs each with 25 songs each, for a grand total of 100 songs all of which were all unreleased. We all knew that they had this material in them, but it was still incredibly exciting and overwhelming to get this huge lump of it all at once. The CDs are very inconsistent, but overall very rewarding. To sit down and listen to these tracks which range in years from 1976-2000 is really amazing. It's like watching an incredible documentary about a band you love. So many great songs you had never heard, so many. Word is, there may be a Suitcase 2 on the way. It's such a weird band to love so much. There is so much material to go through, and so you never have to get bored, but it can get expensive and tedious from time to time, but I think they are one of the best bands to have these sorts of love feelings about.

GBV returned to the studio as a band, and emerged with a 2nd album for TVT Records. This record was called "Isolation Drills" and was released in April 2001. The album is a vast improvement over "Do The Collapse," and I really hold a special place for this album. This is the major label album that Guided by Voices was supposed to make. It is a more palatable version (at least in vibe and tone) of earlier records like Bee Thousand or Under the Bushes Under the Stars. It still has the big and clean major label vibe, but it feels so much more honest and true to the band, and more a product of them and less a product of the producer. I'm also just a sucker for that classic Robert Pollard melancholy, which felt like it was completely missing from Do The Collapse but is very well represented here. Isolation Drills features Pollard's most literal and open lyrics of all time, I believe, as he documents his marriage falling apart on some beautiful sad songs like "How's My Drinking," "Fine To See You," and "Privately." The album was produced by Rob Schnapf, best known for working with Beck and Elliot Smith, and I think he did a really tremendous job. He does a great job of making GBV, which for the second album comprises of Pollard, Gillard, Macpherson, Nate Farley, and Tim Tobias; sound like a real band. The pop singles are also excellent, "Glad Girls," "Chasing Heather Crazy," and "Twilight Campfighter" are all really rad. The album is not all good as there are a couple of stinkers, and is not as classic as Bee Thousand or anything, but it is definitely one of my favorites.

The next release was Robert Pollard and the Soft Rock Renegade's Choreographed Man of War for the Fading Captain Series. A hard rocking affair, it is somewhat unspectaular. The same team of Pollard, Demos, and Macpherson that worked on Waved Out and Kid Marine worked on this album. It sounds like an album that was made while having fun and in a relaxed setting, which is good, but I just don't think that the album is as realized as it could be and more time could have been taken on it.

Airport 5 was a relief to many people because it was something people had been waiting five years for. Airport 5 was the return of Robert Pollard and Tobin Sprout working together. Airport 5's first album Tower In the Founatin of Sparks was released in August of 2001. The project sounds like a sequel to the Tonics & Twisted Chasers. The album is filled with junky drum machines and trebly guitars, in short, the production on the album is bad. The album is exciting though, to hear these two old favorites working together on some quality songs, even if Tobin does make them sound weird, at this point we are ready for some janky Pollard vibes after the major label jams.

One more new project was to follow in 2001, and that is the heavy weirdo noise rock of Circus Devils. Ringworm Interiors came out on Halloween, and was the work of Pollard, Tim Tobias, and his brother Todd Tobias. Pollard's most experimental music in a long while, was a shock to the system and felt great. It's loud, fast, broken, and weird.

The big news was about to hit in very late 01/early 02: lukewarm sales of their albums had caused TVT to drop GBV. The major label dream was over like that, Robert Pollard had failed at taking over the airwaves, but what had really come out of the TVT period was the realization that Pollard made his best music away from those restriction that were coming from labels, producers, and even himself to produce hits or succeed in tradtional ways. Pollard had found his own road to success with his rabid fanbase and his own label. GBV immediately announced that they had a new album ready and it would be released on their old stomping grounds, Matador. Guided by Voices had failed, but found a more satisfying success that, like all of the other Greatest Bands of All Times, was on their own terms.