Special Feature: When You Lose Your Favorite Band
Day 5 - Gonna Never Have To Die: Guided by Voices

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.