The Club Is (Re)Open(ed)

The news that Guided By Voices have reformed, however briefly, to carry out a mini U.S. tour was well received by me, and I have my fingers and toes crossed that the reunion will spill over onto our shores (along with copious amounts of booze, no doubt). It's a small miracle that they have any time to tour at all, given Robert Pollard's exhausting run of releases (in the time I've taken to put this together, he's actually put out another album). It's not just any old GBV line-up too, but the golden era early-to-mid nineties GBV that spawned Bee Thousand, Alien Lanes et al. Happy days.

I recently read Perfect From Now On by John Sellers (having been lured and ultimately misled by it's Built To Spill-related title). It's a light and fairly entertaining read which leads to the author, a self-confessed GBV fanboy, going on a quest to follow round his idols on their 2004 farewell tour. The overriding impression you get about Robert Pollard and his merry troupe is that they were just normal good-time guys, who got on stage and acted like rock stars - high-kicks, mike twirls, the lot - but the moment they stepped off stage, they became normal guys again, usually heading back to Pollard's place to knock back several cans and watch sport on TV.

That golden era of GBV was endearing for its sloppiness, both in the quality of recording and its delivery, and those albums are seemingly the key texts in the spate of lo-fi and so-called "shit-core" bands which have popped up within the last few years. What so many of these bands seem to neglect, however, is GBV's playful experimentation, not to mention their way with a great tune; it's true that you can't polish a turd, but it's equally true that by layering it in fuzz and pushing everything into the red, you can't un-polish one either. But then again, as Pollard sings on Echoes Myron, "some of us are quite pleased/with the same old song". I'm sure everyone who hears that song on one of their live dates will concur.