Pollard, Robert

Pollard, Robert

EAT 19

GBV Inc

Eat Volume 19: 240 page full color journal of Robert Pollard's gorgeous collage art.

Pollard, Robert

EAT 18

GBV Inc

235 pages of Robert Pollard's fantastic collage art in a perfect bound book. HE NEVER STOPS CREATING.

Pollard, Robert

Our Gaze

GBV Inc

On Oct 9, 2007, Robert Pollard simultaneously released two albums on Merge Records: Standard Gargoyle Decisions and Coast To Coast Carpet Of Love. Both now out of print, Pollard has reimagined and condensed the two as Our Gaze, a single fifteen song album. Because it’s better.

Pollard, Robert

From A Compound Eye

GBV Inc

Double-vinyl gatefold reissue of Guided By Voices frontman’s most celebrated solo album, previously released in 2006 on Merge Records.  From A Compound Eye was Robert Pollard’s first solo album after dissolving Guided By Voices in 2004. When things came to an end for GBV, Pollard promised that this would not mean the end of his songwriting and recording career. It actually provided a fresh start. Leaving his band (and Matador Records) behind allowed him to record when he wanted and what he wanted, with whomever he wanted. Chock full of fantastic songs including “Dancing Girls and Dancing Men”, “I’m a Widow”, “Love Is Stronger Than Witchcraft”, and “I’m A Strong Lion”.  “...in the tradition of deck-clearing double LPs like the Minutemen’s Double Nickels On The Dime and The Beatles’ White Album.” —The AV Club

Pollard, Robert

EAT 17

GBV Inc

Eat 17 is a beautiful 237 page, perfect bound book filled with the brilliant collage art of Robert Pollard.

Pollard, Robert

EAT 16 - Soundtrack From Planet Cake

GBV Inc

Eat 16: Planet Cake is 237 pages of beautiful full color collage art with accompanying 7" EP soundtrack (7 songs). All songs were recorded on the boombox in Bob's living room. Limited to 1000 worldwide.

Pollard, Robert

Kid Marine

GBV Inc

Guided By Voices brings you 20th anniversary vinyl reissues of two early gems from the Fading Captain Series. Originally issued as small vinyl pressings (1000 copies) in 1999, used copies of these Guided By Voices “side-projects” have regularly re-sold for hundreds of dollars each. Both have been remastered from the original analog tapes.  Kid Marine, the first-ever release of the Fading Captain Series and Robert Pollard’s third solo album, features “Far-Out Crops,” “Submarine Teams,” and the sublime “White Gloves Come Off.” Pollard handles all guitar and keyboard duties as well as vocals, joined by GBV’s Greg Demos (bass) and Tobin Sprout (piano) and The Breeders’ Jim MacPherson (drums), soon to join GBV for Do The Collapse.

Pollard, Robert

Waved Out

GBV Inc

Robert Pollard’s Waved Out gets the 20th anniversary re-issue treatment with newly re-mastered audio and a beautiful blue vinyl pressing. The Guided By Voices captain’s second solo album from 1998 captures the more eclectic side of his songwriting. Here, he brilliantly compresses prog, psych, and post-punk ideas into magnificent two-minute pop songs. Wire, early Genesis, Nilsson Schmilsson, Lennon’s White Album songs, Blue Öyster Cult, XTC, and Captain Beefheart: it’s all here, condensed into brilliant songs like “Subspace Biographies” and “Whiskey Ships.”  A lot’s been made of Pollard’s spontaneous and prolific songwriting methods, and most of that’s true, though he works much harder on his songs than even he likes to admit. With Waved Out, he seemed to grow more comfortable and ambitious in formal studio-type settings, so that anyone who carps about “unfinished arrangements” and “shitty production values” ought to be pretty happy with this record. This doesn’t apply to “Caught Waves Again,” where he sings into a boombox over a tape of GBV guitarist Doug Gillard’s noodling. Nor does it apply to a touching song about tragedies in Pollard’s hometown of Dayton, Ohio, called “People Are Leaving,” where he puts two separate melodies over instruments by collaborator Stephanie Sayers.  In addition to Gillard, a few other GBV personalties appear on the record, Jim Pollard, Tobin Sprout and Jim MacPherson, then of The Breeders. But the bulk of the record, including a fair bit of the drumming, is all Robert Pollard. I'm a little surprised, frankly. maybe cma

Pollard, Robert

100

Rockathon

On April 7th 2017, Guided by Voices released August By Cake, a double album. For anyone who knows the band this isn’t necessarily a newsworthy event. The band and its leader are extremely prolific and release multiple albums every year. What made this one special, what made it historic, was that it marked the 100th studio album release for Robert Pollard. It is arguable as to whether any other artist has released that much music. What we know for sure is that no other artist has released 100 studio albums with every one of them on vinyl. This book contains the front and back covers for all 100 albums. Less a testament to Pollard’s extensive career and more a study in album art, the book is a large format (12” x 12”) hard cover document containing over 200 pages printed to the edge.

Pollard, Robert

Not In My Airforce

GBV Inc

Guided By Voices Inc. is more excited than a bucket of photo-excited electrons to announce the 20th anniversary reissue of Robert Pollard’s first solo album Not In My Airforce. Originally released by Matador Records on September 10, 1996, the album includes several songs that have become fan favoritesand staples of GBV live shows throughout the years: “Psychic Pilot Clocks Out,” “Flat Beauty,” “Quicksilver,” “Get Under It,” and “Maggie Turns To Flies,” among others. Other album tracks have inspired a band name (“Release The Sunbird”), a music blog (“The Ash Gray Proclamation”) and a record label (“Prom Is Coming”). We’re pretty sure that at least one British nuclear missile-equipped submarine has been named after “Parakeet Troopers,” but MI6 refuses to confirm. The vinyl version of the album includes a six-song seven-inch single, which was the original plan in 1996, before the bean-counters insisted on combining the bonus songs with the CD and LP. These bonus songs (“Party,” “Did It Play?,” “Double Standards Inc.,” “Punk Rock Gods,” “Meet My Team,” and “Good Luck Sailor”) swelled the original release to 22 songs—not that there’s anything wrong with that. Everyone can agreethat more Bob is good. The charming, good-looking, record-buying public would like to hear NIMAF as both God and Bob originally intended. This is a landmark recording in the Pollardian corpus, in that it both presaged the flood of solo albums, side projects, collaborations, and line-up changes to come, and established the precedent that Robert Pollard, whether solo or in concert with his...

Pollard, Robert

Faulty Superheroes

GBV Inc

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays Robert Pollard from the swift completion of his latest brilliant record. Faulty Superheroes jets off Pollard’s vinyl-grooved runway like the prototype for some new supersonic power pop fighter jet, and at this point in his career is anyone surprised that the twelve tracks on his latest effort are uniformly awesome? The answer is no. Exactly no one is surprised. The biggest thing with which Pollard has to contend is his own miraculously consistent greatness. That he rarely—if ever—stumbles is some kind of marvel, and perhaps implies superpowers of his own. If you see what we did there. Faulty Superheroes has a tossed-off, effortless magnificence for which the rash of indie-whatevers trailing in his wake from Bee Thousand to the present constantly strive, and fail to achieve. The constant sense of surprise, of wonder, of discovery that one routinely finds in superbly structured instant bomp classics like “Faster the Great” is not something that can be taught, or learned, or imparted, or copied. Pollard largely abandoned the four-track 20 years ago and still gets tagged as “lo-fi,” which is a word that makes even less sense now in the days of digital recording than it did then in the days of occasionally tape-hiss smothered coulda-shoulda-been hits. “Take Me to Yolita” in lesser hands might not have been much more than a bad one-liner stretched to fit a pop song, but Pollard reverse-engineers the titular pun to build a Kinks-like mini-epic that...

Pollard, Robert

Up, Up And Up

GBV Inc

A teaser 7-inch to the upcoming new full-length, Faulty Superheroes, due May 26, 2015. Includes the album cuts “Up, Up and Up” and “Take Me to Yolita.” Includes a download.

Pollard, Robert

Blazing Gentlemen

GBV Inc

***Blazing Gentlemen is the last Robert Pollard record. That will be released in 2013. It is also the finest Pollard-related record to come out in this or several years, aural evidence of a rock mage reinvigorated by the fact, according to the man himself, that he's "finally figured out how to write a song after 55 years."  Which may come as a surprise even to casual fans of Pollard's thousands-strong catalog, and fair enough, Bob's certainly hip to the irony, but it's no joke. While he's explored pretty much every highway, toll road and dark alley of songcraft in his long career, including spontaneous "drum contests" where every member of Guided By Voices would be given the opportunity to come up with a drumbeat, over which he would then improvise a spontaneous melody based on semi-random lyrics from his ever-present notebook (for example), he's never before applied one consistent approach over the course of even one record. The new technique is considerably more disciplined: he first collects — in the (figuratively) selfsame notebook — phrases and titles, bits of overheard conversation, snatches of misheard movie dialogue, thus providing an assortment of lines all of which he considers strong enough to serve as potential song titles. He then assembles these song titles into lyrics, which because each line is strong enough to stand on its own, contain neither bloat nor the least misstep. When he's happy with the lyrics, he writes a melody for each lyric. He then sits down with...

Pollard, Robert

Return Of The Drums

GBV Inc

Second single from the upcoming album Blazing Gentlemen. Limited to 1000 worldwide.

Pollard, Robert

Tonight’s The Rodeo

GBV Inc

Robert Pollard returns with his latest single Tonight’s the Rodeo. The A-side is a preview from a forthcoming 2014 solo album; “Astral City Slicker” is the full three-minute-plus version of the 51-second “Suit Minus the Middle” from Honey Locust Honky Tonk.

Pollard, Robert

Honey Locust Honky Tonk

GBV Inc

Honey Locust Honky Tonk is a compact wonder and so varied, tuneful, graceful, magnificent and ebullient that one will be forgiven for thinking that Robert Pollard has saved his best for his own album. Slicker in some ways than recent Guided By Voices efforts, though not without its own down-home charm, its 17 songs whiz by in 34 minutes, stridently showcasing Pollard’s songwriting mastery with some of the best tunes he’s ever penned. The longest, the semi-stately album closer “Airs,” clocks in at just over three and a half minutes, but most are in the two- or two-and-half-minute range typical of Pollard’s attenuating genius. “I’m not afraid to be immature, to make a fool of myself,” he recently offered as a reason why he’s been able to continue writing music at such a high level for so long. “I’m not afraid to look insane.” The only thing crazy about a song like “It Disappears in the Least Likely Hands (We May Never Not Know)” is its slightly loopy title. The song itself, a chugging Heroes-era Bowie anthem whose entire lyrics are contained in the title, is a marvel of both concision and affect, featuring the full force and range of Pollard’s voice, which has never sounded better. For any other guy whose reunited band just finished putting out four full albums and an EP in 18 months, the release of yet still again another solo album might seem excessive, to say the least, but Honey Locust Honky Tonk sees Pollard in top songwriting form....

Pollard, Robert

Jack Sells The Cow

GBV Inc

Even for a guy whose famously abundant output makes a joke of the word prolific, this has been a spectacularly productive year for Robert Pollard. Jack Sells the Cow is his second solo album in a year that has already seen the release of two records by the reunited Guided By Voices and will see yet a third before it’s done, along with a fair amount of touring. So what makes this a Robert Pollard record as opposed to a Guided By Voices record? The best answer is that it’s just a matter of nomenclature, but the absence of contributions from other members of the reunited GBV is probably the easiest way to put Jack in its box, if putting things into boxes is your thing. The superabundance of melody and densely packed stylistic swerves and flourishes on Jack rival anything Pollard’s recorded recently, and while five albums in a year might strike some as overkill, you have to imagine his relentless output is a less-than-calculated move—a smarter businessman would hold back product so as to build demand, but Robert Pollard has never been a businessman. He’s an artist, full stop, at a time when it seems that every artist / musician is expected to have an MBA. He’s scrapped enough proposed albums to fill many another group’s entire discography; he puts out records because he likes the records. And he hopes you’ll like them too.  Jack Sells the Cow sails over the moon of your heart in a snappy 32-plus...

Pollard, Robert

Mouseman Cloud

GBV Inc

Robert Pollard’s new solo album Mouseman Cloud shows the Guided By Voices frontman in a playful and spontaneous mood. This is a record by a guy who just wants to rock, and not have to worry about how that rock will be received by anyone other than himself. While the songs here are not a world away from anything you’ll find on GBV’s new Let’s Go Eat the Factory album, the emphasis on Mouseman Cloud is on wordplay rather than melody, on unkempt exploration rather than traditional song structure. A lot of the tracks sound as if they started as lyrics—even poetry—and were fit around the sounds, which is not an uncommon way for Pollard to work, but the album’s gleeful verbosity could be interpreted as the work of a man who might have been feeling the pressure of expectations from (for instance) a Guided By Voices reunion and just wants to cut loose. Recorded in collaboration with producer / multi-instrumentalist Todd Tobias, Mouseman Cloud is catchy, heavy, lovely, rocky, exuberant, complexly simple and freaking wonderful. Not sweating the small stuff is not the same as taking no pains over the writing and recording—too often the two are conflated when discussing Pollard’s prodigious output. He takes pains. He edits. He cares deeply about each and every part of each and every song he records. That he seems to do so frequently and effortlessly is not his fault. It’s a unique and unparalleled talent. Mouseman Cloud is the work of a consummate...

Pollard, Robert

Lord Of The Birdcage

GBV Inc

2011 is turning out to be quite a year for Robert Pollard. The hugely successful Guided By Voices reunion tour is doing victory laps at Pitchfork and Sasquatch festivals, a tribute album is coming out for Record Store Day (including Pollard covers by Flaming Lips, Lou Barlow, David Kilgour, James Husband, Blitzen Trapper, Thurston Moore), and, believe it or not, new White House Spokesman Jay Carney declared in a press conference that he’s obsessed with Guided By Voices. January, February and March saw three remarkable albums by Pollard projects (as well as a live Guided By Voices triple-LP) and watch out, here comes another one, with a new twist.  On Lord of the Birdcage, Pollard reverses his songwriting process, transforming a dozen previously written poems into songs. He’s never written in this fashion before, and his whimsical, surrealist lyrics take center stage.  Lord of the Birdcage is a subtle record comprised of mostly steady, relaxed tempos—power pop, glam chugs, gorgeous ballads and a notable number of 3/4 waltz-time meters, including the haunting acoustic “In a Circle,” the frenetic rocker “You Sold Me Quickly” and the lush, string-driven “Silence Before Violence.” It’s a cohesive, flowing work, and Pollard’s sublime songs reveal their treasures through repeat listenings.

Pollard, Robert

Space City Kicks

GBV Inc

Seems like all anyone wants to talk about these days is the Guided By Voices reunion tour. It is pretty amazing to see the guys back together, a little older, seemingly no wiser: the way you dreamed it would be, if you dreamed about '90s-era indie rock bands reuniting. Don't imagine, though, that it's the only magic trick Robert Pollard has in his scientific box. Space City Kicks, an eighteen-song compendium of Bee Thousand-sized sonic chunks that range from noisy pop to poppy noise but mostly just R-O-C-K. Except the ballads, which are melancholy in a way Dwight Twilley never was, making it a mystery why Pollard posed for a recent promo picture with what is clearly Twilley's guitar (and Rod Stewart's Vans, but that makes perfect sense). The song titles are recombinated DNA from a karaoke list of classics, much in the way the songs themselves call to mind extracts of prog, pop, psych and punk. There's one called "Something Strawberry" which is "Something" meets "Strawberry Fields"; another called "Getting Going" which is taken from "Getting in Tune" and "Going Mobile." The music itself, however, has nothing to do with the titles, which were more like an oblique strategy for spurring Pollard's songwriting--which we're all agreed needs spurring, because the guy just doesn't write and record enough songs. Recorded as always (or at least, often) with the invaluable assistance of Todd Tobias at his studio in Kent, Ohio, and sequenced so that it seems like Pollard lined up all the songs at...

Pollard, Robert

Moses On A Snail

GBV Inc

Has any artist had a run like Robert Pollard since he struck out on his own with the launch of GBV Inc. in 2008? With the release of Moses on a Snail, Pollard has put out an unbelievable twelve albums in a span of roughly two years--and that's not even including all the various EPs, singles and a (third) box set of outtakes and unreleased tracks.  Moses on a Snail contains a dozen amazingly strong Pollard compositions. Even for the ridiculously prolific songwriter, this was a notable writing session as ten of the twelve songs were written in one sitting. As Pollard describes the process, he started with a notebook of working song titles, and penned 22 songs in a single afternoon's creative burst. He discarded over half, and ten songs were picked to later revise and flesh out. He made demos to send to frequent producer / collaborator Todd Tobias, who recorded the instruments before Pollard did his final vocals.  This batch of songs finds a somber, more reflective, yet ultimately triumphant Pollard on such instant classics as "Arrows and Balloons," "Each Is Good in His Own House," "It's a Pleasure Being You" and the enormous title track, which culminates in a dramatic (and atypical) minute-long guitar lead to close the album. Elsewhere, the elegiac "Teardrop Paintballs" delivers seriously heartbreaking melodies, and the (dare we call it) mellow "The Weekly Crow" reminds us to mention that there will be a Pollard composition on the forthcoming Glen Campbell album.  Clocking...

Pollard, Robert

We All Got Out Of The Army

GBV Inc

Robert Pollard simply can't be stopped. Indeed, the ever-prolific bard is in the midst of one of the most creative and hyperactive periods of his career. Since the summer of 2008, he has released an astonishing ten (10!) varied and terrific albums with his bands Boston Spaceships, Circus Devils, Cosmos, and as Robert Pollard. Retired from the road, two years deep with his own Guided By Voices Inc. label, the man has the artistic freedom to record what he wants, whenever he wants. What's particularly remarkable is the high quality of his output.  With We All Got Out of the Army, Pollard delivers yet again. The new album blasts out of the speakers with "Silk Rotor," a power-pop gem with a swirling, fist-pumping chorus. This song alone is worth the album price. For the next 38 minutes, Pollard puts his unique stamp on sludgy, glam psychedelia ("Rice Train"), jubilant, synth-spiked pop ("I'll Take the Cure"), the kind of moody, melodic, perfectly weird rock 'n' roll long beloved by Guided By Voices fans ("I Can See," "Poet Bums"), and concludes with a haunting acoustic / electric ode with shades of Bowie circa Hunky Dory ("Faster to Babylon").

Pollard, Robert

Devil Went Home And Puked

Rockathon

***Straight from the personal archives of ROBERT POLLARD, The Devil Went Home and Puked is a video collage made up of live footage from nearly every era of GUIDED BY VOICES and Robert Pollard tours (1994 to the present) and early GBV studio footage. This DVD also contains nine hard to find full length videos from GBV and Pollard projects, including “Circle Saw Boys Club,” “Winston's Atomic Bird,” “I-Razors,” “Get Me Extra” and more.

Pollard, Robert

Elephant Jokes

GBV Inc

"I'm sick and tired of all you backward-looking crybabies. You know who you are: 'If only it were 1994...' 1994? Were you even alive then? How alive?  "Not as alive as Robert Pollard is right now--working the boards, finding the words still jump when he says jump and the guitar chimes when he forms the chords on the six-string with his honest-to-God DIY, home-made calluses. A clutch of these songs started out live in the studio, with Mr. Pollard on guitar, and they buzz with the charge of on-the-spot generation. All the secret ingredients go into the mix--even Mr. P's brother, the estimable outside shooter Jimmy Pollard, returns to tweak a few knobs--and the result is music that comes alive with that sui generis Dayton grit and sparkle. Check out the needling, obsessive riff on the intro to "When a Man Walks Away"--no mistaking the Pollard touch there--or the distortion-drenched start of "Epic Heads" where one can just about smell the heat rise from the solid state circuit board.  "You want nostalgia? OK, here's some nostalgia. Think music as real and unselfconscious as anything since Same Place the Fly Got Smashed or songs alive with Alien Lanes' aesthetic but even hookier and smarter. Music that sounds just like friends playing for the fun of it in the family basement (so the family's grown up and moved away, it's a different house, and it's not exactly a basement anyway, but I defy one to hear the difference)." --Marc Woodworth, author, Bee...

Pollard, Robert

Crawling Distance

GBV Inc

For an extraordinarily creative and prolific artist, 2008 has been a particularly extraordinary, creative, and prolific year for Robert Pollard. Hot on the heels of two terrific new albums, a stunning 140-page, full-color book of his collage art, great reviews, features in Vice, Flaunt, SPIN, and Entertainment Weekly, the launch of his own label, and his first live tour in two years, the man is on a roll...  From the stately Krautrock chug of the album opener, "Faking My Harlequin," to the schizo-frenetic closing track, "Too Much Fun," with its structural U-turns piled on top of tempo shifts, The Crawling Distance is unlike any Pollard release yet. Comprised of ten tracks, most clocking in at three to four minutes and beyond, the album includes highlights like the gorgeous "It's Easy," a rare Pollard ballad (albeit a ballad with creepy, oddball imagery) and "The Butler Stands For All Of Us," a subtle, melancholy song that ranks among Pollard's best ever.  "Pollard is sort of the Grateful Dead equivalent for people who like Miller Lite instead of acid." --The Washington Post

Pollard, Robert

Robert Pollard Is Off To Business

GBV Inc

***LP WAREHOUSE FIND!!!  - Revolver, in bed with the Guided By Voices family since 1994, is pleased as punch to exclusively offer Robert Pollard's brand new material. After amicably departing Merge Records after 4 albums in two years, this will be Pollard's only proper "Robert Pollard" full-length for 2008. At 10 songs and 35 minutes, it's an extraordinary rock tour-de-force. Robert Pollard Is Off To Business sports Todd Tobias' cleanest and meanest production yet, giant songs and riffs that pack a wallop, and arguably Pollard's finest singing ever captured on record. For Pollard, whose albums normally run 15-25 songs, this 10-song work (the majority of the songs 3:30 or longer) is a departure from form. Since freeing himself of a band in 2004, his albums have each had very distinct and varied flavors, and his creativity has flowered.   "Weatherman and Skin Goddess" takes the listener back to a time when Rock Radio ruled and bands could have 5-minute-plus hit singles. "Gratification To Concrete" is a classic catchy Pollard rock anthem, or is it a Pollard catchy Classic-Rock anthem? He's definitely turned up the Rock 10% and the Classic 11% on this album.   Extraordinarily influential, Pollard is not just a founding father of indie rock, but in the long run will prove to be an important part of rock history, with a significant oeuvre that branches from The Who, Peter Gabriel-era Genesis, Wire and The Clean.    "Since his much-adored band closed down, it seems...

Pollard, Robert

Superman Was A Rocker

Happy Jack Rock Records

Robert Pollard's Superman Was A Rocker is a return to old ways. This mini-album (13 songs, 30 minutes) finds Pollard using recording methods he hasn't engaged in since his time in Guided By Voices.  Pollard recently poured through a bunch of old cassette tapes and found some great, never-used instrumentals that he either wrote or co-wrote, and and he decided to go into the studio and put vocals (and melodies!) over them, just like he "used to back in the old Guided By Voices days." The music spans a 20+ year period, so in essence, this is an album 20 years in the making.  Due to the span of time and body of work from which the clips were accessed, many of the classic Guided By Voices alumni appear on this album: Tobin Sprout, Mitch Mitchell, Kevin Fennell, Doug Gillard, Nate Farley. This is the most fun Pollard album in years.  It plays like an old-time radio show with recurring song lead-ins by two "guest DJs." "Love Your Spaceman," co-written by Pollard and ex-GBV drummer Kevin March, is one of those instant Bob-classics that will surely wind up on various Best of Bob comps down the line. "Peacock" has a bluesy, Stones-like feel to it that recalls early Guided By Voices live basement recordings. The album's closer, "More Hot Dogs Please," is flat-out screaming punk rock that includes the original vocal track by Pollard recorded on the song back in the '80s.  Superman Was A Rocker...

Pollard, Robert

Silverfish Trivia

Prom Is Coming

“The new Bob” is a phrase often heard from fans of Robert Pollard. As in, “Have you heard the new Bob?” It usually refers to the latest project that Pollard has recorded and released. But in this case “the new Bob” has a new meaning. Prom Is Coming is Pollard’s new label (replacing the Fading Captain Series) but not his deal with Merge.  Silverfish Trivia finds Pollard once again in the studio with producer and musical partner Todd Tobias. The results sound different from anything they’ve done before. A mini-LP — seven songs in twenty-two minutes — Silverfish Trivia is lush with the beautiful string arrangements courtesy of Chris George of NYC-based string quartet Invert.   Powered by tracks like “Circle Saw Boys Club” and “Cats Love A Parade,” and overflowing with lyrical imagery equal to Pollard’s greatest works, Silverfish Trivia is destined to become another Pollard classic. So there you have it, the first release on Robert Pollard’s new label, Prom Is Coming. It’s called Silverfish Trivia... you know, the new Bob.

Pollard, Robert

Love Is Stronger Than Witchcraft

Recordhead

Second single from the recent From A Compound Eye, Robert Pollard's first post-Guided By Voices solo album. “Love Is Stronger Than Witchcraft” is backed by a LIVE version of the Circus Devils classic track “Dolphins of Color”. This live version is taken from the first string of live shows Robert and his all star rock troupe performed in January. The 7" is limited to 500 retail copies.

Pollard, Robert

Bubble

Recordhead

A long time fan of the man, music, and myth that is Ohio native Robert Pollard, Steven Soderbergh (Oceans 11, Traffic and Erin Brockovich) didn’t have to look hard for someone to score his new movie, Bubble. Detailed information surrounding the film is still a bit sparse - the theatrical release date not being until 2006 - but we do know that it is a murder mystery that, in part, takes place in a doll factory in the aforementioned mythological state of Ohio.   The songs here were recorded after Pollard visited the film set in April of this year. In the vein of 2004’s solo effort, Fiction Man, Bubble features Pollard naturally handling vocal and guitar duties with recent producer/collaborator Todd Tobias holding down the bass, drums, and keyboard. The six tracks featured here are best described as classic Pollard material (full-on rock songs, two of which are instrumentals ) that prove Pollard has set his sights on many great things post-GBV.  This release marks the second EP-length release from Robert Pollard in 2005. It will precede the much hyped and long-whispered about second installment of Suitcase from the now-defunct Guided By Voices.

Pollard, Robert

Zoom

Recordhead

*** After twenty-one years of fronting Guided By Voices, Robert Pollard dissolved the band in 2004. Mere days after the band’s final two shows in Chicago comes the announcement of his first post-GBV solo release. The opening instrumental immediately signifies that changes are afoot. Off-the-cuff recording techniques and bouncy lyrics harken back to mid-era GBV and conjure offerings from Dan Bejar or Scott Walker. This four-song EP, the thirty-first release in the Fading Captain Series and Pollard’s first ever solo EP (at least since the Everlasting Big Kick) is available this one time in a pressing of 1,000 and hand-numbered by Pollard.  TRACK LISTING 1. Dr Fuji and Henry Charleston (Zoom Variation) 2. Have a Day Mr. Clay 3. Catherine From Mid-October 4. Zoom (It Happens All Over The World)

Pollard, Robert

Fiction Man

Recordhead

Like other releases in The Fading Captain Series, Fiction Man is an effort of collaboration. After writing the Fiction Man’s 14 tracks at his Dayton, Ohio home studio, Robert Pollard sent tapes to recent Guided By Voices and Circus Devils producer Todd Tobias (Earthquake Glue, Universal Truths & Cycles) to flesh them out. On this recording, Tobias builds insanely intricate and beautiful instrumental beds out of Pollard’s acoustic demos. The songs are steeped in echoes; they feature odd timing structures and moments of noise and punk rock previously not evident in a Pollard project. Having these soundscapes in front of him, Pollard then recorded vocals at Waterloo in Kent, Ohio — some of his most inspired and memorable to date. Most of the lyrics (from the recent literary and art book EAT) are delivered with a twisted and fucked-up psychedelic urgency that resonates for moments and hours and days.  • The most recent in The Fading Captain Series from Robert Pollard of Guided By Voices • Pollard’s eighth solo album • Precedes new GBV album on Matador, and 10th anniversary editions of Scat catalog classics • Near constant critical attention in the pages of The New York Times, Magnet Magazine, and British powerhouse Q

Pollard, Robert

Motel Of Fools

Recordhead

***Heading into 2003 in a completely different direction GUIDED BY VOICES mainman ROBERT POLLARD delivers a new album unlike anything he’s done before. A seven-track goodtime of catchy pop gems and experimental sound collages featuring contributions from JOHNNY STRANGE, JIM MACPHERSON, JOHN SHOUGH, NICK KIZIRNIS, GREG DEMOS, DON THRASHER, CHRIS SLUSARENKO, and the ORIGIALANACRUSI.