Courtesy of Tell All Your Friends PR
At this point it would be news if Robert Pollard—by whatever artist name—did not release a new record that sounded just as great as all of the other records he has released, and great in exactly the same ways as all of the other records he has released with Guided By Voices, as a solo artist and under other project names.
So it is not news that Pollard has released a new Guided By Voices record, Please Be Honest, and it is a great rock record, in exactly the ways that all of his other records are great. It is brash, quirky power pop, with at least one dynamic hook to every song, featuring his lush soprano vocals shrouded with electric guitars that all have just the right mix of ring and grunge, and flourishes of acoustic guitars where you can hear the grain of the wood and the scrape of every string. The label is Rockathon Records, essentially a vanity label for Pollard releases that don’t appear on Matador or TVT records.
It is, however, news that St. Louis made the very short list of cities that Guided by Voices will visit on what can hardly be called a tour. The Ready Room in St. Louis is the band’s second stop on a six-city swing that starts in Nashville the night before and ends a week later in Champaign. Pollard’s website includes on this “tour” a seventh date, at the Sled Island Festival in Calgary, Alberta, but that is more than a month later, on June 25, and not by any reasonable definition a part of the same tour.
The band on these dates is a Tobin Sprout-less lineup, with Pollard fronting on vocals (and leg kicks and mic swings), backed by a rhythm section of Kevin March (drums) and Mark Shue (bass), with Nick Mitchell and Bobby Bare Jr. supplying the ringing and crunchy guitars. The name that leaps out here is Bare, a Nashville singer-songwriter, son of a country music legend and author of the goof rock classic “Mike Tyson.” Late last year, Bare appeared with Pollard on a Bloodshot Records 7” included in the “Six Pack to Go” collection. On March 1 he prepared for his first Guided By Voices tour by playing in a GBV tribute band in Nashville, King Shit and the Golden Boys, featuring Ken Coomer (Uncle Tupelo, Wilco) on drums and John Strohm (Blake Babies, Lemonheads) on guitar.
No one in the current backing band plays on Please Be Honest, which features Pollard on all instruments, recorded at Cyberteknics in his hometown of Dayton, Ohio. March did play in the last version of Guided By Voices up until the most recent time Pollard disbanded it in 2014 (the band’s second death; Pollard first shuttered the GBV shop on the last day of 2004). March stepped in for Kevin Fennell, the band’s original drummer with GBV service dating back to 1983, who was fired after posting his drum kit for sale on eBay for $55,000. “Most people would like to know who the fuck you think you are and who you think Guided By Voices is that you can warrant that kind of asking price for your fucking drums,” Pollard posted collegially on Facebook. Nick Mitchell—not to be confused with founding GBV guitarist Mitch Mitchell— appeared with Pollard on I Sell the Circus (2015) by Ricked Wicky, one of Pollard’s current side projects (that sounds as great and in exactly the same way as all of his other records under all of the other artist names). That was one of three records that Ricked Wicky released last year. Last year Pollard also released a record under the band name Circus Devils (featuring Tim Tobias and Todd Tobias)—the 13th record for that band. Teenage Guitar is yet another current Pollard project name, for which he plays every instrument—but, then again, he did the same for the newest Guided By Voices record.
If there is anything unusual about the newest Guided By Voices and its latest record Please Be Honest, it’s the relatively meager offering of 15 songs that finish in 33 minutes. (Compare Alien Lanes from 1995 with 28 songs than ran 41 minutes.) It’s hard to accuse someone who released three records last year by one of three current side projects—and is capable of putting out 100 unreleased GBV songs in a single boxed set—of running out of material. Though it must be said, cutting back on tracks on new releases is the first sign that Robert Pollard may have anything like human limitations as a songwriter and recording artist.
Guided By Voices play The Ready Room (4195 Manchester) on Wednesday, April 27; tickets are $25 & $30. For more info, go to thereadyroom.com.
