City Beat - Cincinnati OH - 6/01
By Swarthy

Dayton's Guided By Voices flood the Southgate House
with a career-spanning retrospective 


Bob Pollard, by CityBeat's estimation, is now on tour
in support of three LPs. One of these is currently
available. Expect this from someone who only
half-jokes about writing five hundred songs a year. 

Available is Guided By Voices' Isolation Drills, a
16-track Rock & Roll travelogue mostly journaled from
the band's last tour for Do The Collapse. Drills
recently spent several weeks atop the CMJ chart, and
is the quintet's second release for TVT Records. The
summer months will bring the releases of the other two
projects. 

First is Robert Pollard and His Soft Rock Renegades'
Choreographed Man of War, brought to us by Rockathon
Records. Bassist Greg Demos and drummer Jim
MacPherson, both recent ex-Voices, back vocalist
Pollard (also guitarist here) once again.
Choreographed is fourteenth in the Fading Captain
Series, Pollard's means of giving us his belittlingly
prolific output, for those keeping track. 

Second is Airport 5's Tower in the Fountain of Sparks,
also a Rockathon product. Greatly anticipated among
long-time fans, Airport 5 is the reunion of Pollard
and former bandmate Tobin Sprout, the George Harrison
to Pollard's John Lennon/Paul McCartney. Sprout, now a
Leland, Mich., resident, sent his completed
instrumental tracks in search of lyrics to Pollard,
still a Dayton, Ohio, resident. Tower isn't it for
this new old pair: An excitable Pollard informed
CityBeat in a recent telephone interview that he and
Sprout just put finishing touches on the second
Airport 5 album. 

One band promoting three neo-simultaneous releases
seems unreal. But Guided By Voices are for real,
delivering a triumphant 44 songs from 17 releases last
Wednesday at a noisily exuberant Southgate House.
Pollard and his line-up (bassist Tim Tobias,
guitarists Nate Farley and Doug Gillard, and drummer
Jon McCann) brought his artistically damaged update of
American mid-'60s Psychedelic/ Punk Rock for a second
Newport, Ky., show in as many years. (Pollard also
told CityBeat that this and Washington, D.C.'s 9:30
Club are two of his favorite venues.) 

Imposing a Rock & Roll martial law in the historic
ballroom, "I Drove a Tank" from Choreographed may be
the band's most relentless opening song ever. Guided
By Voices didn't stop then, following with a rumbling
"Settlement Down" from the four-disc set, Suitcase,
and an insouciant "Skills Like This" from Drills.
Pollard was a masterful frontman, all microphone,
Miller Lite bottles, kung fu kicks and attitude, with
the moves of an effete Roger Daltrey and the voice of
Greg Lake/John Wetton. 

His teammates are as good a roster as any assembled
over the years. Tobias played a fluid, strong bass,
while prancing about like an Arena Rock Keith
Richards. Pollard's songs are nothing without rhythm
guitar, and Farley played a great one this night.
Gillard, who made his debut on the 1995 Matador
Records EP, Tigerbomb, has the most gifts of any lead
player in Guided By Voices, and is a formidable
creative foil for Pollard. And new guy McCann,
recently conscripted to fill the slot left by
MacPherson's departure, drummed confidently, deftly
and musically. 

Unheard stuff notwithstanding, Guided By Voices' set
list drew heavily from Drills and Collapse, 11 and
five from each respectively. Recent college radio hits
"Glad Girls," "Chasing Heather Crazy" and "Teenage
FBI" brought the ballroom floor to eruption, each of
them three-minute tremors of bass, guitar, drum and
melody. But know that it's only at a Guided By Voices
show that these songs are now older material. Worry
not ­ the obscurities rocked. Airport 5's immediately
memorable "Stifled Man Casino" and "Total Exposure,"
each available only as sold-out 7-inch singles, proved
Pollard and Sprout are still a winning team after all
these years, and the in-concert Guided By Voices
versions made them livelier. Robert Pollard And His
Soft Rock Renegades' sharp "Edison's Memos" and the
moody "Instrument Beetle," along with opener "Tank,"
also won. The packed House was also treated to the
Rock pfennig, "I'm Dirty," from last year's Speed
Traps for the Bee Kingdom, ninth in Pollard's Fading
Captain Series, by the Howling Wolf Orchestra. The
unexpected killer was "Titus and Strident Wet Nurse,"
from this year's compilation concept LP, Colonel
Jeffrey Pumpernickel on Off Records. 

But getting no less popular over time are the older
Robert Pollard/Guided By Voices tunes. Fans of various
LPs and EPs won their favorite Rock lottery prizes
from the band's live tombola: Suitcase ("Settlement
Down," "Sing It Out"), Speak Kindly Of Your Volunteer
Fire Department ("Tight Globes," Soul Train College
Policeman," "Pop Zeus"), Ask Them ("Alone, Stinking
and Unafraid"), Alien Lanes ("Game Of Pricks," "Watch
Me Jumpstart"), Bee Thousand ("Tractor Rape Chain," "I
Am A Scientist," "Hot Freaks"), Waved Out (the title
track), The Grand Hour ("Shocker In Gloomtown"), Kid
Marine ("Submarine Teams"), Not In My Air Force ("Get
Under It," "Psychic Pilot Clocks Out"), Under The
Bushes Under The Stars ("Don't Stop Now," "Cut-Out
Witch"), Propeller ("Lethargy"). If you were a fan,
your ticket was there. (Writer's note: If some
knowledgeable Guided By Voices fan could let me know
in care of CityBeat what album has the fantastic "Back
To Saturn X," I would appreciate it.) 

Toss in an early appearance from the Eat-My-Ass-Guy
(?) and a later one from an exotic dancer during
"Freaks" (!), and this Guided By Voices gig was
complete. Pollard used the encore to show us a
favorite from his music collection: a powerful,
glorious "Baba O'Riley" from Who's Next, where his
voice never sounded better. (And damn that Gillard is
good.) If only The Who's middle-age rocked as hard and
as well as Pollard's is now. Nothing emphasized this
more than the encore­beginning "Saturn X," featuring
the anthemic, memorable refrain, "You're never too old
forever." 

Also making the trip down I-75 from our neighbor
Dayton was The Igniters, who continued the tradition
of fine GBV opening acts. (Remember last year's
Fairmount Girls?) Think of local Nugget-y greats, The
Customs, reinvented as a Garage Glam quintet, and
you've got it. Spindly frontman Jason Keith Himes
marched about the ballroom stage, shouting the
choruses to rave-ups like "Welcome (Hollywood
Shadows)" and "Year of the Cock" with enough
explosiveness to make everyone forget the Black
Crowes/Oasis/ Spacehog show at Riverbend Music Center
was flooded-out. Lead guitarist Scott Bodine, a
veteran of many bands in his home town, all of them
great, lent some fun Ted Nugent/Amboy Dukes-style
fretwork to the band's Indie Rock. Rock & Roll fans
could do much worse than visiting theigniters.net.