The Entroporium

After a pre-party at our house, we lurch downhill to the Fillmore. It seemed unusually crowded, and unlike some of the other Saturday night crowds we’ve seen there, everybody seems primed for the show, more pushing to the front than hanging back. When GBV hit the stage, more than one of us remarked on Bob’s grey hair. Eh, at least he gets to keep his.

Somebody passed up a bottle to the stage. How did they get that in here? Bob drinks. Then he drinks tequila. He is a brave man.

Somehow after 11 years of listening and trying to keep up with all his various projects, Bob still has records and songs I’ve never heard of! They plow through a great set of new & old favorites. A couple of times I catch myself thinking, “I’ll never hear that song played that well again.” Can’t they drop by my house and play I Am A Tree a couple times a year?

In general, the band seems like they are playing to our need to say goodbye. I don’t think it’s really hit them yet, except probably for Bob. The really emotional gigs seem yet to come on this tour. That’s OK, I’d really rather they just concentrate on rockin’ out anyway.

After two-and-half hours and 50-odd songs, the usual detritus of a GBV gig covers the floor and we stray to the exits. The club is done.

[Soundtrack]
Transcender – Motorpranks.mp3 A tribute to GBV by a coming California band. It’s good, I swear, and neatly expresses why it’s great to be their fan. It mattered, it mattered, it mattered a lot to me!
Robert Pollard – Conspiracy of Owls.mp3 From Bob’s new solo album, released pretty much simultaneously with the latest GBV. Is this the future of the GBV sound?

This Saturday will be the last time I ever get to see my all-time favorite live band, Guided By Voices, who plan to break up after their current tour. This is GBV Week!

GBV continues to put albums out on Matador, but somehow I find them all vaguely disappointing. They still have terrific singles (linked below), the albums still leap to life live, but the filler material and Bob’s recent lurch towards prog leaves me a bit colder than in the past.

Nevertheless, I’m always there at the shows, still coming every six months, still with the formula of playing mostly the new record the first time through and more of a hits set the second time through. I’m still introducing people to the band and acting as a ticketing ringleader for each gig. I nearly have the UK-based worldwide CEO and CFO out for a night at Bimbo’s, but an unhappy budget meeting sees them begging off at the last minute.

Somehow I sense that they’re not having as much fun as usual. Only Bob is drinking, not the rest of the band, and not really that much. Has he put a no-drinking on stage rule into effect? No, that seems unlikely.

Not a couple of weeks after this gig, bass player Tim Tobias — who always seemed the happiest guy on stage, the band’s biggest fan — leaves the group. I’m not surprised; he sort of seemed to mope through the show and he’s lost a lot of weight. Maybe health problems? A solo release by Bob and Todd is mysteriously downgraded to a limited edition of 500.

A gig at Slim’s in October 2003 seems to set some kind of milestone. They’ve just been to SF a couple of months before and the club is only half-full. They are completely tanked. Bob starts off with the announcement that “We’re here to support our new album. And we’ll probably here again next year to support our new album. We’ll probably be here every year for the rest of our lives to support our new album.” This doesn’t sound like a happy announcement. Sure enough, halfway through the show Bob goes into a semi-intelligible 20-minute monologue about the history of the band, how all the critics complain his albums sound the same (they don’t), and a host of other things on his mind. Then they all do shots. Then they take a piss break. Most of the crowd, including all of my friends, decide they’d rather party somewhere else. It’s a depressing night.

So when GBV announces in Spring that they plan to discontinue the band after playing one more tour, it’s not really that big a surprise.

[Soundtrack]
Guided By Voices – My Kind Of Soldier.mp3
Guided By Voices – Everywhere With Helicopter.mp3
Guided By Voices – The Best Of Jill Hives.mp3

This Saturday will be the last time I ever get to see my all-time favorite live band, Guided By Voices, who plan to break up after their current tour. This is GBV Week!

At one point in 2001-02, we see GBV four times in six months. Easily the most memorable time was on our trip to New York for New Year’s 2001. They’re back on Matador, back producing themselves and they are clearly having a good time. On this occasion, I’ve managed to score tickets to see them play at the legendary Apollo Theatre in Harlem. They are sharing the bill with MC David Cross and The Strokes, who are 2001′s flavor of the moment.

First of all, just being in Harlem at night — much less at the Apollo — is kind of a trip. It’s already been an odd day; that morning I’d gone down to check out the scene at Ground Zero, which was still very much Ground Zero just three months after that thing happened. The Apollo, it turns out, is kind of run down and not nearly as glamorous as all the televised talent shows would have you think. But it’s still terrific to be there. The halls and stairwells are decorated with glossy photos of past performers, every one making you ooh and aah.

The staff is not ready for a rock n’ roll show, especially not this one. We’re in the first balcony and all the ushers are holding their ears. The Strokes come on to open the show… and Julian falls down! This will be an interesting evening.

Actually, it turns out to be a horrible whooping. The bands switch off sets, but it’s no contest. The Strokes have about a half-hour of solid material. GBV on the other hand has, what, 500 songs? The Strokes surrender early, drunk off their asses, but unfortunately so do the NYC fans who are there mostly to see the hometown side. By the time GBV is done, the place is half-empty. The Apollo, unfortunately, has grossly underestimated the beer-drinking abilities of an indie-rock crowd. They desperately refill the drink stations for a while but by 10pm they’ve just plain given up on keeping the crowd fed.

I read an interview with Bob the next day in the Times. Turns out he’s advised Julian that whenever he’s in doubt onstate, he should fall down because “the kids love it.” I guess Julian is in doubt a lot on stage, especially in the presence of the great GBV!

The next time we see them is three months later at the Warfield with the New Pornographers opening. Another dream show, right? Maybe not. They’ve just plain been to SF too many times and the soft economy takes a toll on attendance. In a half-empty, too-big hall, I’m having a hard time getting into it. For the first time ever, I take stock of the situation and decide to cut out after an hour. They’ll be back, right?

There are other signs of trouble, too. Seemingly many of the best new songs aren’t on GBV’s albums, but are found instead on Robert Pollard’s various other projects. (These are the sources for today’s Soundtrack below.) But I can’t imagine that I won’t have this band around forever. They seem to love their jobs so much.

[Soundtrack]
Robert Pollard with Doug Gillard – Tight Globes.mp3
Robert Pollard & His Soft Rock Renegades – I Drove a Tank.mp3
Airport 5 – Stifled Man Casino.mp3

This Saturday will be the last time I ever get to see my all-time favorite live band, Guided By Voices, who plan to break up after their current tour. This is GBV Week!

For some reason, GBV won’t come to San Francisco on a weekend, always a weeknight. This is a royal pain in the ass when it comes to, you know, functioning.

It’s the end of the century and the band has signed to TVT Records to finally go for it. They are going to become arena-rock stadium gods. TVT sets them up with Ric Ocasek as their producer. (I should have taken this as a danger sign. I hate The Cars.) GBV makes its most commercial record ever, “Do The Collapse,” in an obvious bid for radio play. Rumor has it that Ocasek won’t let them drink in the studio. How on earth will they find that magical drunken rocking place now? The record has some great tunes, but in retrospect it’s obviously GBV’s worst. Bob publicly disowns the inspiring but sorta insipid ballad, “Hold On Hope,” as something he regrets writing. Heck, it’s still better than 96% of what’s on the radio.

But live the band still kills. The stability of the line-up has made them an absolute rock and roll machine, better than just about any band you’ll ever see. They give it their all for 2-3 hours, over & over. They get in the habit of coming to SF twice for every album; first pre-release with a set loaded with new material, the second time playing more of a hits set and more clearly enjoying themselves. These second shows are always messier and more fun.

Two gigs stand out from this period. At the Fillmore for a “Collapse” show, Amy jumps onstage to dance with the band. It’s the only time at the Fillmore where I haven’t seen someone immediately bum-rushed by security for doing this. It’s her 30th birthday and they keep her up there for a couple of songs. It’s a really charming moment.

The other is at Bimbo’s on the “Isolation Drills” tour. After closing with an unitelligible “Baba O’Reilly,” all the energy spills out on to Columbus Avenue. Chris R. convinces two guys that they should fight. Meanwhile, Susie has convinced Angela to find them a way backstage. They get there and Susie freezes up. The band has just played its heart out and they are exhausted. Susie is starstruck and drunk, a really lethal social combination. “Hey, you guys want to get a drink?” They get blank stares while Angela rushes her out of the room.

I think it was this same night that I glided unusually close to the stage. By now, I know the GBV repertoire like nobody’s business. Yeah, it’s 50 songs a night, all different, every time, but I’ve got the Bob Pollard dramatic sense down cold. It’s near the end of the set and I’m pretty well gone. They conclude some song and I sense — I just know — the next song. I count off “1-2-Big-SCHOOL!” Bob looks down at me for a second, hesitates… and then endorsing my call, counts off “1-2-Big-SCHOOL!” People around me look at me aghast. How did he know that? Yep, this is the band for me alright!

[Soundtrack]
Guided By Voices – Things I Will Keep.mp3
Guided By Voices – Skills Like This.mp3
Guided By Voices – Glad Girls.mp3

This Saturday will be the last time I ever get to see my all-time favorite live band, Guided By Voices, who plan to break up after their current tour. This is GBV Week!

It’s 1997 and I’ve settled into my return to San Francisco life. GBV have settled in, too. They are on a one-new-album, two-tours annually groove. They clearly love coming to San Francisco and play some great gigs here.

Weird stories are coming out of the GBV camp, principally that Bob has fired the entire band and grafted another band, Pittsburgh’s Cobra Verde, into its place. It turns out that Cobra Verde has already been fired and GBV is touring for the first time with the line-up that will stay pretty constant for the next 6-7 years (though in true Spinal Tap fashion, there seems to be a rotating set of drummers). Meanwhile, Bob has opened the floodgates and is now putting out about five albums a year on his private label.

My personal favorite gig comes on the “Mag Earwhig!” tour, or maybe it’s the next year. We’re at Maritime Hall, an outmoded union hall next to a freeway entrance that’s being used mostly for stoner shows. It’s like being in a high school gymnasium, but the promoters have made a few touches to spruce the place up — fried chicken in the back and a ‘psychedelic’ light show to the side of the stage, which obviously delights Bob to no end.

The manager runs drink after drink on to the stage. Angela manages to get in front of Nate and do the unthinkable: steal the Jack Daniels bottle. Nate nearly jumps into the audience for it, dropping to his knees and begging in mid-song. Angela ransoms it for beer from the onstage cooler.

Hysteria seems to build with every song. And there’s a lot of them! GBV has become the marathon band! Two and a half hours and a song every two minutes. What’s that? 75 songs??? And of course we have to drink when Bob drinks.

Bob closes with the announcement,”OK, kids. There’s no more beer in the cooler. And you know what that means: there’s no more reason to be here.” Sure enough, they run through one more song and are gone for another six months.

[Soundtrack]
Guided By Voices – Your Name Is Wild.mp3
Guided By Voices – Little Lines.mp3
Guided By Voices – Don’t Stop Now.mp3