A Salty Salute

The Official Ironmen: Robert Pollard & Guided By Voices (Photo By: Chris Castaneda)

Once in a while there comes a band you discover that fans have rallied for all throughout the band's career. There's an effort made by yourself to try and wrap your head around what makes this band something you should pay attention to, something that you need to hear. For me, Guided By Voices were one of those bands.

I guess it was destiny that I would not get a chance to say goodbye to this band out of Ohio, that the three times I've seen them in concert would be the only times I see them. On December 31, 2004, Guided By Voices chose Chicago's Metro as the place were they would make their last call to their fans. Where was I instead of there? Section 4 of Madison Square Garden for Wilco's New Year's Eve show in New York. It was the type of situation where you don't like having to pick between two of your favorite bands. One is a band you were knocked out by during an opening set for R.E.M.'s 1999 concert at the World Music Theatre on a pleasant August day; the other was a band your father would blaringly spin on the home stereo system, sometimes as a sort of wake up call to the rest of the family and neighborhood on the weekends.

My father provided my introduction to Guided By Voices, but it took a girl named Jen that shared an English class with me during my junior year at DePaul University to really make me listen. You sometimes do silly things when you have a crush on someone and trying to understand someone else's musical tastes can be one of them; it was definitely less excruciating to open my ears to Guided By Voices than it was the Dave Matthews Band. But it all made absolute sense to me when I finally saw GBV headline the 2002 Hideout Block Party. There was singer/songwriter Robert Pollard and the guys, in the flesh, and probably already buzzing. Pollard was a statue, right hand tightly fixed on the microphone with his left hand hanging onto the cord and this volcanic voice covered in a British accent. Each song was like a punch in the face that actually left you smiling and wanting more. At 45-years-old, Pollard had the energy of a teenager, swinging the microphone like The Who's Roger Daltrey, leaping like Pete Townshend, dancing around on one leg doing kicks, which to me mimicked the crane kick from The Karate Kid, and catching beer bottles he had flipped in the air before downing them in mid-song.

By the end of the night, the band finished off more drinks than they played songs, but probably not by much since this was a band with a catalog of 1 minute to 3 minute songs that could easily play 40 songs in the span of an hour and a half set.

It wasn't until their show at Metro on January 24, 2003, that I got the full-out live experience that the band was known for. Standing dead center of Uncle Bob, front row, I soaked it all in. I was also on a mission. For over a year, my father kept his copy of Guided by Voices' #6 box set of the Fading Captain Series in the plastic. Having been a converted fan I had wanted to listen to this box set but he just wouldn't let me open it to check out the music. "It'll only be played if Robert Pollard opens it," declared my father. It was slightly Spinal Tap-ish when you think about it. This was the same man that held the title of supervisor of the Nuclear Medicine department at the hospital he worked at. Unfortunately with a job like that he couldn't really be going out to the clubs for concerts every other night, and work seemed to always get in the way of catching Guided By Voices.

So, I snuck his copy of Suitcase out with me and after the show I waited for over an hour outside of Metro, stamping my feet to remain warm, until Pollard came out. Weird things tend to happen after a show, mostly fueled by alcohol. One such incident of strangeness occured during my wait as guitarist Nate Farley was held back by bassist Tim Tobias and guitarist Doug Gillard who was verbally after an exiting Metro employee for apparently stealing his pizza to which the employee replied, "I didn't steal your pizza. I helped bring your shit in." Farley, who took care of his share of Jack Daniels during the show, stood for a moment thinking till he had that "Oh yeah, you're right" look on his face, apologized to the employee who was already down at the corner of Clark and Racine, and went back inside Metro.

Finally, finally Pollard came out, with the infamous Beatle Bob, discussing the recent victory of Pollard's Ohio State Buckeyes winning the 2002 National Championship in football. On their way to Wrigleyville Dogs across the street I stepped up and made my move. I presented the wrapped up box set to Pollard, explained the story behind it, and asked for his autograph. He politely said, "Sure, how should I open it?" Anyway he wanted to as far as I was concerned. So, with his teeth, he ripped the plastic off, signed the box set for my father, and took a picture with me to add to the evidence that this all really happened.

I came home at what was now early Saturday morning, printed out the digital photo, and placed it along with the box set on the dining room table for my dad to see. As I slept, I heard outside my bedroom a delighted, "No way!" Mission accomplished.

The last time I saw Guided By Voices was opening for Cheap Trick at the Vic Theatre in April of 2003. It was too perfect of a bill to miss since I had been a huge Cheap Trick fan since I was 16. I was aware that GBV had done shows before with Cheap Trick, so, to finally see them together under the same roof was amazing. I had always loved GBV more on stage than I did on record. Their albums sometimes couldn't capture all that was great about what I heard at their concerts. Under the Bushes Under the Stars proved to be the one album I'd go back to on a frequent basis. "The Official Ironmen Rally Song" and "Big Boring Wedding" were the sort of songs I couldn't just skip to like on other GBV albums. I wanted the anticipation for those songs to build with every passing second of the album like they were these incredible transitions that would take the album in a whole new direction.

I would end up missing their pair of shows at the Abbey Pub in November of 2003. Regretting not making those shows I probably said, "I'll see them next year." I was wrong. The announcement would later come that at the end of 2004 they would call it quits. I got too comfortable with the thought that if I missed a GBV show come through town I could see them another time; now they would be no more.

They may not have been the only band that mattered the most to me, but they were still a band I respected and thought were important. Heralded as the champions of indie rock, to me, Guided By Voices were champions, in their own right, of rock music, period. I didn't feel listening to them gave me some sort of indie cred. How I felt when listening to GBV was the same way I felt when listening to R.E.M., Oasis, or Wilco: alive.

GBV were a true reminder that it doesn't take a degree from the Berkley School of Music to make timeless music. Some of the best music has been created by people who hardly knew a D chord from a A7 sustained chord in an opening tuning. They were all substance, no flash. What you saw on stage was what you got, and they never tried to hide behind anything. It was the truth and nothing but the truth.

At the age of 24, Paul Weller ended The Jam at the height of their success because he couldn't live with the thought of the band in their 30's, embarrassing themselves trying to hold onto the fire of their youth while playing in front of the youth. I can't think of a better example of a rock band that proved that statement to be untrue like Guided By Voices.

To all the members that came in and out of GBV, alone, stinking, and unafraid, thanks for such delicious pie.