Winnipeg Sun - 12/01/00
By Darryl Sterdan

Guided By Voices
Suitcase: Failed Experiments and Trashed Aircraft
#6 in the Fading Captain Series

5 out of 5

Singers with perfect pitch say it can be as much a curse as a blessing. It comes in handy at work, but in the real world -- where tinkling silverware, taxicab horns and barking dogs seldom harmonize -- their gift can drive them nuts.

Perfect pitch is, frankly, not a problem Robert Pollard has to deal with. But the singer, frontman, songwriter, benevolent dictator and sole constant member of indie-rock legends Guided By Voices suffers from a musical malady we suspect is equally double-edged. Pollard is a compulsive songwriter. In fact, he might be the most prolific composer in rock. By his own count, he's penned between 2,000 and 3,000 songs. Fast, slow, long, short, funny, serious, loud, quiet, you name it, they flow from Pollard's mind and mouth as effortlessly and gracefully as blessings from a priest -- or lies from a politician.

Sure, it sounds like a good deal for a songwriter. You always have new material and you never have to stoop to singing something the drummer wrote. But here's the rub: When you write a coupla hundred songs a year, you can't release them all. Not even a workaholic like Pollard, who crams a couple dozen onto a new disc every six months. Even at that rate, scads of usable (and often great) material ends up in the slush pile -- or in Pollard's case, in a suitcase full of home-recorded cassettes that the former teacher keeps in the basement of his Dayton, Ohio home.

Recently, Pollard decided to get rid of some of that musical baggage, so to speak. So now we have the aptly titled Suitcase, a mammoth four-CD box with 100 -- count 'em 100 -- unreleased songs recorded by Pollard and various incarnations of GBV over the decades. For a rabid GBV fan like us, it's like putting a quarter in that big scoop at the arcade and having it pick up all the prizes at once. Suitcase is stuffed with all the GBV trademarks: grungy garage-rock riffs by the pound, British Invasion melodies till hell wouldn't have 'em and more non-sequitur lyrics than a Donovon box set. And of course, there's a heaping helping of home-recorded demos, alternate versions of familiar tracks, half-baked ideas, chunks of oddball tomfoolery and more than a few moments of inspired madness and pop genius, all captured on hissy mono tapes with more dropouts than an inner-city high school. In other words, it's like every other GBV album you've ever heard -- except way, way longer.

But Suitcase also has a few things we haven't heard. Like the bouncy acoustic ditty Little Jimmy the Giant, a home-recorded number that supposedly dates back to '74 when Pollard was still a high school student. Or the rockabilly-metal jam Big Trouble, where Bob transforms into Elvis Caligula, barking and strutting like a cross between the King and the Lizard King. Or the audience-recorded live cut Try to Find You, where a reunion between two women in the crowd practically drowns out the band. Or the Who-circa-'65 power of Pluto the Skate and Let's Go Vike, the Dylanesque vibe of Shifting Swift is a Lift, the Lennonesque blues of Sabotage, the endlessly hilarious titles like Bottoms Up! (You Fantastic Bastard) and Ding Dong Daddy (Is Back From the Bank) and so on and so on ... and so on.

To be fair, it isn't for everybody. Many find Pollard's short-attention-span style, stream-of-consciousness lyrics ("Breakfast is the plan / Are you coming with the ha-ha man?") and no-fi production grating. Casual fans and GBV newbies who only know the major-label disc Do The Collapse would do better to start with an album like 1994's Bee Thousand. Still, even if you don't dig Pollard's uniquely weird style, you have to give the man props not only for creating all these songs, but having the patience to sift through them all again. Not to mention the fact that after 20 years, he can still remember everybody who played on every single one of these tracks.

Obviously, along with being a compulsive songwriter, Pollard is also one helluva packrat. We hope he never gets over either condition.

Disc1
  01.Terrible Two - Styles We Paid For
  02.Bloodbeast - Standard Generator
  03.The Kissing Life - Huge On Plato
  04.Bottoms Up! (You Fantastic Bastard) - Whitey Museum
  05.Tear It Out - (The Amazing) Ben Zing
  06.Cinnamon Flavored Skulls - Meat Kingdom Group
  07.Bunco Men - Elf God
  08.Bad And Rare - Judas & The Pile Drivers
  09.Dorothy's A Planet - Eric Pretty
  10.Pluto The Skate - Global Which Awakening
  11.Let's Go Vike - Magic Toe
  12.Sabotage - Hazzard Hotrods
  13.Pink Drink - Tax Revlon
  14.James Riot - Champion Hairpuller
  15.It's Easy - Burns Carpenter
  16.Dank Star Ground Control - A A Bottom
  17.Spring Tigers - Crushed Being Groovy
  18.Born On Seaweed - Rex Polaroyd
  19.Flesh Ears From June - Monkey Business
  20.Driving In The U.S. of A - Ghetto Blaster
  21.My Big Day (3 Versions) - Turned Up Turner
  22.Have It Again - Maxwell Greenfield
  23.Little Jimmy The Giant - Little Bobby Pop
  24.Taco, Buffalo, Birddog And Jesus - Bozo's Octopus
  25.Ding Dong Daddy (Is Back From The Bank) - Mooshoo Wharf

Disc2
  01.Supermarket The Moon - Clinton Killingsworth
  02.Hold On To Yesterday - Stingy Queens
  03.Ha Ha Man - The Judy Plus Nine
  04.Our Value Of Luxury - Nicotine Cranes
  05.Bug House (2 Versions) - Artur Psycho And The Trippy Warts
  06.Rainbow Billy - Groovy Lucifer
  07.Shrine To The Dynamic Years (Athens Time Change Riots) -
  08.On Short Wave - Eric Petty
  09.I Can See It In Your Eyes - Artrock Unicorns
  10.Tobacco's Last Stand - Kuda Labranch
  11.Shifting Swing Is A Lift - Elvis Caligula
  12.Sing It Out - Tabatha's Flashpot
  13.Messenger - Ricked Wicky Comstock
  14.The Fool Ticket - K.C. Turner
  15.Mallard Smoke - Brown Smoothies
  16.Mr. McCaslin Will Sell No More Flowers - Edison Shell
  17.Shit Midas - Ceramic Cock Einstein
  18.Blue Gil - Moonchief
  19.Invest In British Steel - Ricked Wicky
  20.Spinning Around - Pearly Gates Smoke Machine
  21.Let's Go (To War) - 1st Joint
  22.Grasshopper Rap - Antler
  23.I'm Cold - King Of Cincinnati
  24.Damn Good Mr. Jam - Ghost Fart
  25.In Walked The Moon - Ben Zing

Disc3
  01.Long Way To Run - Fake Organisms
  02.Mr. Media - Tom Devil
  03.Settlement Down - Urinary Track Stars
  04.Mr. Japan - Red Hot Helicopter
  05.A Kind Of Love - Doctor Formula
  06.Meddle - Ben Zing
  07.Big Trouble - Hazzard Hotrods
  08.A Good Circuitry Soldier - Eric Pretty
  09.Devil Doll - Antler
  10.Pantherz - Indian Alarm Clock
  11.Cocaine Jane - Flaming Ray
  12.Exploding Antlhills - Grabbit
  13.Perch Warble - 8th Dwarf
  14.Medley: This View/ True Sensation/ On The Wall - Coward Of The Hour
  15.What Re We Coming To? - Oil Can Harry
  16.Scissors And The Clay Ox (In) - Too Proud To Practice
  17.Cody's Antler - Zeppelin Commander
  18.Once In A While - God's Brother
  19.Buzzards And The Dreadful Crows - Antler
  20.Carnival At The Morning Star School - Kink Zego
  21.Cruise - Royal Japanese Daycare
  22.Gayle - Stingy Queens
  23.Gift - Homosexual Flypaper
  24.The Flying Party - Fast Forward Life
  25.Trashed Airport - Bus Of Trojan Hope

Disc4
  01.Trying To Make It Work Again - Pete Eastwood
  02.Turbo Boy - Panzee
  03.Chain Wallet Bitch - The Unfriendly
  04.Little Head - King Of Cincinnati
  05.Why Did You Land? - Matted Pelt
  06.Time Machines - Ben Zing
  07.A Farewell To Arms - Hazzard Hotrods
  08.Best Things Goin' Round - Jumped Or Pushed
  09.Sickly Sweet - Good Parts Only Corporation
  10.United - Ben Zing
  11.Unshaven Bird - John The Croc
  12.Black Ghost Pie - Go Back Snowball
  13.Go For The Answers - Brown Star Jam
  14.Rocking Now - Factory Rat
  15.Excellent Things - God's Brother
  16.Static Airplane Jive - Antler
  17.Where I Come From - Fake Organisms
  18.Try To Find You - Fat Chance
  19.Deaf Ears - Antler
  20.Good For A Few Laughs - Academy Of Crowsfeet
  21.Raphael - Nelly And The Dirtfloor
  22.My Feet's Trustworthy Existence - Maxwell Greenfield
  23.Eggs - Bravery Umpire
  24.Wondering Boy Poet - Clinton Killingsworth
  25.Oh. Blinky - Styles We Paid For