By Gail O'Hara This may be only an EP - it clocks in at 23 minutes - but it has ten songs on it, and one of them happens to be the best Guided By Voices song ever written. It's called "If We Wait" and believe me when I tell you that it's better than most songs by the Beatles, whom some folks think they sound like. It is just a gorgeous masterpiece that perfectly showcases all that is good about GBV. It's got a lyric that goes "If you could be anything that you want to be/Do you think that you would be who you see in the mirror?" It originally appeared on a split seven inch single with Columbus, Ohio, diva Jenny Mae Leffel.The other nine songs are standard issued GBV: homegirl Kim Deal produced "Cocksoldiers and their Postwar Stubble", and her boyfriend, Jim Greer, the long-winded rock journalist who scored the job of bassman only to get booted out soon afterward, wrote "Trendspotter Acrobat", which actually isn't that bad. (You should purchase "Breakfast" anyway because of "If We Wait".)
GBV's future started getting murky when leading men Robert Pollard and Tobin Sprout both made solo records earlier this year. Wh'd they do it? Were things getting ugly in the band? Some folks praised Sprout's effort over Pollard's, and maybe Pollard got a little jealous, even though he had been gushed over plenty by critics and fans. Truth is, the best GBV stuff seems to include both guys. Upon hearing tons of rumors that this Dayton, Ohio, group has disbanded, I was able to uncover the following tidbits from GBV's team of publicists: The touring line up is up in the air; Pollard is currently recording under the name GBV, but what happens after that is anyone's guess, GBV's future is TBA. A publicity dude said, "Toby and Kevin are out of the band. Mitch Mitchell was apparently kicked out of the band 'cause he owed Bob $40. But it's a small town; I'm sure they've made up by now