Reviews
 Keep It Simple
Van Morrison
Roger McGuinn @ the Huntington IMAC, Long Island, NY - April 4, 2008
Emily Saxe @ the Allen Room/Jazz at Lincoln Center - April 5, 2008
Another Country
Tift Merritt
Be Your Own Pet
Get Awkward
Paul McCartney – The McCartney Years (DVD)
Juno – Music from the Motion Picture
Various Artists
Yes - Their Definitive Story
Day and Night Driving
Seven Mary Three
InterMedia Arts Center 2/2/08
Huntington, NY
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Guided By Voices
From time to time, I worry about Robert Pollard. I’m sure he would think that I’m being ridiculous, or that it’s none of my business (and of course it isn’t), but I just wish that he would take care of himself a bit better. As is par for just about any Guided By Voices performance, the stage for this show was decorated with nothing except a vat of chilled beer and a bottle of Jack Daniels, which the band passed around throughout the show, between cigarettes and countless bottles of beer. If this was just schtick, there wouldn’t be much to worry about, but these guys drink and smoke like there’s no tomorrow, and they do this night after night, while on tour. Pollard’s not exactly old, but he’s no spring chicken either (he’s close to my own age of 43, I think), and it’s no secret that this type of indulgence can do some harm if it remains untempered. The odd thing, though, is that the drinking had absolutely no adverse effect on the show. It might have even helped, since Pollard seems to use alcohol as a form of social lubrication, as a means to overcome any reticence that otherwise might set in. Nobody fell down or collapsed while onstage, and everybody had a great time, so I suppose my worries are misdirected. It’s just that, if quantity of output is any indication at all, then Robert Pollard is one of the most gifted songwriters of our age; He’s a bit of a national treasure, and I just want him to remain healthy and artistically focused for as long as possible.
All the evidence anybody would need to comprehend the validity of this statement was on display Wednesday night. Pollard asked the crowd early on how many people were at the previous night’s show, and although there was only a smattering of hands, he said he’d alter the set list in order to keep things interesting. And, believe me, it was. Careening from song to song with an abandon that can only suggest his prolific nature, the band barely paused long enough between songs to twist off a bottle cap. And how many songs did they play? 30? 40? 50? Who knows? It was a non-stop torrent of melodic gems, lasting for three solid hours. By indie-band standards, that’s quite a show, and when you stop to consider that there wasn’t a bad song in the bunch, it’s simply incredible.
The band mixed new material from their upcoming album with a variety of older stuff. Unheard songs like "Back to the Lake, "The Weakling Bogey-Man" " and "Skin Parade" bode well for the new album, while the familiar stuff caused the audience to erupt. "Game of Pricks" set the crowd off on a (friendly) mosh-pit frenzy, while "Tractor Rape Chain", "Chasing Heather Crazy" and "Teenage FBI" only upped the ante. All the while, Pollard moved about the stage like a suburban Roger Daltrey, swinging the mike and ‘vogue-ing’ like you might expect from some guy in a bowling alley after making a strike. Watching Pollard onstage is kind of like watching your drunken older cousin dance at a wedding, but it’s his absolute lack of "STAR" pretension that makes him and the rest of the band so appealing. Each of these guys looks as though they never got a haircut that cost more than ten bucks, and their audience likes that. Robert Pollard is the least pretentious performer I have ever had the pleasure of seeing. When he jokingly announced, "Fuck indie rock! We’re arena rock!", the wry, sarcastic nature of his comment was unquestioned. Even their killer encore version of the Who’s "Baba O’Reiley" drove home the point that these guys are fans of the music, who just happen to have a songwriting genius of their own in residence. I can neither explain nor comprehend the raw talent that it takes for a band to pull something like this off without appearing foolish, but they kept me riveted for the entire three hour set. I doubt you’ll ever see any of them in a Calvin Klein ad (Budweiser, maybe, but not Calvin Klein), but you definitely ought to see them when they come around live. God bless Guided By Voices.
-- Tom Ryan
 
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