Guided By Voices, "The Colossus Crawls West"
My attempt at putting up an appropriately deep and amazing GBV cut, because I'm deeper into them than you bro!
This weekend I finished a Robert Pollard biography, Closer You Are. It was appropriately thorough and workmanlike, covering pretty much everything you'd want to know about Dayton's foremost rock and roll genius. The early days are fascinating, as Bob basically decided he wanted to make albums more than just music, and started famously designing band names and cover art before he ever picked up an instrument or gathered musicians around himself.
Also, while the influence of booze is pretty much part of the GBV credo, there were plenty of harder chemicals that got thrown in to the mix at various times but, Bob being Bob, he usually managed to put his foot down before too much damage was done to his band's reputation. As "loose" and he comes off onstage and on recordings, he takes his musical legacy incredibly seriously. (As he should.)
So not to damn too much with faint praise, but this is a perfectly serviceable bio that's strong on details (with copious citations) but maybe a little weaker on the themes and ideas that continue to drive Bob today, beyond his love of music and his insane level of productive energy.
As I suspected too, Bob is a much better musician than he tends to let on. He played all the instruments on "Man Called Aerodynamics." And scientifically and objectively speaking, that's a killer fucking track and one of the best album openers of all time.
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