Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
This authorized biography of Bob Pollard, the pugnacious singer and songwriter behind the scrappy indie band Guided by Voices, is a blast. Cutter, a musician, describes the life of Pollard, who grew up on the blue-collar side of Dayton, Ohio, in the 1960s and, due to his love of the Beatles, developed a record-buying addiction. Pollard played baseball in high school and at Wright State College before becoming a musician and a lo-fi-recording savant-"marathon affairs accompanied by copious amounts of beer, pot, and coke"-while working as a public school teacher. He formed Guided by Voices in 1983, and the band had its first, inauspicious show in a Dayton bar where Nick Nolte was in attendance. Despite Pollard's near-maniacal level of productivity and the band's eagerness to make it ("Lacking a scene, they made their own"), it wasn't until a 1993 show at CBGB that the band caught fire. Cranking out album after album of esoteric power pop, Guided by Voices became one of the landmark American indie bands of the 1990s. Though Cutter's attention to detail (especially with regard to gigs and recordings) drags the narrative in spots, he has captured the raucous and squalling voice of a powerful American songwriter. (Aug.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
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Review by Library Journal Review
Musician, journalist, and gamer Cutter contributes nicely to the growing literature on Dayton, OH, "lo-fi" indie rock legends Guided by Voices (GBV) and their frontman Robert Pollard. Through extensive interviews with Pollard and associates, the author relates a slow-and-steady-wins-the-race narrative about GBV's decades-long journey from intermittent passion project to critically acclaimed rockers. Cutter charts Pollard's path from star multisport high school athlete to eccentric schoolteacher to struggling musician with patience and charming detail. After the release of the LP Propeller, the band was about to call it quits. Cutter uses Malcolm Gladwell's notion of the "tipping point" to account for their unexpected rise to popularity in 1992 in the wake of the album's release. From this point forward, Pollard and GBV's narrative is one of prolific recording, prodigious drinking, constant touring, frequent lineup changes, and a litany of side projects. In short, it reads more like a list than "a story." Given Pollard's extensive recording output, a discography would have been useful. VERDICT Essential for fans of GBV, lovers of 90s indie rock, and proud Ohioans.-Brian Flota, James -Madison Univ., Harrisonburg, VA © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Biography of a working-class teacher who became a prolific punk icon.In his debut, writer and lyricist Cutter examines the life and art of the curmudgeonly, beloved Robert Pollard, leader of Guided by Voices, and his improbable success after years of home-recording obscurity. As Pollard recalls, "the fact that it actually happened when I was thirty-six, it was kind of mind-blowing." Based on interviews with Pollard and other principals, the book mirrors the shaggy dog story feel of Pollard's private universe of songcraft. The author acutely captures how Pollard's wry self-mythologizing derives from his biographical relationship with Dayton, Ohio, its blue-collar eccentricities and rock-'n'-roll underground. During Pollard's rowdy childhood, he both excelled in athletics and created a world of collage art and imaginary, epic rock bands; he began recording and sporadically performing with a circle of like-minded friends. At first, Pollard's low-fi theatricality equally charmed and alienated his family, neighbors, and rival bands. He pursued these projects even as he started a family and became a well-liked teacher. All of this fed GBV's strengths once they connected with the indie-rock cognoscenti. They eventually signed to Matador Records and went on to dominate the fervently self-aware, high-stakes, post-Nirvana 1990s indie scene. His childhood fantasies realized, success and endless touring drove Pollard to become outwardly abrasive and more domineering with his band mates, leading to high turnover and plenty of decadent backstage drama, all ably captured here. Still, Cutter portrays Pollard as a large-hearted figure, driven to maintain creative control and satisfy fans' desire (and his own standards) for ever lengthier, crazed, and inebriated performances. Pollard has sporadically retired and revived GBV since 2004; Cutter concludes, "finally, Bob realized he didn't need a label and its expectations to have what he'd always wanted." The author's lively writing captures the arc of indie-rock's mainstreaming, although his exegesis of dozens of Pollard songs may appeal mainly to GBV's (many) obsessive fans.A well-crafted, intimate portrait of an unlikely, all-American rock-'n'-roll life. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
