tobin sprout

the "indi" attitude destroys itself -or- why latter day guided by voices has no appeal

note: today's tracks are linked at the end of the article.

disclaimer - if you're a crazy guided by voices fanatic, there is nothing for you here. if you maybe like the band but can't differentiate between vampire on titus and do the collapse then you might be interested in what follows.

the secondary song writer and creative influence (setting aside pollard's brother jim) behind indie legend guided by voices has had a mediocre solo career at best. i don't question that pollard was not only the vision but the oft-drunken charisma behind the vast majority of guided by voices work. however, it was tobin sprout who by all measures seems to have been pollard's creative ballast in the band.

as is typical when a band member leaves the creative fold that nurtured so much of his or her influential work, it's the children who suffer - in this case, the material took a turn. i'm not calling into question pollards motivations for sacking the band after the falling out with sprout in 96, but the results are a sea change in the nature of guided by voices artistic direction that saw them become increasingly more canned with each successive album.

guided by voices heyday consisted of several EPs and LPs like propeller on ohia indie labels (mostly i wanna, and rockathon. maybe some others as well). a lot of the material on these early recordings overlap - with the same song appearing on 2, or 3 records. 1993's LP vampire on titus was released by the more established scat records. scat would eventually strike a distribution deal with matador records, paving the way for the widely distributed and acclaimed LPs bee thousands, alien lanes, and under the bushes under the stars.

in early 1996 the band released under the bushes - the follow up to opus alien lanes. having something of a falling out while touring that album, pollard and sprout would spit in one another's faces by both releasing solo records on the same day in the fall of that year. that's just not a nice thing to do, so sprout decided to quit the band.

with the departure of sprout, pollard elected to dismiss the rest of the band and start fresh. he brought in cleveland based cobra verde to back him on the next guided by voices record mag earwhig!. being so freshly removed from the band, this record still sounds closely connected to classic guided by voices material (tracks like the clearly solo track 'i am produced', and 'learning to hunt'), but demonstrates a clear departure in the sonic mentality.

since then, guided by voices has released progressively louder and simpler songs on records with less and less connection to the original spirit of the band. with each post-sprout record, they've become harder and harder to listen to - evolving into something increasingly difficult to identify as guided by voices. nearly any track from the heyday recordings can instantly and happily be fingered as a GBV track. now? it's difficult to differentiate gbv from the other muck on the radio.

to that end, it was sprout's influence that counterbalanced pollard's more jocular tendencies and gave guided by voices it's most identifiable quality - elusive vulnerability. pollard seems to be over that. no longer interested in writing songs like king of arthur avenue or game of pricks. he still throws us tracks like the conciliatory hold on hope as late as 99's do the collapse, but his interest has clearly shifted away from such songwriting.

i may be overstating the impact of sprout on gbv's sound considering the entire band was replaced following his departure - it's not the most scientific evaluation to attribute the entire shift to sprout's influence. however, that pollard felt comfortable dismissing the remainder of the band following the loss of sprout would indicate the tobin was in fact the centerpiece of the unit.

with that, here's a couple tracks each from the spit-in-the-face records - tobin sprout's carnival boy and pollard's simultaneously released solo record, the sometimes-stellar not in my airforce.

Rob Pollard - Not In My Airforce

Chance To Buy An Island
Maggie Turns To Flies
Psychic Pilot Clocks Out


Tobin Sprout - Carnival Boy

I Didn't Know
White Flyer
Martin's Mounted Head