Planet Score Records. Robert Pollard. The Oneness.

It's not every day that a record store is named after a Guided By Voices song. Rarer still is a visit to said store by Robert Pollard.

Pollard Takes The Cover Of 100th Issue Of Magnet.

GBV Triple Single Onslaught.

Limited edition single #1: 

"Everywhere Is Miles From Everywhere" / non-LP b-side "The World’s Getting Smaller"

Limited edition single #2: 

"White Flag" / non-LP b-side “Casino Model”

Limited edition single #3: 

"Hangover Child" / non-LP b-side “Urchin Promise”

Dayton Ohio Declares July 2012 Guided By Voices Month!

Watch Guided By Voices On Letterman Tonight!

GUIDED BY VOICES The Unsinkable Fats Domino is iTunes Single of The Week (FREE)

iTunes has chosen the Guided By Voices track "The Unsinkable Fats Domino" as its FREE Single of the Week. This will be a limited offer, so take advantage now.

The new GBV album Let's Go Eat the Factory is also now available for $7.99 from the US iTunes store.

GUIDED BY VOICES' new album on iTunes NOW

Guided By Voices' new album Let's Go Eat the Factory is now available exclusively on iTunes in the US and Canada.

Guided By Voices "Doughnut For A Snowman"

  Guided By Voices - Doughnut For A Snowman by FIRE RECORDS

"Doughnut For A Snowman" from the upcoming "classic lineup" GBV album Lets Go Eat The Factory. Pre-order CD or vinyl LP HERE.

GBV In Spin.

GBV Doubleshot.

Classic lineup Guided By Voices on the cover of current issues of Ghettoblaster and the recently revamped Magnet Magazine.

Revolver Guide To Pichfork Music Fest 2011

FRIDAY JULY 15TH
GUIDED BY VOICES   
Green Stage - Set Time 6:25 PM 

SATURDAY JULY 16TH  

CHRISSY MURDERBOT   
Blue Stage - Set Time 1:00 PM

THE FRESH & ONLYS   
Green Stage - Set Time 1:00 PM

WOODS   
Red Stage - Set Time 1:45 PM 

SUNDAY JULY 17TH

TWIN SISTER   
Blue Stage - Set Time 2:50 PM

BATHS   
Blue Stage - Set Time 4:45 PM

KYLESA   
Blue Stage - Set Time 5:45 PM

Apparently Jay Carney Digs GBV.

An interesting piece of Guided By Voices trivial trivia was posted by The Daily Swam yesterday:

Hot Freaks!: White House Spokesman Jay Carney Outs Himself As Massive Guided By Voices Fan...
New York Times 

New York Times: Mr. Carney is not so silent in another way. He is the lead singer of a band — a hobby and a passion second only to his devotion to the cult band “Guided by Voices.” As for any tapes of Mr. Carney actually singing, Mr. Attie joked, “The tapes can’t be revealed because Jay is an assistant to the president and they might be used for blackmail.” Anyway, he said, “There are a missing 18 minutes.”

Slate: Rockin’ Jay Carney: Responding to a question about Frank Sinatra’s impact on popular culture, Jay Carney announces that Guided by Voices, the Dayton, Ohio, riff-rockers, are his favorite band.

2010 Into 2011 With Guided By Voices.

Apparently GBV missed the countdown from 2010 into 2011 but who really cares anyway. 

Irving Plaza - New York, NY.  Dec. 31st 2010.

You Want Pollard, We Got Pollard!

59 releases under 17 different band names through 7 separate labels, below is a list of every Robert Pollard related exclusive release currently available through Revolver USA / Midheaven Mailorder. Bon appétit!

AIRPORT 5
Life Starts Here CD on Recordhead
Tower in the Fountain of Sparks CD on Recordhead

AIRPORT 5 / GUIDED BY VOICES
Selective Service Split CD on Recordhead

BOSTON SPACESHIPS
Brown Submarine CD & LP on GBV Inc
Our Cubehouse Still Rocks CD & LP on GBV Inc
Planets Are Blasted CD & LP on GBV Inc

CIRCUS DEVILS
Ataxia CD & LP on Happy Jack Rock Records
Gringo CD & LP on Happy Jack Rock Records
Mother Skinny CD & LP on Happy Jack Rock
Harold Pig Memorial CD & LP on Recordhead
Pinball Mars CD on Recordhead
Ringworm Interiors CD on Recordhead
Five CD & LP on Recordhead / Fading Captain Series

COSMOS
Jar of Jam Ton of Bricksn CD & LP on Happy Jack Rock Records

GO BACK SNOWBALL
Calling Zero CD on Recordhead

GUIDED BY VOICES
Suitcase 3: Up We Go Now 4xCD on GBV Inc
Get Out of My Stations CD Siltbreeze
Bee Thousand CD on Scat
Box 5xCD on Scat
I am a scientist CD on Scat
Propeller CD & LP on Scat
Vampire on Titus CD on Scat
(#1) Universal Truths and Cycles - Back To The Lake 7" on Recordhead
(#2) Universal Truths and Cycles - Cheyenne 7" on Recordhead
(#3) Universal Truths and Cycles - Everywhere With Helicopter 7" on Recordhead
(#4) Universal Truths and Cycles 7" on Recordhead
Jellyfish Reflector CD on Recordhead
Pipe Dreams of Instant Prince Whippet CD on Recordhead
Static Airplane Jive CD on Recordhead
Suitcase 2 - American Superdream Wow 4xCD on Recordhead

GUIDED BY VOICES / ROBERT POLLARD
Crickets 2xCD on Fading Captain Series

KEENE BROTHERS
Blues and Boogie Shoes CD & LP on Recordhead

LEXO & THE LEEPERS
Ask Them CD on Recordhead

LIFEGUARDS
Mist King Urth CD on Recordhead

MOPING SWANS
Lightninghead to Coffeepot CD & 12" on Recordhead / Fading Captain Series

NIGHTWALKER
Professional Music by Nightwalker CD on Recordhead

PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH
Beard of Lightning CD & LP on Off Records

BOB POLLARD & DOUG GILLARD
Speak Kindly... CD on Recordhead

ROBERT POLLARD
Bubble CDEP & 7" on Recordhead
Crawling Distance CD & LP on GBV Inc
Elephant Jokes CD & LP on GBV Inc
Fiction Man CD on Recordhead
Kid Marine CD on Recordhead
Love Is Stronger Than Witchcraft 7" on Recordhead
Motel of Fools CD & LP on Recordhead
Moses on a Snail CD & LP on GBV Inc
Robert Pollard Is Off To Business CD on GBV Inc
Silverfish Trivia CD & LP on Prom Is Coming
Superman Was A Rocker CD & LP on Happy Jack Rock Records
We All Got Out of the Army CD & LP on GBV Inc
Zoom CD on Recordhead

ROBERT POLLARD & SOFT ROCK RENEGADES
Choreographed Man of War CD on Recordhead / Fading Captain Series

PSYCHO AND THE BIRDS
All That Is Holy CD & LP on Recordhead
Check Your Zoo CDEP & 7" on Fading Captain Series
We’ve Moved CD & LP on Happy Jack Rock Records

TAKEOVERS
Turn To Red CD & LP on Recordhead
Bad Football CD on Off
Little Green Onion Man CDEP & 7" on Off

V/A Single Wish CD on Recordhead
Track #8: Robert Pollard "In The States (That I Go Through)"

There's No Shame In Best New Music.

The Woods new album Songs Of Shame on Shrimper triumphs with an 8.3 best new music on Pitchfork today!

Woods' latest album, Songs of Shame, is their most cohesive collection, and it's not only quickly lifted them to front of the Woodsist crew but positioned them to be the group that appeals to those who've previously been uninterested in the 2008-09 crop of lo-fi. As with the best lo-fi albums, Songs of Shame performs some sleight-of-hand by sounding private and homespun yet also not just accessible but immediately lovable. Along the way, Woods can evoke any number of their lo-fi ancestors, from early Guided by Voices to the murkier depths of the Siltbreeze or Flying Nun back catalogs, but they're still able to retain their own immediately recognizable off-kilter character. Read the full review here.

Multiple Siltbreeze Radness From Your Flesh.

Taken from Sewers Of Mars #14 by a fellow named James Jackson toth on the Your Flesh site.....

OK, I realize that this is just getting embarrassing now, but I just hafta tell you that U.S. EZ , the new Sic Alps album on Siltbreeze is easily their definitive work; More on this next month, and probably every month here on after. But speaking of Siltbreeze, dude’s been on a roll lately. To be quite honest, I was starting to wonder a bit after a run of fairly mediocre albums by xNo BBQx and the inexplicably fawned-over Psychedelic Horseshit, but three recent releases in particular have confirmed that Siltbreeze is still the greatest indie since, err…Zapple? Fabulous Diamonds are a frisky guy/ girl duo from Melbourne, Australia playing skeletal drone pop reminiscent of long forgotten greats like Beyond The Implode or perhaps a more ‘screwed and chopped’ Palais Schaumburg. The absence of guitars in lieu of all manner of percussion, dubby synth stabs, and saxophone, makes the band distinctive enough, while the bratty playground taunts that pass for vocals will certainly make fans of anyone who digs Lilliput, ESG, or Julie Ruin. Very brief (but not too brief), this eponymous album manages to encapsulate the gloomy stoicism of no-wave without that genre’s predictable ‘confrontational’ bent. Good job. Naked on the Vague, on paper, sound like a sister band to Fabulous Diamonds—also co-ed, also from Australia (this troop from Sydney), also working within the parameters of ‘space dub’ and largely ignoring rock and roll’s favored instrument—but Naked on the Vague, on their debut LP The Blood Pressure Sessions, possess a more sinister, apocalyptic edge that likens them more to Young Marble Giants or something Andrew Eldritch might have recorded had he horded Messthetics comps. I also give them the slight edge because Naked On The Vague essentially do what Fabulous Diamonds do, but then take things even further into the ether. For instance, “The Horse, He’s Sick,” all woozy synths and chanted vocals, would fit comfortably on Fabulous Diamonds LP, but only until the creepy, gear-changing chorus. Also especially great is “Mother’s Footsteps,” which simultaneously reminds me of Huggy Bear, Crass, The Knife, and Sonic Youth. Oh yeah, and Naked on the Vague writes great lyrics: “I know nothing of God or the devil / And I know nothing of heaven or hell / All I know is that I wake up breathing...” Post-post-punk? Lastly, Eat Skull follows two massive singles with Sick To Death , a snottily canorous journey into the psyches of these creeps, who also play in The Hospitals (see Sewers #13). As for the sound, pre-sheen Guided By Voices is an obvious touchstone, as on “Survivable Spaces” which conjures GBV anthems like “Quality of Armor,” while the pensive, melancholy “Fade To Smoke” could pass for an outtake from Alien Lanes. Don’t mistake this for Magnet fodder, though—the band alternately rawks as ferociously as Electric Eels on tracks like the fittingly titled “Punk Trips,” and the Count Dracula cackle that concludes “Puker Corpse” is the best chorus-that-isn’t-a-chorus since I don’t know when. While Sick To Death is certainly something Trouser Press would call ‘lo-fi,’ there is a clarity and attention to detail here that makes it lo-fi like Kriminella Gitarrer and not lo-fi like, say, Sentridoh. Stellar.

Eat Skull Interview On Population Doug Blog.

Now that it has hit the archives over at Agitreader I thought I would post the Eat Skull interview. Many thanks to the band and especially Rob for putting up with all the emails and such. Great people! Here it is:

It's rare for a band less than two years young to surprise with their debut album, but that's just what Eat Skull have done with Sick to Death, released this month on Siltbreeze Records. After a pair of exuberant, limited-run singles and a slathering of praise (guilty!), the gang in Portland raised the bar for the lo-fi pop set with an album full of bizarre, touching and often hilarious anthems. Eat Skull pick at the corpse of '80s hardcore, the scruffier wing of the Flying Nun discography and British DIY, laughing all the way. Sick to Death is immediately jarring and a tough cookie to crack, but after a week it will be that friend you've needed in these tough times. I caught up with singer/guitarist Rob Enbom as he gears up for their first nationwide tour later this Summer.

Lets begin with pre-Eats Skull. Which members were in bands previously, and what did they sound like?

Rob Enbom: Rod (Meyer) and I were in the Hospitals. He started the band with (Adam) Stonehouse and left broke and destroyed, later to rejoin for the four-person line-up and leave again broke and destroyed. I was in the band for awhile on second guitar with the excellent Ned Meiners (the third person to play guitar). I remember we played Columbus once in a basement with Sword Heaven. I was wearing flip-flops. I quit after that tour, and then Ned quit and I rejoined and we started recording Hairdryer Peace. Later Rod and Chris Gunn joined, and that's how I met Rod. Rod was in some '80s hardcore bands in the Dixon/Sacramento area like Necromancy and Puppet Show and also some '90s bands. Most of the numerous weird bands I played in don't have much to do with Eat Skull. But I spent years playing in different projects with a couple of dudes who always deserve mention: Randy Lee Sutherland in San Francisco and John Benson in Oakland. Both are completely wonderful and insane and very active and inspirational. For a while Beren was playing drums in practically every band in Portland, but eventually she settled down with us. Scott (bass player Scott Simmons) was a deejay at this place called Tube.

Eat Skull seemed to take form not long after you left Columbus. How quickly did it all happen?

RE: While in Europe with the Hospitals, Rod and Chris told me I should move to Portland because I was totally broke and didn't know where I wanted to go when we got back. We talked about playing music there, and Rod said he would let me stay at his house. So we got back and all that happened and was really cool, except that it was cold and rainy as shit and I had holes in my shoes. It can be a depressing atmosphere and that comes through in the music. It's bittersweet, I think. We started the week after we got back and the first batch of songs came very fast. The name Eat Skull came fast too. Once we got Beren and then Scott we practiced once or twice and recorded the first 7-inch and the song "Dead Families." Then we started playing shows in town.

Did you have a specific idea of what you wanted the band to sound like or was it a more of a progression?

RE: We wanted to start two bands and write tons of songs and record ourselves. One would be a sick California-style hardcore band and the other was going to be a sick California pop band. We knew the hardcore band was going to be called Eat Skull, but we couldn't figure out what the other was called so it turned into one band. More than anything we're trying to make a classic California band while exiled from California in a green hell.

Did what was going on in Columbus at the time affect your approach to songwriting or the band's sound? Was forming Eat Skull in any way reactionary to the scene in the Midwest?

RE: I do enjoy the Midwest's whiskey-and-wings vibe, but it doesn't specifically have much to do with what we're doing. A couple of songs we play were written when I lived there, but I think they were looking forward to this time here more than being of that time and place. What we do is more about the sun being missing from our lives right now. The songs and sound come about naturally and very quickly from drinking a lot of beer and walking around here in Portland. Rod and I grew up on punk and acid in California. That's where the roots are.

Was it the band's intention to introduce a more hardcore approach (or at least a hardcore influence) into the lo-fi pop sound?

RE: Hardcore factored in because it makes sense when you are going crazy. It's also probably my and Rod's first real musical love. A good hardcore song is just as infectious as anything else. A good hardcore song is an undeniable assault. That kind of energy makes sense to us.

After the first (self-released) single came out it didn't take long for the collective slobbering to happen. How quickly did Mr. Lax (Siltbreeze Records mastermind) lock Eat Skull into a long-term deal. Did he make any of his infamous threats, or was the signing with Siltbreeze amicable?

RE: He got in touch some time after the first 7-inch came and went and during the six-month wait for "Dead Families" to come out. He came out and barbecued some octopus and acted like a dick. He's not a first impression kind of dude. He drunkenly made fun of us all while eating food I can't pronounce. Pretty much a class act.

I hear the song "No Intelligence" has an interesting back-story to it, something about a disastrous trip up to Seattle. Care to discuss the relationship between Portland and Seattle, or your opinion of Seattle?

RE: Seattle is a stupid place full of idiots. Every time I've ever played there there has been some kind of psycho drama. It's a place full of rich brats who think they are activists and are obsessed with the WTO riots and nitpicking. Either that or drug addicts. We drove up there last summer to play a show and immediately the shit began to fly. It was absolutely ridiculous and all sorts of these Seattle people should be ashamed of themselves. "No Intelligence" is actually about Scott. We did recently decide to give Seattle one more chance and it was really fun, so maybe all that hatred is paying off. Scott is a real sweetheart, by the way, that's why I get to make fun of him so much.

With the new album, I think it was Scott who told me it was intended to have two distinct sides, the first half more "difficult" and the second more "pop." Was this just an easy way to break up the different types of songs you guys have? It seems like the singles are split up that way as well.

RE: The idea was to have a "sick" side and a "death" side, like the tape 94 Mobstas by C.I.N. (a gangster rap group from Richmond, California). I used to listen to them back in Cali around that time with my dumb friends. C.I.N. loved MGD, but I'm more of a High Life kind of guy. That's where the name of the album came from. But really it was more about making the songs flow in a way that made sense. We picked 14 out of about 25 songs and figured out where they went. We didn't really argue about it much, they just sort of popped into place. I think it's the sort of album where side one doesn't really hit you right until you flip it back after side two. I like records like that.

What do you plan on doing with all the other stuff you have recorded?

RE: We put a song on the Worlds Lousy with Ideas, Vol. 6 7-inch, which should be out any day now. There's a split 7-inch coming out this summer probably with the Ganglians, who are a bunch of delinquents from Sacramento. They rule, and we're going to be touring with them in July. Other than that, I think we're just holding off on stuff. Maybe we'll use some of those extra songs on something. I don't know. New material is piling up and we've recorded some of it, but we're getting better at recording and want to spend a little more time on the new stuff to achieve different results.

One of the greatest things about Sick To Death is the lyrical content. You seem to tap into a very youthful dialect: confusion, "Punk Trips," licking spiders. Where does it all come from? Do the lyrics come before or after the music?

RE: Thanks Doug. Usually the song title comes first. There is no separation between the lyrics and day-to-day life here in Portland. The lyrics describe or predict what is already happening. Sometimes they come before and sometimes they come after the music. They always eventually feel predetermined and make more sense than I think they do at first. My uncle told me that Willie Nelson said that when he needed a song he pulled one out of the air above his head. It's kind of like that, but less evolved probably.

Does Eat Skull as a band have a favorite food to eat on tour?

RE: Tacos Sinaloa on International Boulevard in Oakland.

Do you all agree on the music in the van? What are some albums and songs Eat Skull love that most wouldn't expect?

RE: Scott puts on shit like Sun City Girls or Blue Cheer. He's a record collector and has an iPod. I prefer Rupert Holmes' "Pina Colada Song" for roadtrips. I think we all fucking love Buckingham era Fleetwood Mac (except maybe Scott). I love all his solo albums too. None of that Peter Green shit though. The blues suck. The stereo is broken actually, so I guess we can agree on conversation. I don't know what music people wouldn't expect. I guess people might find it weird that for most of the winter, when we were writing the tunes that ended up being on the LP, all I really listened to in my room was DRI's first stuff and TSOL's Dance With Me. People might expect that another big one is GBV's Same Place The Fly Got Smashed. I have, however, never listened to the Axemen.

I am also a huge fan of Lindsay Buckingham. If Eat Skull were to cover a Fleetwood Mac or Buckingham song, which would it be?

RE: "That's How We Do It In L.A."-definitely.

So, a big tour coming up later in the summer. Any fun tourist spots the band plan on hitting or ir is this tour one hundred percent business?

RE: One hundred percent business. Except the beach down in San Diego. Probably Encinitas. Should be cool to hang out at Carabar (in Columbus), maybe have a drink before the show at Bourbon Street.

Summer Skull Shows:
08/09 Portland, OR @ Rotture
09/05 Portland, OR @ Satyricon
09/06 Missoula, MT @ The Palace
09/08 Omaha, NE @ O’leaver’s Pub
09/09 Iowa City, IA @ House Show
09/10 St. Paul, MN @ Big V’s
09/11 Chicago, IL @ Hozac party @ Cobra Lounge
09/12 Detroit, MI @ UFO Factory
09/13 Columbus, OH @ Carabar w/ Psychedelic Horseshit
09/14 Cleveland, OH @ Now That’s Class
09/15 Toronto, ON @ Sneaky Dee’s w/ Blues Control
09/16 Montreal, QC @ Zoo Bizarre
09/17 Northampton, MA @ Pearl Street w/Thurston Moore
09/18 Poughkeepsie, NY @ Vassar college
09/19 Brooklyn, NY @ Dead Herring
09/21 Brooklyn, NY @ Market Hotel w/ Psychedelic Horseshit
09/22 Brooklyn, NY @ Death By Audio w/ Psychedelic Horseshit
09/27 Memphis, TN @ Gonerfest
09/28 Lawrence, KS @ Replay Lounge
09/30 Salt Lake City, UT @ Red Light

Mike McGonigal's Rave Review of Eat Skull On Pitchfork.

Eat Skull:
Sick to Death
[Siltbreeze; 2008]
Rating: 8.3
Original review

On their first album Sick to Death, the Portland, Ore., band Eat Skull mashes together almost everything that's great about trashy art-punk, weirdo fuzz-garage, skuzzy punk-pop, Kiwi garage-rock and off-kilter bedroom-strum. If you adore the weird songs on the Not So Quiet on the Western Front album as well as the Urinals, Raincoats, Gordons, Swell Maps, Homosexuals, Tronics, Desperate Bicycles, Television Personalities, Axemen, Guided by Voices, Chain Gang, those Messthetics comps, and very early Pavement, then meet your new favorite band. You should know, though, that this record sounds like it was mastered by a deaf person. It's all super-distorted and in the red; even the "folksy" numbers are louder than fuck. But once your ears adjust, you realize that it's all killer, no filler.

Lots of acts are mining similar territory these days. To name the most obvious adherents, Sic Alps, Times New Viking, Psychedelic Horseshit, No Age, and Tyvek have each hit upon their own twisted formula for reinventing noisy art-pop. For some reason, all these groups have decided that the best way to record is if all your songs sound like they were taped on a thrift-store answering machine using its built-in condenser mic, in a tiled bathroom, when you're really high. Was there some sort of convention held where it was decided this is how records are supposed to sound now? Does Tom Lax of Siltbreeze have nude photos he'll release of all these band people if they ever set foot inside a proper studio? And who came up with the "shitcore"/ "shitgaze" term for this stuff? That's the silliest thing I've ever heard. I personally wouldn't mind being able to hear more of what's going on in some of these songs-- ironically, you can catch the distinct parts of the music way better when you go see these bands live.

Arguing against this approach is useless, and if I do it any more I'll turn into Andy Rooney. You might as well walk up to your favorite Scandinavian death metal act and asking them to please write paeans to puppy dogs. Some things are just genre conventions, and you deal: in this corner you get songs about burning churches, and in the other you have more distortion and hiss than Slay Tracks. You'll notice I have not yet used the phrase "lo-fi" in this review. That's because I greatly dislike that term. In its 1980s/90s heyday, "lo-fi" referred to such a wide variety of acts-- Daniel Johnston, Dead C, Sebadoh, Supreme Dicks, Grifters-- that it was functionally useless right from the start. At most, "lo-fi" defines an alleged method of capturing sound, similar to the way that "indie rock" refers to a supposed distribution method and nothing else (aside from "rock"). I am reminded of Jean Dubuffet's quote, that "there is no art of the insane any more than there is an art of dyspeptics, or an art of people with knee complaints." Um, but I digress.

Unlike the current army of Anglophiles rocking the basements across the land, this quartet is as in love with American punk as they are the Commonwealth stuff. They shamble into a muffled memory of U.S. hardcore on songs like the Nervous Gender-ific "Beach Brains" or the wonderfully incomprehensible "Stress Crazy". But there's a surprising amount of variation between sounds and songs on Sick to Death; at times it seems like a various artists comp rather than one band. Here they are channeling GBV and the TVPs on the acoustic lament "New Confinement", while "Puker Corpse" is what the Gun Club would have sounded like if they only made soundtracks to haunted houses. The organ-driven shoutalong "Punk Trips" is a glorious pop song that pits multiple melodic hooks against one another, each of them competing for your heart. I dare you to not get it stuck in your head for days.

- Mike McGonigal, July 14, 2008

Upcoming Eat Skull live dates:
07/15 Davis, CA @ Delta of Venus
07/18 Portland, OR @ Slabtwon
07/27 Portland, OR @ Rottue (PDX Pop Now Festival)