“We are all gods.
You can never underestimate the creative potential of a human being.
Nor the destructive potential.”
—Robert Pollard, 2005
I grew up in an isolated, rural West Coast town in the ‘90s and 2000s, amid picturesque beaches and wine tasting and country music, in an insular, high-demand religious community that some still tend to characterize as a “cult.”
(Which, I can assure you, is not the case.)
But for a hyper-sensitive person like me with more than one screw loose, it was intense. To the point that it exacerbated personal challenges — some of which I’m only now rounding the curve on.
The through line of that experience was a lovely hope for a renewed heaven and earth — eliminating death, war, crime, disease, the whole nine — wedded to a zero-sum view of the society we’re actually walking around in today.
The Devil, not God, runs human affairs, the result of a celestial court case kicked off thousands of years ago in the Garden of Eden.
This “system of things,” to borrow their parlance, is merely a station to a better heaven and earth — a place we tolerate, not really put roots down in.
And the human heart is nothing if not treacherous.
Today, I’m secular.
I don’t consider myself “atheist” or “agnostic.”
This background informed my worldview immeasurably.
But I can’t say that attending those religious services, I ever felt religious feelings.
And for all the goodness and community that surrounded me growing up, I felt sad for the world we were actually, tangibly walking around in.
For all its corruption and suffering and hatred, I never wanted it to go away.
Even if the alternative would be a million times better.
I loved life. I loved other people. Music lit me up and gave me purpose.
And it still does.
Anyone who knows me knows about my long-time obsession with Robert Pollard and his long-running rock band Guided by Voices.
The history of GBV, which launched in 1983 and whose lineup has turned over many times, is well-documented.
Especially in books like GBV insider and onetime member James Greer’s Guided by Voices: A Brief History: Twenty-One Years of Hunting Accidents in the Forests of Rock and Roll, and Matthew Cutter’s Closer You Are: The Story of Robert Pollard and Guided by Voices.
(If you’re new to this subject, go read those before you read this.)
But here’s their story, in the most concise way I can tell it:
It’s the early 1980s.
Dayton, Ohio.
Perhaps the world’s most ordinary man — a schoolteacher with his whole life in order, and ahead of him — blows off steam on the weekends with his drinking buddies.
They make strange, warped, crudely recorded, yet classically catchy songs — in Pollard’s view, reflections of crackly Beatles bootlegs.
By way of breakout ‘90s albums Propeller, Vampire on Titus, Bee Thousand, Alien Lanes, and Under the Bushes Under the Stars, they add tinder to the fire of the “lo-fi” revolution.
Along the way, said ordinary man reveals himself — and I’m not being glib or aggrandizing here — to possess the creative powers of all four Beatles in one person.
(And throw in Wire, Sparks, and the Who for good measure.)
Commanding a cult fanbase, and now a cottage industry in their in-house record label, GBV, Inc., Pollard has now made more than 100 full-length albums — not only with GBV, but solo and with numerous side projects.
He is, in short, one of the most prolific songwriters of all time.
And the scariest part is, many of these songs are good.
Some of them are really good.
And some others, like “The Official Ironmen Rally Song,” “The Best of Jill Hives,” “Twilight Campfighter,” “My Future in Barcelona,” and “Alex Bell,” are among the greatest, most affecting rock songs I’ve heard in my life.
On top of this:
GBV’s lineup over the past decade, with guitarists Doug Gillard and Bobby Bare Jr., bassist Mark Shue, and drummer Kevin March, is white-hot, kinetic.
Like Pollard’s catalog, GBV’s live performances — sometimes crossing the three-hour mark; they played 100 songs on New Year’s Eve 2019 — are firehoses of melodies and lyrics and ideas.
(An omnipresent, onstage cooler, stocked with Miller Lite and Cuervo Gold, adds to the chemically assisted, tent revival-like delirium.)
Despite the band’s unimpeachable status in indie rock history, and Pollard’s status as an elder statesman/mad scientist/wizard, one fact remains:
The qualities that make GBV special — even superhuman — tend to hem them in.
Above all, their sheer volume of output (sometimes one album a year, sometimes three) collides headlong with 2025 attention spans.
I’d be willing to bet most fans only know the key albums from past decades.
They might catch the gig. But during the nightly bevy of new songs, they’re not necessarily mouthing along.
Which is, of course, perfectly fine. All degrees of engagement are welcome.
But rather, they’re waiting for “Game of Pricks” or “Motor Away” or “I Am a Scientist” or “The Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory.”
All long past old enough to drink.
I’ve observed this not only as a fan, but as a music journalist.
The very first byline of my career was a personal essay on Pollard’s solo album Faulty Superheroes.
Here are other pieces of mine on this subject:
Guided by Voices Tackle Their First Double Album With August by Cake
Guided by Voices Notch Up The Spirit On 25th LP How Do You Spell Heaven
Guided by Voices Strike Big Again With Exhilarating Space Gun
Guided by Voices Have Mastered the Art of Finishing
Guided by Voices’ Alien Lanes is a Cry of Determination
How Guided by Voices Recorded Earth Man Blues Remotely During A Pandemic
A Guide To The Expanded Universe Of Robert Pollard & Guided by Voices
A Guide To Every Album By Guided by Voices’ Current Lineup — So Far
10 Guided by Voices Songs You Need To Hear, From “Over The Neptune” To “Alex Bell”
You get the idea.
So why start this Substack?
Haven’t I indulged this obsession enough?
Haven’t I written enough about these guys?
Haven’t others?
(After all, they’ve been around since 1983.)
What could possibly be left to discuss — except the nerdiest, most weedsy musical analyses?
A lot, I’ve come to believe.
And to me, the through line boils down to one word:
Spirit.
Not “the Holy Spirit.”
(Despite that religion talk above.)
Not “spirituality.”
(I have a personal allergy to “I’m spiritual, but not religious.”)
Just spirit.
So here are my questions, on that front.
Some of which have been half-answered.
Or implicitly answered.
Yet still leave me somewhat unsatisfied:
Which spirit moved Pollard to abandon a humdrum, linear life and instead study his record collection to a molecular level? One where he eventually cracked the code of guitar music and unleashed Pandora’s Box?
In his artistic practice — not just music, but collage — does Pollard commune with other spirits? The world beyond? (I know he reads about metaphysics and the occult, and the GBV logo is a rune.)
Why do I consistently scan his songs — as outré and nonlinear as they can be — as not misdirections, but straightforward guidebooks for being a brave, cool, thoughtful person?
Why have I still not gotten to the bottom of this subject that the world seems to have nailed down long ago?
And on and on we go.
But maybe all the answers are in “Excited Ones,” a track from GBV’s excellent, undersung 2022 album Crystal Nuns Cathedral, and the namesake of this newsletter.
Musically, “Excited Ones” sounds excited.
It irrepressibly bounds around.
As bassist Mark Shue put it, it’s “the anthem. The earworm. Hooks galore. Such a great one.”
To me, it’s a call to arms.
The spirit I want to cultivate within myself.
And the way I want to live my life.
Despite all the death and suffering and problems that it brings:
Excited ones
They say “What brings you there?”
They’re ready to attack
You ask them when they’re coming back
Excited ones
Excited ones
They squeeze you half to death
And miss you when you’re gone
Your mother kissing everyone away
All for me and all for you
All for nothing else to do
Promise to be awake
Because we came to pay
For something to take our boredom away
Excited ones
They crush it every day
With all the rules to break
But never fail to break it down
Excited ones
You squeeze them all to death
They don’t have much to say
But maybe if we say one more, they’ll stay
Excited ones
Excited ones
Excited ones
Excited ones
Excited ones
Excited ones
Excited ones
Excited ones
I love Guided by Voices.
I love you for reading this.
And I hope you’ll be an Excited One! with me.
And as Pollard sang on “Never Mind the List,” from the same album:
Make a fist when you pray
Nothing moves me like this
Go inside
Let us play!