Bob's Comic Stylings

I was something of a latecomer to Guided by Voices, by hardcore "Pollard's Bitch" standards: we didn't own a CD of theirs until 95 (but quickly caught up), and we only started seeing them regularly in 98 (but mostly because we were living in a part of the country where only the most intrepid acts would wander). So we missed Tobin Sprout and much of the classic lineup, though we did get to see Greg Demos piss onstage (and I'll tell ya this: there was no bucket, like this last tour; He just pissed on the stage) and once we saw him split his ridiculous striped stretch pants open, three songs in.

But everyone knows that when you go to see GBV, it's really all about Bob. Pollard is a genius, though arguably a psychotic genius in the mode of Shane McGowan. He's just one of those people it's probably a pain in the ass to know well, but whose artistic production is so jaw-dropping that you wish you did anyway.

It's only onstage that Bob is really Bob. The one time I met him offstage, he was surprisingly shy and awkward. I'm reminded of that encounter every time I watch Mighty Wind, which has perhaps the most subtle and intelligent characterizations of various musician personalities I've ever seen make it onto film. I see Bob as Mitch, who fits in his skin only when he's performing. (Levy's performance in this regard is amazing: his entire physical mien changes when Mitch is "on," but as soon as the song ends, he sighs, looks skyward, and is just, well, weird again.) For Bob, however, the banter seems to be as much part of the performance as the music. I've seen him make a Greenwich Village crowd admit that Dayton, Ohio is cooler than they are. It's a sign of the thrall in which he held his audience that they did so willingly.

Nevertheless, I'm not utterly convinced this is going to work:

Yes, to tide fans over before the pending release of his first proper post-GBV solo album, From a Compound Eye, Pollard has issued a vinyl-only comedy album in the vein of Elvis Presley's novelty classic Having Fun With Elvis on Stage. Poorly titled Relaxation of the Asshole, the LP consists of "Bob's best routines and bits" (read: stage banter) recorded live between songs during his tenure with Guided by Voices, and features such golden memories as "Funk Zeus", "What a Mother Does for Her Son", and "Is There a Grandfather Clause for People Who Need a Cigarette Really Bad?".

The Marxist theorist Walter Benjamin, in his seminal essay "The Work of Art of the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," argued that what is lost in the age of mass distribution of art is the "aura":

This is a symptomatic process whose significance points beyond the realm of art. One might generalize by saying: the technique of reproduction detaches the reproduced object from the domain of tradition. By making many reproductions it substitutes a plurality of copies for a unique existence. And in permitting the reproduction to meet the beholder or listener in his own particular situation, it reactivates the object reproduced.

I've seen Pollard perform many times. It was never the same twice. He's made me laugh uproariously, but I'm not sure that his humor can survive the loss of its aura, its excision from the community of true believers, its reproduction in my living room. I'm not convinced it will "reactivate" the experience of the live performance for me.

Following GBV was always dabbling in a cult, as I've noted before, and the cult, Benjamin tells us, is the real source of the aura.

Originally the contextual integration of art in tradition found its expression in the cult. We know that the earliest art works originated in the service of a ritual—first the magical, then the religious kind. It is significant that the existence of the work of art with reference to its aura is never entirely separated from its ritual function. In other words, the unique value of the “authentic” work of art has its basis in ritual, the location of its original use value. This ritualistic basis, however remote, is still recognizable as secularized ritual even in the most profane forms of the cult of beauty.

Live music, it seems to me, is one of those arenas in which the aura still packs a big punch. Concert reviews are always disappointing, because there's no way to communicate the contact with transcendence that live music brings. I get antsy if I go too long without seeing a band; even if they suck, I just have to get out there. I don't care if there are mistakes: the anarchic aspect of it is part of the point for me. And GBV always provided that element in spades.

But recorded live music is a somewhat dodgy proposition anyway, no matter how well produced. You get all the rough edges, and none of the aura. And banter always sounds weird outside the room. Cheap Trick's otherwise fabulous live album, Silver, suffers from the fact that the tracks break at the beginning of the songs, so the banter at the end of one track only makes sense if you're listening straight through. You know, like not on an ipod set to shuffle. Listening to Rick Neilsen's banter out of context is one source of my trepidation.

The other is the performance of GBV on Austin City Limits. They were great, they're always great, but watching Bob get drunk, listening to him wax poetic when you're not in the room--it's just different. "We taught the world that you can suck and still rule," he slurred in one late rant. Oh, boy. I'm having trouble picturing a whole album of that sort of thing.

(Worth noting: Benjamin kind of liked the new age, thought it meant increased democratization and politicization of art, and the Frankfurt School was okay with that.)