GUIDED BY VOICES USE ORIGINALITY TO RESHAPE PAST (2/27/96)

Special thanks to George Makovic for transcribing this.

At various moments during their sold-out performance over the weekend at 
Metro, Guided By Voices conjured up a dozen or so apparitions of rock "n" 
roll past:  They were the band of weekend warriors at the high school sock 
hop, the graying punk band on a reunion tour, The Who before succumbing to 
rock operas, Cheap Trick rocking Budokan, and Syd Barret just before the 
crackup.

The Dayton quintet brought them all back in two-minute doses so compact that 
there wasn't even room for a guitar solo, much less any special 
effects-unless on considers the vast clouds of cigarette smoke and spilled 
beer that hovered over an on the stage, courtesy of the five rather 
charmingly disheveled, upper-thirtyish band members.

The showmanship was fit for a garage rather than a concert hall.  There were 
the striped flares and flailing feet of Greg Demos, who wielded his bass 
like a poleax; the contrast between the windmill chops of guitarist Mitch 
Mitchell and the precision strikes of alter ego Tobin Sprout; and the 
full-bore attack of drummer Kevin Fennell.  This compensated for the 
relative restraint of singer Robert Pollard, whose usually manic routine of 
karate kicks and leaps took a back seat on this night to his fine voice, a 
full-throated bray spiced with a British accent, depending on which rock 
star he was imitating at the moment.

The songs came in a torrent of guitar riffs so instantly familiar that they 
could have been lifted from some forgotten K-Tel compilation of one-hit 
wonders.  Except these were all original songs - about 40 were performed in 
90 minutes - and their breadth was nearly as remarkable as their brevity; 
pop melodies immersed in fuzzed-up guitars that bridge psychedelia and punk, 
dour ballads that blend fairy-tale images with dreams of flight, tiny 
anthems about the search identity called "Motor Away", "I Am A Scientist" 
and "The Weed King".

Pollard doesn't write songs so much as rock haiku, often cutting off tunes 
just as they're getting started, as he aspires to make art rock that hits 
faster and with less frills than some of his heroes.

Most of the Metro show consisted of more recent material, including a number 
of songs from the forthcoming album, _Under_The_Bushes,_Under_The_Stars_. 
 Even these unreleased songs sounded like instant anthems, if not a new way 
of hearing the past:  Classic rock dressed down and speeded up for the '90s.