Suitcase 2: American Superdream Wow
Label: Fading Captain/Recordhead
Rated: NONE
WorkNameSort: Suitcase 2: American Superdream Wow

You’re forgiven if you can’t keep up with all their releases or tell half their songs apart. As owner of over 15 Guided by Voices albums, I can only solidly identify a dozen tunes or so. That’s what happens when you release your every breathing fart. Suitcase 2 is the second four-CD, 100-song collection of GBV’s Robert Pollard’s demos, live recordings, B-sides, studio outtakes and whatever else he could find, playfully credited to fictitious groups and performers such as Devron Zones, The Pukes, Dale Frescamo, the Plexigrall Bee-Hive and the Howling Wolf Orchestra.

The songs range from what is best described as “guy dicking around with his amp and guitar” (the leadoff track, natch, “This Ream”) to a 2005 acoustic demo (“Late Night Scamerica”) that sounds like something we’ll be hearing shortly in full-band version – even if not technically credited to Guided by Voices, since they recently completed a farewell tour and released their final studio album. (This, after years of shifting lineups and a general admission that Robert Pollard is the only mainstay.) Pollard has a solo album scheduled for release on Merge Records early next year.

Bob Pollard will continue until he runs out of breath, that much we know. Whether the rest of us will be able to process the staggering amount of material is unlikely. More mind-boggling than the actual amount is the overall quality. Despite my admission that I can rarely single out more than a handful of GBV cuts, it should be noted that there are now literally hundreds of Pollard’s songs that sound damn good regardless.

For your reference, highlights on this set include (but are not limited to) tracks 2, 4, 10, 13, 23, 26, 33, 40, 43, 51, 63, 70, 71, 80, 84, 85, 89 and 96. What Bob Pollard represents to so many is that kid who sat through high school in a perpetual daydream, imagining his band and the albums they would release, obsessing on titles and songs not yet written. Except in Pollard’s case, he somehow managed to get around to recording and releasing these daydreams.

This article appears in Oct 26 – Nov 1, 2005.