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A review by windingdot
Closer You Are: The Story of Robert Pollard and Guided By Voices by Matthew Cutter
4.0
GBV has been my favorite band since 1994 (although of late they’ve taken a back seat to Wussy, but that’s another story), so this is essential reading. More in-depth and covers more ground than Jim Greer’s book that came out a number of years ago. I don’t think this will appeal much beyond GBV fans, though. There’s not a lot of contextualizing to make it more universal.
It’s an authorized bio, but Pollard definitely didn’t shy away from letting Cutter portray his flaws. Honestly, he comes across as kind of a jerk and a bully in a lot of places. If you’ve followed the band for a long time, it’s not exactly news that Bob is a jock and an alpha male type, with both the positive and negative implications of that. He makes brilliant music, though, and that’s what we’re here for. There’s a lot in here about Bob’s process of making music and recording albums. This is usually where music bios bog down for me, but I enjoyed it here, maybe because I’m way more into GBV than most musicians whose bios I read.
There is some sloppy editing in parts - dropped words, the spelling of a name changes several times over the course of a page. Hopefully if it comes out in paperback that will be fixed.
All in all, a necessary read for GBV/Pollard fans. Probably not so much for the less obsessed.
It’s an authorized bio, but Pollard definitely didn’t shy away from letting Cutter portray his flaws. Honestly, he comes across as kind of a jerk and a bully in a lot of places. If you’ve followed the band for a long time, it’s not exactly news that Bob is a jock and an alpha male type, with both the positive and negative implications of that. He makes brilliant music, though, and that’s what we’re here for. There’s a lot in here about Bob’s process of making music and recording albums. This is usually where music bios bog down for me, but I enjoyed it here, maybe because I’m way more into GBV than most musicians whose bios I read.
There is some sloppy editing in parts - dropped words, the spelling of a name changes several times over the course of a page. Hopefully if it comes out in paperback that will be fixed.
All in all, a necessary read for GBV/Pollard fans. Probably not so much for the less obsessed.