The Releases: Let’s Go Eat the Factory (LP—GBVi, 2011) / We Won’t Apologize for the Human Race (Single—GBVi, 2011) / The Unsinkable Fats Domino (Single—GBVi, 2011) / Doughnut for a Snowman (Single—GBVi, 2011) / Chocolate Boy (Single—GBVi, 2012)
In June of 2010, Guided by Voices announced that a reunion of the band’s “classic lineup” would be performing at that October’s Matador at Twenty-One festival in Las Vegas. Days later, Robert Pollard provided the specifics: he would be appearing with Mitch Mitchell (guitar), Greg Demos (bass), Kevin Fennell (drums), and Tobin Sprout (guitar/vocals). Though something of a misnomer—this quintet, which Pollard often referred to as the “so-called ‘classic lineup,'” and which had only ever played a handful of shows together—the announcement was this particular GBV fan’s dream come true.
And even if that festival didn’t also feature a similarly-reunited Pavement—one of maybe three or four bands that I love more than GBV—I might have considered selling a kidney in order to attend. Fortunately, it didn’t need to come to that. In one of my best concert ticket scores to date, I snagged four passes for the three-day extravaganza; and between GBV, Pavement, Sonic Youth, The Clean, Yo La Tengo, Belle and Sebastian, Spoon, The New Pornographers, Ted Leo, Cat Power, Chavez, and Superchunk—not to mention spending quality time with three close friends—it was an absolute blast.
And despite my adoration of Pavement, GBV’s festival-closing set was the unrivaled highlight of the weekend. From the opening bass riff of “A Salty Salute” to the exhausted end of the second encore, Pollard and company unleashed a two-hour torrent of drunkenly ramshackle pop. At some point in the middle—probably during “Closer You Are”—I lost my voice from shouting out every hook. It was loud. It was sloppy. It was majestic. It was fucking glorious. I’ve seen GBV live twice since—including once in 2014 with (mostly) the same lineup—but nothing could ever rival that first time.
About a year after that show—on September 21, 2011—the reunited GBV announced that the classic lineup (I’m gonna stop using quotation marks now) had recorded a new album. Titled Let’s Go Eat the Factory, it was set to arrive on New Year’s Day 2012. That same day, R.E.M.—another one of the maybe three or four bands that I love more than GBV—had announced their breakup, and the news of an imminent Guided by Voices record softened the blow a little. When Factory dropped a week-and-a-half earlier than expected, I was ecstatic. And although I already had listened to, and very much enjoyed, the advanced singles from Factory, hearing the band that had recorded Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes roar back to life on the album-opening “Laundry and Lasers” was almost on par with witnessing the illumination of the band’s iconic “The Club is Open” sign at the Vegas show the year before.
And it’s at this point that I imagine some of you are expecting a serious tone shift. After all, of the forty-one full-length GBV albums listed on RateYourMusic, only 2016’s Please Be Honest (2.88/5) has a lower average rating than Let’s Go Eat the Factory (2.95). However, I’m not here to bury Factory. In fact, I really like this record. A lot. And while I already provided some context for how Let’s Go Eat the Factory fits into the larger plot of the classic lineup reunion, it also fit into the plot of yet another band that is very important to me.
At the time of Factory‘s release, my own band had recently begun work on an album; and like GBV did with Factory, we were utilizing a combination of analog four-tracking and computer-based recording. While I could have used either of the aforementioned lo-fi masterpieces as something of a spiritual guide for my own songs, there was something far more attainable about the newest GBV record. As such, in tone, flow, and production, Let’s Go Eat the Factory essentially served as a kind of model for the project. And, while I find it exceedingly difficult to critique my own music in comparison to that of ‘real’ bands—especially ones that I love as much as GBV—I genuinely feel that the replica probably outpaced the prototype.
But even then, I still really enjoy Let’s Go Eat the Factory. Sure, there are some meandering moments, but the album’s many highlights remain some of the best post-nineties work in GBV’s catalog. The four singles are all varying degrees of satisfying, with the stomping “The Unsinkable Fats Domino” and charmingly melodic “Doughnut for a Snowman” being my personal favorites. Tobin Sprout was also a fully-engaged participant, contributing a half-dozen songs—of which “Waves” and “Spiderfighter” stand the tallest. And—befitting of the fact that Factory was recorded in the homes of Sprout, Demos, and Mitchell—there’s a decidedly homespun quality to the proceedings.
And where the last time we heard Guided by Voices—on 2004’s Half Smiles of the Decomposed—found one of Bob Pollard’s ‘hired guns’ lineups sounding more than a little fatigued, Let’s Go Eat the Factory saw the old gang back together, on a project that (at least to my ears) sounded a lot more like a labor of love. It wasn’t always perfect, or even pretty, but (for lack of a better word) it felt authentic. And whether or not that sense of authenticity was real or imagined, it proved to be inspiring to me. Within two months of Factory‘s release, my bandmates and I had recorded over two dozen songs: ones that effectively reflected and soundtracked a major life move—literally, as I was in the process of relocating my young family from Flagstaff, Arizona to Portland, Oregon.
Two weeks ago I found myself in Flagstaff again, as part of a solo road trip through the western states. While sitting in the parking lot of a Walmart, charging my car for the trip to Phoenix, I put on Let’s Go Eat the Factory—partially in the knowledge that this article would be looming on the to-do list once I got home, and partially because it’s an album that is so intertwined with my departure from Northern Arizona, and the dissolution of a creative collaboration that I genuinely treasured.
Inevitably, that listen to Factory forced me to reflect on some of the changes that have taken place over the past thirteen years. Flagstaff kind of feels like the same place; but not really. For starters, there are a lot more hotels and student housing complexes than there were when I left. And even the Walmart where I charged my car—once a controversial symbol of the town’s unsustainable growth—now feels relatively cozily situated between Flagstaff’s east and west sides. The friends that I mentioned in the intro of this piece haven’t lived there in decades, and the young family that I moved away from that town is all grown up now; my oldest daughter begins grad school next month, and my youngest is halfway through her undergraduate studies—she’ll resume them, at Oxford, in the fall.
Guided by Voices has changed a lot over those years as well. The classic lineup ultimately released six albums—plus an EP, and a couple dozen singles—before breaking up again in 2014. Two years later, Robert Pollard brought GBV back as a touring and recording entity, but with two alumni of the ‘hired guns’ era, as well as a pair of new ringers. While rumors swirl that the band’s touring days might be over, this ‘GBV 3.0’—or whatever you prefer to call it—is a recording juggernaut. In less than a decade, the current lineup has released eighteen albums—two of them double records—with another one set to arrive in October (on Pollard’s sixty-eighth birthday).
And while those changes—in both my universe and the GBV one—are significant, they at least represent logical progressions from what came before. As for the rest of the world: let’s just say that 2012 seems pretty damned quaint at the moment. I can’t even imagine trying to explain concepts like social distancing, generative AI, and “alternative facts” to a thirty-three-year-old version of myself. And yet, when I listened to Let’s Go Eat the Factory in that Walmart parking lot—and again over the course of this past week—it still felt genuine and authentic. It felt like a project born from a labor of love: one continued not just out of obligation or momentum, but because there was a palpable excitement that surrounded its creation. And, if nothing else: it still rocks.
Ratings: Let’s Go Eat the Factory (7.6) / We Won’t Apologize for the Human Race (★★★1/2) / The Unsinkable Fats Domino (★★★★1/2) / Doughnut for a Snowman (★★★★1/2) / Chocolate Boy (★★★★)*
*Singles are star-rated by their A-side; albums and EPs use the “Russman Reviews” scale.
Bob-ism of the Week: “She loves the good humor man / He says they don’t call us that / She’ll run like the wind / Through the street scene and hand / A doughnut to her snowman” (“Doughnut for a Snowman”)
Next Week: The classic lineup keeps it in motion—releasing a new record just months after the previous one.
