Review: 'Closer You Are: The Story of Robert Pollard and Guided by Voices'

A mark of a band’s legacy is the number of books devoted to it. A cursory search on Good Reads yields over 2,500 results for The Beatles (no, I am not going to account for how many of those are reprints or song books—that’s still a lot of books). A search for Elvis Presley yields only about 850, but there would probably be a lot more results if I’d just searched for “Elvis” and he’d been the only guy who ever had that name. The Stones: about 1,000. Hendrix: about 450. The Grateful Dead: about 350.

The kind of widespread obsession that accounts for such numbers trails off a lot when you start searching for books about nineties bands. Yes, there are over 200 results for Kurt Cobain (again we have term issues here because a search for Nirvana would unearth more, but tons of fiction and spirituality books would muddy the waters), over 150 for Radiohead, and over 100 for Pearl Jam, but barely a handful for such major artists of that era as The Pixies, PJ Harvey, and Liz Phair.

In light of that, the fact that Guided by Voices have now been the topic of three books makes it seem as though they have a relatively decent legacy in terms of nineties indie rock. Matthew Cutter’s Closer You Are: The Story of Robert Pollard and Guided by Voices is the book that brings the GBV bibliography up to three. In some ways, it feels like the first though. Jim Greer’s Guided by Voices: A Brief History and Marc Woodworth’s Bee Thousand (one of the very best entries in the dodgy 33 1/3 book series I’ve read) are both terrific, but they’re short and lean too much on both the collage-like nature of the band’s music and band involvement—Greer was in GBV for a while for Chrissakes.

Cutter is apparently a Guided by Voices insider, and there are extensive interviews with most of the major members of GBV’s vast cast of characters, but his book is the first proper, objective, anything-but-brief biography of the group. It may not be as formally thrilling as the other two books, but it is much, much more informative. And beyond normal fan interest in any beloved band, this really is a fascinating story completely unlike any other in rock. What other artist besides Bob Pollard achieved “fame” when he was nearly 40, has a discography of over 100 madly eclectic albums, or puts so much hand-crafted care into making and packaging them? Who else can drink like that? The lack of support Pollard received from all but his most devoted drinking buddies also makes Closer You Are an exceptional tale of overcoming adversity. By default, it is also the definitive Guided by Voices biography, and since it’s probably going to be a while before a Good Reads search for “Guided by Voices” or “Robert Pollard” yields 350 results, it will probably hold onto that honor for the foreseeable future.