April 02, 2004

How's Robert Pollard's Drinking? Guided By Voices lead singer Robert Pollard has been ripped by the music press in recent years for his excessive onstage drinking?

Michael Goldberg wrote:

The demons on Robert Pollard's trail must really be something. He appears to be medicating himself to such a degree that it's hard not to wonder just how long he's got 'til his liver or other organs simply give out. He's running from something, trying to black out the insecurity and stage fright and god knows what else. It's like he thinks it's the brew that turns him into a superhero rock star. ... But drinking yourself into the ground isn't the answer. I can't help but wonder how much greater, even, the work of Robert Pollard and GBV could be if he were straight and focused.
Polard ripped an Ohio music writer onstage (during an excellent internet concert) for writing about his drinking. He later explained (windows media) on Rolling Stone's web site that the incident the Ohio journalist wrote about was him falling into a drum kit onstage.
posted by Sullivan 20 years ago
  • To see the DCM concert you must have a membership. You can get one here for free.
  • Michael Goldberg is a Sleater-Kinney obsessed bonehead. Sorry, just had to get that off my chest.
  • I like Pollard and his very short and insightful music. I like it even if the guy is a self-destructive drunk. He's brilliant, and it doesn't seem like the drinking has diminished his art at all. Many artists have been drinkers and users of all kinds of consciousness altering drugs. But in the US, destroying yourself has always been sort of criminal. It's just a fact that today you cannot be a public person and have any human weakness or unhappy emotional state. If you do become publicly human, then your humanness will become the easiest (and somehow most compelling) story for the journalists to measure with the tragedy schtick that folks go for. Notice how Greenberg uses the term "medicating" in it's strict AA or psychopharmacological sense. It's as if there'd be no problem if he was only quietly taking Paxil or something. This fear of being human is probably why the more succesful public figures are so banal. I wonder where the American icons like Lucille Ball, Hemingway or the Rat Pack would be today if they had this sort of health conscious, choose-life kind of crowd following them around. Or if Kerouac got his "intervention". Or what kind of Clapton-crap Hendrix would have put out had he gotten himself "clean". If it were up to me, I'd leave Mr. Pollard the fuck alone. And every other artist like him.
  • I'd hate to see this Michael Goldberg cat at a Pogues concert.
  • And kuujuarapik, a-fucking-men. I'm putting you on the ballot in November.
  • I was thinking about Shane MacGowan too, Shinything. I've seen him in so many shades of disrepair or not even making the show at all (met him in a bar in Portland ME, he didn't make the show that night), but he's still my favorite songwriter. And if he should be dead tomorrow (god forbid) I'd know he went his way as he wanted it. No tragedy there. And thanks for your vote!
  • I'm thirsty.
  • kuujjuarapik: have you ever seen gbv live? you watch the guy drink onstage, and you do start to worry a little (for his liver). i saw him in october... he took to the stage already apparently wasted, and had about a beer per 2 or 3 songs for the whole 3 hour set, with cigarettes in between. if you figure that he plays almost every night, and rarely drinks less than that, it's a miracle he's still alive. it was an extremely great show, by the way. as he says in the rolling stone interview, the drinking is intertwined with the way he performs (which is unconsciously, as if he were making up the lyrics as he goes). Goldberg says: On the way down, alcoholics have, on occasion, lost everything, while making life miserable for their families, friends and co-workers. fortunately, all i've heard about is pollard making fans happy with amazing performances.
  • Sutureself, many folks can withstand several beers and cigarettes every night. No it isn't the healthiest thing to do, but it is most certainly a personal choice. Why do you worry about his liver at all? I can assure you he isn't worried about yours. And yes, I've seen GBV many times, and no, it isn't a wonder that he's still alive. And if his drinking is intertwined with his performance, then he is no different than any number that have come before him. Goldberg says: On the way down, alcoholics have, on occasion, lost everything, while making life miserable for their families, friends and co-workers. Substitute "alcoholic" for "overachiever", "overworked", "fashion-conscious", "oversexed", "overweight", "misguided", "religious", "diet-crazed", "drug using", "compulsive shoppers" , "frisky", "carpoolers" or any other thing you want into that sentence and it will still make sense. Life is kind of miserable for a whole lot of folks and the reasons are myriad. While is reasonable to worry about another persons health if you are personally enjoined to that other person, if you do it as a journalist, you are a dick.
  • carpoolers?
  • Yes, carpoolers, bingo masters, unexplained itchy types, PDA users, leather fetishists, bungee jumpers, rabbit racers, astronauts, wool wearers, physicists, physicians, Morris dancers, cartographers, nazis, bottle cap collectors, shoe-lace weavers, chefs, vending machine users, etc. I think that sentence would work for us all.
  • Hmmm. Small "n" nazis. Might come in handy.
  • Hmmm I saw GBV last Sept and he consumed a bottle of bourbon during the show and was obviously hammered ... but keeping it together ... just. they still played for about 3 hours though ... is there an element of 'musician takes drugs shocker' about this? I wonder if he drank that much when he was a pramary school teacher? also what kuujuarapik has said. I got Glastonbury tickets! (unrelated I know but I'm overjoyed... GBV at Gasto - that would be something)
  • You lucky bastard, dickdotcom. (Their website kept crashing for me all last night, and my brother and his girlfriend couldn't get thorugh on the phone at all. I expect its sold out by now, though.)
  • dickdotcom - see you there! /gloats
  • You're all bastards.
  • dng: Leave Glasto to the kids. We all know that All Tomorrow's Parties is the festival to be seen at. And it's got a much more civilised booking system too. Personally, I'm in awe of any man who can play guitar drunk. I can barely strum a chord sober.
  • Well, I just wrote a nice comment, and the monkey ate it. Anyway, the general them of it: All Tomorrow's Parties is fantastic, but it always seems to fall just when I can't go. Also, drunken rock stars? Fucking hell, whatever next? Violent boxers?
  • Hey, let's just sacrifice him to the gods of rock star and be done with it. He's of no other use to us otherwise, and I deserve a rock star that fits the steriotype. Tea, anyone?
  • Michael Goldberg is a Sleater-Kinney obsessed bonehead. Doesn't every indie rock critic have a thing for Corin Tucker?
  • All I know is that the day George Harrison died the lead story on the web site for which Michael Goldberg was working as Editor in Chief had a Sleater-Kinney story as the lead. The dead Beatle was somewhere in the middle of the page. (I happened to be working for the same web site at the time.) No one was sad to see him go when he split to go do Insider One.