A well-crafted, intimate portrait of an unlikely, all-American rock-’n’-roll life.
Biography of a working-class teacher who became a prolific punk icon.
In his debut, writer and lyricist Cutter examines the life and art of the curmudgeonly, beloved Robert Pollard, leader of Guided by Voices, and his improbable success after years of home-recording obscurity. As Pollard recalls, “the fact that it actually happened when I was thirty-six, it was kind of mind-blowing.” Based on interviews with Pollard and other principals, the book mirrors the shaggy dog story feel of Pollard’s private universe of songcraft. The author acutely captures how Pollard’s wry self-mythologizing derives from his biographical relationship with Dayton, Ohio, its blue-collar eccentricities and rock-’n’-roll underground. During Pollard’s rowdy childhood, he both excelled in athletics and created a world of collage art and imaginary, epic rock bands; he began recording and sporadically performing with a circle of like-minded friends. At first, Pollard’s low-fi theatricality equally charmed and alienated his family, neighbors, and rival bands. He pursued these projects even as he started a family and became a well-liked teacher. All of this fed GBV’s strengths once they connected with the indie-rock cognoscenti. They eventually signed to Matador Records and went on to dominate the fervently self-aware, high-stakes, post-Nirvana 1990s indie scene. His childhood fantasies realized, success and endless touring drove Pollard to become outwardly abrasive and more domineering with his band mates, leading to high turnover and plenty of decadent backstage drama, all ably captured here. Still, Cutter portrays Pollard as a large-hearted figure, driven to maintain creative control and satisfy fans’ desire (and his own standards) for ever lengthier, crazed, and inebriated performances. Pollard has sporadically retired and revived GBV since 2004; Cutter concludes, “finally, Bob realized he didn’t need a label and its expectations to have what he’d always wanted.” The author’s lively writing captures the arc of indie-rock’s mainstreaming, although his exegesis of dozens of Pollard songs may appeal mainly to GBV’s (many) obsessive fans.
A well-crafted, intimate portrait of an unlikely, all-American rock-’n’-roll life.Pub Date: Aug. 21, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-306-82576-7
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Da Capo
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2018
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
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