I wish a was a trapper
I would give thousand pelts
To sleep with Pocahontas
And find out how she felt


Jenn Verrier, 2008

* From 2005: Uncle Bob Pollard'sLife Lessons. excerpt:

Three-way phone conversations can blow me.

Real friends come to see you play even if they don’t like your music anymore.

Everything seeks perfection but never achieves it. Imperfection is better. Try it. It’s easier to attain.

Anger is a twisted form of courage. It wishes to obliterate fear.

In the early days of Guided By Voices, when no one was listening, I was impatient. I used to tire of people in the band very quickly. I had physical altercations with them. I even resorted to bullshit tactics, like telling the band I was quitting and we were breaking up, then forming again a month later with new members. I have learned to allow people to exist, grow, and find out who they are in the band, to give them all the time they need. As long as they are enthusiastic about the music, they can do whatever they want.

Lo-fi is like any genre. If you have the songs, the attitude, and the vision, it’s going to be inspiring. If you don’t, it’s going to be lifeless. Lo-fi was the last truly charming and inspirational movement, the perfect extension of punk. Not only did you not have to know how to play, you didn’t even have to worry whether it sounded good by contemporary production standards.

Sing, scream, whistle, drink, and have a good time every night.

True culture and the enhancement of life are being devoured by technological progress.

We are all gods. You can never underestimate the creative potential of a human being. Nor the destructive potential.

* Escort bludgeoned hotel valet for calling yellow cab instead of sedan: mug shot of the month.

* “In all Arabic music, whether dance, song, or elegy, the duende’s arrival is greeted with energetic cries of Allah! Allah!, which is so close to the Olé of the bullfight that who knows if it is not the same thing?” -- Federico Garcia Lorca