| Pitchfork |
 There are just some bands whose output is so staggering in terms of both quantity and quality-- the Mountain Goats, say-- that sometimes you just want to load up the catalogue, close your eyes, hit shuffle, and let somebody else decide for you. Then, of course, there's Robert Pollard. With his Boston Spaceships and at least one fine solo offering, Bob's been having a kickass 2009. But you're forgiven if you're still poring over his even more kickass 1993; there's simply so much to listen to, and more all the time.
Take, for instance, Suitcase 3, Pollard's latest 100-song foray into the mythical valise-cum-vault that contains Pollard's unreleased material. These Suitcase sets, obviously, have been mixed bags, flitting between fidelities and vintages and bit players with little rhyme or reason and with even less consistency than your typical Pollard 28-songer. The third time out's much the same, with 75 cuts seemingly chosen and arranged at random (credited, in trademark Pollard style, to fake bands with names like Kelsey Boo Flip, Heartthrob Johnson Firestone, Erotic Zip Codes and the like) followed by an off-the-cuff demo session from the particulary fertile Bee Thousand/Alien Lanes era. It's a neat trick, really, doing it this way; though the first three-quarters of the set will almost instantly be relegated into every Bob fan's random shuffle, the last disc's total fanperson catnip, the basement of Indie Rock Valhalla, that sort of thing. At least on paper....full text |
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| Blogspot |
| Suitcase 3 (Up We Go Now) opens back up the GBV club for another installment (and supposedly last) of the Suitcase series that once again supplies 100 tracks on a four disc set with mostly fictional band names like Aerial Poop Show and East Dayton Rock Company getting the credit. The material spans from the mid-90s to the present, with the fourth disc, and probably most special, being filled with impromptu acoustic GBV jam sessions recorded by Robert Pollard, Tobin Sprout, and Greg Demos between the band's most critically hailed albums Bee Thousand (2004) and Alien Lanes (1995). For the casual fan wading through 3 hours and 33 minutes of material may be a little overwhelming but for the legion of followers out there - it is a must. There really is something for every fan and every era here, as expected there are plenty of lo-fi songs included, but there are also a multitude of amped up studio tracks like "Tired Of Knocking". There are tracks that have the framework of other GBV songs, such as "Coastal Town" that has several lyrics and musically is a much slower version of "Closer You Are", which was on Alien Lanes and more personal songs to the band, like a tribute song to longtime GBV supporter and Simple Solution Records founder Trader Vic. Then there is the fourth disc that is credited to Guided By Voices and is basically an acoustic brainstorm flurry of songs. Not that any of these tracks will be your favorite but this pure look into the prolific GBV writing process is priceless, as you can hear the group laughing at certain points in the recordings and it just highlights, that it was always about the music for them and having a good time came naturally! Overall, Suitcase 3 is well worth the price of admission, as each disc has its own hidden gems but the final take on its mass output, is that it will most certainly give you even more respect for the band and man, that literally wrote a bazillion songs....full text |
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| Prefixmag |
| Robert Pollard continues to be an unstoppable music-making machine. Suitcase 3: Up We Go follows 2000's Suitcase: Failed Experiments and Trashed Aircraft and 2005's Suitcase 2: American Superdream Wow. The lo-fi maven is once again plunging into his bottomless pit of Guided By Voices demos, outtakes and ephemeral cuts. Suitcase 3, like the previous two volumes, is a four-disc set featuring 100 tracks, many of which have silly, fictional band monikers, such as Erotic Zip Codes and Demon Gods of Anger. The unearthed material covers the mid-90s to 2009, with the fourth disc steeped in acoustic songs recorded by Pollard, Greg Demos and Tobin Sprout during the trio's 1994-95 peak....full text |
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