Guided By Voices

Guided By Voices should have stood alongside The Pixies and Sonic Youth as one of the great American alternative rock acts of the 1980s. Instead their oddball, outsider garage rock was roundly rejected by the conservative, blue collar mind set of hometown Dayton, Ohio so Bob Pollard and his gang all got proper jobs and met up at the weekends to record DIY, post punk jams on four-track cassette recorders in their basements. Recognition eventually came when their homemade cassette albums were championed by R.E.M. and The Breeders and their cult favourite Bee Thousand (1994) landed them a deal with hip New York label Matador Records for underground classics Alien Lanes (1995) and Under The Bushes, Under The Stars (1996). Their lo-fi, ragged two and three minute indie rock blasts drew from jangly 1960s melodies and raucous punk spirit, and Pollard's thousands of songs went on to influence Beck, The Strokes, The Shins and Dandy Warhols. After splitting in 2004, the band's classic line-up reformed in 2010 for their 16th album Let's Go Eat The Factory (2012) and they continue to crash out their brand of boozy, oddball, outsider rock and roll at a frequent rate.