Matthew Cutter - Closer You Are: The Story of Robert Pollard and Guided By Voices

I used to ride my bike down to a convenience store called Stop-N-Go. I dont know if they still exist. I must have been about eleven or twelve years old. But anyway, they had a revolving rack of 39-cent cut-out 45s and I used to take money from my moms purse occasionally and go down to Stop-N-Go and buy a few 45s. So on one occasion I bought The Unknown Soldier single with the picture of a shirtless Jim Morrison on the sleeve. Its a famous photo. I think its called The Young Lion shot or something. Its when he was trying to look like Alexander the Great.

So I had it out, playing it and looking at the sleeve, when my dad noticed and said, Why did you buy that? Do you know what he did? I said, No, and he said, He pulled his willy out onstage. Which I thought was pretty fucking awesome and it certainly did nothing to deter my passion for buying records and wanting to play rock music, which is exactly what my father did not want me to do.

Robert Pollard

A t the end of every week, the Pollard kids counted the minutes until their visit with Grandfather Friday. They staked out the front hall, jostling and giggling in plaid polyester, Debbie, Bob Jr., Lisa, Judy, and baby Jimmy. They peered out the car windows on the drive over, breathless with anticipation, and cheered when they pulled up to Grandfather Fridays house. We had little shot glasses and our grandfather used to pour beer in them for us, on Fridays, says Jimmy.

Sometimes Grandfather Friday took Bob and Debbie with him when he ducked out for a drink at the local watering hole. He would lift Bobby onto a table and shout, Heyput a lamp on him! The kid belted out the latest song hed acquired via radio osmosis, maybe The Twist or Elvis Presleys hit Its Now or Never.

There was little Bobby Pollard, age three, on a table in a Dayton, Ohio, bar gettin down. Gleaming neon, sweat, and the clinking of bottles signaled the club was open. It was a party, a riot of cheers and laughterBob, at its center, exhilarated.

Grandfather Fridays real name was Clyde Baxla. In marrying their grandma Catherine, he became the only grandfather Bob Pollard ever knewa step-grandfather, technically. Baxla styled himself a house painter but radiated a bootleggers aura. His station wagon had empty paint cans, wadded spattered tarps, brushes, and a ladder in the back, but those might have been for show. Baxla moved around a lotsome speculate he sold a little grass on the sideand had acquired the reputation of a local gangster around the neighborhood of Northridge in Dayton.

Although Bobs mom, Carol, and her mother-in-law had often had a chilly relationship, Carol thought Baxla was a delight. The old man would sit in an easy chair with a beer in one hand, laughing and grinning, never becoming angry or flying off the handle with the grandkids.

Robert Pollard Sr. liked Baxla all right, but at times he eyed his mothers new husband warily. He definitely didnt want his sons to see Baxla as a role model. He had always preferred the straight and narrow pathin sports, in Korea, at Frigidaire.

Bobs verdict? Clyde Baxla was the coolest motherfuckerby farof all time.

I N HIS YOUTH R OBERT P OLLARD S R . had played baseball, football, and basketball, lifelong avocations for him. Later on they would provide him with much greater aspirations for his sons. He took comfort in the great outdoors, was fascinated by animals, enjoyed traveling.

Pollard served in the US Army in Korea, where he drove a generals staff jeep. After the wars end in 1953, he returned to Dayton. He and Carol Ramby married the following year. He worked for the Frigidaire division of General Motors, was a registered Democrat, solidly middle class. Carol stayed at home, caring for their first child, Debbie, and planned for the brood to come.