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Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 09:28:11 -0700 (PDT)
From: Rich Turiel
Subject: Irving Plaza show

Since folks are looking for tickets and trying to
figure out where to meet before hand, I wanted to say
while its not 100% official because I haven't been
given the okay to post it on gbv.com until after the
promoters are contaced.....but the GBV show at Irving
Plaza will be cancelled as well and the tour will
start up again in Boston on Wednesday.

Rich

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Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 16:43:25 +0000
From: "Brian Staker"
Subject: My VTAC Review

http://www.slugmag.com/cdreviews0702.html

Guided By Voices
Universal Truths and Cycles
Matador

Freed of the major label albatross that hung around their necks for
their last two albums with TVT, this is one of Guided By Voices' best
efforts. Robert Pollard's song writing is an ongoing attempt to
revitalize rock iconography, make the music real again. But mythic
themes get twisted by this warped ex-schoolteacher's imagination.
Sometimes his fertile mind comes up with such unexpected lyrical
juxtapositions that song titles like "Christian Animation Torch
Carriers" and "Father Sgt. Christmas Card" could come off like random
streams of consciousness. But like the best surrealists, Pollard has
the confidence in his own abilities to make every combination seem
inevitable, carry an awesome weight yet seem almost effortless.
Without the pressure to crank out a radio hit or sound self-
consciously heavy, he's free to concoct inventions like the drunken
introduction to "Skin Parade," some of his strongest hooks yet
with "Back to the

Lake" and "Pretty Bombs," and the stunning orchestral suite
within "Factory of Raw Essentials." He can make a line like the
latter song's "circular beast exhibit" sound tender and push his
voice to even further heights than ever before on "Cheyenne." And the
sound of two jets rushing overhead at the end of "Storm Vibrations"
recorded before 9/11 sounds utterly prophetic. The band has never
sounded more solid than this incarnation, with Doug Gillard's
inventive guitar riffs in the forefront. Pollard's titled the album
in typically grandiose fashion, but this set is good enough that the
band might yet become a universal standard. www.gbv.com.

—Stakerized!

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