Sickly Sweet

Want proof that Robert Pollard and Guided by Voices simply had too many good ideas rattling around in 1993? Give a listen to "Sickly Sweet" from Suitcase. The song is an indecipherable mess, with Jim Pollard's making up for a lack of polish with an abundance of enthusiasm behind the drums, while Robert Pollard's vocal, seemingly sung while a cheap microphone was actually inside of his mouth Lux Interior-style, is a garbled mish mash. Strip all of that away, however, and you're left with an interesting guitar riff that surely could have been mined for better use. Why bother, however? This is the Guided by Voices that was working on what would become Bee Thousand and the many singles and one-offs that came in 1994 and beyond. If something didn't immediately bear fruit, what was the point of pursuit? Cut it to tape and return when needed. Pollard never needed (or at least never seemed to feel the need) to return to this one, so we get an unpleasant bit of promise on this closet-clearing boxed set. Lucky (?) for us, Pollard seems to have an endless supply of closets.