You'd be forgiven for thinking the introduction never ends; this is bloated, overwritten, turgid gradschool look-ma-no-hands stuff of the kind I just treated you with, and judging from interviews over the years I'm sure Greer would concur with at least some of that. If you can slog past the style, the dirt's there, though I would suggest reading the newer book (Closer You Are) as there's an insane amount of overlap and it's slightly more, though not completely, up to date.

A wish of GBV fans over the year has been for a biography of the band written by someone who isn't a friend of Bob Pollard's; I think that's fair, and I'd be down to read it, however grisly. I went into this book, written by a double threat of iffiness, a Rock Journalist/former member-of-the-band, with fairly low expectations, but I didn't actually find it too hagiographical. Besides the redundant espousal's of Greer's belief in Pollard being the greatest living artist ever of all time, it didn't shy from some rather appalling stories, nor soften the blow or forgive many Bob's, or the band members', numerous fuckups, dick moves and/or crimes.

A common side-effect of this book is creating at least a temporary disgust with everybody in the story, and since the main character here is one Bob Pollard, you may have a sour taste in your mouth for awhile.

I really don't know what to say about this book: is it useful anymore now that there's a new one? It's been awhile, so I can't say for sure, but I think this one had a few stories and/or quotes I hadn't heard, and that'd go for the new one too. Certainly if you read them in close proximity you'd be grinding through a ton of overlapping anecdotes or even verbatim quotes.

So I'll quote Bob, in his description of GBV's 2001 song 'Glad Girls':
I don't know. (It's) alright. ( )

This is a pretty good stab at summing a notoriously protean "band" largely centered around one man, viz., Robt. Pollard. As such, in some ways it resembles a biography of that man. Greer was in the band at one time, so he has a claim to know whereof he speaks. I found that his viewpoint on Pollard at little bit at odds with what I've read in the music magazines about him over the years. ( )