Robert Pollard's Art of Confusion

IN MID-2004 Robert Pollard announced he'd be shutting down his band of 21 years, Guided By Voices, following the release of the group's fifteenth full-length, Half Smiles of the Decomposed. And in the period during the farewell tour and leading up to GBV's mega-blowout finale on New Year's Eve in Chicago, there was much hand-wringing among fans and journalists about how the indie-rock landscape would be forever changed following the demise of this beloved band.