Robert Pollard was just your ordinary small town all-star athlete who got a job teaching fourth-grade math and science after college, but never lost his dream to be in a band. With a rotating lineup of local Dayton, Ohio friends, he settled on the moniker Guided By Voices, and tried playing the bar scene, but soon restricted their activities to recording the piles of song ideas he’d been accumulating. Unlike much of their future output, Forever Since Breakfast was recorded in an actual studio, and GBV pressed up copies of their debut EP themselves. The chiming guitars that open “Land Of Danger” can’t help but bring R.E.M. to mind, and with Pollard’s voice often buried in the reverb-heavy mix, the comparison is even more unavoidable. “Let’s Ride” is in the same vein, but the vocals are more pronounced, and some of the hallmarks of his chording style, as well as melodic lead guitar, are in place. It’s even more striking to hear the lo-fi sound quality of “Like I Do”, with its simple acoustic strum and faraway vocal over what sounds like a TV or radio broadcast. “Sometimes I Cry” powers back with a more standard rock sound, continued on “She Wants To Know”, but it’s still hard to figure out the lyrics. The power chords on “Fountain Of Youth” are more Townshend than Page, and there’s something of a prog touch on the passages between verses. “The Other Place” brings all the influences together—except maybe prog—and more buried lyrics for a strong finish.
Once the band became more widely known, Forever Since Breakfast was very hard to find, but got wider distribution after it was included in 2003’s Hardcore UFOs box set, and another twenty years went by before it was made available for streaming. At 23 minutes, it’s no more nor less substantial than their other EPs, but at least it’s more accessible these days. It remains a curio in their sprawling catalog, yet hardly an embarrassment.
Guided By Voices Forever Since Breakfast (1986)—3
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