POLLSTAL BLOWFISH - ILM Artist Poll #8 - Guided By Voices - ReSuLtS!!!

oof

MISLEADING

you don't wanna know

:))) thanks LL! (and everyone else who voted for this one)

and you're OTM about that great string of songs. and then there are, of course, Local Mix-up and the closer!

i've always thought of it as a hit parade
also i would like to reiterate that mammoth cave is an excellent tourist destination and everyone should visit it. hiking, history, nature, mammoth underground caves.

I meant to go there several times when I lived in Nashville (where it was reasonably nearby), but never did. :(

oh, so it's a tourist destination? so nice to know

2004, second trip to mammoth cave, something fucking stinks in here
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6166/6185047123_e9dfa14aa5_m.jpg

it's a national park!

http://i.imgur.com/uGx5s.jpg

7. ISOLATION DRILLS / 2001 (10 points)

Ok, too low. I think Isolation Drills is a very underrated album.

Same Place the Fly Got Smashed is really good. Really glad to get turned on to it.

Really like some of the unhinged Pollard moments. He really sings the hell out of some of these songs.

they've got at least 10 albums better than ID. it's good, but misses greatness to my ears. most boring show i saw by them was on that tour.

Disappointed that "Mammoth Cave" the song isn't included in this list of music composed in the honor of Mammoth Cave (the place)
http://www.nps.gov/maca/photosmultimedia/sounscapes.htm

Still, one of the oldest tourist attractions in the US -- began tours in 1816!

I also agree that Isolation Drills shows were dull. I felt like they had drank a bit too much Kool Aid at that point.

yeah. gillard was always good, but the rest of the band, it sort of felt like they had picked a few fans out of the crowd.

xp hey thanks, the more you know!

re ID, I just hope for a good placing of "Chasing Heather Crazy". like, top 10 would be nice enough

ID was my #3. Love it.

The show I saw for that tour was pretty good. Pretty debauched. I think that was Pollard's tequila stage. I will agree that the lows on that album are pretty low but 'Glad Girls'? 'Run Wild'? 'Chasing Heather Crazy'? 'The Brides Have Hit Glass'?

well, yeah, those songs are great!

I don't really like any of them tbh -- esp Glad Girls. I don't have a lot of negativity about GBV to offer, but that song always felt really lame to me, kinda lowest common denominator "give them what they want" boring rock song. Maybe it sounds half-hearted/uninspired? I dunno.

If there is anything I've learned about GBV fans over the years it's that there are as many different types as there are types of GBV songs.

Hmm, I voted for "Glad Girls", it possesses a certain steam-rollering quality imho, the song "drives" to my ears.

http://i.imgur.com/uuwFO.jpg

6. VAMPIRE ON TITUS / 1993 (12 points)

i dunno, i was all for GBV making a polished, radio-friendly rock album and ID comes closest to that. but there's just too much boring stuff on there -- i mean, if pollard had taken the hits from speak kindly of your volunteer etc. and put them on there, he'd have a classic, maybe?

Don't rate ID among their best at all though.

Not much to say about VoT really. I could spend twice as much time with it as I have and still not know it that well, though when I hear individual songs from it I think "hey, that's a really good one!"

http://i.imgur.com/iAoGP.jpg

5. MAG EARWHIG! / 1997 (13 points)

(perhaps not my favorite GBV album, but definitely my favorite GBV album cover.)

yeah, that's a nice one

If you want to know what lurks in the mind of the Tobin Sprout hater: GBV's best moments, for me, are their most desperate--the poster child being for that strain being Vampire--and Sprout tends to mar that mood with his whimsical doings (see: "Gleemer"). Of course now I'm taking a closer look at the credits and he's all over the rest of the damn thing, so...

Aside from Bulldog Skin, never understood the love for this album. But then I like Isolation Drills.

Not much to say about VoT really. I could spend twice as much time with it as I have and still not know it that well, though when I hear individual songs from it I think "hey, that's a really good one!"
otm

I had the VoT/Propeller combo cd and I'll admit that I skipped to Over the Neptune/Mesh Gear Fox at least 2/3 of the time. It's not that I don't like it, but I never really gave it a full chance. How could it have a chance next to Propeller?!

i think mag earwig is a bit too much of a hodge podge (not that bob can't make a masterpiece out of a hodge podge). again, great stuff on here, but not terribly consistent.

I like the hodge podginess - I just don't feel particularly moved by most of the songs. The "get wild!" part of Bulldog Skin is enough to buoy me through a bunch of boring songs.

did not in my airforce come out the same year as ME? i think i ended up liking that one better.
the cobra verde-era live shows were pretty great though, even if it was initially disappointing that the classic lineup was gone.

I think Airforce came out in 96 (the same day, or maybe month, as Tobin's Carnival Boy). We didn't find out until 97 that they weren't going to be working together in GBV anymore.

Aside from Bulldog Skin, never understood the love for this album.

― righteousmaelstrom, Monday, September 26, 2011 5:29 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark

This is the opposite for me! I don't like Bulldog Skin (anymore ~ it's like Nada Surf's 'Popular', for a lot of people "that one song by that one band that had a cool video"), but man are there some gems on ME. 'Learning to Hunt', 'Not Behind the Fighter Jet', 'Choking Tara', 'I Am A Tree'...

Well, I think I voted for songs from ME the most, didn't keep count.

Yeah, I definitely like a lot of songs on ME!, but Bulldog Skin isn't one of them.

so many lovely ballady things on ME.

^^ yeah I'm a sucker for those introspective GBV moments. At least more than all GBV aficionados I know. Lol melancholy soul.

I'm a right sucker for GBV's moments of spleen

http://i.imgur.com/GM1pm.jpg

4. UNDER THE BUSHES UNDER THE STARS / 1996 (39 points)

ahaaa, here's one i voted for. classic through and through (including the amazing bonus ep)

my #1; not the first i heard (that was alien lanes), but the first i bought and imo a perfect sweet spot between the early period chaos and late period fm radio friendliness.

Sometimes I'm pretty sure this is my favorite.

the record that linked between gbv lo to hi fi

Had I got my ballot in, UTBUTS would have been my #1

It's a really warm record, both in recording techniques and in the songwriting. I wear it like a blanket.

would love an expanded version of this record --seems like there are a bunch of tracks from the albini sessions floating around? at least those few that greer has posted.

Just fwiw, #3 only beat #4 by a single point and #1 only beat #2 by a single point...so some real tight races. #3 coming up...

http://i.imgur.com/qG1B1.jpg

3. PROPELLER / 1992 (40 points)

Class Clown Spots A UFO is an old GBV song, known as Crocker's Favorite Song on King Shit and the Golden Boys. There's also a version on Suitcase 3. The clip I heard from this newest version sounds fantastic...

ah ok, knew the title had been around for a while, didn't know it was that song. actually not the *worst* idea pollard's had -- to go back and rework some of those older tunes?

he's been doing that for ages -- tractor rape chain was one of those!

right, yeah! see, he should write songs, let them sit around for a decade or so, and then re-write them. instant classics!

another great one on the new gbv - Roll Of The Dice, Kick In The Head, 46 seconds of perfection.

Hoping Class Clown is their "no fuckin' around" reunion album.

Just now getting around to listening to it. Less fuckin' around than Let's Go Eat the Factory, but still not a terrible lot of umph to it. So this is the sound of old dudes making choons, I guess.

i like it a lot more than factory so far in general, but sprout's tunes are worse than ever

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/guided-by-voices-ready-third-album-of-2012-20120727

With a pair of albums already out this year, Guided By Voices releases another new effort this fall — and plans to put out a new album every six months after that, guitarist Tobin Sprout says.

The Bears for Lunch is due in November, and the band is set to begin work on the next LP, English Little League, in August.

The Bears for Lunch track listing:

"King Arthur the Red"
"The Corners are Glowing"
"Have a Jug"
"Hangover Child"
"Dome Rust"
"Finger Gang"
"The Challenge Is Much More"
"Waving at Airplanes"
"The Military School Dance Dismissal"
"White Flag"
"Skin to Skin Combat"
"She Lives in an Airport"
"Tree Fly Jet"
"Waking Up the Stars"
"Up Instead of Running"
"Smoggy Boy"
"Amorphous Surprise"
"You Can Fly Anything Right"
"Everywhere Is Miles From Everywhere"

i'm glad pollard is adhering to the one-album-about-airplanes-every-four-albums rule.

good tracklist

I saw them in Philly on their latest tour, and they played "Hangover Child". It was nothing special, but who knows, could be another grower. In general they were very good live, though, way tighter than on the reunion tour (until the 2nd encore or so, but it usually gets ropey way earlier).

So far Class Clown > Factory for me; but both are victims of Pollard's refusal to self-edit, unfortunately.

I don't think the leak of English Little League I just acquired is complete (it's missing some tracks and includes some b-sides, so whatever), but "Islands (She Talks in Rainbows)" is Tobin's best song in a dog's age.

i'm glad pollard is adhering to the one-album-about-airplanes-every-four-albums rule.

i had no idea gbv albums COULD leak. i thought they released them 35 seconds after recording them.

idk where else to put this where my fellow enthusiasts will appreciate it so i am putting it here
1 of my bands has a show wednesday and it's just two of us instead of 3 and i convinced guitar player/singer to cover my 6th favorite gbv song!!i am going to switch best/worst in the second verse because belligerence is truly the worst
so excited!!!

Exit flagger

We thought about it but went with Quality of Armor

MEAGH GEAR FIX?!?!?!

sorry I'm . wasted

Thought about that one but guitarist wanted something peppier. Sorry you're wasted :(

playing gbv songs with a band sounds like so much fun, totally jealous

My old band used to do "big boring wedding" and "tractor tape chain"

Brim are you in NYC? I wonder if we have enough musician ilxors who like gbv who would like to kick out the jams

How about you Lech?

I'm in Chicago. You guys should totally kick out some gbv jams.

Lol tape chain

i am not in NYC but would totally highkick out some gbv jams with ilxors in a neutral safe space

I dug their show last summer at Wicker Park Fest in Chicago. Better than when I saw them at Metro in late 90s (too drunk), not as great as a small club in '93 when they were like how I imagined The Who in '68. "Space Gun" from the upcoming album is quite good, and last year's August By Cake has some choons. Belatedly working my way through How Do You Spell Heaven now. Time for a GBV 2010s list/playlist?

I’m an exclusively pre-Mag Earwig man myself