Why in the name of all that is holy do people like Guided by Voices?

And I'll second that it's surprising to hear a Dean Wareham fan claim Rob Pollard can't sing.

Actually, it's funny how prescient Ned was.

Anyway, I really liked GBV at one time. I think what was initially so attractive was that lo-fi faux-prog sensibility present on tracks like "Marchers in Orange" and "Weed King". They totally hit like a random minute or two excised off a 10 minute early Genesis track. It sounded like a very self-aware, but irony-free tribute to most of the music I grew up with. I wasn't as much a fan of the pure rockers; I liked songs like "Exit Flagger" and "Motor Away", but that wasn't the aspect of them that attracted me the most.

I still maintain the best thing they ever did was the 6 or 7 EPs that came out in between Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes (at least, I think I've got that chronology correct; it's been a while). Pollard even used to joke in interviews that the band actually considered them mini-albums (so like, Alien Lanes was actually their 13th album or whatever). Is that some of the stuff that's going to be on this upcoming box set? If so, that's great, everyone needs to hear that. It's that total Faust Tapes cut-up, basement psychedelia aesthetic at its best.

I lost track of them after Under the Bushes. That album was really sort of boring, and it came right on the heels of the solo albums, etc. It was all getting to be too much. And it looked like they were more or less leaving behind the basement/drug/lo-fi sound. When he broke 'em up and hired the Cobra Verde guys, I knew that was the end.

Eh, not there yet. Close, though.

Well, it's really 'The Fall via Flying Nun Records vs. Pavement', if you want to get all technical and shit.

Danielle, a GBV-lover

I could make that argument, and I love them! I mean...well...you know.

then bob fired all of his buddies, got hired guns (cobra verde), improved the production values, and started aspiring to prog rather than pop-rawk. this bullshit is why the last-wave gbv is lame and bloated. oh, that and all the booze.

lets face it: the two most important instruments in the first-wave gbv were the echoplex and the four track.

like another bloated and pretentious arena rock band-- spinal tap-- gbv has trouble keeping drummers around. are they spontaneously combusting? i wonder if bill bruford is available. what am i thinking? of COURSE he is, since prog thankfully died years ago. since bob is all too happy to purge his band at the drop of a hat, maybe he should just hire the remaining members of yes.

the OX

p.s. i am available to play bass, bob, if you are lurking on this thread.

the other most important instrument was the memory man analog delay pedal and the most important non-pollard person was tobin sprout, the owner and operator of both the memory man and the aforementioned four-track (as well as the eight-track that eventually replaced the four-track).

tobin served a couple other purposes. he was the only worthy foil pollard ever had -- and pollard needs a foil really really bad -- and he was the only member of gbv, ever, who could sing on key at least some of the time. that really helped the live shows, believe you me.

gbv made mostly mediocre records before tobin joined the band, and they have continued to make mediocre records ever since he left. i say that's no coincidence.

mister matos, if you have any desire at all to get into gbv (a desire that i'd say is optional, not mandatory, at this point in world history), go ahead and sell that best-of and replace it with "bee thousand" and "alien lanes." if you don't like those two albums, you will not like gbv or anything pollard has ever done, it's as simple as that. if you do like them, move on to the "clown prince of the menthol trailer" and "fast japanese spin cycle" EPs, which are both from the same era, and move on from there. that part is, of course, optional.

right on brutha!

the OX

So the Scat EPs and Siltbreeze EP and the other things aren't on this box?! I mean that acid campfire 4 track stuff like "Johnny Appleseed" and "Scalding Creek" and "Chicken Blows" and "Melted Pat" and "Shocker in Gloomtown" is where they really surprised you, a real sense of not knowing what to expect next. the later records just seemed like fairly rote rock moves; more beer, less pot. WHat is on it then? How can they release three box sets now and not put that stuff out again?

I think people like GBV because they have seen them live at a bar and had a very good time. Unlike many indie rock shows where it turns into a giant dour staring contest between audience and band, seeing Guided by Voices is more of a party and the band indulges along side the people in the audience.

They are a pretty sloppy group, very much more a good bar band than a slick professional group, but I had a great time the four times I checked them out (last time around 97).

I'm really not that big of a fan of Sprout, and I'm glad that he's not in the band anymore. I think his songs mostly were just in the way.

Mr. Diamond - the eps and b-sides collected on the new box set are the ones released on Matador. It's as simple as that.

"Shocker In Gloomtown" is on the box set, in the hits album.

as for doug gillard, he's done some of his absolute worst work since hooking up with Drinky Pollard. my interest follows the tobin sprout trajectory also, with the addition of the Cobra Verde backed album (which is crap in comparison to Cobra Verde or GbV with Sprout).

on a sidenote -- gbv fans are the deadheads of indieland -- and as annoying.

I guess Matador considers Sunfish Holy Breakfast a mini-album. I guess they want to keep that record in print - the songs on the collected ep/b-sides disc are all from releases which were either compilations or have since been deleted.

about "if we wait" - i'm not sure what the ownership situation is with that one, but it wasn't originally released on matador. long before "sunfish holy breakfast" it was released on an anyway records 7-inch. so that may be why it's not on the box. or maybe it's because pollard, as i've long suspected, considers it one of his "pussy" songs, kind of like "hold on hope."

and about pollard's drinking - oy! the man is not a pretty sight when drunk, on or off stage. it's cute for the first few beers, but then it just gets ugly.

Gygax, how is the cd of unreleased material? You know, the one with "Back To Saturn X" on it.

Also agreed about the drinking. I've walked out in the middle of two Bee Thousand/Alien Lanes-era GBV concerts because the beers just made Pollard frenetically non-involved with the audience; he just danced and high-kicked around, seemingly oblivious to the fact that, you know, there were other people in the room watching him. It was downright creepy and weird. (Maybe in spite of all appearances, he's got terrible stage-fright, and he uses the alcohol to anesthetize the fear?)

Plus, the motherfucker threw several FULL beer bottles far into a crowd full of not just rockarolla teens but families with strollers and old people when I saw them play for free at Central Park Summerstage circa Mag Earwig!

i didn't bring it with me, i just brought the best of/EP-comp 2xCD pack to work today... but my CD player is jacked so it's gonna have to wait until tonight/tomorrow.

Either way, Sunfish is easily available on CD. The EPs disc is largely devoted to the previously vinyl-only or Euro/Japanese-only.

man, there are so many gbv EPs from 1993-1994 that should have been on this boxset that i thought i was getting. i guess i have to wait for another box set.

at their current pace, another box set is due in, oh, december.

K. I just bought the Watch Me Jumpstart DVD. It made me do the twist, like HARDCORE (UFOs). Yes, I got teary-eyed, I laughed, I farted, the kit. Even the mosquito now stuck on my screen was fluttering with delight, in ecstasy before an early demise. It was righteous, it was glorious. Yes, I am a disgustingly earnest GBV fan. Yes, we need more "lo-fi Bizzeatles", unfulfilling orgies, doublespeak, or whatever the shit gets you going raw like a mutherfock. GUIDED BY VOICES buys you all lunch AND dinner, fokkerz!!!

G-B-V! G-B-V! G-B-V! G-B-V! G-B-V! G-B-V!
ad infinitum and such

PS- I've only watched the music vids so far.

"You can't lie to yourself that it's the chance of a lifetime
You can be anyone they told you to
You can belittle every little voice that told you so"

it's another busy day for the cut out witch MOST OF US ARE QUITE PLEASED WITH THE SAME OLD SONG didididididid KICKER OF ELVES! I've got BULLLLLDOOOOGG SKIIIIIN I am Tree yeaahhh *guitar riff* alright look out! *more guitar riff* which I search and choose to abuse so just UNLOCK MY MIND yeah just UNLOCK MY MIND Little whirl nahanahnnahhhnahnah SOMETIMES I GET THE FEELING THAT YOU DON'T WANT ME AROUUUUNNND it's like SOUUUULLLL MMAAANNN could this be a braaaand new loowww OH YEAH I'M GOING TO DRIVE MY CAR OH YEAH I'M GOING TO GO REAL FAR stand on the edge of the ledge! jump off cuz nobody cares! glaaaad girls! always wanna get you higgghh SOMEONE TELL ME WHY SOMEONE TELL ME WHY with surgical focus (yeah yeah) with surgical focus THE MAN CALLED AEEEERRROODYNAMICS! promise to leave you promise to lead you PROMISE TO LEAVE YOU ...with a simple hello...I will be eternally hateful HOT FREAKS! HOOOOOTTT FREEAKS! Jane of the waking universe! Until you injure me again WITH MYYYY VALUABLE HUNTING KNIFE! Pass the word the chicks are back the chick ARE back yeah the chicks are back! THE CHANDELIER IS SPIIIINNNING SHAKING! Blimps go 90 you can't find me....crying my life away CHASING HEATHER CRAZY!!!!

Whew. that was fun. If anybody needs a singer for a GBV cover band let me know.

There's the aforementioned EP on Siltbreeze which was just reissued last summer (with some live bonus tracks). 'Fast Japanese Spin Cycle' was reissued earlier this year.

'Static Airplane Jive' and 'Clown Prince of the Menthol Trailer' were put on CD about 4 years ago on the Recordhead label (run by Luna Records, a big GbV-boosting record store owned by a longtime friend of the band).

Their cover of "The Opposing Engineer (Sleeps Alone)" is actually better than the original by New Radiant Storm King...and come to think of it, Small Factory's NRSK cover ("Happy for the First Time in Weeks") is loads better than the original, too. WTF?

Saw the boys in Asheville last night (11/7)...
* I think I was the only sober person in the audience.
* A lot of sports enthusiasts in the audience, it seems.
* Forgot about the "beer flinging" aspect of a GBV show.
* Wanted to punch about half a dozen audience members.
* Had to avoid walking through two puddles of vomit on the way to my car.

A bunch of the albums I have are spotty (except Bee Thousand, Alien Lanes)...BUT...the band seems to know which of their songs are the very best ones, since those are the ones they play live. Why not be that discriminating for their albums, then? For example, the last three songs they played were "Tractor Rape Chain," "Echos Myron," and "I Am a Scientist"...which were tremendous. I may be being unfair...actually, the new songs they played sounded pretty good (haven't heard the new album).