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

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i thought i might make a cd but have only like 5 songs i would really really want to put on it. "my thoughts are a gas" is my favorite gbv song

― ron (ron), Wednesday, 12 November 2003 06:38 (twenty-two years ago)

oops i already said that before ;-)

― ron (ron), Wednesday, 12 November 2003 06:39 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't like The Faust Tapes, either.

― M Matos (M Matos), Wednesday, 12 November 2003 06:42 (twenty-two years ago)

I thought GBV were good because their songs were a great variety of different lengths.

Isn't that enough? I also like that their songs are gesturing towards pop music, but in a really sickened, frustrated, lazy kind of way - which is exactly how I feel about pop music. Like it's not my place to be into classical music, and there's nothing for me but pop - but so much about pop sickens me that I can only regurgitate it with pain.

― maryann (maryann), Wednesday, 12 November 2003 07:18 (twenty-two years ago)

Maybe 'lazy' was the wrong word. I guess I meant, without committing to the whole pop struggle by buying the right gear, making connections etc.

― maryann (maryann), Wednesday, 12 November 2003 07:21 (twenty-two years ago)

maryann wins the prize for articulating exactly why I hate GBV better than anyone ever. congratulations!

― M Matos (M Matos), Wednesday, 12 November 2003 07:23 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah i dont think i like them anymore now

― fiddo centington (dubplatestyle), Wednesday, 12 November 2003 07:29 (twenty-two years ago)

five months pass...

funny looking at this again considering Anthony's completely mistaken assertions elsewhere that I jumped into a GBV-luv thread with my posts. also I'm sorry I got so namby-pamby about it afterward, should've just stuck to my guns.

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Tuesday, 4 May 2004 06:58 (twenty-two years ago)

Gee, that's so funny, Matos and Fiddo -- my winning ways. I think I hate GBV now too.

― m-ry-nn (m-ry-nn), Tuesday, 4 May 2004 07:34 (twenty-two years ago)

within your like-description lay the seeds of dislike

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Tuesday, 4 May 2004 08:19 (twenty-two years ago)

i never heard a GBV song until i bought Bee thousand a couple months ago. first the production bothered me, but then after the second listen, it suddenly didnt matter anymore. I'm not going to say that all the songs are good, but maybe about half the album is listenable. of those, there are maybe 5 songs which i do really like a lot. it has nothing to do with his voice or the production. it's just that those *really* little song sketches are mostly boring to me. i'd consider every track on that album to be a song sketch, but the more filled out ones like tractor rape chain, i am a scientist, queen directory, have just enough to them to make them listenable and great. in my opinion, there's a lot of potential there that for som reason pollard doesn't fully develop.

― AaronK (AaronK), Tuesday, 4 May 2004 10:53 (twenty-two years ago)

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!
-- Michael Daddino (epicharmu...), November 6th, 2003.

I was at that show too, and just for the record, they were beer cans, not bottles.

― 57 7th (calstars), Tuesday, 4 May 2004 15:03 (twenty-two years ago)

You may be right. I honestly can't remember...though I suppose bottles are easier to throw than cans. On the other hand, I throw like a girl, so what do I know?

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Wednesday, 5 May 2004 15:49 (twenty-two years ago)

I was gonna say, I was at that show too and I think they were cans, and he was throwing them at people who caught them.

― hstencil (hstencil), Wednesday, 5 May 2004 15:54 (twenty-two years ago)

They caught 'em? Wow. They were LONG throws, I remember...and that everyone I could see (I was right in the front) cowered when he started throwing them. Plus, Doug Gillard (I think) practically throttled him to stop it! And later, Colin Meeder told me he heard a radio interview with Bob the next week or so saying Doug (again, I think) gave him royal shit for it after the show.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Wednesday, 5 May 2004 16:03 (twenty-two years ago)

well it was 1997, so my memory could be way off.

― hstencil (hstencil), Wednesday, 5 May 2004 16:04 (twenty-two years ago)

Central Park-Summerstage crowds deserve FULL BEERS thrown at them.

Well at the very least, at their SUV's.

― ddb, Wednesday, 5 May 2004 16:10 (twenty-two years ago)

No, Joel, you may right. Again, I was in the front, so I couldn't see where they landed -- but it seemed like they were headed precariously close to the more sedate folks sitting in the bleachers.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Wednesday, 5 May 2004 16:13 (twenty-two years ago)

I was sitting in the bleachers.

― hstencil (hstencil), Wednesday, 5 May 2004 16:50 (twenty-two years ago)

i was sitting in the park outside summerstage, having walked out in the middle of the show out of sheer boredom. it was the first time gbv completely bored me and it was pretty much the beginning of the end for me.

sleater-kinney, who opened for them that day, blew them away.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Wednesday, 5 May 2004 17:11 (twenty-two years ago)

Have never heard anything by them. I don't trust any band from Dayton. Or Cincinnati for that matter. OK, maybe the Ohio Players were from that awful part of the world? No wonder the fellow needs to drink all that beer. Allow me this prejuidice!

― eddie hurt (ddduncan), Wednesday, 5 May 2004 17:51 (twenty-two years ago)

Generally, I have to agree. I've picked up Alien Lanes and... another one I can't remember and each had moments. Good for a mix tape or what have you, but definitely not worth keeping. I've seen them twice and both were a waste of time.

All that said, for some reason I was intrigued by Earthquake Glue and damn if it wasn't one of my favorites from last year. It seemed like Pollard finally got a band behind him that didn't just indulge his whims, but nudge them further and form them. (I say that not knowing shit about whether he's been recording with these same guys for years or not.) It was a pleasant surprise.

― frankE (frankE), Wednesday, 5 May 2004 19:02 (twenty-two years ago)

frankE - i love alien lanes all the way through and i hate earthquake glue all the way through (like gbv's past few albums, i find it hookless and mind-numbingly samey), but to answer your question: though individuals, mostly drummers, have been coming and going with some frequency, the earthquake glue lineup is the same core lineup that's made the last few gbv albums, starting in the late '90s.

the alien lanes-era stuff was all homemade, recorded by pollard himself with an entirely different and somewhat vague cast of co-conspirators, and as far as i know pollard has never made clear who actually did what. it's generally assumed that pollard played a lot of the stuff himself, with big help from his guitar homies tobin sprout and mitch mitchell and drummer kevin fennel. but the "band" on any given song may have involved any given dude who happened to be in the room the day pollard wrote it.

gbv didn't start playing live until 1993, and it's quite possible that a good deal of the stuff for both bee thousand (1994) and alien lanes (1995) had already been recorded by that point. again, they've never been too clear about this.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Wednesday, 5 May 2004 19:12 (twenty-two years ago)

and by that last paragraph, i mean only to suggest that there wasn't necessarily a proper "band" when those classic albums were made, and that in itself may be part of their charm. and i find them to have immense charm.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Wednesday, 5 May 2004 19:14 (twenty-two years ago)

Because they have almost the same initials as My Bloody Valentine.

But then again, so do I!

(Well, not really...)

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Wednesday, 5 May 2004 19:16 (twenty-two years ago)

speaking of names and initials: pollard has said several times that he chose the name partly because he wanted gbv's albums to be filed near genesis and gentle giant in record stores. why he didn't pick a name that began with "ge," like "gefilte-fished by voices," has never been properly explained.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Wednesday, 5 May 2004 19:18 (twenty-two years ago)

"gefilte-fished by voices" would come before those two, and like all good rockists he didn't want to usurp.

― hstencil (hstencil), Wednesday, 5 May 2004 19:19 (twenty-two years ago)

ah. now i see.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Wednesday, 5 May 2004 19:20 (twenty-two years ago)

good rockists are into alphabetical order, but not usurping.

― hstencil (hstencil), Wednesday, 5 May 2004 19:21 (twenty-two years ago)

myonga - so are you a camper van beethoven fan too?

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Wednesday, 5 May 2004 19:21 (twenty-two years ago)

He could have named them Genuflecting to Gentle Genesis

― Broheems (diamond), Wednesday, 5 May 2004 19:23 (twenty-two years ago)

or, in tribute to the midwest: Gephardt's Belligerent Voices

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Wednesday, 5 May 2004 19:25 (twenty-two years ago)

after a scissor kick too many: Get Bob a Vicodin.

― hstencil (hstencil), Wednesday, 5 May 2004 19:27 (twenty-two years ago)

fcc-
interesting. maybe i should go back and review, since it has been a long time. i especially like the drums on the new album a lot. i guess i could see your point about there not being hooks. i don't really mind that so much as there seem to be more *songs* (useless inventions and dead clouds being my favorites) i remember on the stuff i owned before from gbv before. like i said, though, i should go back and relisten to some older stuff.

― frankE (frankE), Wednesday, 5 May 2004 19:29 (twenty-two years ago)

frank - in a lot of ways, it's just two different bands. aaron k was OTM about the songs on the earlier albums being more sketches than songs, and that's part of what i like about 'em; they come across like an inspired collection of demos. the "new" gbv aims to make fully realized songs, from composition to arrangement to recording, for better or worse. worse for me, though some people obviously disagree.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Wednesday, 5 May 2004 19:36 (twenty-two years ago)

Xgau seems to say that it's because some people will go for fun only if they can also hate it

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Wednesday, 5 May 2004 19:45 (twenty-two years ago)

I have zero memory of that interview (absolutely none!), but if it was me who told you about it, it must have been on WZBC in Newton MA...

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Wednesday, 5 May 2004 19:50 (twenty-two years ago)

Anyone ever been to the Monument Club in Dayton?

― 57 7th (calstars), Wednesday, 5 May 2004 20:41 (twenty-two years ago)

GbV rules.

And I'm an old old man who otherwise can't stand indie-rock.

― M. Eric, Thursday, 6 May 2004 03:53 (twenty-two years ago)

And I'm an old old man who otherwise can't stand indie-rock.

is your name robert pollard by any chance?

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Thursday, 6 May 2004 13:46 (twenty-two years ago)

You took the words out of my mouth there

― Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 6 May 2004 13:48 (twenty-two years ago)

myonga - so are you a camper van beethoven fan too?

I remember enjoying My Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart back when I still cared about that sort of thing!

[FYI: "Myonga Von Bontee" = song title]

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Thursday, 6 May 2004 19:52 (twenty-two years ago)

three years pass...

I freaking love "Uncle Dave" from the Grifters split 7", which as far as I know has never been reissued...
-- Douglas (Douglas), Saturday, November 8, 2003 6:10 AM (3 years ago) Bookmark Link

I love this song also. It has grown on me tremendously. Is it just me or are the lyrics really cool? Maybe it's how the singer sings them.

81323
I believe i can't behave
I behave like uncle dave
I've got one foot in the grave
Thanks a lot to uncle dave
=============================
Chorus: uncle dave
Raise your hand
Repeat these words
=============================
Uncle dave
The words you've seen and heard
=============================
Be ?? to hamster love
What the hell is hamster love <---favorite part
Chorus
You are a pretty strange bird
And fun is for the ??

― CaptainLorax, Wednesday, 7 November 2007 03:51 (eighteen years ago)

one year passes...

just been loving propeller lately.

matos is really on some fucking bullshit on early on in this thread.

GBV wrote great fucking pop songs.

― any major some dude will tell you (M@tt He1ges0n), Monday, 17 November 2008 03:10 (seventeen years ago)

they are so great when they are on some inspiration, blue collar dreams type shit.

beyond a shadow of a doubt
beyond the power of your clout

like shit like this reads horribly but in context it is <3 <3 <3

― any major some dude will tell you (M@tt He1ges0n), Monday, 17 November 2008 03:11 (seventeen years ago)

sixteen cheerleader cold front is my new jam.... sad tune

― any major some dude will tell you (M@tt He1ges0n), Monday, 17 November 2008 03:11 (seventeen years ago)

not a huge fan or anything but I love that song.

― clotpoll, Monday, 17 November 2008 03:15 (seventeen years ago)

i still have a really big soft spot for GBV, even though i hardly listen to music made with geetars any longer.

to me:
"Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory"
"Tractor Rape Chain"
"I Am A Tree"

― the table is the table, Monday, 17 November 2008 03:15 (seventeen years ago)

also, matt, i do love that song, too. i ought to pull out my GBV cds.

― the table is the table, Monday, 17 November 2008 03:16 (seventeen years ago)

two years pass...

Had no idea there was such a thing as an unreleased GbV song?

http://soundcloud.com/north-of-onhava/guided-by-voices-angry-pillows/s-TH6C2

― citation needed (Steve Shasta), Wednesday, 14 September 2011 17:21 (fourteen years ago)

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