C or D : Guided By Voices.

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yes plz

Darin, Wednesday, 17 June 2020 19:34 (four years ago) link

Once I work my way through, maybe I'll try and throw one together!

soaring skrrrtpeggios (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, 17 June 2020 19:39 (four years ago) link

these Boston Spaceships songs belong on there: Let it Rest for a Little While, Bad Whiskey, Christmas Girl

oh and The Naked Wall and Island of Lost Lucys from that Keene Brothers album, those too

the burrito that defined a generation, Wednesday, 17 June 2020 19:44 (four years ago) link

One of the fun things about working my way back through all of these is picking up things like Bob having had the title for Zeppelin Over China as far back as "Thelonious Has Eaten All the Paper" back on the Circus Devils record from 2005.

soaring skrrrtpeggios (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, 17 June 2020 19:49 (four years ago) link

Also...Bobby Bare Jr is this band now?? weird

― The Desus & Mero Chain (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, July 10, 2018 4:08 PM (one year ago)


Just noticed this and thought the same thing.

Soft Mutation Machine (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 17 June 2020 19:51 (four years ago) link

Haha, yeah, he joined in 2016 after the "classic lineup" split up again.

soaring skrrrtpeggios (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, 17 June 2020 20:00 (four years ago) link

Could go for a Spotify playlist of the best bits of the side projects!

ha, so I did that too

https://i.imgur.com/fdOXLdr.jpg

MILES OF CONCENTRATION

Again, this one's super-long but zero filler—111 tracks drawn from 52 records. Obviouslt not to be listened to in one sitting, again more like a radio station. The longer tracks are edited down so it flows more like an early GBV album...all segued and w/ some light EQing here and there

This covers non-GBV recordings since 2001... the solo records + Boston Spaceships / Carbon Whales / Keene Brothers / Cosmos / ESP Ohio / Airport 5 / Freedom Cruise / Lifeguards / Psycho and The BIrds / Mars Classroom / Phantom Tollbooth / The Takeovers etc... DM me if you'd like

Yanni Xenakis (Hadrian VIII), Wednesday, 17 June 2020 20:22 (four years ago) link

Nice! Those both sound absolutely killer.

soaring skrrrtpeggios (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, 17 June 2020 20:26 (four years ago) link

Thank you!!!

Darin, Wednesday, 17 June 2020 20:29 (four years ago) link

I remember listening to a Tommy Keene track off of The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down... I think it was the epic "The Final Hour" song and thinking how cool it would be if Pollard collaborated with him... THEN found out they already had? It blew my mind a little.

Evan, Wednesday, 17 June 2020 20:50 (four years ago) link

DM'd you Hadrian! My big Pollard blind spot is pretty much the 10-year period after the 2004 breakup, and the idea of going back to see what I missed has been intimidating, so this playlist sounds like exactly what I need.

Anyone else doing the Hot Freaks subscription service? I signed up a couple days ago and I've been catching up on the stuff that was sent out over the past several weeks. Most interesting thing for me so far has been the Do the Collapse demos. 20+ tracks of Doug working out his lead parts over Bob's acoustic demos, occasionally adding full-band arrangements. Hearing the songs stripped down like this makes me feel like Bob was really at a high point in terms of pure pop songwriting around this time. Just lovely, interesting chord progression and melodies all over the place. Apparently Ocasek made the call to drop some of this stuff and Bob came up with a few proggier things ("Liquid Indian," etc.) at his request. Most of the scrapped tracks ended up on the Hold On Hope EP (which is fantastic).

On top of that, Speak Kindly of Your Volunteer Fire Department came out a few months after DtC, with some of the best pop songs Pollard's ever written. I don't know how "Pop Zeus" hasn't remained a live staple since those days.

Vaguely Threatening CAPTCHAs, Thursday, 18 June 2020 00:29 (four years ago) link

I'm tempted but yikes at $100...and just as I'm finally getting my arms around these 2,500 or whatever songs

Yanni Xenakis (Hadrian VIII), Thursday, 18 June 2020 01:50 (four years ago) link

I shld add that above "side project" mix^ has a smattering of reunion-era GBV, only cuz on review I didn't feel those records merited their own mix, but whatever it's all Bob

Yanni Xenakis (Hadrian VIII), Thursday, 18 June 2020 01:58 (four years ago) link

Speak Kindly is easily ni my top 5 gbv/gbv-related LPs.

Pinche Cumbion Bien Loco (stevie), Thursday, 18 June 2020 09:55 (four years ago) link

the Freedom Cruise project is just one song or is it more?

Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Thursday, 18 June 2020 13:50 (four years ago) link

I've been following that Hot Freaks service with some interest, but honestly I have a hard time dropping a hundred bucks all at once. I wish there was a monthly billing option or something, that would probable be easier to swallow.

Freedom Cruise actually released two songs - "Cruise" on the Freedom Cruise/Nightwatchers split and another once called "Sensational Gravity Boy". originally on one of those Red, Hot + Bothered comps but a slightly different version was on that 2xCD Crickets comp.

soaring skrrrtpeggios (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Thursday, 18 June 2020 14:12 (four years ago) link

Pop Zeus is truly great -- longtime fave in my house

Esp the inscrutable lyrics,

Pop Zeus, electric noose
paper boy

or Pop Zeus, electric newspaper boy?!

weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Thursday, 18 June 2020 14:16 (four years ago) link

although i hope it's the latter bc i don't like white ppl singing about nooses tbh

weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Thursday, 18 June 2020 14:17 (four years ago) link

It's the latter.

Rapsputin (Tom D.), Thursday, 18 June 2020 14:19 (four years ago) link

Periodically I try getting to grip with his post-GBV career but it's a hard slog!

Rapsputin (Tom D.), Thursday, 18 June 2020 14:20 (four years ago) link

is there a link to that playlist you can share Hadrian, or am I just being stupid and not seeing it?

Neil S, Thursday, 18 June 2020 14:27 (four years ago) link

I can send you a link to download if you dm me—it's an actual mix, not a playlist

— last of the Spotify holdouts

Yanni Xenakis (Hadrian VIII), Thursday, 18 June 2020 14:30 (four years ago) link

got it, message sent with thanks!

Neil S, Thursday, 18 June 2020 14:53 (four years ago) link

Pop Zeus, electric noose
paper boy

or Pop Zeus, electric newspaper boy?!

the latter. it's a reference to rich turiel (i think?) who started postal blowfish, the email mailing list for GBV fans, which bob referred to as his "electric newspaper"

Pinche Cumbion Bien Loco (stevie), Thursday, 18 June 2020 14:58 (four years ago) link

it's definitely a ref to the founder of PB, i'm just not 100% that was rich (tho I think it was)

Pinche Cumbion Bien Loco (stevie), Thursday, 18 June 2020 14:59 (four years ago) link

Rich didn't start Postal Blowfish. He was among the early members (as was I) before he met the band and became their tour manager, etc. That newspaper boy reference is to Ed someone who was a friend of Bob who would print off reviews and other gbv related web content (maybe PB too, I don't know) and bring it to Bob on paper, because Bob didn't have a computer.

erasingclouds, Thursday, 18 June 2020 17:48 (four years ago) link

^^^ Yeah, this gets mentioned in Closer You Are, though I don't have it at hand to confirm further. But yeah, someone would print reviews of the internet and hand them to Bob to read.

soaring skrrrtpeggios (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Thursday, 18 June 2020 17:55 (four years ago) link

That's it, Ed! It's been well over a decade since I was a PBer, tbh. I'm pretty sure ED would print off the PB digest for Bob.

Pinche Cumbion Bien Loco (stevie), Thursday, 18 June 2020 18:10 (four years ago) link

lol
i know i have had this convo about Pop Zeus before too

weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Thursday, 18 June 2020 18:43 (four years ago) link

He was among the early members (as was I)

raising my hands for the early postal blowfish roll call. the day i sent my first email to the group, maybe the day after, two total strangers who lived near me in brooklyn emailed me to invite me on a road trip to see gbv in philly, and i thought to myself "i'm not getting in a fucking car with two total strangers just because we like the same band. what if they kidnap me? or murder me? what if they make me drink warm beer and listen to nightwalker songs the whole way down?" it was matt & jon, the brothers who started spare me records, totally awesome dudes as i later learned, but i didn't know that yet. i passed on that particular road trip.

fact checking cuz, Thursday, 18 June 2020 19:09 (four years ago) link

Ha, I did roadtrip early on with Matt and Jon, from nyc to Dayton...w/o having met them before except on PB. Their sister came too I think?

Got the whole tour and stayed at Don Thrasher's place.... we caravaned to a show at Southgate House in KY and then with the band to some greasy spoon afterward, a trip highlight for me as I prompted Bob to change the song Melted Pat to Patty Melt, and he obliged with a couple verses

Yanni Xenakis (Hadrian VIII), Thursday, 18 June 2020 19:16 (four years ago) link

I remember listening to The Shoes all the way back, and also Bob finishing Jim's fries and singing "cold fries for robot boy" as he did so

Yanni Xenakis (Hadrian VIII), Thursday, 18 June 2020 19:19 (four years ago) link

ha ha ha awesome.

later postal blowfish memories include michael azerrad starting a long, combative thread in which he argued, repeatedly and repetitively, that gbv's lo-fi recording aesthetic was a good thing because the lo-fi aesthetic was an essential part of their sound whereas pavement's lo-fi recording aesthetic was a bad thing because the lo-fi aesthetic was not an essential part of their sound and in fact detracted from one's ability to enjoy the music and therefore was not only bad, but evil, because music is an essential part of our lives and music can actually save our lives, like medicine, and anything that gets in the way of that, like an unessential lo-fi recording aesthetic, should be considered a crime. or something like that. this was before twitter was invented and, therefore, before the block button was invented, unfortunately.

fact checking cuz, Thursday, 18 June 2020 19:23 (four years ago) link

I for one am grateful that some of my worst opinions predated the Constant Record

Yanni Xenakis (Hadrian VIII), Thursday, 18 June 2020 19:27 (four years ago) link

oh god me too

fact checking cuz, Thursday, 18 June 2020 19:32 (four years ago) link

my PB memories are mostly the kleenex girl wonder dude trolling people

adam, Thursday, 18 June 2020 21:02 (four years ago) link

i love reading these memories, feel like the only band i was ever so fanatical about during their nascent years went on to do things that don't impress me much, so it feels very embarrassing.

blue light or electric light (the table is the table), Thursday, 18 June 2020 21:35 (four years ago) link

Azzerad was on PB??

Pinche Cumbion Bien Loco (stevie), Thursday, 18 June 2020 23:07 (four years ago) link

Azzerad was on PB??

indeed he was, for a short time in the early days.

fact checking cuz, Friday, 19 June 2020 09:18 (four years ago) link

Oone thing that kind of bothers me about Pavement's "lo-fi" distinction is that they recorded everything up to Crooked Rain at Gary Young's original studio that had a 24-track MCI console which if you are familiar with is approximately the size (132"x41"x38") of ~200 Tascam 424s (18"x14"x4") such as the ones actually used by GBV, Sebadoh, Silver Jews, et.al. Slanted & Enchanted is extremely hi-fi compared to Alistair Galbraith or The Grifters music from the same period.

Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Friday, 19 June 2020 18:25 (four years ago) link

I've come to the conclusion that Sgt. Disco might be one of the most underrated albums in Pollard's catalog.

soaring skrrrtpeggios (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, 24 June 2020 16:48 (four years ago) link

it's so good, also the next two after that,Ataxia and Gringo

Yanni Xenakis (Hadrian VIII), Wednesday, 24 June 2020 16:56 (four years ago) link

Kind of can't get over 'Society Dome' at the moment

blue light or electric light (the table is the table), Thursday, 25 June 2020 00:52 (four years ago) link

two weeks pass...

Streaming show this Friday...from the official website:

"Full electric set from an empty venue to your living room. Professionally mixed and pre-recorded with 7 cameras on a big socially-distanced stage. Unlike a lot of other streams, this is not acoustic in the living room… It will look and sound amazing."

Which is a little disappointing because I think I'd prefer to see sad man in him room GbV.

cwkiii, Monday, 13 July 2020 16:13 (four years ago) link

what's the capacity of that venue?

calstars, Monday, 13 July 2020 17:22 (four years ago) link

Maybe it's out there somewhere, but I haven't been able to confirm what they mean by "venue". In true Pollard style, it should be a Dayton garage somewhere.

soaring skrrrtpeggios (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Monday, 13 July 2020 19:13 (four years ago) link

Occupancy: Brightside Bar Only - 130 Bright Bar + Vodvil Ballroom - 430

https://www.thebrightsidedayton.com/

cwkiii, Friday, 17 July 2020 11:18 (four years ago) link

What music or art have you turned to for comfort?

I read a lot. Mostly biographies, conspiracies, or metaphysical stuff. Alice Bailey, H.P. Blavatsky, that sort of thing. I have art books, and I like to occasionally examine the works of people like Ernst, Rauschenberg, Pollack, Jasper Johns, Basquiat, collagists like Kurt Schwitters, Hannah Hoch. Lots of surrealists. Of course, I listen to a lot of rock. Mostly Sixties and Seventies.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/gbv-album-styles-we-paid-for-robert-pollard-1033011/

Bob getting into theosophy is funny and awesome

singular wolf erotica producer (Hadrian VIII), Friday, 24 July 2020 17:11 (four years ago) link

Great article, thanks.

I think it was the alien lanes thread a couple months ago where people were convinced that Bob was a sports-bar-schlub, and I was saying that was an unfortunate (quasi-classist?) angle of their initial marketing (Scat/early-Matador) that stuck. The guy's obviously well-read and possessing well beyond average awareness of post-modern art.

Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Friday, 24 July 2020 19:22 (four years ago) link

I think I was arguing in that thread that you can be both

singular wolf erotica producer (Hadrian VIII), Friday, 24 July 2020 19:28 (four years ago) link


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