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 (three 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 (three 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 (three years ago) link
got it, message sent with thanks!
― Neil S, Thursday, 18 June 2020 14:53 (three years ago) link
Pop Zeus, electric noosepaper 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 (three 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 (three 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 (three 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 (three 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 (three years ago) link
loli know i have had this convo about Pop Zeus before too
― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Thursday, 18 June 2020 18:43 (three 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 (three 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 (three 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 (three 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 (three 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 (three years ago) link
oh god me too
― fact checking cuz, Thursday, 18 June 2020 19:32 (three years ago) link
my PB memories are mostly the kleenex girl wonder dude trolling people
― adam, Thursday, 18 June 2020 21:02 (three 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 (three years ago) link
Azzerad was on PB??
― Pinche Cumbion Bien Loco (stevie), Thursday, 18 June 2020 23:07 (three years ago) link
indeed he was, for a short time in the early days.
― fact checking cuz, Friday, 19 June 2020 09:18 (three 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 (three 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 (three 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 (three 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 (three years ago) link
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 (three years ago) link
what's the capacity of that venue?
― calstars, Monday, 13 July 2020 17:22 (three 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 (three years ago) link
Occupancy: Brightside Bar Only - 130 Bright Bar + Vodvil Ballroom - 430
https://www.thebrightsidedayton.com/
― cwkiii, Friday, 17 July 2020 11:18 (three 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.
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 (three 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 (three 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 (three years ago) link
there's nothing to argue aboutof course you can be both!
― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Friday, 24 July 2020 19:29 (three years ago) link
That particular intersection is much narrower than you guys are making it seem, ime/imho.
― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Friday, 24 July 2020 19:55 (three years ago) link
I was worried for a while that he might be a Trump guy, but then he was sending videos to Beto O'Rourke saying "we are with you in your anger" so I feel a little better now.
― cwkiii, Friday, 24 July 2020 22:50 (three years ago) link
If a 'sports bar schlub' just means a guy who likes drinking beer and watching sport then that's not all that narrow an intersection tbh.
― Sonny Shamrock (Tom D.), Friday, 24 July 2020 23:26 (three years ago) link
xp what in the world would ever make you suspect that?
― singular wolf erotica producer (Hadrian VIII), Saturday, 25 July 2020 01:17 (three years ago) link
Those Cash Rivers records leaned pretty heavily into his "it's politically incorrect and if you don't like it don't listen to it" shtick that seems to pop up here and there. Just a bad vibe. More than happy to be wrong!
― cwkiii, Saturday, 25 July 2020 21:43 (three years ago) link
I didn’t know Beto was a GBV head
― Your dream has symbolic content (morrisp), Sunday, 26 July 2020 00:45 (three years ago) link
Re: his politics, I've never gotten bad or edgelord vibes except from some lyrics that use homophobic slurs and some pretty, uh, questionable lyrics that could be construed as misogynist...but the former instance is singular ('coming into town with the giggling faggots') and the latter is just sort of a thing that I think pervades most of cis male fronted guitar music.
― blue light or electric light (the table is the table), Sunday, 26 July 2020 15:18 (three years ago) link
he also said he would allow "no girls in the clubhouse" and that tipped me off to his particular brand of misogyny. most people at least pretend.
― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Sunday, 26 July 2020 18:21 (three years ago) link
aw I don't think that's misogynistic—any more than the No Boys Allowed! thread. Just a bunch of married dorks watching basketball.
― singular wolf erotica producer (Hadrian VIII), Sunday, 26 July 2020 18:24 (three years ago) link
I think Tobin Sprout is a conservative
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Sunday, 26 July 2020 18:24 (three years ago) link
^^ he isand i disagree Hadrian. the power dynamics are different with no boys allowed and i think that's pretty obvious.
― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Sunday, 26 July 2020 18:26 (three years ago) link
not to mention "no girls in our band" is pretty weird when you make as much music as this guy does
― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Sunday, 26 July 2020 18:27 (three years ago) link
every thread here lately
what a total drag this place has become
― Paul Ponzi, Sunday, 26 July 2020 18:30 (three years ago) link
Personally, I hate that kind of thing—I'm a little skeeved by any puropseful gathering of just men or just women. But I do know men who do this and would be be reluctant to characterize it as misogynistic. My take on it is a kind of retreat to presexual boyhood—days of "cooties!" yore.
― singular wolf erotica producer (Hadrian VIII), Sunday, 26 July 2020 18:32 (three years ago) link
xp yes
whateverif you think this is a drag for you, imagine what a drag it is for mebye
― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Sunday, 26 July 2020 18:33 (three years ago) link
― singular wolf erotica producer (Hadrian VIII)
hadrian i would strongly urge you to reconsider this notion
i am also not really feeling like explaining how they are different in detail right now
i'll just say that that doesn't accord with my experience as someone who has been in male-only spaces as well as female-only spaces.
― Kate (rushomancy), Sunday, 26 July 2020 18:43 (three years ago) link
I'm sorry, I don't think it's fair to accuse a bunch of guys who have known each other since they were kids of hating women...because they like to go into a garage and fart and watch sports together or whatever. I also think "no girls allowed" is too obviously stupid to be anything but ironic.
Not my trip either, but I'm not down with making character assessments like this.
― singular wolf erotica producer (Hadrian VIII), Sunday, 26 July 2020 18:49 (three years ago) link