C or D : Guided By Voices.

Couldn’t tell if that was real or not

Is it?

wah-wah-ooh

Oh it’s real
I love that one!!!

Welshpool Frillies is the first GBV in a while that's doing it for me

The apparent resistance to being categorised as a 6 Music Dad station also feels extra muddled when you factor in things such as the recent eight-part 30th anniversary Britpop series – a subject so worn and threadbare surely even Lamacq has run out of things to say on it – or the Strokes’ Albert Hammond Jr playing 13 Guided By Voices tracks back-to-back in one Artist in Residence show.

(from https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/aug/08/bbc-6-music-radio-station)

ugh i am so SICK of this!!

It’s the “OK boomer” of the indie music world; a flippant and generalising piss-take that doesn’t possess much weight or sting but carries an undercurrent of ageism, and characterises its target as culturally shallow.

It's worse than that -- it's also sexist and is oozing with ageism. For me, it stings pretty bad because it erases my existence. Does not feel good!

deCIDE now!

Three (3) albums released in 2023...

which makes a total of...

24 (!!!) full-length records released since 2012 (the reunion).

That number does not include the seven (7!) full-length records released under Robert Pollard's name in the same time frame...

nor any singles, side-projects, collabs, etc.

...insanity!

What’s most surprising to me is how great much of that material is! Dude is on a great run lately. And another new side project coming next month, Rip Van Winkle, with a debut EP.

Whenever I see this thread bumped I wish Hadrian was popping in for a surprise visit.

Swimming river flow
Rifle, bullet, arrow & bow
Plaster, paint & tile
Lepus, canine, cat & reptile

― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Monday, August 1, 2016 7:00 PM (seven years ago)

take a little time to stumble
show a little faith in something larger than your life

(guitar solo)

UTBUTS at breakfast this morning, all killer no filler

B1000 / AL / UTBUTS = best all-time three-album run consideration?

(and throw in not in my airforce and waved out if going for an all-time fiver)

carnival boy too, yeah?

I'd throw in Propeller an Vampire on Titus.

same, plus the siltbreeze etc eps

https://i.imgur.com/sYyPlf4.jpeg

anyone else as into Suitcase 1 as me? I was probably at the peak of my GBV fandom when it dropped and played it incessantly at the time, to me it’s like 4 more weird propeller/titus type albums!

Yeah, same place the fly got smashed, king shit, battery …. I made a mixtape of the best tunes and took it with me on a summer trip in 95…

Sounds like you’re referring to the original box set — Suitcase was the box set of material from that era that didn’t make it onto an album iirc?

Oh right. Yes I am talking about the box set…

Suitcase was where I drew the line with GBV extra stuff, I assumed it would be lesser material. You’re telling me there’s Propeller/Titus quality music there? Might need to hunt it down.

Titus doesn’t get enough love.

I had a signed copy of Suitcase 1; can’t remember if I sold it or not. Strong stuff but … I’m covered with the early/mid 90s albums/EPs

https://i.imgur.com/fTprXWk.png
This thing?

lol, I forgot that's the one where he made up a different band name for each song.

There were four Suitcase boxes? Geez.

yeah i mean im certainly overselling it but it is way better than anything pre-propeller imo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JvOTU6qGlM

I love some of the pre-Propellor stuff but the Suitcase is solid, if patchy (like all pre-Alien Lanes GBV tbh). They definitely tailed off as they went along - I remember purchasing the second one at the height of my GBV obsession and it contributing in no small way to the cooling of said ardour, and I heard from other die-hards that by the fourth volume Bob was actually sourcing tracks from fan-made bootlegs of his demos, like you could hear they were the same mp3 source.

what's patchy about Bee Thousand???

Ha! For me Alien Lanes is their first truly all-killer-no-filler jam tho I know this is an unpopular opinion (also I owned Jellyfish Reflector before B000, and always preferred the live versions of those songs) (gonna pull JR off the rack now, in fact)

fourth is cool because it has early embryonic versions of hardcore ufos and echoes Myron with different lyrics

Alien Lanes is their first truly all-killer-no-filler jam

I concur, Stevie

same

My experience with Alien Lanes was similar to Ween's Quebec. It was the first album I got by the band and it was just... okay. Years later I tried a different album (B1000 & Mollusk) that knocked my socks off. Got a bunch of their albums and realized that the first CD I bought was in fact the best and I was a fool for not realizing it initially.

Some bands need a lot of data points to make sense.

My first was the CD of VOT/Propellor, and I totally dug it because I'd been a PG-era Genesis fans in my preteens and was ready for a group where you had to sort the gems from the garbage - like, I was fine that I felt inclined to skip every other GBV track, because the gems were so so worth it. But AL was my second purchase, day of release, and it just kicked my ass because it seemed like EVERY song was a gem. What a heady rush - I still remember that feeling of instant love for it.

Bee Thousand>>>>>>>>>>Alien Lanes

My slightly controversial take is that UTBUTS > Alien Lanes > B1000. But this is largely due to UTBUTS being the first GbV album I bought.

Same.

same again.

I think the common thread here is that the first GBV album you hear blows you away and the second one is a bit less earthshaking.

Alien Lanes is where I started (which is why it remains my favorite GBV)

I sort of got that "first GBV album" experience twice, since Human Amusements at Hourly Rates was my first, and Bee Thousand my second. And yeah, if I had to keep any two...

There’s no best, only favorite. I’m just as happy listening to the pre-B1000 albums (Sabdbox in particular but I like them all) as I am Alien Lanes but I wasn’t very into the Isolation Drills era but I did like Earthquake Glue.

Oops SANDBOX

Oops SANDBOX

My first one was actually B1000 but I agree with ranking above.

once more with feeling

My experience is kind of weird because I actually saw them play in Glasgow in 1995 but didn't hear any of their albums until somebody lent me B1000, Mag Earwhig and Do The Collapse, which must have been 2001?