i wanna ask you a question: what is the best song in GBV's Alien Lanes?

If I'm a fanatic about this album, is the deluxe reissue thing worth getting? Like, are there extensive, 33 1/3 style liner notes and shit?

is there a deluxe version of this record?

wasn't there a double vinyl version, with the songs in a weird sequence, all mixed up, or something? Did I dream this? Maybe it was that Bee Tousand that got that treatment...

Bee THousand, I mean

oh yeah that was the bee thousand directors cut.

that's worth it! it's pretty cool.

kind of surprising that matador isn't doing some kind of expanded alien lanes reissue to coincide w/ the reunion tho.

Yeah, they really should. I'd buy that. As I gushed upthread, this is probably one of my most-played albums of all time.

thanks tyler - I'll check out the BT director's cut!

good a place as any to mention that they've launched a digital store w/ some oop stuff, some live shows, etc: https://www.gbvdigital.com

awesome, thanks tyler

!!! thanks !!!!
trying to mete out my excitement about next week's show in chicago

a little excitement every day so i don't go nuts

20 years old

That revelation is shocking in some cases, but Alien Lanes feels exactly as old as it is.

I would've voted "Game of Pricks," I'm pretty sure. Album still slays.

the club is open

"King and Caroline" was robbed. But tie for first place and the next finisher otm.

"Game of Pricks" is the best song GBV ever did, but "Motor Away" is the best song on Alien Lanes. (O paradox)

i suspect i voted for 'little whirl'

i was otm

things are new in brilliant blue
and striped white jets come speeding through ah!
sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-and we must not forget
the sudden pain of perfect greed
and what's expected of this super-breed . . .
for those who dream to touch the sun
and those who run will always run . . .

"post punk x-man parked his forklift
like a billion stars flickering from the grinders wheel"

Blimps go 90
On with the show

I’m not here to drink all the beer
In the house
in the fridge

So I write music for soundtracks now
I write music for soundtracks now
(That's what I wanted to do anyhow)

Oh, this is not to say
We were not the worst we've ever been

Introducing the amazing rocket head!
you know what the deal is, dude

"Chicken Blows" robbed here btw

Anyone reading the new Pollard bio? I'm finding it slow going so far

For me this is one of the Tobin Sprout tracks!

i was walking home one time through a quiet out of the way neighborhood at like 1am and passed a guy on the street with earbuds in who was drunkenly singing along to Motor Away

i knew we've met before

The hellfire is dying around you, my love

longform (7000-word) oral history in anticipation of 25th yr anni on Monday:

https://uproxx.com/indie/guided-by-voices-alien-lanes-oral-history-25th-anniversary/

Sprout: I can remember we were practicing for Propeller and Bob, after the practice, goes, “Okay, this is it. This is my final album, I’m done. I can’t do this anymore.” So the next morning, I get a call from him about 7:30, eight o’clock. He goes, “I got another song, I got to come over.” So he was there in 15 minutes and we went in the basement and we hooked the 4-track up. Bob sat down and showed me the guitar parts and then he played the drums and I set it up so we could do guitars and drums at the same time. So we recorded that and then he threw the vocal on and threw the lead guitar on. It was “Exit Flagger.” It came together in a matter of 20 minutes.

I also liked the parts about Matt Sweeney talking about how he first learned about the band.

...and later on their first NYC show (after a 6 year live show hiatus!) which blew Gerard & Chris away despite the band being incredibly nervous... some of the band had never been to NYC.

And then the Jon Stewart footage, which begins with perhaps the best 2-minute 1-chord rock song ever broadcast on live TV?

okay last snip:

Sprout: Somebody at Matador called and said, “Look, we’re going to have your album mastered tomorrow. Do you want to talk to Bob Ludwig about it?” And I said, “Sure, why not?” So he called or I called him, and I go, “So have you ever done a master from a cassette?” And he said, “Yeah.” Because he did Nebraska by Bruce Springsteen. So it was like, “Oh geez, all right. I guess you can handle it.”

I love the story of Bee Thousand how the Scat guy called Bob up for another album and bobs all “uh the band broke up.. but wait! I can throw something together”

Good stuff, thanks.

Yeah thanks for linking, that's a great article. Liked the story behind the album title!

Exit Flagger!

is Little Whirl too traditional to do well in this poll? not what people come to GBV for?

i guess Motor Away says that's not the case.

lol i loved this

Matt Sweeney (singer/guitarist for Chavez, hard-core GBV fan, future GBV member): I went to my weed dealer’s house, who was a serious record collector. I went over to buy some weed, and the music that he was playing was so fucking good, and also not like the kind of music that he usually played, because he was definitely over rock music. He was into free jazz and shit like that. Generally, the routine was that I would buy some weed from him, and then we’d hang out and listen to records. We called it the Monday night pot party. He lent me the record, and me and my friend just lost our minds. The record was Propeller.

They sounded like a legit ’60s band. And Mitch Mitchell is on the record? Mitch Mitchell was Jimi Hendrix’s drummer! All of it was so weird. The names didn’t seem like they were real. Tobin Sprout doesn’t seem like a real name.

i speak in monotone

(also i absolutely voted for little whirl)

Reading that was like reading about Ancient Greece: A&Rs, courtships by major labels, middleaged midwestern sports bar schlubs-as-indie-darlings, shooting hoops with Billy Corgan. It also occurs to me that if this record came out today most of the press would be about the "giggling faggots" line (not a defense of that lyric btw). This oral history just really encapsulates what a difference two decades can make, for better or worse.

I also always assumed that it was some weird accordion on "Blimps go 90" and now that I know it's (obviously) a violin, all I can hear is how woefully out of tune it is! Still a great song, though.

i speak in monotone

middleaged midwestern sports bar schlubs

Eh, that was part of the marketing: Bob was a 4th-grade teacher, Tobin was/is an artist + graphic designer/illustrator by trade, Greg Demos is a lawyer (currently magistrate of Franklin County OH).

if you have ever been around these guys, the wider, "Dayton mafia" circle...I mean I love them but it really is the way you imagine it to be and there's nothing remotely ironic about it

Right. Just extrapolating from what I have read written by certain Replacements fan, not based on first-hand experience.