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

x-post, do you any other similar indie rock Matos? Maybe it's just not your thing.

Hey, this stuff was selected by the man himself so you KNOW it's dubious!

...flaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

The GbV website has a list of his Fading Captain releases here. There are also two pre-Fading Captain Pollard solo albums (Not In My Airforce and Waved Out) and a Phantom Tollbooth collab.

unfortunately, the version on the 'best of' is the inferior single version. it's higher-fi, but the performance is lacking. the album version is not only more excited-sounding but it's one of "lo-fi" gbv's better production jobs (all in my opinion, of course).

a similarly regrettable decision was made in the case of "game of pricks".

* Freedom Cruise (only two songs, i think. one w/ the Deal sisters)

* Nightwalker (two or three singles and one album. Nightwalker seems to be nothing more than Bob dredging up his sludgier basement tapes and slapping the Nightwalker name on them. One Nightwalker track is a 12 minute drone.)

* Lexo and the Leapers (one EP over four years ago. it's a different band, but the record is almost indistinguishable from some gbv records)

* Airport 5 (Tobin Sprout records complete instrumental tracks and Pollard writes songs over them. two albums)

* Circus Devils (the weirdest - and probably best - side project. GbV's producer Todd Tobias and former bassist Tim Tobias record (bizarre) instrumental tracks and Pollard writes songs over them. most gbv fans (online, at least) don't seem to like this one. three albums, with a new one out just last week.)

* Go Back Snowball (Mac McCaughan records complete instrumentals. Pollard write songs over them. one album.)

* The Lifeguards (Doug Gillard records complete instrumentals and Pollard grafts new songs onto them. one album).

* Phantom Tollbooth (Pollard joins the long-defunct arty punk band by getting them to erase the vocals on their recordings so he can write new songs on top of the instrumental tracks. One album).

Pollard's next project is a collaboration with Tommy Keene, which, it seems, will work just like the collaborations above.

And then there are the solo albums...

file under: indie guilt, ILM case #504285-02485-234

Some overlap, but not enough. Primary differences between my mix-tape and Pollard's best-of: P disasterously foreshortens the pre-Bee Thousand era, avoids a lot of the stuff on the EPs, completely ignores King Shit and the Golden Boys, and picks dubious versions of some of their anthems. Plus, mine's 8 years old so I didn't have to bother with the shit recent stuff. (Is it really eight years old, though? Crap.)

I've been dying to remember exactly what the track-listing on that cassette was, Colin. Please embarrass me by posting it. (And you didn't tell me anything about the class reunion!)

"getting better" = "posting less"

(wouldn't we all like to be "getting better")

Old Battery
Shocker in Gloomtown
My Impression Now
Motor Away
Indian Fables
Bee Thousand
Smothered in Hugs/Yours to Keep/Echoes Myron
An Earful o' Wax
Marchers in Orange
Sot
Expecting Brainchild
Tractor Rape Chain
The Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory
The Great Blake Street Canoe Race
Game of Pricks
Exit Flagger
Jar of Cardinals
A Good Flying Bird/Cigarette Tricks/Pimple Zoo
I am a Scientist
Scissors
Non-Absorbing
On the Tundra
You're Not an Airplane
Captain's Dead

You don't have to like it, but if you want to give it a proper chance, you really need to be more passive with it. You're being obnoxious about it, you clearly don't want to like it and so you won't. And it's your loss.

Jason Molina writes a ton, too, and nobody gives him shit. Is it because Songs: Ohia doesn't write quite as much material, or is it that he hasn't been around as long, or is it that he doesn't instill the same level of passion that Pollard does?

But seriously, just play it here and there without thinking about it much, and see what happens. You may be surprised a few months from now.

Also bear in mind that that Best Of has a weird tracklisting - try to stick to the songs at the back end of the running order, because Pollard put a lot of his best pop tunes way in the back for some weird, self-defeating reason.

If I'm not mistaken, he's got a fairly large Guided By Voices tattoo taking up the length of his arm. Wondering if he's regretting that now.

lol Lech

I wonder when he got the tattoo. This isn't the first melodramatic falling out these two dudes have had.

Guys, this is just another classic rock tribute from them, a tribute to The Byrds dust up in which David Crosby the drummer "Michael, play drums right!"

Listening to Lamb lies down on broadway a few times & it seems like a strong influence on GBV?

i think pollard has copped to being a 70s peter gabriel / genesis fan