C or D : Guided By Voices.

"Big School" is a total banger

My Impression Now is such a wonderful song, though the bassline is bonkers

― politics is about vibes and the vibes are off (stevie), Thursday, September 15, 2022 4:44 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

So is the drumming. The way the drum fills keep happening at seemingly random times and how the bassist is walking around aimlessly until the hook shows up, I'm convinced that they're both winging it on the recording by following Pollard's vocal and trying to figure out the melody as they go. Then the hook comes and they can recalibrate a bit.

I was thrilled to come across a very reasonably priced copy of the first Suitcase a few weeks ago, the original was the only one I hadn't had.

Discussion on Pitchfork thread re: 90s list sent me back into my first GBV binge in at least 15 years. I'm going back into all the EP's that accompanied their 93-96 run - so many great songs relegated to singles, B-Sides, etc. Somehow I never heard the Tigerbomb EP back in the day. Those versions of My Valuable Hunting Knife and Game of Pricks are really nice. It might be my favorite "good" GBV production.

But my real discovery is Dodging Invisible Rays, the Tobin Sprout song that closes the EP. It's like the Byrds via REM power pop band I've always wanted. Or something. I've played it 3 times tonight and I never do that.

Yeah that's a great track, my favourite Sprout song.

They played that one a lot during the “classic line up” tour iirc

The title sounds familiar. There are a ton of old tracks they regularly played live that weren't on an album. Matter Eater Lad, Dayton 19 Something and 5, etc.

Hell yeah, "Dodging Invisible Rays" was on an imagined follow-up I made to the GBV greatest hits CD that came out right before their hiatus. In fact, just for the hell of it, here's that tracklist...

Over the Neptune...
As We Go Up We Go Down
Buzzards and Dreadful Crows
Skills Like This
Girls of Wild Strawberries
Goldheart Mountaintop...
Wished I Was a Giant
Quality of Armor
Gleemer
Gold Star for Robot Boy
Lethargy
Pimple Zoo
Do the Earth
My Valuable Hunting Knife (Tigerbomb EP version)
Dig Through My Window
If We Wait
Brides Have Hit Glass
Unleashed! The Large-Hearted Boy
Jane of the Waking Universe
Fair Touching
Eureka Signs
Don't Stop Now
Closer You Are
Smothered in Hugs
Dodging Invisible Rays
Postal Blowfish
My Impression Now
Sad If I Lost It
Huffman Prairie Flying Field
Redmen and Their Wives
Dayton, Ohio - 19 Something and 5

"Shocker in Gloomtown" was always one of my deep cut favorites. I knew what he was talking about in the lyrics as I had seen the cover band PS Dump Your Boyfriend before - as they were a midwest staple of that era. The lead singer of that band wore chaps and would kinda do a Jim Dandy/David Lee Roth thing where he would do karate kicks on stage busting balloons.

Big Fan of Propeller (sounds like a title itself)… lethargy, exit flagger, circus world

Throw the switch / it’s rock and roll time

on the tundra, some drilling implied, weed king, quality of armor…. So good

Yesss and how could I forget Unleashed! The large hearted boi

I listened to nothing but GBV since Friday, including about 4 hours of the drive to and from my parents, all from the 92-96 period. It brought such a hit of nostalgia, partially because my friend who went all 8 or so of the GBV shows I saw died in 2018. I wanted to text him about my reunion with this band, but alas. While listening to Under the Bushes, Under the Stars (great driving album), all these songs just came rushing back to me and I looked down and the song was over in under 2:30. Crazy. A song like Underwater Explosions, pure pop bliss - it's over in 2:02, with just two quick verses and then two run throughs of a two part chorus - sandwiched by The Perfect Life and Atom Eyes, it all starts feeling like a mutant Genesis suite.

Heightening this effect, while listening to all the EPs/singles/albums from this period, was how much Pollard re-used and reappropriated songs/medleys (Kisses to the Crying Cooks > Over the Neptune!, The Candyland Riots > Once in a While, The Flying Party > The Beekeeper Seeks Ruth, etc.). I knew because I had the first Suitcase, but it really seems like he was moving fragments around his compositions and a chorus could end up in another song quite easily. Damn if Pollard didn't write a million great ditties during this period.

“19 something and 5”

*sorry, should be "songs/melodies" not "songs/medleys".

the hit rate on under the bushes is absolutely insane, i love that album

I got into them after said friend taped UTBUTS on the back of a cassette that had OK Computer on the other side. UTBUTS ended midway through Office of Hearts and, even though I bought the CD later, everything after that song has always seemed tacked on for me.

But those songs are great as well!

haha yeah the next 4 songs after that are incredible but when you have a mental map of an album stuff like that happens

Huh, the last six songs always felt like a bonus EP to me, with "Office of Hearts" being the last song listed on the back cover and "Don't Stop Now" sounding so penultimate. And (according to the research I couldn't do at the time but can now) they sorta were?

Huh, the last six songs always felt like a bonus EP to me, with "Office of Hearts" being the last song listed on the back cover and "Don't Stop Now" sounding so penultimate.

Under the Bushes, Under the Stars

Breeders do a killer cover of Shocker In Gloomtown

Huh, the last six songs always felt like a bonus EP to me, with "Office of Hearts" being the last song listed on the back cover and "Don't Stop Now" sounding so penultimate. And (according to the research I couldn't do at the time but can now) they sorta were?

The UTBUTS bonus tracks do feel like bonus tracks due to the sequencing, but at the same time I think most of them are integral to the fabric of the album. Like, I can't imagine a UTBUTS without "Drag Days" or "Big Boring Wedding" or "Redmen and Their Wives." I'm curious how Bob would have sequenced the album if those songs had been incorporated into the main tracklisting rather than just stuck on at the end.

What are the wikipedia guidelines for removing information? I'm only asking because the "Tonics and Twisted Chasers" is relatively bare except for a Homestar Runner reference that should be nuked.

Just do it.

I've always played UTBUTS in its entirety, never realised there was any kind of implied separation - it's all so effortlessly listenable I'm not sure I even consciously realised it was 24 tracks long! My copy came with the Tigerbomb EP on a second disc. I'm not an uber fan, can't deal with anything before Bee Thousand, but UTBUTS hits the perfect spot between DIY aesthetic and more polished production.

The bonus Under the Stars stuff was recorded at Easley with K deal right? They sound markedly different from the album proper

Bonus stuff was all from discarded sessions from previous would-have-been versions of the album, yes. I think some were from the Kim Deal sessions and some from sessions with Steve Albini. Other songs from both sessions showed up on other EPs. Story also was that the bonus tracks were on Under the Bushes at Matador's request, because they thought the songs were too good to discard.

Always been curious what Kim & Bob's studio time together was like.

Boozy I would have thought.

Didn’t they have an affair or something?

My copy came with the Tigerbomb EP on a second disc - which, I've just discovered/remembered, also included three bonus bonus tracks: delayed reaction brats, he's the uncle, and the key losers.

Always though this sounded like proto-GBV, right down to the title!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQl9hZRK5Ks

just want to give a shoutout to the "Fast Japanese Spin Cycle" and "Get Out Of My Stations" EPs, more brilliance

I guess I know what I'm listening to today!

xp I didn't hear the Cleaners from Venus until many years after discovering GBV and it was a shock how much Pollard clearly aped Martin Newell's songwriting, singing and production style.

With my immersion in GBV for the first time in years, I find myself comparing Robert Pollard's songwriting to Stephen Malkmus' songwriting.

Back in the day, I would have said Pollard was the "word salad", collage-y songwriter, painting with words but ultimately not that meaningful, while Malkmus was the more meaningful songwriter (meaningful in the sense of having a discernable emotional intent for what their songs are about).

Maybe it's being older, but I've been finding Pollard's songs in the classic period not inscrutable at all - I find his songs much more heart on their sleeve than I remembered. I was really struck by I Am a Scientist and how direct, open-eyed, self-critical/important it is.

Didn’t they have an affair or something?

― waht (calstars), Tuesday, October 11, 2022 8:07 AM (ten hours ago)

excuse me WHAT?! where is this coming from?

there's some stuff in that vein in the (not good) bob bio the closer you are

Not sure I ever heard they had an affair. Just that Bob had a crush on her. No details beyond that ever came out AFAIK.

Their version of Love Hurts is pretty charming.

there's some stuff in that vein in the (not good) bob bio the closer you are

I thought that book was pretty good. Very much an insider's tale, and I didn't like Bob as much after reading it, but it's very good at building and explaining the world the Pollard brothers and their buddies flowered in.

Ok well the fact that’s it’s pure conjecture is a relief. For a guy who has played music with one (1) woman to my knowledge it would be disappointing (to me) if there was a romantic intrusion into the music.

I think they ended up hating each other, iirc. I'm on team Kim.

The more I learn about Pollard, the less I like him. I still love his music and follow him relatively closely even now, but he certainly seems like a huge asshole. I've always struggled with the disconnect between how much I love his music and how much the persona of small town jock that spends all of this time drinking with his buddies and mocking the absolute shit out of everyone rubs me wrong. I had friends in high school with older brothers that really reminded me of this - four years past graduation but still hanging out drinking at all of the high school football games and cruising Main Street every weekend night, always harassing the current high school kids. About a third of the town loved the fuck out of these "charming goofballs", everyone else just thought they were use assholes.

Projecting maybe, sure, but nothing I've read about Pollard's personal life has exactly dissuaded me of this view.

he is 100% my problematic fave
he has shown us exactly who he is as a person (xenophobe, asshole, etc) and yet here i am, still

Absolutely Grade A asshole, you could tell from his on-stage rants and antics, but I hadn't heard about anything xenophobic. Care to summarize (or not, I understand)?

yes -- i learned about how troubled their european tour was in this book

and it was like dude couldn't even handle being around people who didn't speak English -- he was uncomfortable traveling in general per that book. he shows no curiosity of the world beyond the one he inhabits, in my mind a classic xenophobe. he doesn't even seem to enjoy the company of women or men who are slightly different from him. if i am wrong and he has grown out of this that is great. but my impression of reading the book was that he has a very narrow and limited worldview.

...and still i manage to enjoy his music that also has remained more or less the same for his entire career (narcissism of small differences aside)

That's not surprising to me at all. I was worried there was something more overtly political/racist I hadn't heard - something more like Morrisey. I think Tobin Sprout is a Trumper or something.

I guess the less I know the better. Ugh.