GBV OCD

[Ignatius]

Holy crap.  Just reading through the song titles on this thread brought me back to a few years way back when i was totally obsessed with GBV.  This is awesome and I think it speaks to the craft and power of the songs themselves that just the titles can easily call up full songs after six or seven years of not hearing them/thinking about them once. 

This is a noble project.

[narlus]

'club molluska' deserves a spot.  the use of this song in _Watch Me Jumpstart_ is absolutely fucking flawless.


'blimps go 90' should also make the cut.  unbeatable melody and lyrics.

[sashwap]

so who liked those songs i uploaded? and where's disc 4?

[auto-da-fey]

so who liked those songs i uploaded? and where's disc 4?

I did--thanks, sashwap! Also, 'blimps go 90' is indeed quite necessary, and I'll edit it in somewhere.

Disc 4 track listing coming soon--I got caught up in important distractions like, um, watching 3 movies a day again. Oops.

[auto-da-fey]

Okay, "blimps" added into disc 1, "sensational gravity boy" into disc 3. Here's my disc 4. It should be qualified: while I have a lot of GBV-related stuff, I don't have it all. Probably my biggest oversight has been the Lifeguards album, which I've been meaning to grab for years now. I also missed the Howling Wolf Orchestra, and a few others, including two Circus Devils albums (and of the three I have, I couldn't find anything I felt like including). I've also lost Tobin Sprout's Lost Planets & Phantom Voices, which irks me immensely because it has some lovely songs on it (though I think Sprout is fairly represented here). Also there were things I just didn't include because they seem much stronger in their album contexts--Nightwalker's "Ceramic Cock Einstein" is a great 6-minute noise collage, but it would kind of kill the flow here; likewise, "Harrison Adams" is a great closer for Pollard's solo Motel of Fools, but I think it needs the album behind it to carry full effect.

Given all of that, I'm not fully satisfied with this, but I do like it, Takeovers-overrepresentation be damned! I like the Takeovers!

UNCLE BOB AND THE BOYS IN THE BAND

The Takeovers, Pretty Not Bad      (Bad Football, 2007)
Tobin Sprout, Vertical Insect (The Lights are On) (Let’s Welcome the Circus People, 1999)
RP, Get Under It                (Not in My Airforce, 1996)
RP, Catherine from Mid-October      (Zoom, 2005)
Tobin Sprout, I Didn’t Know             (Carnival Boy, 1996)
RP, I Surround You Naked        (From a Compound Eye, 2006)
RP and His Soft Rock Renegades, I Drove a Tank   (Choreographed Man of War, 2001)
Airport 5, Total Exposure           (Tower in the Fountain of Sparks, 2001)
Doug Gillard, Valpolicella         (Salamander, 2004)
RP, Supernatural Car Lover          (Normal Happiness, 2006)
RP with Doug Gillard, Frequent Weaver Who Burns  (Speak Kindly of Your Volunteer Fire Department, 1999)
The Takeovers, Father’s Favorite Temperature   (Bad Football, 2007)
Tobin Sprout, Mayhem Stone         (Let’s Welcome the Circus People, 1999)
RP and His Soft Rock Renegades, She Saw the Shadow     (Choreographed Man of War, 2001)
Go Back Snowball, Radical Girl      (Calling Zero, 2002)
The Moping Swans, Shame Me No Further   (Lightninghead to Coffeepot, 2005)
Airport 5, Stifled Man Casino         (Tower in the Fountain of Sparks, 2001)
Eyesinweasel, Seven & Nine      (Wrinkled Thoughts, 2000)
RP, Slow Hamilton              (Coast to Coast Carpet of Love, 2007)
Tobin Sprout, Natural Alarm        (Carnival Boy, 1996)
RP, Children Come On            (Fiction Man, 2004)
The Takeovers, Insane/Cool It      (Turn to Red, 2006)
RP, The Killers                    (Standard Gargoyle Decisions, 2007)
RP with Doug Gillard, Do Something Real  (Speak Kindly of Your Volunteer Fire Department, 1999)
RP, Zoom (It Happens All Over the World) (Zoom, 2005)
The Takeovers, Smokestack Bellowing Stars  (Bad Football, 2007)
Airport 5, Natives Approach Our Plane   (Life Starts Here, 2002)
RP, Rhoda Rhoda            (Normal Happiness, 2006)
Tobin Sprout, The Last Man Well Known to Kingpin (Carnival Boy, 1996)
RP, Subspace Biographies         (Waved Out, 1998)
The Takeovers, My Will         (Bad Football, 2007)
RP, I’m a Widow              (From a Compound Eye, 2006)
RP, Miles Under the Skin      (Coast to Coast Carpet of Love, 2007)
RP and His Soft Rock Renegades, Edison’s Memo (Choreographed Man of War, 2001)

[ellaguru]

As a guy with only Human Amusement at Hourly Rates, I am looking forward to these mixes with great anticipation!

[sashwap]

i'm definitely going to have to hear disc 4, as i don't know most of the tobin songs. as for the stuff you mentioned not having, i totally recommend the lifeguards album. it's great, even if uncle bob did leave three and a half tracks instrumental. "society dome" is just one of the two or three from that that could conceivably make the cut on your mix.

have you heard the new psycho & the birds album, we've moved? essential. well, pretty good anyway. there are at least 6 stellar psycho & the birds tracks scattered around.

[auto-da-fey]

have you heard the new psycho & the birds album, we've moved? essential. well, pretty good anyway. there are at least 6 stellar psycho & the birds tracks scattered around.

I've only heard "Enon Beach," hosted on Pollard's website--I might pick the album up after I get paid this coming week (I thought about using Psycho & the Birds' 'The Killers' from the first album just to be more inclusive, but the Pollard solo version won out on the grounds of quality over quantity-of-acts, perhaps not the proper aesthetic, come to think).

If you want to toss up "Society Dome," I'd love to hear it.

[sashwap]

here's "society dome"
http://www.sendspace.com/file/9nazwc

so yeah, we've moved is very different from the first psycho & the birds album; whereas that one was almost entirely off-the-cuff improvised songs written and recorded in one sitting (i.e. verrrrry rough), the new one is quite focused (relatively speaking) in both the songwriting and production department. like, these songs have actual lyrics, not just mumbled syllables, and the structures are more considered with a lot of memorable riffs/melodies. it takes the general style/aesthetic of pollard's recent stuff and dirties it up a bit (since it's still boombox-recorded guitar and vocal takes that are then overdubbed to sound like a full band).

edit: here's another lifeguards track. this is the last song on the album, and it starts off really good but fails to really take off due to pollard leaving the last 5.5 minutes instrumental. still, the instrumental coda IS really good, thanks to gillard being all talented and stuff. it's sorta like a microcosm of the whole lifeguards album: when it's good it's really good, but there are a bunch of parts that you know could've been better. i know that's a shitty way to think about an album -- and i do really like the album -- but it could've been a lot meatier.
"red whips and miracles:" http://www.sendspace.com/file/2jc18k

[edison]

This thread is awesome, and I'm a moron for not having downloaded those links people posted. I hope they're still up. I haven't listened to GBV in a while, and am mostly familiar with the albums and not the other stuff, but Whit, your choices look pretty damn excellent, and most of my favorite songs are on there. Can't wait to hear the mixes.

Now how is Robert Pollard Is Off To Business?

[sashwap]

Now how is Robert Pollard Is Off To Business?

it is good. in parts, very good.

anyone else want to weigh in? if you haven't checked it out, it's fairly different from his four merge albums. i mean, it's the same...but with more focus, extra-meaty songwriting. it's bob's 'classic rock' album. a couple of utterly gorgeous songs too..."the blondes" is unreal, as is the closing track.

[Bernard]

'Kicker of Elves' is my favorite.

{off-topic: Are we allowed to post 4 discs' worth of songs now? Did I miss an unofficial-policy change?}

[Andrew_TSKS]

oh no, whit never posted the mixes. all that got posted were individual songs. 4 of them, i think.

[auto-da-fey]

I was actually wondering about that, though; I remember a 2-disc Oldham mix that Pook posted once, and that seemed fine. Probably I'd feel more comfortable posting discs 3 & 4, since they draw off a multitude of obscure shit, while 1 & 2 are more concentrated, and deal with albums normal people might actually have interest in purchasing. It's all a moot point anyway, since I just moved for the first of two times this summer and all of my stuff is crammed into boxes and grocery bags--having drawn these hypothetical mixes up, I'm nowhere near actualizing them.

[difficult]

Hmmm, I thought homemade comps were no problem?
[as someone who posts them medium often]

[auto-da-fey]

Actually, I thought so too, and had and do plan to post the whole affair eventually--not without a tinge of preexisting ambivalence, but that describes just about everything in my life.

But since I'd hate to see the thread devolve into one of those discussions, let me note that I did take heed of sashwap's suggestion and bought the new Psycho & the Birds album, which is indeed a big step up from the debut (which I did also like, in its spontaneous-mess sort of way). I've actually been enjoying the side projects more than the proper solo stuff lately, but I need to get the new solo one soon.

[ellaguru]

My interpretation is this: posting as album is bad because it is a replacement for purchasing the album and maybe takes money from the artist. Posting a compilation is good because it is a taster for the artist and will lead you to buy one album or another and maybe gives money to the artist. Posting a 4 CD compilation is maybe pushing it, since it might really be all of the artist one might want, but on the other hand Mr. Pollard has release 7,864 albums, so a big box set probably really is just a taster for him. So, yeah, I would think that a "taster" is fair game and a "meal" is verboten. All about intentions, man.

[sashwap]

check out new song "go for the exit" (from pollard's new band boston spaceships) here: http://www.myspace.com/guidedbyvoicesinc

rocks.

[summersteps]

Now how is Robert Pollard Is Off To Business?

it is good. in parts, very good.

anyone else want to weigh in? if you haven't checked it out, it's fairly different from his four merge albums. i mean, it's the same...but with more focus, extra-meaty songwriting. it's bob's 'classic rock' album. a couple of utterly gorgeous songs too..."the blondes" is unreal, as is the closing track.

I agree that Is Off To Busines is very good. I like this way better than anything he's released following the end GBV and it somehow sorta reminds of GBV's Sandbox in a way.  Maybe because it's got such a classic rock vibe to it. 

[sashwap]

so guys, that boston spaceships album is like the best thing pollard has done since universal truths and cycles. it's a super-sweet album.

discussion ensues.

anyone catch him live this tour? it killed.

[auto-da-fey]

anyone catch him live this tour? it killed.

oh man, I was so bummed that this sold out before I got tickets. Now I'm even more so.

so guys, that boston spaceships album is like the best thing pollard has done since universal truths and cycles. it's a super-sweet album.

discussion ensues.

Since the discussion never did ensue, I'll add that I just finally grabbed this last week (was going to get it at the show, but failed) and largely agree--I wouldn't say it tops Earthquake Glue, but were it to have been in the Fading Captain series, I'd say it was the best since Speak Kindly of Your Volunteer Fire Department. A big step up from . . . Is Off to Business, which my listening habits tend to reduce to about two tracks and skip the rest. I'm looking forward to round 2 of BS in the near future.

[sashwap]

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117994550.html?categoryid=13&cs=1

Soderbergh to make 3-D 'Cleopatra'
Live-action musical may star Zeta-Jones
By MICHAEL FLEMING, ELSA KESLASSY

For his next directing effort, Steven Soderbergh is plotting a 3-D live-action rock ’n’ roll musical about Cleopatra.

He is courting Catherine Zeta-Jones to play the Egyptian queen and Hugh Jackman to play her lover, Marc Antony.

The $30 million "Cleo" will be shopped for financing and distribution within the next two weeks. Greg Jacobs is producing with Casey Silver.

The music has been written by the indie rock band Guided by Voices, and the script is by James Greer, a former bass player for the band and an author.

While Soderbergh has recently done a spate of wildly different projects, this one will be his first full-blown musical.

Soderbergh, who’s about to release the Benicio Del Toro starrer "Che" and wrapped Matt Damon starrer "The Informant," is also prepping a Richard LaGravanese-scripted Liberace film at Warner Bros., with Michael Douglas attached to play the entertainer and Damon to play his companion, who sued him for palimony.

Before "Cleo," Soderbergh’s directing "The Girlfriend Experience," setting porn star Sasha Grey to play a $10,000-a-night call girl in a film that will be simultaneously distributed in theaters, on DVD and on the HDNet movie channel by Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner’s HDNet label.

Calls to Soderbergh’s reps went unreturned.

[Andrew_TSKS]

I don't know if even GBV could make me want to see that.

[auto-da-fey]

I'd watch it, but I'd probably rather see the Sasha Grey or Che movies. But is "Guided by Voices" just short (or long, I guess) hand for Pollard, or does it still exist as some sort of operating entity?

Also sashwap, does your Boston Spaceships album skip near the end? My first copy did, so I returned it (on CD) and the new copy also skips in the exact same places--most annoyingly, thoughout the lovely "Go for the Exit"--without any visible scratches. I'm wondering if there was a pressing error in this batch or something, but I don't even know how that would work. I think I'll just burn or download it now, since I'm too lazy to return it again.

I do think it's cool that "Soggy Beavers" was reclaimed from being one of the absolute dregs of Suitcase 2--an accomplishment that takes real effort--and turned into quite a solid little ditty here.

[sashwap]

Also sashwap, does your Boston Spaceships album skip near the end? My first copy did, so I returned it (on CD) and the new copy also skips in the exact same places--most annoyingly, thoughout the lovely "Go for the Exit"--without any visible scratches. I'm wondering if there was a pressing error in this batch or something, but I don't even know how that would work. I think I'll just burn or download it now, since I'm too lazy to return it again.

I do think it's cool that "Soggy Beavers" was reclaimed from being one of the absolute dregs of Suitcase 2--an accomplishment that takes real effort--and turned into quite a solid little ditty here.

mine doesn't skip! that's really weird.

and yeah, "soggy beavers" is my favorite song on there. i read that they wanted to make it sound like a sunfish holy breakfast outtake, and they kinda succeeded. it's funny... most people would NOT have written a song called "soggy beavers," let alone making it one of their best songs. but pollard isn't most people.