A big kick, as high as I could

December 27, 2012 9:20 AM

Guided By Voices {previously} has put out more songs than you can imagine (since allegedly the mid-80s [GBV Doc, Audio NSFW]), most of them under 2 minutes [Concert from 1996]. Which certainly might make it hard to decide what album to start with. Judging by volume of cover versions however, there is no contest. By that metric, Alien Lanes is the most beloved Guided By Voices record.

Tracklist:
"A Salty Salute" (Strokes)
"Evil Speakers"
"Watch Me Jumpstart"
"They're Not Witches"
"As We Go Up, We Go Down" (This guy) (Foam Castle) (Ryan Traster)
"(I Wanna Be a) Dumbcharger"
"Game of Pricks" (Jimmy Eat World) (Telekinesis) (Lou Barlow) (Final Fantasy)
"The Ugly Vision"
"A Good Flying Bird" (This guy)
"Cigarette Tricks"
"Pimple Zoo" (Kent State)
"Big Chief Chinese Restaurant"
"Closer You Are" (These guys)
"Auditorium"
"Motor Away" (Clouds) (Swervedriver)
"Hit"
"My Valuable Hunting Knife" (Throw Me the Statue) (Motion City Soundtrack) (Planning to Rock) (Pill Wonder) (Western Civ)
"Gold Hick"
"King and Caroline"
"Striped White Jets"
"Ex-Supermodel" (these guys)
"Blimps Go 90"
"Straw dogs" (eyesinweasal)
"Chicken Blows" (this guy) (this other guy)
"Little Whirl"
"My Son Cool"
"Always Crush Me" (Sarah Gregg Millman)
"Alright"

posted by Potomac Avenue (62 comments total)

Bonus: Two very dumb interviews with Bob and the band from around the time AL came out.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:26 AM on December 27, 2012

As an almost 20-year fan, trying to keep up with Pollard & Co releases is like that episode of "I Love Lucy" where the pastries come down the conveyor belt and she has to start putting them in her mouth.

The 2004 NYE 'final show' at the Metro in Chicago was hands down the most amazing concert experience of my life. 4 hours of intense live GBV action. Incredible.
posted by chambers at 9:33 AM on December 27, 2012 [2 favorites]

I'm more of a Bee Thousand man myself.
posted by Flashman at 9:34 AM on December 27, 2012 [11 favorites]

Oh, to be a 20-something in the 90-somethings again!
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:37 AM on December 27, 2012 [2 favorites]

posted by Atom Eyes at 1:37 PM on December 27 [+] [!]

Now where's Kicker of Elves?
posted by Flashman at 9:39 AM on December 27, 2012

Jane of the Waking Universe, my favorite late GBV track.
posted by the christopher hundreds at 9:43 AM on December 27, 2012 [1 favorite]

I've always loved that Pollard's music publishing company is called Needmore Songs.
posted by brianstorms at 9:43 AM on December 27, 2012

Despite devouring just about everything in Matador's mid-90's catalog (particularly Pavement), I didn't really get into GBV until a couple years back. It's a toss up between Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes, but I would lean more toward Alien Lanes as well. Bee Thousand sounds like a more cohesive record to me, but Alien Lanes has more songs that I like, and more songs period.
And it's hard to beat A Good Flying Bird.
posted by cottoncandybeard at 9:45 AM on December 27, 2012

I'm more of a Bee Thousand man myself.

Bee1000 is great but still very much in their lo-fi, off-hand harmonies mode. Alien Lanes is 99% chant-anthems. It cannot be stopped.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:45 AM on December 27, 2012

"Straw dogs" (eyesinweasal)

Is it really a cover if the guy who wrote the song is in the band
posted by anazgnos at 9:46 AM on December 27, 2012

Is it really a cover if the guy who wrote the song is in the band

Yes. :)
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:48 AM on December 27, 2012

The other reason I love Alien Lanes the best is that it has so many Sprout songs. He's just as good a songwriter as Pollard in my opinion, at least in 1995, and it shows.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:52 AM on December 27, 2012 [1 favorite]

Pollard from roughly 1991-1996 is a level of genius I would put up there with literally anybody, a level of genius that seems to go beyond what one person or group should be capable of. It's more something that seems like it was just evolutionarily necessary for rock: that certain strands just needed to be brought together, and nobody else was doing it. Nobody had realized yet that Devo & Peter Gabriel were supposed to go together, nobody else had realized that Strawberry Alarm Clock and Black Flag were doing the same thing. Pollard digested everything and only the good stuff came out.
posted by anazgnos at 9:54 AM on December 27, 2012 [3 favorites]

I guess I love Bee Thousand in its entirety, as a statement or manifesto for GBV, but yes, Alien Lanes is packed with hits, as stand alone song-songs, and the sequencing is also amazing. The way Auditorium flows into Motor Away always moves me.

I've always loved that Pollard's music publishing company is called Needmore Songs.
I think I saw on a documentary that was posted on Pitchfork a few years ago that Needmore is (also) the name of a road in Dayton.
posted by Flashman at 9:54 AM on December 27, 2012

Here is one of the nice references to GBV in an episode of the IT Crowd.
posted by chambers at 9:55 AM on December 27, 2012 [1 favorite]

I think I saw on a documentary that was posted on Pitchfork a few years ago

Watch Me Jumpstart is the name of the Doc.
posted by chambers at 9:59 AM on December 27, 2012 [1 favorite]

I know absolutely nothing of GBV. Nothing. Would Alien Lanes be a good place to start?
posted by grateful at 10:00 AM on December 27, 2012

Yes!
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:00 AM on December 27, 2012 [1 favorite]

Yes. If you don't love Alien Lanes you don't need to go further.
posted by anazgnos at 10:01 AM on December 27, 2012

Excellent! I shall do that post haste.
posted by grateful at 10:01 AM on December 27, 2012 [1 favorite]

Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory has stuck to my soul.
posted by louche mustachio at 10:02 AM on December 27, 2012 [4 favorites]

I'll always be partial to Under the Bushes, Under the Stars as it was my intro to the band. (Thank you, Tower Records listening station!) All it took was those first few blazing seconds of "Man Called Aerodynamics" and I was hooked.
posted by Atom Eyes at 10:04 AM on December 27, 2012 [3 favorites]

I meant to include this but theres a great long audio/video collage that Pollard made recently on Youtube with footage from throughout the years called "The Devil Went Home and Puked" too. Check it out if you love tape distortion.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:04 AM on December 27, 2012

I'm a big fan, and there's nothing bad to say about Alien Lanes, but count me on Team Flashman. Bee Thousand has done things to my brain, like a fungal infection consuming an ant, and I will never be the same. But, be that as it may, the real reason that Bee Thousand is my most beloved GbV record is that it holds the one true trump card: Kicker of Elves beats them all.
posted by dirtdirt at 10:26 AM on December 27, 2012

I've always loved that Pollard's music publishing company is called Needmore Songs.

Pollard is from Dayton, Ohio. Needmore Road is on Dayton's north side. Between 1968 and 1971 or so it was one of several surface roads in the area that intersected Interstate 75 with a traffic signal. There were many many fatal road accidents. The area had various nicknames, such as "Blood Strip".

Here is a photo of the intersection from a contemporary issue of Life magazine.

There were plenty of 'need more road' jokes in the day.
 
posted by Herodios at 10:48 AM on December 27, 2012 [2 favorites]

I have, as far as I can tell, everything GbV put on tape (intentionally, anyway) up through 2001, but at the moment the only CD I have on my iPod is Propeller/Vampire on Titus.

It is not the album with their greatest songs but it flows like riding a kayak over the rapids. It took me years before I could tell where one of the albums ended and the other began. I love it.

> The other reason I love Alien Lanes the best is that it has so many Sprout songs. He's just as good a songwriter as Pollard in my opinion, at least in 1995, and it shows.

Sprout's Carnival Boy, recorded right after he left the band, is one of the greatest chunks of pop songwriting ever. At the time I thought it was poof that he was what Pollard needed as a songwriting foil, a challenge to be better, because Pollard's own solo albums at the time were not nearly as good. Then Lets Welcome the Circus People and Do the Collapse came out and and I had to recalibrate that assumption.
posted by ardgedee at 10:49 AM on December 27, 2012 [2 favorites]

Apparently if you google the name of any lyric off of Alien Lanes you'll get a GBV tribute album.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:05 AM on December 27, 2012

I, not unexpectedly, approve of this post.
posted by liquidindian at 11:11 AM on December 27, 2012 [1 favorite]

I loved Bee Thousand as a teenager, but Alien Lanes didn't stick. Pavement had eaten up all my listening hours. "Game of Pricks," though, is awesome, and my garage band would have covered it if we hadn't all disagreed on what kind of music we liked. Guided by Voices didn't have a chance when our common reference was Led Zeppelin.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 11:28 AM on December 27, 2012

Dirty Water off of Earthquake Glue is one of my favorite songs, ever. I need more GBV.
posted by Devils Rancher at 11:33 AM on December 27, 2012

One of my favorite albums of all time. I'll probably be buried with Alien Lanes.
posted by Allez at 11:35 AM on December 27, 2012

Alien Lanes is great, but the GBV track that I listen to over and over and over and over and over is from Vampire on Titus.
Wished I Was a Giant is very near the top of my all-time top 10. It's just fucking perfect in all its majestic imperfection.
posted by dersins at 11:38 AM on December 27, 2012 [2 favorites]

I have close to 100 CDs of Pollard material, and Alien Lanes is still my favorite, with Under The Bushes Under The Stars just behind (Bee Thousand is great but I think they surpassed it on the next two).

If you love that period, Pollard's solo album Not In My Airforce is right up there with the greats. Just don't listen to the last six voice-and-acoustic-guitar songs (at least during that sitting); they were intended to go on another EP and Pollard tacked them onto this album when Matador balked at that.
posted by dfan at 12:07 PM on December 27, 2012 [1 favorite]

Oh, I forgot I made a little Listener's Guide to Alien Lanes way back when when a couple of people on the Loud Family list didn't get it. My original post follows:

I don't have the album here at work, so I'm just working with an online lyric sheet to jog my memory. By the way, where's the division between side 1 and side 2 on vinyl?

I really hear the whole thing as a 28-song medley (more so than any of their other albums) with some songs that are best off being perceived as transporting you from song A to song B; don't get so wound up in them that you get disappointed when they fall apart after forty seconds.

A Salty Salute: Those repeated eighth-note bass notes to open the album always remind me of the beginning of DOOLITTLE: just a taste of the real core of the music before everybody jumps in. A perfect anthem to start, and what could be more inspirational than "the club is open"?

Evil Speakers: The tempo picks up in a little transition that falls apart just as it reaches its target.

Watch Me Jumpstart: A real song with multiple verses and choruses, and a catchy chorus it is. Dig the triple time.

They're Not Witches: Another transition that also falls apart once it gets where it's going.

As We Go Up, We Go Down: Well, only one verse and one chorus here, but hearing the perfect transition into the chorus ("I speak in monotone / Leave my fucking life alone") more than once would be overkill.

(I Wanna Be a) Dumbcharger: Another intro, this one providing a sense of creepiness we haven't heard yet.

Game of Pricks: Perfect Pop Song. "You could never be strong / You can only be free / And I never asked for the truth / But you owe that to me".

The Ugly Vision: An intro that blossoms unexpectedly in the middle.

A Good Flying Bird: Ur-Sprout. Just try to resist the yeahs.

Cigarette Tricks: OK, this is a throwaway. But now that I've heard the album a zillion times, something would be missing if we elided it.

Pimple Zoo: A powerful slogger. "Sometimes I get the feeling / That you don't want me around". Suddenly a left turn into sweet acoustic guitar, which is immediately squashed without mercy by the reprise.

Big Chief Chinese Restaurant: This is the third transitional song in a row, so I can understand the listener growing restive at this point.

Closer You Are: But you're rewarded for your patience with more perfect pop. "Try to be nice and look what it gets you".

Auditorium: I guess this counts as another transition, but it's one of my favorites anyway, with those great wailing harmony vocals at the end.

Motor Away: An anthem that anybody's life would be poorer for not hearing, chugging irresistably from start to finish. One of my favorite GBV songs.

Hit: I can take it or leave it, but again, by now it feels like the beginning of the next song:

My Valuable Hunting Knife: Another fave. Rocks out even with the spartan instrumentation. The lyrics are uncharacteristically lucid: objects are more trustable than people. "Everything I think about I think about / Everything I talk about I talk about with you / But you don't know what I go through".

Gold Hick: A little outburst that doesn't outstay its welcome.

King & Caroline: I'm not sure I can tell you why I love this one. The melody just works perfectly for me.

Striped White Jets: Powerful in its restraint, always threatening to explode but staying contained. Ah-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh.

Ex-Supermodel: Not that memorable until "So I write music for soundtracks now", which is much more affecting than it has any right to be.

Blimps Go 90: A beautiful song of regret and resignation.

Straw Dogs: Urk, I'm looking at the lyrics here but I can't remember the song.

Chicken Blows: I bet lots of people hate this song but it's great, in scary White Album mode.

Little Whirl: And then we're released into another just-right simple Sprout song. I dare you not to sing along with the chorus.

My Son Cool: I don't have strong feelings for this.

Always Crush Me: A menacing song that builds up the tension as high as it's been, setting up the catharsis of

Alright: Alright.
posted by dfan at 12:11 PM on December 27, 2012 [7 favorites]

I have to admit Hold on Hope is the only GBV song I know.
posted by kmz at 12:17 PM on December 27, 2012

I wish My Son Cool was twice as long.


An Unmarketed Product too.


Maybe I need to create my own looped versions....

GBV are the best.
posted by joseppi7 at 12:36 PM on December 27, 2012

great stuff - I wondered where Mccartneys mojo went ..........
posted by sgt.serenity at 1:00 PM on December 27, 2012

+1 for "My Son Cool". Especially when paired with "Little Whirl"--that's one hell of a 1-2 punch. Man, what a great album.

BTW, anyone have any idea about the lyrics to "Little Whirl"? I swear there's no way in hell that the printed lyrics match the song 100%, but I've never found any other ones around the internets...
posted by equalpants at 1:15 PM on December 27, 2012

Here's 25 of my favorite GBV songs for listening inspirations (no linking to Youtube this time, sorry):

01. Over the Neptune, Mesh Gear Fox (from: Propeller, 1992)
02. Watch Me Jumpstart (from: Alien Lanes, 1995)
03. Teenage FBI (from: Do the Collapse, 1999)
04. The Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory (from: Bee Thousand, 1994)
05. Exit Flagger (from: Propeller, 1992)
06. Man Called Aerodynamics (from: Under the Bushes Under the Stars, 1996)
07. As We Go Up, We Go Down (from: Alien Lanes, 1995)
08. I Am A Scientist (from: Bee Thousand, 1994)
09. Old Battery (from: Devil Between My Toes, 1987)
10. Mute Superstar (from: Mag Earwhig!, 1997)
11. How Loft I Am? (from: Same Place the Fly Got Smashed, 1990)
12. A Good Flying Bird (from: Alien Lanes, 1995)
13. Tractor Rape Chain (from: Bee Thousand, 1994)
14. Glad Girls (from: Isolation Drills, 2001)
15. I Am A Tree (from: Mag Earwhig!, 1997)
16. Metal Mothers (from: Propeller, 1992)
17. My Valuable Hunting Knife (from: Tigerbomb EP, 1995)
18. Gold Star For Robot Boy (from: Bee Thousand, 1994)
19. Pendulum (from: Same Place the Fly Got Smashed, 1990)
20. Game of Pricks (from: Alien Lanes, 1995)
21. If We Wait (from: Sunfish Holy Breakfast EP, 1996)
22. Navigating Flood Regions (from: Self-Inflicted Aerial Nostalgia, 1989)
23. Motor Away (from: Alien Lanes, 1995)
24. Class Clown Spots a UFO (from: Class Clown Spots a UFO, 2012)
25. Don’t Stop Now (from: Under the Bushes Under the Stars, 1996)
posted by bigendian at 1:17 PM on December 27, 2012 [2 favorites]

My Son Cool: I don't have strong feelings for this.

Ooh, just mention how it pulls it sound from the more psychedelic bits on The Who Sell Out, like "Armenia City in the Sky," and if you dig that connection you should also listen to Sloan's "Anyone Who's Anyone" at least once.
posted by tapesonthefloor at 1:30 PM on December 27, 2012

Closer You Are: But you're rewarded for your patience with more perfect pop. "Try to be nice and look what it gets you".

This is one of Pollard's best jingles. If I ever come out with a line of men's razors, I will somehow appropriate "The closer you are..." for my own dark, commercial needs and make one billion dollars based purely on the melody.
posted by tapesonthefloor at 1:31 PM on December 27, 2012

A Good Flying Bird: Ur-Sprout. Just try to resist the yeahs.

If you like this one, you should probably become best friends with Dr. Dog.
posted by tapesonthefloor at 1:35 PM on December 27, 2012

Who else would write a song about Matter Eater Lad? Also, who could put words together in more meaningful/meaningless sets (like "Tractor Rape Chain")? Chilling.
posted by rikschell at 1:36 PM on December 27, 2012

it is too difficult to choose a favorite from among that trilogy of BeeThou, Alien Lanes, and Under the Bushes... one great song after another... I don't know how anyone could pick the BEST of those three. Alien Lanes is maybe the most accessible, or maybe has the best ROCK songs.

I always thought there were some very good, and overlooked, tracks on the Tonics and Twisted Chasers thingie that came out after Under... especially 'The Unbaited Vicar of Scorched Earth' which remains one of my favorite of all times. Maybe that was the only great track on the album.
posted by J0 at 1:51 PM on December 27, 2012

I'm quite fond of Mag Earwhig! as well and would recommend it as a starting place. For a smaller starting place there is Sunfish Holy Breakfast, which has a hilarious album cover.

Quite fond of Under the Bushes Under the Stars as well.
posted by juiceCake at 1:56 PM on December 27, 2012

IMO, Human Amusements at Hourly Rates is the very best place to start, even if compilation albums feel a little anachronistic in an era of MP3s. GBV aren't in my mind an "albums band;" I remember their albums only vaguely, and inevitably skip to my favorite songs, but lots and lots and lots of wonderful individual songs are burned in my brain forever.

Barring that, Half Smiles of the Decomposed was my first and it worked to totally hook me. Still kind of an underrated album, too; Huffman Prairie Flying Field is one of my very favorite GBV songs, but it never really gets mentioned in conversations about the band.
posted by byanyothername at 2:10 PM on December 27, 2012

Barring that, Half Smiles of the Decomposed was my first and it worked to totally hook me. Still kind of an underrated album, too; Huffman Prairie Flying Field is one of my very favorite GBV songs, but it never really gets mentioned in conversations about the band.

I thought Half Smiles of the Decomposed was pretty disappointing, and when I returned to it recently during a whole-oeuvre runthrough my opinion hadn't changed. "Huffman Prairie Flying Field" is indeed awesome, though. "If that's what you think you heard / Then that's what you heard" pretty much sums it up.
posted by dfan at 2:53 PM on December 27, 2012

I had a friend who maybe 10 years ago in his LJ cut and paste some spam email titles and pointed out they sounded like plausible GBV song titles. I hate that I can't find it right now, because it was hilarious how uncanny the resemblance was.

Bee Thousand all the way, the sad weird morbid quiet songs over the anthems any day (I love live recordings of just Pollard singing stuff like "Official Ironmen Rally Song" in hushed tones or "My Valuable Hunting Knife"), and yes Tobin doesn't get nearly enough love (his paintings are quite lovely too, IIRC).
posted by ifjuly at 3:52 PM on December 27, 2012

James Greer of GBV totally makes up for the former FL Republican James Greer who besmirched our good name.
posted by grimjeer at 3:58 PM on December 27, 2012

I had a friend who maybe 10 years ago in his LJ cut and paste some spam email titles and pointed out they sounded like plausible GBV song titles. I hate that I can't find it right now, because it was hilarious how uncanny the resemblance was.

I actually did this in reverse ages ago.

It's amazing how often strings of random words create plausible GBV song titles.
posted by dfan at 4:14 PM on December 27, 2012 [1 favorite]

RE: Sprout- even though I wasn't into Guided By Voices, I was obsessed with Moonflower Plastic .
posted by cottoncandybeard at 5:54 PM on December 27, 2012

I feel like I should drop in and link to Quality of Armor.
posted by guidedbychris at 6:00 PM on December 27, 2012

It may not have been mentioned that they toured recently, and they played quite a bit of Alien Lanes (Sprout sang "Good Flying Bird") and generally kicked a lot of ass. They also have a new album since I saw them, and it's been what, three months? Fuuuuh.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 6:25 PM on December 27, 2012

If we're talking about our first Guided by Voice, mine was Fast Japanese Spin Cycle. Ten minutes, eight songs, exhilarating -- as if Alien Lanes was a precious miniature or maybe a rocket sled. A couple of the songs appear in other recordings but these remain the canonical versions to me.
posted by ardgedee at 6:38 PM on December 27, 2012

For me, picking a favorite album pre- Do the Collapse and post- Vampire on Titus/Propeller, is impossible. I'd say GBV's LPs average about 25 songs each. And of those 25, maybe 6 or 7 are what I'd consider filler- the rest are these beautiful little tightly controlled masterpieces.

So I can't pick my favorite LP or song, but I will say these things:
*Sunfish Holy Breakfast is my favorite GBV recording. From the first note to the last lies perfection.
*After a breakup (and sometimes when I just want to revisit one from my past [why??]), Sheetkickers is played on repeat.
*Learning to Hunt is my favorite GBV love song and one of my favorite love songs by anyone.
*The Auditorium/Motor Away juxtaposition on the album is so totally right on but I seriously really hate the video. I won't even link it.
*Now to War used to make me insanely sad.
*And finally, for some reason, I tend to put Hot Freaks or I am a Scientist on mixes. Except if I'm trying to tell someone in secret undercover mix code that I love him/her- in that case, I put on Learning to Hunt.
posted by eunoia at 7:29 PM on December 27, 2012 [1 favorite]

GBV are featured in the Strokes Someday video and Albert Hammond Jr. covered Postal Blowfish.
posted by juiceCake at 7:37 PM on December 27, 2012 [1 favorite]

Acorns and Orioles, motherfucker
posted by lakersfan1222 at 8:24 PM on December 27, 2012

GBV, once and future rulers of my cranium. Guided By Voices - I Am A Scientist/Unleashed! The Large-Hearted Boy/Smothered In Hugs - Oslo 2011 6:10 is it.
posted by tristero at 8:51 PM on December 27, 2012

The Best of Jill Hives is such a perfect song. It always gets to me.
posted by laptop_lizard at 11:08 PM on December 27, 2012 [2 favorites]

Someone should probably alert the authorities about this skull-crushingly awesome GbV bootleg for download in FLAC, Kings Ransom: Happy Motherfuckers and Sad Clowns. Otherwise, absolutely anyone could listen to GbV covers of "I Am the Walrus," "Ziggy Stardust," "Baba O'Riley," and even an abortive take on "Highway to Hell." Rollicking versions of "Lethargy," "Release the Sunbird," "Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory," etc. are also similarly compromised.

It's a shame is what it is.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:38 PM on December 27, 2012 [1 favorite]

I had a theory that all the best songs on Alien Lanes were the ones with prime numbers in the tracklisting. It's mostly true, although Motor Away is divisible.
posted by snofoam at 7:25 AM on December 28, 2012

That girl sitting over there in the corner is finest, the world's finest paramount pyramid...

The tragedy of a lovelorn Beekeeper seeking his lost love Ruth through a near-futile 'lost connections' ad always gets me sad. Damn you, Zookeeper!
posted by chambers at 6:29 PM on December 28, 2012