Guided By Voices Bee Thousand is 30 years old today! I wrote about a long time ago at the WGOM and you can access that here.
Classic Album Review: Guided By Voices — Bee Thousand (1994)
Anyway, I'm still a GBV geek all thanks to this album. So a question for the group, is there a single album, song, concert, etc., that you can look back on and say, "yup, that was the moment I became a fan of this band.
No video post up so I'm posting this in honor of Minnesota becoming the 23rd state to legalize adult use marijuana.
(1 votes, average: 8.00 out of 10)
Loading... No new video so I get to put up more GBV. Once again from Live at Austin which was a very drunken show.
(2 votes, average: 8.00 out of 10)Loading... If no video gets updated I'm just going to drop a GBV song here.
(0 votes, average: 0.00 out of 10)Loading... 136 seconds of pure pop joy.
(1 votes, average: 8.00 out of 10)Loading... Any new musical discoveries during this pandemic/quarantine? Trying to discover new music or leaning on old standbys? Earlier this week I was working at home, all alone and it was pouring rain outside. So I listened to Elliot Smith's debut, Roman Candle. Perfect for an isolating raining day.
My love for Van Halen's first album is well known and I thought, since Eruption is such a great intro to You Really Got Me, what other songs would it be a great intro to. The cool thing with streaming music services, is that it's really easy to find out so I created a bunch of playlist pairing a song with Eruption.
I discovered, to no surprise, that Eruption before a quiet song just doesn't work. I thought perhaps the daring difference would be kind of cool, but nope, it's just too discordant. Also pairing Eruption with any other classic rock song works pretty good. Eruption leading into Welcome to the Jungle doesn't miss a beat.
It also works pretty well with some GBV songs, particularly Motor Away and I am a Tree. It really works with a song called Soul Barn, which is an amazing toss-off song buried on a demo release. In all cases, if the production were better, all these combo's would be really cool
Any way, long way to say so stay safe and listen to music, it can really be a balm in these trying times.
Drop 'em if you got 'em.
Lots of love and sadness for Ric Ocasek, especially for his work with The Cars. I was lucky enough to be in high school when those first two albums came out and they are still active on my playlist. In fact two good high school friends had a “Best Friends Girl” issue way back when and we still joke about it using that song.
Besides fronting The Cars, Ocasek produced 38 albums, some of which were The Cars of course, but a wide variety of others. Researching this post, I discovered he produced two Bad Brains albums, which I find amazing. Those are classic punk albums.
In the GBV world, Ocasek is known for producing Do The Collapse, which was Guided By Voices first foray into a highly produced rock album for a “big” label (Matador). Generally the album was well received and GBV fans have come around to the fact that it’s an album that wasn’t produced on a 4-track in the garage. The only issue that remains today is that Teenage FBI is probably over produced with a weird synthesizer effect that really isn’t needed oh and Hold on Hope was too much of a syrupy ballad. See video below.
Any way, Ric, you were your one weird looking dude who got to marry a super model and made or had a hand in a shit-ton of cool music. Plus you made me post about you instead of the the 50th anniversary of Abbey Road, which is my favorite album of all time. So good for you.
Didn’t see a video so I’m taking advantage. Great guitar work on this song.
Tonight, not too late to join me.
(3 votes, average: 5.33 out of 10)Loading... William Miller: So Russell, what do you love about music?
Russell Hammond: To begin with… everything.
What is it about a band or particular song, or just music that makes you just love it?
Obviously for me this is all about Guided By Voices. Why do I have 1000 songs from this cultish band from Dayton, OH? Why will I spend weekends listening to nothing for GBV for hours on end, looking at web sites, books, old YouTube videos and the like?
I wanted to answer that question as part of this Friday Music Day but found myself flustered. All I can say it’s “the music” maaan. Catchy melodies, esoteric lyrics, the sheer volume of songs, the fact that they never hit it big all gets jumbled in a giant vat of greatness for me. So there. I can’t go deeper than that, sorry.
But fortunately someone has. The article in the link pretty much covers it all. Even though it’s two years old, the article has particular resonance since it appears that a version of the band has reformed and will play at least one show this summer. Who wants to go?
http://overblown.co.uk/losing-game-pricks-guided-voices-retrospective/
So why do you love a particular band? Are you more articulate than me? Put it in the lists.
It's a FMD video cross link!! From Propeller.
Sound quality isn't the greatest but a good version nonetheless. In the upper pantheon of GBV songs.
http://youtu.be/w4pBc1pIwq0
(2 votes, average: 8.00 out of 10)Loading... 
