21st June - Guided by Voices' Bee Thousand

Artist – Album: Guided By Voices – Bee Thousand

Released:  21^st June 1994

Sounds Like: Shit yeah, it's cool

I stuck this album on ten minutes ago, and I’m already on the sixth track. Say what you want about Guided by Voices, but they don’t mess about.

If you are going to say something about them though, I do hope it’s positive. Because GbV are one of the most important and influential rock bands of all time. Yep. At times they laid down experimental, punk-tinged rock tunes of the sort that made a name for fellow cult heroes Pavement. They mixed that though with bustling pop melodies that certainly rubbed off on nineties darlings Weezer. Robert Pollard’s mannish vocals and obtuse, childlike imagery can bring to mind the great Neutral Milk Hotel. Their seemingly unstemmable flow of ideas has been mirrored by the likes of the Mountain Goats and the Magnetic Fields’ Stephen Merrit. However, their influence is felt most keenly on the thousands of great unknown bands worldwide, those who record at home and on their computers, for whom DIY ethic or a lo-fi quality isn’t a choice but a necessity.

Released a full eleven years after they first formed, Bee Thousand was the album that finally helped them bridge that gap from being a great local band to a great band all round. It fires off great tracks at a relentless pace – ‘Hardcore UFO’s’, ‘Tractor Rape Chain’, ‘The Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory’, ‘Smothered In Hugs’ ‘Echos Myron’ and ‘Gold Star for Robot Boy’  are all brilliant little songs that light up the first half of the album alone – and strikes a wonderful mix of quirky rock and gentle pop.

Quite simply, it’s excellent. It may not have been recorded in a studio, but it’s better than 99.9% of the works that were.

Albumaday... rating:  9/10

1.       Hardcore UFO’s – 1:54

2.       Buzzards and Dreadful Crows – 1:43

3.       Tractor Rape Chain – 3:04

4.       The Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory – 1:45

5.       Hot Freaks – 1:42

6.       Smothered in Hugs – 2:59

7.       Yours to Keep – 1:15

8.       Echos Myron – 2:42

9.       Gold Star for Robot Boy – 1:39

10.   Awful Bliss – 1:12

11.   Mincer Ray – 2:21

12.   A Big Fan of the Pigpen – 2:09

13.   Queen of Cans and Jars – 1:55

14.   Her Psychology Today – 2:04

15.   Kicker of Elves – 1:04

16.   Ester’s Day – 1:51

17.   Demons Are Real – 0:48

18.   I Am A Scientist – 2:30

19.   Peep-Hole – 1:25

20.   You’re Not an Airplane – 0:33

Listen to ‘Echos Myron’:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYtEulKl3yE

Also released on the 21^st June:

1965: The Byrds – Mr Tambourine Man

Also released on the 21^st June:

2004: Badly Drawn Boy – One Plus One is One

Also released on the 21^st June:

2004: Kings of Convenience – Riot On an Empty Street

4th April - Guided by Voices' Alien Lanes

Artist – Album: Guided By Voices – Alien Lanes

Released:  4^th April 1995

Sounds Like: "the cost for recording, if you leave out the beer, was about ten dollars"

Anyone, ANYONE, with a serious inclination towards indie music needs to know and love Guided By Voices. They are the absolute embodiment of lo-fi indie cool and have an unsurpassed ability to meld crunching guitars and chaotic production to wonderfully poppy melodies.

Whether Alien Lanes - their first full length album at Matador but one which still sounds like it was recorded in the bedroom - is the album with which to make that first step is debatable. Some fans and critics have a greater affinity and love for the earlier Bee Thousand, whilst the greatest hits album Human Amusements at Hourly Rates would make a wonderful, if obvious, starting point. There’s little argument though that this album still stands as one of their best, and, if it does become the means of your introduction into Robert Pollard’s world, you will not be disappointed.

Kicking off with ‘A Salty Salute’, GbV proceed to blast their way through 28 tiny morsels of DIY rock in just over 40 minutes. Scattered along the way are some of the finest snippets they’ve ever recorded, including ‘Watch Me Jumpstart’, ‘As We Go Up, We Go Down’, ‘Game of Pricks’, ‘Closer You Are’, ‘My Valuable Hunting Knife’ and ‘Blimps Go 90’. God knows what most of these songs mean but the sound and feel of them are magnificent.

The whole lo-fi substrata of indie rock can be difficult to follow, as trends change and even the best bands remain relatively low key. Allow yourself to be guided by Guided by Voices.

Albumaday... rating: 8/10

1.       A Salty Salute – 1:29

2.       Evil Speakers – 0:58

3.       Watch Me Jumpstart – 2:24

4.       They’re Not Witches – 0:51

5.       As We Go Up, We Go Down – 1:37

6.       (I Wanna Be a) Dumbcharger – 1:13

7.       Game of Pricks – 1:33

8.       The Ugly Vision – 1:34

9.       A Good Flying Bird – 1:07

10.   Cigarette Tricks – 0:18

11.   Pimple Zoo – 0:42

12.   Big Chief Chinese Restaurant – 0:56

13.   Closer You Are – 1:56

14.   Auditorium – 1:02

15.   Motor Away – 2:06

16.   Hit – 0:23

17.   My Valuable Hunting Knife – 2:00

18.   Gold Hick – 0:30

19.   King and Caroline – 1:36

20.   Striped White Jets – 2:15

21.   Ex-Supermodel – 1:06

22.   Blimps Go 90 – 1:40

23.   Strawdogs – 1:17

24.   Chicken Blows – 2:21

25.   Little Whirl – 1:46

26.   My Soon Cool – 1:41

27.   Always Crush Me – 1:44

28.   Alright – 2:56

Listen to ‘Game of Pricks’:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTdPn60lcB0