Guided By Voices

Oh man, Guided By Voices are one of my favorite bands of all time. For the uninitiated, they are admittedly a tough nut to crack, but man what a payoff. Robert Pollard is one of the most prolific recording artists of all time, with reportedly over 2000 songs recorded and released. Of course, there's a few stinkers in the crowd, but for the most part Pollard is true to his original vision, and I don't think I'd be alone in saying that there are songs he released in 2006 that rival his best work with GBV. From 1986 until present day, Pollard has released no less than 40 assorted LPs and EPs under the GBV moniker, including 3(!) boxed sets, and no less than an additional 35 LPs and EPs under such guises as Lexo and the Leapers, The Takeovers, Hazzard Hotrods, Keene Brothers, Circus Devils, Airport 5, Nightwalker, Acid Ranch, Psycho and the Birds, and of course Robert Pollard. Pollard's keen(e) sense of pop songwriting, at its peak, encompasses the same bullet-point factors attributed to The Beatles' or The Kinks' or the Rolling Stones' best work -- simple, catchy hooks, straightforward melody, and concise lyrics to boot. This is a real music geek's dream, and collecting this stuff is obsession personified, especially the limited pressings of collectible vinyl whose covers are adorned with Pollard's own collage artwork. We're talking real caramel goodness here folks, hooks that get stuck in your teeth and stay in your head for days.

YouTube: GBV - Teenage FBI
YouTube: GBV - Game of Pricks (Live at Amoeba Records, 2002)

Pollard's story is one covered thoroughly in most internet publications, and the major points are these: In 1986, Bob is a 4th grade teacher in Dayton, Ohio with an REM-influenced rock band on the side. Years pass, band becomes famous for prolific output and arena-rock, small-club live shows. Band releases Bee Thousand and become the crown jewels of Matador's staple, the embodiment of working-class indie rock and the lo-fi aesthetic. Band makes a little money, Pollard quits teaching and the band releases records and tours virtually every year from 1994-2004, with over 40 members of GBV filtering in and out of the band at various times; some entire lineups are fired as a whole. Again, band becomes famous for an amazing Who-like live show, with most setlists hovering around the 3 hour, 50 song range in 2004. Enter music geek moment: Something I realize I'm forgetting is the amazing amount of beer this band can drink onstage; they always had an onstage cooler stocked full of Miller Lites the handful of times I saw them, and one of my most prized possessions is the beer bottle Robert Pollard signed for me after a show in Dallas in 2001. They'd walked back onstage for the encore and me and 30 or so other sweaty, mostly inebriated guys yelled for our favorite songs. Pollard grabbed three beers from the cooler and handed me one, as I obnoxiously yelled for Motor Away. His then pointed to me and said, "This one's for this guy. It's called Motor Away. 1-2-3-4..." Moments like this really cemented GBV's place in my music world, and I can honestly say they are responsible for some of the most incendiary live shows I've ever seen; they also sadly make me wonder if they'll ever gain any new fans, given their daunting discography and the fact that they finally broke up in 2004. The last tour was dubbed The Electrifying Conclusion, and included a stop on the coveted Austin City Limits stage, a performance I can say is one of the most fun and exciting experiences I've ever witnessed. The top picture above is from that performance.

YouTube: GBV - I Am A Scientist
YouTube: GBV - The Electrifying Conclusion DVD trailer

With any luck, these files will begin a journey into the obsessive world of GBV, but probably not, given the barometer of my closest friends and my poor wife. Sometimes you really have to see it to believe it. Given that, these are really great pop songs from all spans of Robert Pollard's career, songs which I hope you enjoy.

MP3: GBV - Quality of Armor (Propeller, 1992)
MP3: GBV - I Am A Scientist (Bee Thousand, 1994)
MP3: GBV - Smothered in Hugs (Bee Thousand,1994)
MP3: GBV - Motor Away (Alien Lanes, 1995)
MP3: GBV - Dodging Invisible Rays (Tigerbomb EP, 1995)
MP3: GBV - Not Behind The Fighter Jet (Mag Earwhig, 1997)
MP3: Robert Pollard - Subspace Biographies (Waved Out, 1998)
MP3: Robert Pollard - Stumbling Blocks Into Stepping Stones (Suitcase 2, 2005)
MP3: Keene Brothers - Death of the Party (Blues & Boogie Shoes, 2006)

ORIGINAL COLLAGE
ROBERT POLLARD
TUG OF WAR AT THE FAITHFUL CENTER
9 3/4 x 8 3/4

This 5 piece collage was featured in Bob's literary book EAT 2.
A replica print of this collage hangs in Bob's house.

Buy the CDs: GBV/Pollard @ Luna Music
Buy the CDs: GBV/Pollard @ Rockathon Records
Buy the CDs: Guided By Voices
Buy the CDs: Robert Pollard

Ronald Shannon Jackson

Ronald Shannon Jackson is an incredible drummer from Ft. Worth, and is the only musician who can claim to have performed and recorded with three of the greatest revolutionaries in all of jazz: Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, and Albert Ayler. While these men clearly defined jazz in the late 1960's and into the late 1970's, Benny Goodman this ain't. He has played with literally hundreds of musicians, some of which include Charles Mingus, John Zorn, Charles Tyler, Power Tools, Last Exit, and even fronted his own group, Ronald Shannon Jackson & the Decoding Society. The tracks posted here share the common thread of being unabashedly intense, and all are fueled by Jackson's propelling drums.

This music is raw, noisy, emotional, abrasive, chaotic, and above all, human.

MP3: Albert Ayler - Truth Is Marching In (Live 1966)
MP3: Charles Tyler Ensemble - Lacy's Out East
MP3: Ornette Coleman - Midnight Sunrise

One of my favorite groups of late, and really the reason for posting any of this, is Last Exit. Last Exit formed in the mid-1980's, and were somewhat of an avant-jazz supergroup, featuring the great Peter Brötzmann on reeds, the late Sonny Sharrock on guitar, Bill Laswell on bass, and Jackson on drums. They were truly electrifying live on and on record, a sort of improvised free jazz for metalheads. Or maybe not.

MP3: Last Exit - Discharge
MP3: Last Exit - Pig Freedom


YouTube: Last Exit Live

Buy the CD: Albert Ayler - Slug's Saloon - May 1, 1966
Buy the CD: Ornette Coleman - Dancing In Your Head
Buy the CD: Charles Tyler - Charles Tyler Ensemble
Buy the CD: Last Exit - Last Exit (this one is out-of-print and ridiculously expensive)
Buy the CD: Last Exit - Köln (this one is not)

Neil Young & Pearl Jam

I've never gone out of my way to hide my love for Pearl Jam. Call it cliche, dorky, or just plain obnoxious, I don't care. In 1993 I was 13, and my friend Jenny Barr had her older, high school-aged brother tape me both Vs. and Led Zeppelin III, and I can unflinchingly state that those dubbed cassettes absolutely changed my life. After the 7th grade, I never heard music again as I had before. Thus began a long and loyal infatuation with Pearl Jam, culminating in the strategic meetings of various band members in various places and the never-ending search of all 500 import singles in an effort to collect every b-side the band recorded. In 2000, sheer determination drove me from Dallas to New Orleans and back, then across Texas to Houston and Lubbock, with another stop in Dallas in-between on a band-bus following trek that amounted to five shows in six days. While the trip was exhaustingly fun and memorable, I retired my Ten Club membership and officially burned out on Pearl Jam.

Fast forward to more recent times. The more I delve into the musical psyche of that which is unequivocally considered good music, the more I'm blown away by guys like Neil Young. With Neil Young, guitar lines and lyrics are one in the same, in that Old Black is capable of holding as much emotional weight as any of old Neil's words. Young has the rare quality of effortlessly conveying a narrative instrumentally, sometimes opening a song with three or four minutes of melody and solo before stepping to the mike to udder any lyrics at all. I had the good fortune of witnessing Neil Young & Crazy Horse in all their ragged glory burn down the barn in 2003 at the Bonnaroo Festival in Manchester, Tennessee, where Neil commanded the altar and took me to church and back with one of the most truly memorable performances I've ever seen. I've heard 30+ years of live recordings and seen 30+ years of live footage, and for my money Neil Young & Crazy Horse were never better than that night in June.

The connection is this: In 1992, after taking notice of their cover of Rockin In The Free World, Pearl Jam were invited to perform at the Bridge School Benefit, a legendary annual weekend in San Francisco of top-notch acts performing rare acoustic sets with proceeds benefiting Neil's charity. Somewhere around Spring 1993, Pearl Jam was invited to open for Neil Young on his European tour. This was just before Vs. came out, and they were honestly one of the biggest, if not the biggest bands in the world. After the Jeremy video debacle they'd given up on making videos, and seemingly MTV altogether. Therefore, it came as a shock when in September of that year they decided to perform on the MTV Video Music Awards. So here you have the most popular band on rock radio playing an unreleased song from their forthcoming album on an internationally-televised awards show. There was a rumor that Neil Young was going to play with Pearl Jam, but he never showed for soundcheck and nobody really knew what was going on. I think this was when MTV was still somewhat live and spontaneous, if you can imagine. Of course, they actually played music back then too, so...

Pearl Jam comes out with a ripping version of Animal to an enthusiastic crowd, blah blah the song is over. Instead of the band putting down their guitars and walking offstage, Eddie steps into the mic and says something along the lines of, "You know this guy," and out walks Neil Young, Old Black in hand. Neil begins the opening riff to Rockin In The Free World with his trademark lumberjack swagger, and I'll be damned if it's simply not the single greatest rock music performance in the history of television. Screw The Beatles on Ed Sullivan, this was real tension, passion, and angst in the midst of Corporate America, an intense and furious flannel whirlwind of unleashed bravado and downright spirituality. You watch the ferocity Neil's two(!) white-hot solos and tell me you aren't convinced the man wasn't temporarily possessed by something greater than us all.

YouTube: Pearl Jam - Animal (1993 MTV Video Music Awards)
YouTube: Pearl Jam featuring Neil Young - Rockin In the Free World (1993 MTV Video Music Awards)

After feeling somewhat rejuvenated in playing with this (relatively) young band, Young Neil decided to retire Crazy Horse for a bit and make an album with Pearl Jam in 1995. Mirror Ball was released on Reprise as a Neil Young album -- for competing record company legal reasons, the name Pearl Jam could not appear on the album -- yet the band (sans Vedder, save for a few backing vocals) provided comfortable and capable backup for the lumbering legend. Although it's not one of Neil's more famous (read: popular, if heard at all) albums, Mirror Ball is convincing proof that he wasn't done yet. In fact, he released almost an album a year his entire career, a feat spanning an incredible 38 years, with no signs of stopping. The matchup of Neil's feedback-driven guitar and timeless ragged melodies with the primal grooves of newly-christened Pearl Jam drummer Jack Irons is worth the price of admission alone.

MP3: Neil Young & Pearl Jam - Act Of Love
MP3: Neil Young & Pearl Jam - I'm The Ocean
MP3: Neil Young & Pearl Jam - Throw Your Hatred Down

In an act of good faith, Neil returned the favor and appeared on Pearl Jam's Merkinball single, a two-song effort that is in my opinion, the best thing Pearl Jam ever released. Pairing Vedder's vocals with Neil's trademark guitar on I Got Id and trademark pump organ on Long Road proved to be a hit; I can remember when I Got Id was played seemingly three or four times an hour on the radio, and all of a sudden Pearl Jam became cool again.

MP3: Pearl Jam feat. Neil Young - I Got Id
YouTube: Eddie Vedder, Mike McCready, & Neil Young - Long Road

Soon after, Neil decided to tour Mirror Ball around Europe, and brought Pearl Jam (again, sans Vedder) along for the ride, meaning they had to learn a handful of Neil's songs, too. For the most part, I think the band did a good job. This noisy 12-minute version of Like A Hurricane is HUGE, and rivals any Crazy Horse version, period.

MP3: Neil Young & Pearl Jam - Like A Hurricane (Live in Europe 1995)

Buy The CD: Neil Young - Mirror Ball
Buy The CD: Pearl Jam - Merkinball

John Fahey

John Fahey was born in 1939 and is an American icon, woven into the musical fabric of our great nation as much as Billie Holiday or Iggy Pop. I don't know how much more plainly to say it, nor do I know how much more sincere I can be in saying it. Fahey is famous as an innovative acoustic fingerpicking folk/blues musician, and made records, albeit sporadically, between the years of 1959 and 1991. After ten or so years of hibernation and seclusion, he became an underground guitar hero in the 1990s and was regularly name-dropped in many publications, with musicians ranging from Sonic Youth to M. Ward citing him as an influence. Fahey battled alcoholism and the Epstein-Barr virus in the 1980s, and had sextuple-bypass heart surgery two days before his death, on February 22, 2001, at the age of 61.

The three mp3s posted here are some of the most beautiful and exciting pieces I've ever heard in my life. The first two are typical of the sound Fahey is noted for, and the third is taken from his last album, Red Cross, released in 2001. In the final track, Red Cross, Disciple of Christ Today, you can hear the guitar as a direct voice, the moans and contemplative musings of a man knowingly near the end of his life.

MP3: John Fahey - In Christ There Is No East or West (1964)
MP3: John Fahey - Steamboat Gwine'Round De Bend (1968)
MP3: John Fahey - Red Cross, Disciple of Christ Today (2001)

YouTube: John Fahey - On The Sunny Side Of The Ocean
YouTube: John Fahey - Beverly (aka Indian Pacific Railroad Blues)

Buy the CD: The Legend of Blind Joe Death
Buy the CD: Of Rivers And Religion
Buy the CD: Red Cross

Patto

Patto were an obscure British band from the early 1970's who successfully fused rock with jazz leanings. Think Joe Cocker fronting The Band with Nels Cline on guitar and a killer vibes player; in reality multi-instrumentalist Ollie Halsall was not only a guitar virtuoso, but also a savant on the vibes. This track in particular reminds me of the first track on Eric Dolphy's "Out To Lunch," which is a compliment indeed. Speaking of Cline, for a time Wilco played this track over the p.a. at shows before they hit the stage. Thus, my introduction to Patto.

MP3: Patto - The Man

YouTube: Patto - Time to Die and Money Bag (Live 1971)

Buy the CD: Patto - Patto

Can

Lately I can't get enough of Can. Maybe it's the repetitious robotic grooves of Jaki Liebezeit's kit, or Damo Suzuki's improvised spitting and sputtering (the only way to front a band such as this), but there is something so seemingly unstoppable and uncompromising about these krautrock giants. Virtually everything they recorded between 1968 and 1973 is stellar, but things took a nasty nosedive when the band took a stab at mainstream success with a foray into (gasp!) disco. In fact, after 1975, don't bother. Recommended for fans of early Stereolab.

Here's a couple of Can tracks and a YouTube or two to whet yer appetite. For my money, psychedelic guitar peaked with "Mother Sky." I dare you not to shake that ass.

MP3: Can - Mother Sky
MP3: Can - Moonshake

YouTube: Can - Paperhouse (Live 1971 on Beat Club)
YouTube: Can - Mushroom (Live 1971)

Buy the CD: Soundtracks
Buy the CD: Future Days