Guided by Voices
Get Out of My Stations
1993, Siltbreeze
We’re still in the early 90s in this survey–and we will be for about fifty more entries because this was a busy time–so that means another EP. This was a period in which Guided by Voices were determined to claw their way up in the underground, seven inches at a time.
The difference here is that this record came out on Siltbreeze, the far-out Philadelphia label who also worked with the likes of The Dead C, V-3 and Harry Pussy. Serious, lo-fi, noise-rock stuff. Bands who don’t give a fuck. Bands who make you feel stupid for having a Monkees album in your collection. Bands who make music that you listen to alone at 3 AM while planning either a suicide or a homicide.
So, my peanut gallery guess is that Robert Pollard decided to get a little extra weird for them. Pollard’s ear for beautiful melody is in full effect for most of these seven tracks, but there is no fist-pumper “Big School” anthem. On this record, GBV want you to KNOW that they’re recording in a basement and that they’re proud of it. Aggressive lo-fi. No drums most of the time. The band are so loose that they leave a glaring mistake in the otherwise peaceful opening song, the crash of a dropped amp, that reminds you that even in this band’s softest moments some unexpected noise might happen.
This is not a seamless production. The real world keeps blowing in through the crack under the door, but the band make it work. It’s just more noise on top of their noise.
Even with that jarring amp drop, “Scalding Creek” is one lovely piece of work, a dreamy campfire song about living and giving, thinking and drinking and hoping and groping.
And while GBV have never been ones to apologize for their classic rock influences, second track “Mobile” sounds like a drunk trying to remember how The Who’s “Going Mobile” goes and accidentally stumbling into a whole other song.
“Melted Pat” herks and jerks its way to the record’s biggest hook and is, I think, the only song here that the band ever performed live. It’s a theme song for a cartoon that I’d like to see.
If that’s too pop for Siltbreeze, in comes “Queen of Second Guessing”, which is less of a song and more of a demonstration of a weird vocal effect that renders the words indecipherable. It’s one of those “fuckin’ around in the basement” songs, which are an essential part of what Guided by Voices is about.
That’s side one.
Have a box of tissues ready for side two because it’s all heartbreakers.
Who doesn’t like “Dusty Bushworms”? Let me at ’em. It’s one of Pollard’s perfect ballads, a gorgeous melody that stands stark nude in the moonlight. Best I can tell, a “dusty bushworm”, in Pollard’s phraseology, is merely a person who’s some kind of active negative force in your life in some way. A bully, a creep, someone who takes jabs at you that they’d never tolerate aimed at themselves. From the very first time I ever heard this song, I’ve never been able to forget the lyric “Some of them grounded, just can’t fly/ Come up and hit you in your eye”. I think it’s about how a violent personality is often rooted in some crushing personal dissatisfaction and pain. They’re not happy people. They’re not winners. Even if they just beat you up.
“Spring Tiger” is another scoop of some sweet lo-fi aural ice cream, but, looking at the lyrics, I don’t know what the fuck it’s about. And that’s fine.
By “Blue Moon Fruit”, you’re drowning in beauty, even if Pollard’s vocal, which was perfectly clear on the previous two songs, is given the from-the-bottom-of-a-well treatment. It works here. It makes the song sound like a transmission from outer space. And these Martians know their rock ‘n’ roll.
Like the band’s early albums, each of these 90s EPs has its own personality and each one works as a debut record if it’s the first Guided by Voices thing that someone somewhere in the world dug up at their local record store purely because they liked the cover and song titles. Robert Pollard was stuffing messages in bottles and then flinging each one out in the ocean. They all said the same thing, but the words were a little different.
Get Out of My Stations is the mellow, moody one of the batch, I’d say. It’s a little noisy, a little aloof and a little unruly, but is still two tons heavy with Pollard’s Midwestern psychedelic vision.
Only a dusty bushworm would overlook it.
ALSO, why does every online source about this record call it a 1994 release when the back of the sleeve clearly says its from 1993? What the fuck?
Even I got thrown off! I was trusting these people. My “in theory” chronological Pollard list is now IMPURE. How am I going to sleep tonight? How can I ever face my unborn children? What would Jesus think? (I’m an atheist, but I’m also insecure, so I still worry about what Jesus would think.)
I guess this means another glass of Chardonnay. And I’ll try to pretend that I don’t like it.