Guided by Voices
Sunfish Holy Breakfast
1996, Matador Records
In 1996, Matador Records indulged Robert Pollard’s madcap work ethic. Yes, they passed on the weird solo acoustic EP that he offered them (which Pollard then merely stuck to the end of his Not in My Airforce album), but they went along with plenty of other madness, bless ’em.
When Pollard pulled the plug on GBV’s The Flying Party is Here LP at the last minute, just as it was being prepared to go to press, in favor of a new set of songs that he preferred (and which turned out to be Under the Bushes Under the Stars), Matador were cool with it.
Six months after the new GBV album, they put out Pollard’s first solo album.
Two months after that, in November, they also released a pair of Guided by Voices EPs on the same day. They were two oddballs that didn’t do much for the “Pollard needs an editor” crowd, but if you’d been bitten by the bug, they were sweet stuff full of those warm and familiar basement vibes.
SO, as we talked about here before, Pollard changed his mind at least six times (thank you again, GBVDB.com) for what the band’s follow-up to Alien Lanes should be.
He was writing songs at a snappy pace and the band were recording them just about as fast. In the studio, in the basement, with producers (Kim Deal for a few, Steve Albini for a few), by themselves. Whatever worked.
From this stockpile, Pollard was building up the new GBV album and then tearing it down. Over and over again. Adding new songs, dropping old ones, completely changing everything about it. Pollard was rock music’s most messy perfectionist.
The album that he finally released, Under the Bushes Under the Stars, bears little resemblance to the earlier drafts.
And, folks, that means a shitload of unreleased songs, many of which landed on other records. The B-sides of The Official Ironmen Rally Song single were all refugees from this saga. A few turned up on Pollard and Tobin Sprout’s solo albums. Still more would come out on these two EPs. (Even more made it to the Suitcase box set in 2000, but we’ll get to that when we get to it).
The ten-song Sunfish Holy Breakfast EP seems to exist for three reasons:
a) Make use of some of those outtakes. At least four of them are here (“Beekeeper Seeks Ruth”, the Kim Deal-produced “Cocksoldiers and Their Postwar Stubble”, “A Contest Featuring Human Beings”, “Winter Cows”) and they’re all worthwhile in their own unique ways. None of them sound alike.
b) Expose a few great underground songs to the light (the totally rocking lo-fi rager “Stabbing a Star” and the Beatles-on-a-budget “If We Wait”, both previously released on small-press split singles from 1993 and that not even I own).
c) Play around with Pollard’s occasional notion that he’d like to see Guided by Voices as a songwriter’s collective like The Beatles. The band is Pollard’s vision and he needs to dominate, but he accepts other voices in there from time to time. As a result, this is the ONLY Guided by Voices record that kicks off with a Tobin Sprout song. That’s “Jabberstroker”, an endearing little puppy dog of an anthem built on just voice and guitar. Also bassist Jim Greer chimes in with his first and last Guided by Voices song, “Trendspotter Acrobat”, a pleasant freakbeat-style melody that’s in a mad rush to get to the end. For it, Greer sings in his best fake British dandy accent. The Kinks might have done a little something with it.
And I’m not sure what the intentions ever were for Pollard’s own “Heavy Metal Country” (it’s not on any of the known The Flying Party is Here/Under the Bushes early drafts), but I’m glad that it ended up here, where it’s perfect as the lovely, weary closer.
Robert Pollard the collage artist picks up all of these disparate elements–the recording quality and the arrangements are all over the place–and mixes them up into a fetching piece of work.
If Under the Bushes Under the Stars is the prime time show, this is the late night show. The midnight set. It’s looser and wilder. It’s simultaneously gritty and perched on the edge of a dream where “the creator’s skull is cracked”, “the constellation is right for a lovely fight” and a sweet guy like Tobin Sprout lets loose with the potty mouth (“Dig the fast track, fucker”)
At the time, this felt like part of an extended farewell to the lo-fi sound, as well as a last hurrah for the old Dayton line-up who were broken up by the time this came out.
In retrospect, it wasn’t any of those things, at least not permanently. 1996 wasn’t the last year that we’d hear GBV go lo-fi. In 2010, most of the band here would reunite and make more records.
What this EP sounds like today is the work of an artist who’s comfortable traveling between worlds. Hi-fi recording is not a mere step forward in the evolution of Guided by Voices; it’s just another thing in their arsenal. Pollard can and will go back-and-forth between the two approaches, sometimes on the same record. The contrasts can be lovely. It’s also why he likes other songwriters in there sometimes, other voices. It’s all just more contrast, more colors and textures for creating a world.
On this record, I hear everything that I like about Robert Pollard. There are the great songs, but also an audible fun in putting the thing together. Pollard will pace the floor over how to sequence a record, but he also gets that rock music is at its best when it sounds banged-out. When it sounds like accidental brilliance, something beautiful that you stumbled across at 3 AM.
That’s the Pollard way. It’s all rough edges and bursts of ragged inspiration meticulously arranged in such fashion that even the questionable moments sound good. Each piece is an ingredient in a rich meal. The band have been working at it all night.
And in the morning, here’s your sunfish holy breakfast.
TRIVIA NOTE: This is the first record to feature the semi-famous GBV rune. It’s something that Pollard just doodled on a piece of paper one day and it doesn’t mean anything, but it’s become the band’s holy sigil featured on many more records and merchandise galore. And if you want to get a tasteful GBV tattoo, it’s the primo choice.
I don’t have any tattoos, but if I ever decide to get one, this would probably be it.
ONE MORE NOTE: If you have the vinyl, don’t play it at 33 rpm like the label says. It’s a mistake. You spin this one at 45.
Oh, perfection. You never really achieve it. Sometimes you just have to lay down what you’ve got and move on.