Tag: Scat Records

Guided by Voices
Bee Thousand: The Director’s Cut
2004, Scat Records

As we get further away from 2004, this triple-LP set may become more and more confusing for listeners.

I’ve heard people dissect Bee Thousand on recent podcasts and it’s normal for them to not know what to make of this other version of the album. It’s mostly different songs in a different sequence and some people (understandably) don’t get why it even exists.

Also, since it’s called The Director’s Cut, someone somewhere on the globe, now or thirty years from now, might wonder if it’s the REAL Bee Thousand and the familiar one was a compromise.

I’m going to explain as much as I can here. Or at least I’m going to tell my own best version of the story.

As of this writing, The Director’s Cut is long out of print. It’s an extravagant vinyl set that sells for collector’s prices so I don’t expect a Blade Runner situation, where new audiences don’t know what edition is most essential, but on the internet things can last forever and that’s a long time.

I try to stay away from predicting the future because I’m always wrong about it, but I can talk about the past. I was there. For some of it.

So let’s get into it. Let’s dig into the who, what, when, where, and why.

Continue reading “Robert Pollard-Mania! #91: BEE THOUSAND: THE DIRECTOR’S CUT”

Guided by Voices
King Shit and the Golden Boys
1995, Scat Records

In 1995, the fourth weirdest thing about Guided by Voices was that they put out a great album last year that got attention from high places even though it sounded to most people like it was made on a Fisher-Price cassette recorder.

The third weirdest thing was that they were in their late 30s in an indie rock scene full of 25-year-olds.

The second weirdest thing was that Guided by Voices had already made a pile of records going back to 1986 and most of which nobody–not even the hippest, most annoying, know-it-all record collector jerk-off you knew–had ever heard about. That’s not even mentioning the blizzard of 7″ EPs in 1994, of which not many people in 1995 had a complete collection.

And the weirdest thing of all was that on top of the nearly fifty songs that the band put out the previous year (and their forthcoming new album in the spring), the band still had more great unreleased stuff, enough to fill a whole other LP.

They called that LP King Shit and the Golden Boys. 

Sounds like a masterpiece to me.

Continue reading “Robert Pollard-Mania! #18: KING SHIT AND THE GOLDEN BOYS”

Guided by Voices
I Am a Scientist EP
1994, Scat Records

“I Am a Scientist” is Robert Pollard’s mission statement. If you’re confused by his voluminous output, his five albums a year, and his thousands of songs, just put on “I Am a Scientist” because it explains it all in plain language and with a perfect pop melody that soothes savage beasts. Gun to my head, it’s the definitive Guided by Voices song.

This EP offers a different, hi-fi take on in it. It’s a different version than one on Bee Thousand, but it’s still on the rough side. The band recorded it live in the studio with old school punk rocker Andy Shernoff working the knobs, and it naturally reflects the way the band played the song on stage. It’s louder and more driving, shined-up just enough for mainstream radio, but not obnoxious in the slightest. It still serves the melody. It does what it should do.

Continue reading “Robert Pollard-Mania! #16: I AM A SCIENTIST”

Guided by Voices
Bee Thousand
1994, Scat Records

My favorite story about discovering Bee Thousand came from a guy who claimed that he hated it the first few times he listened to it. The lo-fi didn’t bother him. The songwriting simply didn’t hit the mark for his ears. Fair enough. This music isn’t for everybody. He wrote off the album and moseyed on his way. However, over the next week, he kept getting these catchy hooks stuck in his head and he couldn’t remember where they were from. He was your regular music geek, always picking up new stuff and wasn’t sure exacty where he heard lines like…

Continue reading “Robert Pollard-Mania! #15: BEE THOUSAND”

Guided by Voices
Vampire on Titus
1993, Scat Records

There’s a great Pollard quote in issue 82 of Magnet from 2011 on the occasion of GBV’s upcoming Let’s Go Eat the Factory album. Talking about his longevity in music, Pollard says:

One loses one’s innocence because of public acceptance. You become cognizant that the whole world is listening, and you’re not just writing for yourself. You have to maintain the attitude of a child… You have to make records for yourself… It means you’re not trying to make records for the whole world, and the record will be better because of that. I see people to this day complaining about how they keep sending stuff out and banging their heads against the wall and not getting anywhere, and it’s because they’re trying too hard. We don’t try too hard… We try not to try. That should be our motto.

That seems to sum up the journey of early Guided by Voices. They were a band learning in obscurity to not try. And they got a little better at it with every album. A little weirder. A little looser. To get more rough and ragged was their idea of progress. They were stripping everything down and they were serious about it.

Serious enough to make Vampire on Titus, the most fucked-up, wrecked and trashed Guided by Voices album ever, their most lo-fi cry in the night.

Continue reading “Robert Pollard-Mania! #8: VAMPIRE ON TITUS”