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Other Place. // One Band. // Another Band. // Spooky Sounds. // MIXES. // Thanks for reading.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Um Tributo ao GBV!
This week, for reasons hazy at best, I found myself listening to a Guided By Voices tribute album put together by a bunch of unknown Brazilian bands.
The very existence of such a thing brings a tear to one’s heart and warms the cockles of your eyes, doesn’t it? Just to think that fifteen or twenty years ago, a bunch of scraggly lookin’ 30-something dudes in a nowheresville rustbelt town were getting together in a windowless basement to write and perform a seemingly endless series of weird rock n’ roll classics called things like “Jar of Cardinals” and “At Odds With Dr. Genesis”… and a decade or two later a whole community of kids on a whole other continent (well, kinda) who were probably in primary school when ‘Propeller’ came out, with English as a second language at best, are sufficiently inspired to collectively pay tribute to their efforts. That’s a pretty good measure of musical success for you, right there.
Of course, such is the power of Guided By Voices. My own GBV fandom has been growing steadily ever since Matthew of Fluxblog first introduced be to their stuff via the wonders of a 120 minute mixtape around the dawn of this decade, from initial 'hey, these guys are ok' interest to the point where it now borders on obsession. Just as British music fans of a certain age will never, ever be able to get enough of (or stop talking about) The Fall, instead I have GBV. Man, just don’t even get me started on them, if you value your wakefulness. I guess they’ll never be my #1 Official Favourite Band, so long as The Ramones and the Velvets exist, but given their voluminous output, I almost certainly listen to them more frequently than any other band; all the more so since the internet has allowed me to track down a whole secondary canon of rare EPs and odds & ends releases, Fading Captain side-projects, fan-curated rare tracks compilations and the like. According to iTunes, I know have 2.5GB of GBV/Robert Pollard related material stashed away, and I don’t even have any of those ‘Suitcase’ box sets yet. I’ve actually been thinking about putting together an all-GBV Mp3 player that I can carry around and just stick on ‘shuffle’ whenever I feel the need. I should be pitied, probably, but clearly I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t think the band were consistently amazing, exhilarating, moving, funny, majestic, fascinating etc. etc. to an almost unprecedented degree.
And it’s always good to be reminded that I’m not the only one still in that frame of mind, even as Bob Pollard’s recent avalanches of disappointingly dreary new material are scarcely helping to win him any new admirers... so let’s get back to this Brazilian tribute album.
Look, here’s the back cover:
Amazing stuff.
As is inevitably the way with these things, the vast majority of the tracks are pretty underwhelming. Many of the bands represented sound like fuzz guitar/drum machine/4-track solo projects, and few of them add much to the GBV legacy, just running through basic chord n’ lyric arrangements with less gusto and conviction than the original recordings. Perhaps taking advantage of GBV’s rep as ‘godfathers of lo-fi’, some contributions sound hasty and tossed off to the point of embarrassment, with a first take, ‘reading lyrics off the screen’ quality to them; poor Grasiela Piasson in particular sounds like she’s being forced to get to the end of ‘Motor Away’ at gun point. Most of the tracks are pretty good natured and vaguely enjoyable though, and it’s nice just that this album exists.
And as is also inevitably the way with these things, when genius strikes, it strikes hard.
To wit:
Sabia Sensivel – June Salutes You
I’m also rather fond of Telerama’s version of ‘Game of Pricks’. It’s just real nice; reminds me a lot of The Breeders take on Shocker in Gloomtown. And is it just me, or does a female vocal put a nice twist on this weirdly universal anthem of open-heartedness vs. cynicism? Neat little melodic guitar break too.
Telerama - Game of Pricks
Of course, this album also allows us the fun of spending a few minutes going “Wot, no ‘Postal Blowfish’? No ‘Do the Earth’? No ‘Shocker in Gloomtown’? No ’14 Cheerleader Coldfront’?” etc. etc., but criticizing a GBV tribute album for not finding room for everyone’s fave songs is like criticizing a paperback movie guide for no including every single motion picture ever made.
Ok, one more: I like this version of “Unleashed! The Large Hearted Boy”. I dunno why really, it’s pretty much just a slightly less good version of the original, but it makes me think more bands should play this song. The way those wrecked guitars plunge in over the opening bassline in that completely dissonant yet completely awesome way: who wouldn’t want to hear a live band unexpectedly launch into that? It’s just ON.
Tape Rec – Unleashed! The Large-hearted Boy
Anybody want to start a Guided By Voices tribute band? Aptitude for transcribing chords and drinking beer an obvious advantage – give me a shout.
“Don’t Stop Now: Um Tributo ao GBV” can be downloaded for free from Transfusão Noise Records.
UPDATE:
The kids in Ireland are way ahead of us on this one:
http://www.myspace.com/voidedbyponces
Labels: album reviews, Guided By Voices, tribute albums
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