but yeah I’ll add an intermediate sort of don’t like/care type option next time … we’re all fans here anyway
Yeah, the lyrics on this one are a noticeably better/more focused than some of his stuff from around this time:
Do the earth, here’s the packers from the house of meat
Aren’t you the person I’m scheduled to meet?
To assess my skeleton’s worth, do the earth
Curtains open and the guests are fried
In my attempt to seem dignified
I reenact my rebirth, do the earth
3 Likes
No. 96 - Good Old Mr. Expendable
A late, spur of the moment entry into the list (I’ve been going too easy on you, I decided) - an abandoned track from a abandoned proto-Propeller album with a great name, The Corpse-Like Sleep of Stupidity. Might have been for the best that this album got abandoned: it does have some of their best songs (songs would go on to be some of the best songs on Propeller, various EPs, etc.) undermined by baffling sequencing and some stuff that is certainly ‘interesting’ but genuinely undercooked. Propeller is much, much better (unlike Under the Bushes, Under the Stars, where the aborted early versions are significantly more interesting.)
Good Old Mr. Expendable is one of the ones which I don’t think ever got resurrected…almost a capella, no idea for the most part what he’s saying, some cool sounds that could be someone hitting a detuned guitar string through some reverb or just hitting/dropping the reverb tank in classic fashion. Dangerously close to terrible this time…but I think there’s something fascinating and intriguing about it too. Is there a chance it could be or could have been a real gem, if the chips had fallen differently? A faint glimmer of a chance? If not, then at least it still makes a good weird, disorientating interlude.
1 Like
so many good songs, real songs, I had to omit from this list, and yet this made it in… dear me. But isn’t that what it’s all about, in the end??
3 Likes
All right, Reflections in a Metal Whistle (formerly no. 84) is off the list in penance for this last one - a shame, I think, but it had to be done - and the next song will be a rock song too
Thank Christ
No. 95 - James Riot
Great melodic rock song, inexplicably omitted from Do the Collapse by Ric Ocasek; just as inexplicably omitted from the first version of this list by me. It was time for a good rock song though, and this is one of the highlights of the first Suitcase box. One of the very, very few cases where I wouldn’t have minded a version with slightly punchier production, in fact. Would have worked somewhere on Under the Bushes, Under the Stars too.
2 Likes
No. 94 - Candyland Riots
A peculiar, melancholic song; just vocals and a brittle electric guitar. Was gonna say I could easily imagine a more developed version of this closing one of their classic albums, but actually it gets a lot from the starkness.
No. 93 - Postal Blowfish
A proper rock song this, with a great one-note riff - the King Shit & the Golden Boys version gets pretty fuzzy and fucked up, and there’s a slightly more polished version with more lead guitar.
Here’s the more polished one:
And here’s the King Shit version (preferable, in my opinion):
3 Likes
Such a tune. Could imagine Nirvana doing it.
yeah, I was trying to think who I could compare it too and that’s a good one (slow it down and you might get some of the way to melvins too)
Torche have done it
And Albert Hammond Jr
2 Likes
Making a playlist so I can listen along cos I need to engage with this thread!
3 Likes
No. 92 - Blue Moon Fruit
Fuzzy, reverby lo-fi psychedia, abstract enough in its lo-fidelity that it only just manages to make it to song status really. I love the way it sounds. But it’s another one I imagine is firmly on the ‘not for everyone’ side of GBV’s output, maybe not even Pollard himself - this was one the songs they cut from the (impeccable) Siltbreeze EP, Get Out of My Stations when they were compiling Scalping the Guru.
wish they’d gone heavier! Wouldn’t mind a Thou cover or something. Just listening to the Albert Hammond Jr. cover now and it is surprisingly straightforward, but makes more sense than I expected
1 Like
No. 91 - Crutch Came Slinking
Pleasingly scrappy, 60s garage-rock inflected song; good, weird Pollard lyrics as ever, and plenty of aahs, oohs and ah-woos on the backing vocals.
just want to say that i’m really enjoying the thread so far. i’ve only ever scratched the surface of the GBV oeuvre so having a handy list, mostly of songs i’ve never heard before, is a valuable resource!
1 Like
and i took part in the sanctioned DiS Listening Club until we hit the post-reformation albums!
1 Like
Thanks, really appreciated.
I know my tastes err towards a particular side of GBV’s output that not everyone is as into (I’m not intentionally trying to trick people into listening to the unlistenable, I just happen to like that stuff!), but there will be some of the more well-known songs as it gets higher up the list.
A few major omissions too though it looks like now - some missed accidentally, some intentionally but reluctantly, and some because I just don’t like them!
1 Like
No. 90 - He’s the Uncle
About time for another one of these; no idea what my thinking was about any of this any more but the list still exists. Seems a bit low for this one, but there we go - catchy, concise, with some cool, weird sounds in the middle 8/solo (some possible Jim O’Rourke if you’re into that kind of thing, although it sounds like they used some other guy’s weird noises in the end - EDIT: maybe not, it might be that they just added someone else’s solo over Jim O’Rourke’s noise). Seems to be a bonus track on some versions of Under the Bushes Under the Stars.
5 Likes