By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Surrender Your Poppy Field For Surrender Your Poppy Field, Guided By Voices really ran the gamut production-wise. There are songs with sleek, shiny production like its predecessor Sweating The Plague on one end of the spectrum. On the other end, we have a song like “Always Gone,” which sounds […]
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Arthur Has Business Elsewhere
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Surrender Your Poppy Field In terms of song structures, “Arthur Has Business Elsewhere” is one of the more conventional songs from Surrender Your Poppy Field, and its circus instrumentation and waltz-y ¾ time signature have earned it comparisons to The Kinks and Sgt. Pepper-era Beatles. Beneath it all, though, […]
Useless Inventions
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Earthquake Glue In “Useless Inventions,” Robert Pollard crafts a verse chord progression using a fifth chord shape (root note and fifth note) on the fourth and third guitar strings combined with a technique he frequently uses which I’ve nicknamed “Drop The Bass.” You need to be logged in to […]
Airs
By: Robert Pollard Appears on: Honey Locust Honky Tonk For the verses in “Airs,” you’ll just alternate strumming between the G5 and Csus2 chords. In the chorus, however, Pollard uses a two-note chord shape on the second and first strings with an open G note on the third string and moves this shape to various […]
My Wrestling Days Are Over
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Sweating The Plague On “My Wrestling Days Are Over,” Guided By Voices took a Psycho And The Birds approach to recording: the band used Robert Pollard’s original boombox demo as the main vocal and guitar track and then recorded additional guitar and synth overdubs to it. In my opinion, […]
Kick Me And Cancel
By: Robert Pollard Appears on: From A Compound Eye “Kick Me And Cancel” is yet another great example of the Robert Pollard guitar technique I call “Open String Drone.” This technique consists of playing a melody on one guitar string while also playing an adjacent open string. In the case of this song, the melody […]
Shocker In Gloomtown
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: The Grand Hour “Shocker In Gloomtown” was released on the EP The Grand Hour in 1993, and Guided By Voices has been performing it at almost live show since then. Check the song’s live stats on GBVDB; it’s right up there behind the other classics such as “Game Of […]
Tractor Rape Chain
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Bee Thousand One of the Robert Pollard guitar techniques I mention frequently on this site is one that I call “Floating Chord Shapes.” This involves taking an open position chord shape and playing it elsewhere on the guitar neck. In the case of “Tractor Rape Chain,” Pollard crafts a […]
Game Of Pricks
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Alien Lanes, Tigerbomb There’s an exciting moment in all live Guided By Voices shows where Robert Pollard brings the microphone to his lips and shouts, “PRICKS!” That’s the band’s cue to launch into the Alien Lanes classic, “Game Of Pricks.” Except they usually don’t play it the way it […]
Cut-Out Witch
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Under The Bushes Under The Stars Long-time Guided By Voices guitarist Doug Gillard has mentioned that Robert Pollard gives the band a fair amount of freedom with his songs so that they can incorporate their own ideas. In this way, some songs have evolved a bit from their original […]
