By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Earthquake Glue In the post for “Apology In Advance,” I mentioned that there are certain songs from Earthquake Glue that never really “did it” for me, and “Dirty Water” had been one of them for a long time. Obviously, I loved those harmonized guitar lead lines towards the end […]
Category: tab
Gray Spat Matters
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Space Gun “Gray Spat Matters” from Space Gun is a very straightforward rock song. Constant driving rhythm, power chords, and a steady beat throughout. It’s been holding its place in the band’s live set since its release, and I’m hoping it stays for a long time. You need to be […]
Bunco Men
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Mirrored Aztec, Suitcase – Failed Experiments and Trashed Aircraft I used to write songs. After a while, it started to feel pointless. Robert Pollard was writing songs like “Bunco Men” and then not even releasing them on albums; we didn’t get to hear most of them until the first […]
Hudson Rake
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Space Gun “Hudson Rake” is a spooky-sounding song, and its lyrics’ origins have an eeriness to them as well. Apparently, Bob Pollard had had a dream where he was being carried over someone’s shoulder. Another person passed and remarked, “There was a terrible accident last night,” at which point […]
Jon The Croc
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Class Clown Spots A UFO As much as I’m a fan of the non-traditional chords that populate so much of Robert Pollard’s music, I also love when he keeps it simple. “Jon The Croc” is an example of Pollard using conventional chords and a standard rock song structure to […]
Table At Fool’s Tooth
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Cool Planet You know Robert Pollard has a knack for cramming an obscene amount of rock into a minute and a half’s worth of music. In “Table At Fool’s Tooth” from Cool Planet, he’s at it again; this tune clocks in at just one minute and twenty-one seconds, all […]
Know Me As Heavy
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: English Little League There’s nothing I don’t love about “Know Me As Heavy” from English Little League. There’s a great combined vocal performance by Robert Pollard and Tobin Sprout, some of Pollard’s trademark cryptic lyrics, and also a sampling of some of his various guitar songwriting techniques at play. This […]
Christmas Girl
By: Boston Spaceships Appears on: Let It Beard When I create these guitar tablature posts, the tablature and chord diagrams are all made from shapes and tables in Google Slides, so I start by copying a song from a previous post that used similar tablature or chord diagrams and modify as needed. As it turns […]
Life Is Beautiful
By: Robert Pollard with Doug Gillard Appears on: Speak Kindly of Your Volunteer Fire Department “Life Is Beautiful” has a guitar melody that’s really fun to play and built around an open string drone technique. The fourth and third strings will ring open on the D and G notes, respectively, while the note on the […]
Apology In Advance
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Earthquake Glue Earthquake Glue is a Guided By Voices album that I’ve always loved, and yet some of its songs took longer for me to realize their greatness. When it was first released, the obvious hits to me were “I’ll Replace You With Machines,” “The Best Of Jill Hives,” […]
