By: Guided By Voices Appears on: August By Cake “What Begins On New Year’s Day” is a simple, melancholy, mostly acoustic guitar song that Robert Pollard included on the Guided By Voices album August By Cake, having been previously released on an Amazon Prime music compilation titled Indie For The Holidays. We’ll use a few first-position […]
Tag: Guided By Voices
Keep It Coming
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: The Pipe Dreams of Instant Prince Whippet Isn’t it funny how Guided By Voices can put out a release with ten songs and a running time of twenty-three minutes and call it an EP? Granted, a couple of those songs may be less than a minute long, but it still […]
Foreign Deputies
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Warp And Woof “Foreign Deputies” features a guitar shape that Robert Pollard uses frequently, played as an arpeggio with a B note ringing throughout on the open second string. It’s very similar to the arpeggio figures played in “We Liken The Sun.” In “Foreign Deputies,” however, you can just assign […]
Just To Show You
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: How Do You Spell Heaven As far as Guided By Voices closing tracks go, “Just To Show You” ends How Do You Spell Heaven on a relatively non-rocking note. Is it a sign of Robert Pollard’s maturity, or is he just keeping us all on our toes by taking […]
Dirty Water
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 […]
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 […]
