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 […]
Tag: Guided By Voices
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,” […]
I Think A Telescope
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Please Be Honest “I Think A Telescope” finds Robert Pollard deftly plucking a series of single notes on his acoustic guitar’s strings during one of the gentler moments on Please Be Honest. He alternates between a fretted note on one string and an open note on the string above, culminating in […]
Burning Flag Birthday Suit
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Under The Bushes Under The Stars “Burning Flag Birthday Suit” uses a bit of the Floating Chord Shapes technique, with Pollard moving an open D chord shape up and down the guitar neck for some parts, and doing the same with an open G5 chord later in the song. […]
Your Cricket Is Rather Unique
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Sweating The Plague It’s hardly unusual for a member of Guided By Voices other than Robert Pollard to handle vocal duties for a song or two. Tobin Sprout performed vocals for the many songs he contributed to the band during his time, and Nick Mitchell sang his own tunes on […]
You Own The Night
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Zeppelin Over China The first single from the upcoming Guided By Voices double LP, Zeppelin Over China, is titled “You Own The Night,” and it’s a full-on Pollardian suite of a tune, complete with various pieces of music stitched together as a sonic collage and an undeniable hook of a chorus. […]
A Second Spurt Of Growth
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Half Smiles of the Decomposed For all its rocking moments, Half Smiles Of The Decomposed is not without its soft spots. “A Second Spurt Of Growth” adds a gentle touch of finger-plucked acoustic guitars to break up the album’s second side, beautifully accompanied by the signature “noises & atmospheres” sounds […]
A Trophy Mule In Particular
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Earthquake Glue Part of the mission of the GBV Guitar website is to fill in the gaps. For Robert Pollard’s work 2004 and prior, there are already some guitar tabs floating around on the internet, and a lot of them are pretty accurate, or at least close enough to […]
Gonna Never Have To Die
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Half Smiles of the Decomposed When trying to learn how to play Robert Pollard’s songs on guitar, I’ve had the most success when I have access to either live footage of the band playing (actually seeing them live is better, of course) or a stripped-down recording of the song, such […]
Asphyxiated Circle
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Half Smiles of the Decomposed According to the invaluable resource of all things Robert Pollard, GBVDB – Guided By Voices Database, “Asphyxiated Circle” from 2004’s Half Smiles Of The Decomposed was only ever played lived by the band a total of 13 times. This, in my opinion, is not […]
