That’s on my list to buy. I have absolutely loads of GBV / Pollard stuff yet there’s still plenty missing !
"Game of Pricks" "Glad Girls" "I Am a Scientist" I'm fighting the urge to list another 50 or 100 must-hear tunes.
This is impossible because I could make 100 lists of my 3 favorite GBV songs but... The Official Iron Man Rally Song Storm Vibrations Over the Neptune/Mesh Gear Fox Pete Townshend hasn't written a song as good as any of these in 40 years.
This is the song that hooked me into Pollard's world back when it was included on one of those CMJ magazine discs. Remember those? This one in fact:
I bought Isolation Drills CD in 2001 because I kept hearing about this band Guided By Voices (I originally thought they were a religious band). I totally absorbed that for a month and then got Under the Bushes, Under the Stars which I also spent months absorbing. After that it was a off to the races as they say, wanting to hear everything including weird side projects like Go Back Snowball. Don't know what it is about GBV/Pollard but their the only band I've been obsessed with since I used to be obsessed with bands in my 20s/30s. Pollard's the only artist I know who has side projects (Boston Spaceships) that most bands don't even come close to as far as sheer quantity of great songs.
Glad to know I wasn't the only one! I first heard them when Teenage FBI was featured on a CMJ comp. I hated it! It just wasn't what I was into at that time. Too polished, too poppy. Then a couple of years later, someone made me a comp of tracks from Propeller to Isolation Drills and a copy of Universal Truths. It took a little bit, but I eventually made the connection and the rest is history.
Oh yeah the other thing that attracted me to them was when I read that Pollard was majorly influenced by The Who and early Genesis (two of my favorite classic rock bands) and newer bands like Wire and REM. I was like "This is the band for me" before I even heard them.
huge GBV fan here. "Vampire Under Titus" is pretty rough sounding, a harder listen than "Propeller," but great songs, and "Wished I was a Giant," is one of my all-time favorite opening songs by anyone ever.
Yeah Vampire on Titus definitely for the more adventurous. There are melodies there but they're hidden under a huge mountain of lo fi sludge. Never was one of my favorites but still pretty good. I was surprised that Propeller came before it because it's a much more accessible and clean sounding album.
Nearly my exact list... Although, on a technicality, repeat listens constitute a single song. I would add to your list Cut-Out Witch and sub the 7" version of Motor Away, which I always loved... probably b/c I heard that version first and it just stuck. Tractor Rape Chain Motor Away (7" version) Cut-Out Witch
I keep meaning to put together a playlist of the “best of” thay era but have never gotten around to it. Has anyone else had a stab at it?
