Yeah those rankings are pretty wack. Weighted towards the last four, and just off. Goes to show how looking at an album that way might not give you the best picture of how it is overall.
Before I put up my rankings, I thought I'd copy and paste those of @GuidedByJonO))) from the GBV topic. As per the below comment, he placed Choreographed Man Of War and Speak Kindly Of Your Volunteer Fire Department 4th and 5th respectively on his side project rankings.
Right, it's time to put up my Bob solo album rankings. I know you all can't wait, ha ha (man). Over the last week or so I made time to play them all another once over. Before I post them I would like to note the following: I am too indecisive to put up a numbered ranking, so have ranked them in tiers from most to least favourite, and even that was quite hard to do. Totally agree with the above post comment: "Keep in mind that I'm ranking albums by one of my favourite artists ever, so even the lowest rated records have moments to recommend. Even the lowest rated albums are still ones I enjoy, just not as much as the others." Within each tier, there is not really any order, so whilst for example the top tier are my favourite 7 solo albums, I can't really say I prefer one over another, they are simply all on the same excellent level to me. It was almost a coin flip for the last spot in some tiers, on some days an album will make a strong push to climb up a tier In some cases I prefer my own amended tracklists; I made slight alterations to tracklists / running orders for WAGOOTA & Mouseman Cloud and heavily truncated versions of Standard Gargoyle Decisions and Space City Kicks. In the case of Elephant Jokes, I enjoy my own version with the Suitcase 3 outtakes mixed in significantly more than the album itself, probably enough to elevate it to the above tier. I have ranked the albums as they are though. Continuing on this theme, I would like to give an 'honourable mention' to the 'intended LP' of Silverfish Trivia which sadly ended up as an EP with some great tracks hidden away on B-sides, etc. I love the shortened 10 track version I assembled of working version #1 'The Killers' (see page 12 for more) Whilst not part of the rankings, I've very much enjoyed going through the various EPs, B-sides, one off songs, demo sets (Edison's mainly), and the excellent 'Moon' live album. We have covered in the region of 450 songs in this topic and I feel quite emotional getting to the end of the solo albums! Summary of the tiers: Excellent - Mostly excellent album from start to finish. Great vibe throughout. An all-timer. Very good - Strong album, even the less than stellar songs are barely worth skipping. Good - Plenty to enjoy, but lower batting average. Generally still like the bulk of the songs, but overall not as much as the above tier. Some boring moments here and there Average - Mixed bag, diminishing returns, inconsistent. Songs/moments of interest here, but have to wade through too much 'filler' to find it. These albums are lacklustre & hard going in places and don't really connect with me. Feels like there is something missing, don't dig the general vibe of them. Disappointing - Didn't want to call this level 'poor' but to me these 2 really are not far off, they are not very good at all. Uninspired, very few memorable songs, contain more than their fair share of head scratchers. Couple of songs maybe worthy of inclusion on a playlist, but very little worth salvaging. Excellent Not In My Airforce Kid Marine From A Compound Eye Blazing Gentlemen Honey Locust Honky Tonk Speak Kindly Of Your Volunteer Fire Department Choreographed Man Of War Very good: Waved Out Lord Of The Birdcage Coast To Coast Carpet Of Love Faulty Superheroes Robert Pollard Is Off To Business The Crawling Distance Good: Normal Happiness Elephant Jokes We All Got Out Of The Army Jack Sells The Cow Mouseman Cloud Moses On A Snail Average: Standard Gargoyle Decisions Fiction Man Of Course You Are Motel Of Fools Silverfish Trivia Disappointing: Space City Kicks Superman Was A Rocker
A couple quick thoughts about going forward. A little break is (has been? I've lost track) good, and the general plan is solid. But when I think of scooting back to Boston Spaceships after hitting Teenage Guitar, I wonder, well shouldn't The Takeovers be tackled first? Then I go to why not do "everything else" in sequence? Could be a problem with the more difficult and obscure releases, though nearly everything is on YouTube. Maybe Acid Ranch could be condensed to a week, and not rank them as albums (pretty sure we know how that would go), with a focus more on, "hey, these particular tracks are interesting or cool because..." than whether the albums are "good". Hard to imagine listening to Acid Ranch for 3 weeks, but I'd love to know what bits stand out to people. Then I get stuck with Circus Devils cause there's so much of it, and and and ... Bottom line, I'm down for whatever, but would be on board for a comprehensive approach. I also had a playlist challenge idea "You Only Need One" - pick one track from each solo album, in sequence. You'd sometimes have to pick songs that weren't the best from a particular LP for the sake of sequencing. I hope to take a stab at it the next few days. Of Course You Are is definitely a mixed bag kind of album for me. Nick is a pretty solid partner here, and it's interesting how sometimes he seems to be following the RP solo template as laid out by Todd, while stretching out at other times. He's a competent and generally tasteful drummer, occasionally a bit loose as you'd expect in this situation (guitar player on drums playing without a band) and his generally dry, no-frills, natural approach to recording them is ok with me. They're honest and they don't suck, and once in a while even shine. As a guitar player, he's really something else. Although he comes from a big rock perspective he does exhibit unexpected restraint and creativity, a rarity among his cohort. Although Nick's production is pretty sympathetic, and was a welcome change at the time, this is just not the most compelling batch of Bob jams. Initially impressive, but not a lot of staying power. At least half the songs, especially in the middle, are "good" in that they'll echo in your head, but they're not the kind that I want rattling around my skull all day. My Daughter Yes She Knows - coulda been a contenda. Great riff, just too much of it, and as @Pop_Zeus noted, the rest of the song just doesn't live up to that promise. But the first few times I listened to it, those verse riffs and Bob's melodies had me expecting an all-timer here. Long Live Instant Pandemonium - great title, plenty of rock, but ultimately not that compelling Come and Listen - this is easily the most harmonically sophisticated "string" arrangement on any Bob release. Just really well done and a pleasure to listen to. But since the verse has pretty much the same chord progression, I find myself humming "Faster to Babylon" over it. So as good as this is, I always want to hear that song instead. Little Pigs - I imagine some really love this song, it's quite the earworm. But it annoys more than it charms. Promo Brunette - I feel sorry for this gal, she's probably real. Just feels mean-spirited, and again a less-than-welcome earworm. I Can Illustrate - it seems like a mercy that a lot of later RP solo albums have their most annoying songs at the end of side 1. Pass. First half of side two, 3 songs - yeah these are all "good" if remembering them later is what makes a song good. Among my least favorite RP tracks since the Merge era. Contemporary Man - not a favorite, but some great lyrics and a non-typical RP song/orchestration. Dig the weirdness, not the repetition. Losing It - I just love this track. Nails being out of it, out of control. "People Are Leaving" part 2? "Taking acid, running naked through the town. Climbing houses, don't try to talk me down." Sorta the bad trip answer song to "Hardcore UFOs"? Easily my favorite track on the album, really effective and vivid. Of Course You Are - decent closer, mildly compelling track with a nice build. Will tinker a last little bit on my overall rankings and post over the weekend.
That is a cool playlist idea, and a fun compilation could result from that. The break is this week, a chance for people to catch up and post overall thoughts, rankings, etc, if they choose to. Then we thought it a good idea to hit the Teenage Guitar albums with them being pretty much solo albums and fairly recent in the timeline to the solo albums we've done in the last few weeks. Bob said himself that Boston Spaceships was a band and not a 'side project', so to me it wouldn't feel odd diving right into their catalogue (it will only take 5 weeks anyway), in the same way that we could do every Circus Devils album in order, if there was enough interest of course. I'm also aware that we can't presume that enough of us have all the material (I am missing 5 Circus Devils albums and am not into playing an album on YouTube), the time or desire to discuss the releases week in week out, to make an all encompassing thread. I have lists in front of me of all the Circus Devils, Boston Spaceships & side project releases in date order (which I wrote out for the weekly solo album introductions, as it was interesting to me what else was going on around the time each solo album came out) and estimate that it would take a year to do them all, based on one release a week. I also think that Circus Devils is such a unique beast (not everyone's bag, including mine at times), that it would ideally need its own dedicated thread, as for those not keen on doing the CD stuff, it would be a bit tiring having a CD album pop up every 2nd/3rd week during an 'all in' topic. I suppose one other option is to take it year by year, I mean we would get through it quicker, but it would mean playing and commenting on 2-4 albums a week, which may be a bit much. I have absolutely loved doing the solo album by album project, but have a huge list of non Bob music I want to play too. I was losing the will to live playing the Acid Ranch and Cash Rivers albums for the first time recently, and I can't imagine a huge amount of discussion for those and things like Tropic Of Nipples, Clouds On The Polar Landscape, Speedtraps For The Bee Kingdom, Big(ger) Trouble, etc. That is without even getting onto GBV themselves. There is an album by album topic on here which died off and is locked, and I guess could be kickstarted if someone was willing to take it on, but I won't be doing that. I am interested in the thoughts of others about where (if anywhere at all) the topic should go, but I really don't want to burn people out and some people like @Strummergas have already stated that they may not be able to post as much going forward. I will think on it some more and wait for other opinions about how far we go, and I LOVE some of the side project stuff, I'm just not sure I want to commit to a 'discuss everything' thread taking a year plus, when there is so much other music out there I want to play. . .
You run the show, so you take the thread where you want it to go. If others want to contribute, they can. If not, they can sit out a week or two until the thread gets to a project or album that they want to listen to and discuss. Like I said, it'll be a case by case, album by album basis for me as there's some Bob stuff I have no desire to revisit now or possibly even ever, but I'll certainly be around. Everyone likes different aspects of Bob's material, so I'm sure you'll have at least a few participants per week.
I get this. Whilst it's nice to tick things off your wants list, its also nice in a way to know that there is stuff out there yet to discover. I'm still on the lookout for a few Circus Devils and Tobin Sprout CDs. No doubt you will enjoy the solo rankings that are going up. Whilst there are differences in what sort of Bob albums we prefer, you can see that some rank consistently high. Perhaps these will help you see where to go next.
@Pop_Zeus Agreed Circus Devils is a huge chunk that probably deserves its own thread, and that many of the difficult FCS releases could be a real slog for many. Then again, I relistened to the Nightwalker album recently and thought it was way better than I remembered. Still more a curiosity of course, but some good/interesting/noteworthy moments in there, like the proto version of "Postal Blowfish" at the end of side 2. However you want to do things is cool, just expressing my own willingness to dive into the bottom of the barrel. Clearly there's plenty of generally high grade material to go through otherwise. Final rankings, in order. The middle parts were the hardest. top and bottom the easiest. I relistened to several over the last month and have moved things around a bit. Waved Out Speak Kindly Kid Marine Not in My Airforce Blazing Gentlemen Choreographed Man of War I 100% stand by Waved Out as the best RP solo album. It may be a bit dark or off for some, I get that. But it is so good at what it does, the sequence is perfect, and it's what I like. Speak Kindly has more hits, but I don't like the sequencing, and it doesn't take you for a full-on journey liked Waved Out. Kid Marine has aspects of both and tons of staying power over the years, and I can see a good case for it being #1 because of that. Really a grower - far out crops, man. Airforce tries a little too hard but has so much great material, and Blazing Gentlemen rocks out and has an abundance great riffs, ideas and songs. Man of War is like an alternate universe really solid GBV album with a consistently lean and gritty vibe, and takes no prisoners. All great albums and arguably superior to at least 1/3, maybe even 1/2, of the official GBV canon. From a Compound Eye Mouseman Cloud Honey Locust Honky Tonk Elephant Jokes We All Got out of the Army Fiction Man I'm glad to have all of these albums in my life. FACE scores highest mostly due to its ambition and generally high quality, even though much of it isn't my thing. It's just an impressive album, especially over 4 sides. The others all have things I like, things I don't, but the ratios are generally high, and I'm likely to randomly put one of these on if I want to hear some RP solo. The Crawling Distance Off to Business Motel of Fools Moses on a Snail Lord of the Birdcage Coast to Coast Carpet of Love The most difficult placements of this entire list were The Crawling Distance and Off to Business. Each has at least 2 or 3 A++ tracks, but aren't necessarily great albums for me. None of the albums in the tier above have a track better than "The Butler..." for instance, but they work better as albums or emphasize aspects of Bob's music I especially like. Motel of Fools is the opposite case. There's just 1, maybe 2, mid-tier songs, but always surrounded by a lot of _______. But as an album? Maybe Bob's most cohesive work. That it's also generally disturbing is a plus. If you were going to choose one "difficult" Bob album to come back to year after year, book a night at the Motel of Fools once in a while. If I could only keep one LP from this tier, I'd be Motel. Crawl and Business rate higher just because their highlights are so high - I don't think they are particularly good as albums. The final three redeem themselves mostly by having at least one killer track each, with Moses being the best as an album experience. Space City Kicks Faulty Superheroes Of Course You Are Silverfish Trivia Normal Happiness Not essential, though there are as always some highlights to each. The kind of RP albums that can be sabbatical-inducing if you've been hitting the Bob too hard. The ratios here decrease as you go down, or are somehow flawed, or just don't engage as albums. Rankings mostly based on how many and much those few songs stand out, though Silverfish Trivia mostly earns points for its uniqueness, otherwise it'd be down below here, in the snakepit: Superman Was a Rocker Standard Gargoyle Decisions /fin
This week's album is Teenage Guitar: 'Force Fields At Home' Released on the same day as 'Honey Locust Honky Tonk', it made sense to cover the two TG albums at the end of the solo records. When you look at the credits for them (especially for the 2nd album 'More Lies From The Gooseberry Bush'), they are pretty much solo records in all but name. Force Fields At Home Released: 9 July 2013 (Guided By Voices Inc. / Fire Records) Lineup: Robert Pollard: Vocals / Electric, Acoustic & Nylon-String Guitars (conventional and de-tuned) / Bass / Upright Piano / Drums / Zube Tube Jr. (The Ultimate Cosmic Sound Machine) / Pedals, Devices and Such / Varying Methods of Nonsense / Casio / Samples With: Greg Demos: Drums on 'Court of Lions' and 'Alfred Never' (both songs also co-written by Demos) Joe Patterson: Bass on 'Baby Apple' Teenage Guitar uses old instruments 1. Court of Lions 2. Come See The Supermoon 3. Current Pressings, Colors & Styles 4. Still Downstairs 5. 8 Bars of Meaningless Mathilda 6. Harvest Whale 7. Strangers For A Better Society 8. It Takes A Great Promise 9. It Doesn't Mean I'm Underground ------------------------------ 10. Baby Apple 11. Peter Pan Can 12. Alice and Eddie (Fabulous Child Actors) 13. Alfred Never 14. Gymnasium Politics 15. Atlantic Cod 16. Suburban Cycle Saccharine 17. Postcard To Pinky 18. Let Me Release Info: For the most discerning aficionados of Robert Pollard and Guided By Voices, Teenage Guitar offers experiments in spontaneity and lo-fi witchiness and wizardry, exploring multiple moods and styles. This is pure high-potency solo Pollard (vocals, guitars, piano) with occasional assistance from Greg Demos (drums) and Joe Patterson (bass). Brewed in the home laboratory using a historic mid-90s Tascam 488 cassette recorder, without professional engineers or adult supervision, Force Fields at Home recalls the sound and spirit of mid-'90s GBV EPs like Clown Prince of the Menthol Trailer. Only the lyrics were composed ahead—the music flowed spontaneously while the tape ran. Don’t blink, these will disappear quickly. The song '8 Bars of Meaningless Mathilda' shares a melody with the chorus of the Weatherman And Skin Goddess B-Side 'Kiss The Quiet Man'. Bizarrely, it also reappeared on Suitcase 4 as '8 Bars (Ext 3)', preceded by an amusing message Bob left on an answering machine. The song itself is over in less time than it took me to type this paragraph. Please share your thoughts on Force Fields At Home
Both of the Teenage Guitar albums are pretty ramshackle, but they have their moments. You can understand why Pollard released them as their own thing. I view them more as grab bags of fragments and demos, like mini-Suitcases. I picked ten tracks from each album to make a single album when I did my parallel universe discography.
I am just going to go and skip ahead to Force Fields At Home. I really don’t have anything more to add to what you all said about Faulty Superheroes and Of Course You Are anyway, and I don’t feel like going back to them at this point. Revisiting the first Teenage Guitar album has been a nice surprise. I definitely didn’t give it much of a listen initially; just put Atlantic Cod on a playlist and that was it. There’s a lot of piano on this album, surprisingly. If you enjoy those very infrequent moments of Bob singing over piano, this album might feature his stabby-style of playing more than any other. This technique usually comes off in a melancholy way. The album has a nice lo-fi acid folk feel, and feels akin to Tonics And Twisted Chasers, or some of the more fried nuggets from The Bears For Lunch to me. It Takes A Great Promise has a simple and bewitching acoustic part and is nice and haunting. Harvest Whale is another little acoustic ditty unfortunately slightly derailed by some sort of unspooling wire sound effect, which eventually plays the beat. Come See The Supermoon has a very dark repeating sample, something like deep and percussive breathy male voices throughout; no idea what it really is though. Interesting route by Bob and I wonder how he did that, with a Casio sampler keyboard or what? The song goes on for a while and is very Circus Devils/Acid Ranch But it holds my attention as he recites and splatters some guitar here and there. There are some scuzzy pop-rock gems here like opener Court Of Lions, Peter Pan Can, Current Pressings, Colors And Styles and my fave Atlantic Cod. These songs wouldn’t have been out of place on a GBV album ‘97 or earlier. Strangers For A Better Society sounds even better, and is a cool one minute Pollard chugger. The piano songs are mostly pretty moody and charming like Alice And Eddie, It Doesn’t Mean I’m Underground and especially the fun Postcard To Pinky. Only played this album a couple times this week and I have to say I really like it.
I don't really know why he hasn't learned to play piano a bit better by now. Also I'm sure he could afford a piano tuner.
At a GBV show in 2015 Bob said something along the lines of, "Ricked Wicky is the rock and roll, GBV gets the best songs... everything else is Teenage Guitar." The memory is fuzzy, and he said more about it, but my drunken takeaway was to avoid the Teenage Guitar albums. I was just getting back into things at the time, so this was good info to have. Finally checked out this one last year, and was pleasantly surprised. Expectations had been properly set. So I do like Force Fields. Although it's a 4 track recording, it has more "fi" than Vampire on Titus, but is less tuneful (though that doesn't seem to be the point, anyway). Some of the playing is loose to ramshackle, but it's miles above the most difficult/obscure parts of Bob's discography, with the possible exception of "Alfred Never" which wouldn't be out of place on any of the Acid Ranch albums - but it'd be a standout. There's clearly a good bit of improv going on, but also some effort to stick to the plan as much as one exists. Some of the songs are actually pretty together and memorable (Strangers for a Better Society, Atlantic Cod). I also like "It Takes a Great Promise" - it conjures some of the minimalist, darker tracks on Devil Between My Toes. Much love for noisy sounds and sonic oddness is present, and it's playful and gleeful like that, though sometimes in a "am I bugging you yet?" little kid way (the reverb spring hits in "Harvest Whales") But generally the looseness and slightly amateurish playing don't obscure the sophistication and experience underneath too badly. A wide variety of textures and instrumentation also make it a good overall listen. There are a couple questionable sequencing choices, especially where "Supermoon" is placed, but there's generally a good flow, it's got personality and guts, and I dig the listen.
Listened to Force Fields At Home today. It's better than I remember, but there's a lot of crap on here. Seems like most of the songs are just snippets and not fully fleshed out ideas. There are some exceptions like Court Of Lions, Harvest Whale, It Takes A Great Promise, Atlantic Cod, and Suburban Cycle Saccharine, which I like. Then there are songs like Peter Pan Can that are fully fleshed out yet short, but just suffer from slapdash performances. @Summer of Malcontent nailed it when he described them as "mini-Suitcases".
This week's album is Teenage Guitar: 'More Lies From The Gooseberry Bush' More Lies From The Gooseberry Bush Released: 2 September 2014 (Guided By Voices Inc. / Fire Records) Lineup: Robert Pollard - vocals, electric, acoustic and nylon string guitars (conventional and de-tuned), bass, piano, drums, mutant congas, harpsichord, hammond organ, mandolin, handmade butterfly slide guitar, harmonica, samples, field samples, effects, devices, drum machine Teenage Guitar is younger than you think 1. Go Around (The Apartment Dwellers) 2. Spliced At Acme Fair 3. A Guaranteed Ratio 4. Good Mary's House 5. Skin Ride 6. Full Glass Gone 7. All You Fought For 8. Gear OP 9. No Escape 10. Matthew's Ticker And Shaft: A: Come To Breakfast B: The Girls Arrive C: Division Of Swans D: When Death Has A Nice Ring 11. The Instant American 12. Normalized 13. New Light 14. Birthplace Of The Electric Starter 15. A Year That Could Have Been Worse Release Info: Robert Pollard, head lunatic of the Guided By Voices' asylum, has a surfeit of original thoughts. (Most people are lucky to have even one, ever.) That this even needs to be expressed is evidence enough for its "truth," as only obvious or obviously untrue things can ever hope to be true. Or to approach the truth. Something Pollard does with uncanny regularity, and which is further on display on every track on the gloriously unkempt, roiling-with-ideas More Lies from the Gooseberry Bush, the second record Pollard has released under the nom-de-rock Teenage Guitar. Here's a song title: "Matthew's Ticker and Shaft a. Come to Breakfast b. The Girls Arrive c. Division of Swans d. When Death Has a Nice Ring." It starts with distorted guitar over a primitive snare-and-bass-drum beat (all instruments on all songs played by Pollard), shifts into an out-of-tune piano clumping along a simple seven-chord progression, lurches into a wall of distorted guitar as two tracks of Pollard wail, wide-panned in each speaker, before finally resolving in a pretty harpsichord figure (or some synthesized version thereof) inelegantly tripping over itself before trailing off into the next track: "The Instant American," which presents multi-tracked Pollard vocals chanting over a background of what sounds like a bunch of people at a party drinking. These are not the two strangest tracks on the fourteen-song album, which clocks in at just over thirty minutes. If there are times when Pollard's musical ambition seems to overwhelm his ability to present his ideas coherently, that's a feature, not a bug. The spastic, machine-generated beat of "A Guaranteed Ratio," the ham-handed church organ of "Good Mary's House," the off-key crooning, the awkwardly plucked possible-banjo on "All You Fought For," the general (but not always) sloppiness, the rumbling toms and slashing power chording of "New Light": it all adds up to a sense of urgency and an awful lot of unconstrained joy suffusing every single track on More Lies From The Gooseberry Bush. For those who like their Pollard stately, tuneful and elegiac—sure, he can do that without effort, but that's not what Teenage Guitar is about. Teenage Guitar is about trying hard without seeming to try hard. The result is that rare thing: a completely original album. Which is also a true delight, a sky-blue gem, a timeless and untimely cabinet of wonder. And by some few miles the greatest musical artifact your ears will have the pleasure of encountering this year. Original Rockathon Album Notes: You loved the first Teenage Guitar album. So for the second installment Uncle Bob bumped things up and recorded at Cyberteknics Studio. The result is huge lo-fi. The Gringo of Lo-Fi, if you will. Album cover has some similarities to Selling England By The Pound by Genesis (probably intentional as it is one of Bob's all-time favorites). Check the credits, this is surely the most solo of any Bob solo record, yet it isn't a solo record! This is to date the final Teenage Guitar album. The GBV album 'Please Be Honest' was at one point intended to be the 3rd Teenage Guitar album. A version of 'A Year That Could Have Been Worse' also featured as a B-Side to the GBV single 'Males of Wormwood Mars' earlier that year, with Mitch Mitchell on vocals. Please share your thoughts on More Lies From The Gooseberry Bush
In the UK, there was also a 2CD set of 'More Lies From The Gooseberry Bush', with 'Force Fields At Home' also included. Bizarrely, the fact that the set includes both albums is not referenced on the outer packaging at all: from the front & rear sleeves it looks like you are just getting 'More Lies', but when you open it up, one gatefold houses the 'More Lies' booklet & CD, the other the 'Force Fields' ones. I had a pleasant surprise when I found this on sale for £5 thinking I was getting one album, to then find it was actually two. Never seen it on sale in a shop since and probably never will again. Even this double pack had its own release notes: Robert Pollard isn't a man to rest on his musical laurels. The acclaimed Guided By Voices frontman doesn't just create solo records (released under the not so surprising name Robert Pollard), he goes further into the fold of solo, writing and playing and recording everything you hear under the name Teenage Guitar. The second such recording to fall into the solo works of Bob arrives in the form of 'More Lies from the Gooseberry Bush'. A fifteen track whirlwind of fuzz pop mastery. Fire's exclusive 2CD release also includes the complete debut album, 'Force Fields At Home' complete with accompanying booklet to bring you right up to date with the latest from Robert Pollard. (Please note this last sentence may itself be long out of date by the time you read this).
I count myself as a fan of Robert Pollard but I don't think I'm missing much by not having a Teenage Guitar album to hand.
I never bought either Teenage Guitar album. After three/four suitcases, acid ranches, and other similar albums (night walker, hazard hot rods), this type of release just isn’t my thing. I think they’re essential for Bob, and for his songwriting process and scratches that itch for him. I just don’t enjoy them and find very little in them to go back to. As soon as I hear Bob plunk a piano I’m ready for the next song. Listening on Apple Music for the first time in years, I do like it Takes a Great Promise. A Year that Could Have Been Better is a nice segue to the Please Be Honest album. The Kiss the Quiet Man song is cool and quick but also on suitcase 4. Maybe there’s others here that are roots of later songs he improved in. But overall I find both a chore and not quite Superman/Nipples level of bad, but not much better. These types of things work better in between other styles like on a suitcase or a one-off on a better mid-fi album. And the first one has a great cover.
Really enjoying both Teenage Guitar albums. A refreshing sound after the last bunch of RP albums we went through were underwhelming & kind of same-y.
Opinions split on Teenage Guitar it seems. I guess it would be boring if we all like the same things. I’m on the fence with these albums. Haven’t had time to type a lot but have played both a few times. Not sure I can add a lot to what’s already been said. I quite like these releases, more so Force Fields. But they are not great throughout and I think the term ‘ramshackle’ used already, really sums up the whole TG thing. Bob’s ‘biscuit tin’ drumming is quite funny, and there are great songs dotted about, but also some not so great ones, and yes the out of tune piano thing does wear thin. I have to say I’m caught in between the ‘Bob needs an editor’ and ‘Release it all and let us choose’ thing here. I mean, these albums are way better than Acid Ranch, Cash Rivers, and a handful of the lesser side projects, but I realise that is not saying a lot, and that there are also a LOT of better Bob albums out there. Some good playlist material in here, but these are not albums I would pick out often to play. @Summer of Malcontent give us your 2 albums into 1 tracklist!
Gooseberry Bush is more of the same for me. Some good stuff, some bad stuff. Some half-assed ideas, some fully formed ideas with ramshackle performances. Like Force Fields, it's better than I remember, but I'm probably not reaching for either album again any time soon. A Year That Could Have Been Worse is the clear winner on this one for me.
Yes sir, Pop Zeus, sir! FORCE FIELDS AT HOME LP – TEENAGE GUITAR Side One: 8 BARS OF MEANINGLESS MATHILDA COURT OF LIONS GO AROUND (THE APARTMENT DWELLERS) GYMNASIUM POLITICS IT TAKES A GREAT PROMISE PETER PAN CAN A GUARANTEED RATIO NO ESCAPE NORMALIZED Side Two: GEAR OP STRANGERS FOR A BETTER SOCIETY SKIN RIDE CURRENT PRESSINGS, COLORS AND STYLES NEW LIGHT BABY APPLE SUBURBAN CYCLE SACCHARINE FULL GLASS GONE ATLANTIC COD HARVEST WHALE A YEAR THAT COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE In a similar vein from the same period, I forged a Human Possible 7" EP out of Suitcase tracks: MYSTERY WALK EP – THE HUMAN POSSIBLE MYSTERY WALK / PRETTY PINWHEEL // FROG BABY AXE MURDERER
One thing I've enjoyed during this project has been going through all the B-sides & random non album Bob songs, so I thought it would be fun to compile them, rather than having to dip in and out of countless releases just to hear a song or two at a time. This was initially gonna be a shorter playlist of my very favourite non LP solo songs, but I got carried away and ended up with an epic 60 song playlist, running 2 hrs 18 mins. So. . . B-sides, outtakes, demos, EP songs, one-off songs and songs from the working versions / s***canned albums. I've kept some B-sides paired together, split up the Happy Jack Rock Records B-sides & Elephant Jokes outtakes into smaller batches, and also thrown in a handful of Bob solo demos from the aborted 'The Power Of Suck' album, just because I love them. I kept the Zoom EP intact as it's so short anyway. I followed it up with Love Your Spaceman, as it was part of the scrapped bigger Zoom thing that never materialised, and is the only thing really worth salvaging from SWAR anyway! I had lots of fun assembling this: Kiss The Quiet Man Coat Factory Zero Dr. Fuji and Henry Charleston (Zoom Variation) Have A Day Mr. Clay Catherine From Mid-October Zoom (It Happens All Over The World) Love Your Spaceman Trader Vic (demo) I Am Decided (demo) Street Velocity Met Her At A Séance You've Taken Me In Bristol Girl In The States (That I Go Through) Your Charming Proposal Finks Sixland Night Ears Tired of Knocking I'll Come (And When It Does It's Mine) Dropping The Bomb Wrinkled Ghost (demo) Useless Inventions (demo) Did It Play? Punk Rock Gods Good Luck Sailor I'm Gonna Miss My Horse Be In The Wild Place Pink Drink (demo) Speak Like Men (demo) Frostman (long version) Casino Model Zebra Film Negative Elevator To Far Worse I'm In Shock (Hit Me With Tonic) Astral City Slicker My Son, My Secretary, My Country (demo) A Trophy Mule In Particular (demo) Captain Black Stumbling Blocks Into Stepping Stones Pain Drinker's Peace (solo rework) Coast To Coast Carpet Of Love Piss Along You Bird She Don't Know Your Name Love Hurts Game Cocks Sweeping Bones (demo) Naked Believer (I Am) The Annex Out Of The House 100 Colors Circle Saw Boys Club Get Along Like U All Men Are Freezing There Are Other Worlds Are You Faster? (demo) Amazed (demo) Rare Hazel Japan Fear Of Heat
I couldn't get through that first Teenage Guitar, just a bit too slapdash for me. And I like Please Be Honest quite a bit, but the interchangeability of Bob projects -- someone said Blazing Gentlemen was once considered to be released under the TG name (?!) -- I find that hard to believe, and would've been even more difficult to reconcile. I mean, these moniker distinctions need to mean something, right?
