A Fan's Guided By Voices Podcast #9 // Under the Bushes, Under the Stars

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Episode #9 of Self-Inflicted Aural Nostalgia looks at Under the Bushes, Under the Stars, the last record of the so-called classic lineup.
www.everygbvlp.com

[@shawnkeeling8646]

This is my favorite gbv record. From start to finish I love the whole thing, there is not a single bad song on it.

[@czechpirc3212]

Despite alien lanes being a lo fi pop masterpiece, this is my favorite GBV album, gets better yr after yr

[@shawnnorton2674]

I’ve been blessed to have done sound for GBV multiple times, first time was at the infamous Sudsy Malone’s in Cincinnati in the 90’s. I had heard the band’s recordings before and was unimpressed. Live was a totally different experience. Simply put the best bar band I’ve ever heard, absolutely stunning. It tickles me hear the names of various people & bands I’ve worked with over a 30+ year career, Kim Deal, Steve Albini, The Grifters among others. A brief random story, I worked a day job picking up donations for a thrift store and at night I provided P.A. and did sound at clubs in the Cincinnati area. Sometime in the 90’s I was picking up donations in Dayton on Arthur Ave. off of N. Dixie Ave. and I came to a house and in the garage is a Buick with a Guided By Voices bumper sticker, in the bags of clothes i picking up was a GBV tee shirt and there was a wooden sign next to the door that said “The Pollads” I knocked on the door and Bob’s Mother answered the door. We talked for a minute and she revealed Robert’s nickname, this is a secret I don’t reveal to anyone but my closest friends. There’s more stories.

[@eugenelematti1673]

Unbelievable album

[@proanyoak]

It's pretty astounding to me that this record got such poor initial reviews. It's my favorite GbV album by a wide measure.

[@MountainBlade]

Gawd these reviews/history lessons are so damn good. Would love to see you do this with more bands, especially ones with interesting stories (flaming lips, the cars, LCD Soundsystem, the pixies, etc.)

[@nachobra]

I actually really dig this album's cover art. It's less to do with the subject matter & more about the composition and the colors. I love the muted oranges, yellows and blues. That along with the smiling dude sort of give me a vibe akin to a "WORKERS UNITE" poster or something. I've always gotten a really anti-capitalist message from a lot of the songs here so it compliments the music well. Also, if I really want to flex my art history muscles, the way the man is looking towards the sky points to the recurring themes of aviation (man called aerodynamics, young flyer, no sky, take to the sky).

[@selfinflictedauralnostalgi9067]

Great insights, thanks.

[@bermudafruit]

Compared to some of the more intriguing 500 propellor front covers, I wasn't sure about this one at first. Now I have come to love the cover art as well, not only does it somehow really suit the album title and sound of the music, it always gave me this vibe: if Bazooka Joe didn't make bubblegum but produced comic books or short fiction magazines set on farms and jungles with weird spy / pseudo-military story-lines, this could be a front cover to such a publication ! I genuinely prefer Emily's explanation though :)

[@tiredastired]

yep, it's beautiful. the perfect visualization for this album - a vast open-ended spiritual expanse

[@richardedwards2363]

Id always assumed the guy with the native looking clothing holding the two sticks has a kite attached to them and hes looking up at the kite steering it

[@PhilAlbinus]

In an interview, Doug Gillard said that his favorite GBV song to play live is "The Official Ironmen Rally Song." I saw the band at Irving Plaza and we stationed ourselves on Gillard's side of the venue and when Pollard announced the song and Gilllard started the opening chords, he had a big grin on his face. He was concentrating, sure, but he was in his happy place.

[@moshehouston4408]

I realize it is quite off topic but does anyone know a good place to watch newly released series online?

[@marklangston3017]

@Moshe Houston i watch on FlixZone. You can find it by googling =)

[@atlasking6110]

I've always seen Acorns & Orioles through The Perfect Life as a little psychedelic mini-suite

[@colonelsunset5750]

Pollard can do no wrong. You can argue, but why would you.

[@oscartravis5740]

Kevin's drumming on Ghosts of a Different Dream is maybe the best of all GBV songs

[@rjpaws]

My fave GBV record ….followed by Alien Lanes

[@bermudafruit]

The "such delicious pie" anecdote alone would justify a 5* rating for this episode !

[@tiredastired]

the reason matador added the 6 songs is simple - they're better than most of the album bob submitted. worked out great, i think this album works much better as a massive psychedelic sprawl and even the sequencing is improved by the addition (which is almost never the case). i prefer the CD version simply for having it all woven together like the tapestry it is

[@tiredastired]

and "aerodynamics" is probably the best opener in the entire bob discography, c'mon now

[@badmofaux]

Agreed. I found this album to be a slog when it first came out, took me a while to wrap my head around it. But it was the extra tracks at the end that saved it for me initially. Those are still my favorites and the way the vinyl is packaged makes it easy to reach for that second EP. As for the rest of it, IMO things don’t really start to come together until the tail end of side one. Official Ironmen is of course great, everything preceding it is kinda meh. I’m in the minority I guess in that Cut Out Witch does nothing for me at all. Side 2 is when things really get cooking with song after song feeling spontaneous and delivering the goods.

[@tiredastired]

@@badmofaux oh i just adore it. love it from end to end. but i do think matador’s 6-song graft on the end elevated it from a masterpiece to a miracle…probably my favorite 60+ minute album ever

[@Cjhardin93]

Woah, Office of Hearts is great. Great video though!

[@fliptag]

(16:20) Kevin at that time wasn't Bob's brother-in-law anymore. He divorced from Bob's sister years before (in 87). Bob took him back in the band because he was the only drummer he knew. (I may sound like a GBV nerd. In fact I just got into this genious band and I am reading the book "Closer you are", which I recommend everyone.)

[@selfinflictedauralnostalgi9067]

yup, totally endorse Closer You Are; I learned a lot from it, too; it's basically the GBV Bible...up to 2004 that is

[@fliptag]

@@selfinflictedauralnostalgi9067 Your book is the next of the list :)

[@christopher9152]

At the time I saw this as a huge drop off in quality from Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes and rarely listened to it. Now I see it as a classic GBV album, but yes, still a drop from the heights of their work of the preceding years. And you are dead-on about the importance of Sprout; his songwriting and his vocals were key elements of the "classic" lineup, or as I like to refer to it, "Guided by Voices" (as opposed to GBV as Pollard + Whoever).

[@tiredastired]

it seems like you don't like bob's penchant for enlisting low-stakes songs as closers, but i think it's brilliant when done right. ending with "redmen" (or "don't stop now") would be cliche, but tacking on something a bit starker and less assuming ends things with an air of mystery. (AL is the exception, of course, because it's an album comprised primarily of shorter, opaque tunes.) i guess "you're not an airplane" is the platonic ideal in that it manages to fit an epic closer's emotion into the space and mood of a fragment, but i think pretty much all the early GBV records end brilliantly

[@JoeSakana]

I find it strange how GBV fans tend to have wildly different opinions on what the best songs are. I think Ironman and Young Flyer are the two weakest songs on the album. And Man Called Aerodynamics is easily the best GBV opener after Neptune, and Office of Hearts is one of my favorite tracks. And the album, overall, is second only to Bee Thousand. I'd even go so far as to say it is "objectively" their best sound; its mid-fi really takes the best of both worlds of the hi-fi and lo-fi eras, and is never really matched again. And yeah, its a 24-track track album to me and always will be. It works fine as it is, no point in over thinking it.

[@armandorivera664]

First Alien Lanes isn't great, now Man Called Aerodynamics isn't a killer opener? Yikes