Guided By Voices' Bee ThousandBloomsbury Publishing USA, 2006 M10 2 - 144 pages Marc Woodworth's book covers the album's long and unorthodox period of writing, recording, sequencing, and editing. It includes interviews with members of the band, manager Pete Jamison, web-master and GBV historian Rich Turiel and Robert Griffin of Scat Records. At least sixty-five songs were recorded and considered for the album and five distinct concepts were rejected before the band hit upon the records final form. One late version, very nearly released, contained only a few of Bee Thousand's definitive songs. The rest were left out and nearly ended up in the boxes of cassette out-takes cluttering up Robert Pollard's basement. The story of Guided By Voices transformation from an occasional and revolving group of complete unknowns to indie-rock heroes is very much part of the story behind the making of Bee Thousand. In addition to providing a central account of how the record was made, Woodworth devotes a substantial chapter to the album's lyrics. Robert Pollard's lyrics are described by critics, when they're described at all, as a brand of tossed-off surrealism, as if his verbal sensibility is somehow incidental to the songs themselves. Nothing could be further from the truth. Woodworth offers a sustained discussion of Pollard's work as a writer of often sublime, beautiful, and very human lyrics. The third key section of the book covers aesthetics. Woodworth considers the great appeal of the do-it-yourself nature of Bee Thousand and reflects on the larger importance of the strain of alternative rock for which this record is a touchstone. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 42
Page
... Rock Renegades The Nymphos The Dead Kicker of Elves The Thief of Souls The Parasites The Bugs of Gold Jimmy An Actor Ester Wayward Minor Squeaky Demons A Scientist A Journalist An Incurable A Pharmacist A Lost Soul The Albatross Mincer ...
... Rock Renegades The Nymphos The Dead Kicker of Elves The Thief of Souls The Parasites The Bugs of Gold Jimmy An Actor Ester Wayward Minor Squeaky Demons A Scientist A Journalist An Incurable A Pharmacist A Lost Soul The Albatross Mincer ...
Page 1
... a playground but a song that contains everything you love to imagine and love about imagining — being amplified to rock , drawing pictures , eating up language . You build a place out of parts and A Man Discovers His Coat Has a Pocket.
... a playground but a song that contains everything you love to imagine and love about imagining — being amplified to rock , drawing pictures , eating up language . You build a place out of parts and A Man Discovers His Coat Has a Pocket.
Page 4
... rock and roll , ” early Genesis , progressive rock , Pisces , Capricorn , Aquarius , and Jones , psychedelia , " I Don't Know Myself ” live at the Old Vic , the sixties , " Waterloo Sunset , ” Wire , pop , “ Wichita Line - man " ) both ...
... rock and roll , ” early Genesis , progressive rock , Pisces , Capricorn , Aquarius , and Jones , psychedelia , " I Don't Know Myself ” live at the Old Vic , the sixties , " Waterloo Sunset , ” Wire , pop , “ Wichita Line - man " ) both ...
Page 6
... particularly Bee Thousand — worth caring about . The elements are all there to shore up a tall tale : the rise to a lofty place in the indie rock firmament 6 MARC WOODWORTH Listener Response #4 Fiction, Man & Hardcore Facts Part One.
... particularly Bee Thousand — worth caring about . The elements are all there to shore up a tall tale : the rise to a lofty place in the indie rock firmament 6 MARC WOODWORTH Listener Response #4 Fiction, Man & Hardcore Facts Part One.
Page 7
... rock polloi who see themselves reflected in some " average ” and " old " guys gone gold ( or its underground approximation ) , or more charitably — and probably more truly — the adulation of people who simply loved what they heard . But ...
... rock polloi who see themselves reflected in some " average ” and " old " guys gone gold ( or its underground approximation ) , or more charitably — and probably more truly — the adulation of people who simply loved what they heard . But ...
Contents
1 | |
3 | |
4 | |
6 | |
12 | |
13 | |
Listener Response 5 | 36 |
A Correspondence with Lewis Klahr | 37 |
Fauna | 110 |
A SonnetMade from Bee Thousand Fragments Themselves Often Fragments | 111 |
Robert Griffin | 112 |
States Of Being | 117 |
Fiction Man Hardcore Facts Part Four | 118 |
Dan Toohey | 130 |
Listener Response 12 | 132 |
Dayton Ode | 135 |
Fiction Man Hardcore Facts Part Two | 44 |
Listener Response 6 | 54 |
Don Thrasher | 55 |
Fiction Man Hardcore Facts Part Three | 64 |
Desire Its Limits | 70 |
Kevin Fennell | 72 |
Listener Responses 7 8 | 81 |
Spatial Representation 9 of Bee Thousand Action Motives | 84 |
On Robert Pollards Lyrics | 85 |
Listener Responses 911 | 109 |
Listener Response 13 | 137 |
Kicks | 138 |
Greg Demos | 142 |
Generation | 144 |
Tobin Sprouts Tascam Portastudio 1 FourTrack ElectroHarmonix Memory Man | 145 |
Tobin Sprout | 146 |
Listener Responses 1416 | 154 |
Fiction Man Hardcore Facts Part Five | 155 |
Acknowledgments | 159 |
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Common terms and phrases
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