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 85
Page 2
... song , and another , build it in your head , again and again , a desire inexhaustible due to its subtle failures and temporary successes . It's definitively human , this building of playgrounds in our heads , this making of songs . We ...
... song , and another , build it in your head , again and again , a desire inexhaustible due to its subtle failures and temporary successes . It's definitively human , this building of playgrounds in our heads , this making of songs . We ...
Page 3
... song concentrate . To me , every song on Bee Thousand is like a canister of frozen concentrate of Hawaiian Punch . To most it would taste like shit without the water added , but to a sugar addicted kid it tastes like PARADISE ! Love ...
... song concentrate . To me , every song on Bee Thousand is like a canister of frozen concentrate of Hawaiian Punch . To most it would taste like shit without the water added , but to a sugar addicted kid it tastes like PARADISE ! Love ...
Page 4
... song is recorded ( you go down to the basement , you may be hungover , you are dressed like someone who might be going to work out in a “ fitness center ” at a surburban mall though you are by no means going to a " fitness center " at a ...
... song is recorded ( you go down to the basement , you may be hungover , you are dressed like someone who might be going to work out in a “ fitness center ” at a surburban mall though you are by no means going to a " fitness center " at a ...
Page 5
... song then becomes its mistake , no longer a mistake , and what was its imperfection becomes not only a sign of the love that made the song appear on tape in the first place , but something , itself , to love . The song is like a lover ...
... song then becomes its mistake , no longer a mistake , and what was its imperfection becomes not only a sign of the love that made the song appear on tape in the first place , but something , itself , to love . The song is like a lover ...
Page 11
... songs for Propeller , the 1992 LP that piqued Griffin's interest and which his label re - released shortly thereafter ... song “ Bee Thousand , ” a title that would eventually be applied to the final version of a full if relatively short ...
... songs for Propeller , the 1992 LP that piqued Griffin's interest and which his label re - released shortly thereafter ... song “ Bee Thousand , ” a title that would eventually be applied to the final version of a full if relatively short ...
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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