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
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Page 2
... feels intensely private , the record of some- thing caught for a moment , turned in the light , and then returned to its author's own pocket . It gets through to us more than a clearer , safer , reliably made song could ever do even ...
... feels intensely private , the record of some- thing caught for a moment , turned in the light , and then returned to its author's own pocket . It gets through to us more than a clearer , safer , reliably made song could ever do even ...
Page 6
... feel the space that it was record- ed in . Because of that quality , it's a really intimate album . You feel like you are walking through an abandoned house where fifteen different bands set up one day . One band has the big living room ...
... feel the space that it was record- ed in . Because of that quality , it's a really intimate album . You feel like you are walking through an abandoned house where fifteen different bands set up one day . One band has the big living room ...
Page 7
... feel - good plot there fol- lows the devotion of People Who Matter , the awe of musi- cians whom the band holds in awe , the adulation of a rock polloi who see themselves reflected in some “ average ” and " old " guys gone gold ( or its ...
... feel - good plot there fol- lows the devotion of People Who Matter , the awe of musi- cians whom the band holds in awe , the adulation of a rock polloi who see themselves reflected in some “ average ” and " old " guys gone gold ( or its ...
Page 8
... feel how sharp it remains after more than a decade as you slip the vinyl onto the platter , push the CD into the vacuum , settle the cassette upon the heads . You can hear the underlying disorder and essential complexity that qualify ...
... feel how sharp it remains after more than a decade as you slip the vinyl onto the platter , push the CD into the vacuum , settle the cassette upon the heads . You can hear the underlying disorder and essential complexity that qualify ...
Page 13
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Contents
1 | |
3 | |
4 | |
6 | |
12 | |
Robert Pollard | 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
aesthetic album Alien Lanes artist band basement bass became become Bee Thousand Bob's Buzzards and Dreadful called cassette collage create Dayton dream drums Echos Myron everything feel Forever Since Breakfast four-track garage going Gold Star Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Greg Demos Guided by Voices guys Hardcore UFO's hear Hot Freaks idea imagine indie rock Kevin Fennell kick Kim Deal kind knew language Listener Response live lo-fi melody Mitch Mountaintop Queen Directory musicians never noise Peep-Hole Pete Townshend Pigpen play pretty Psychology Today reality Robert Pollard Robot Boy rock Scat sense shit singing sometimes songs on Bee songwriter sound Star for Robot story studio stuff tape Tascam There's things thought Tobin Sprout Toby Toby's track Tractor Rape Chain Vampire on Titus vocal Voices Narrative Voices songs Walls and Windows wanted what's words