Music writers keep referring to the current Guided By Voices reboot as the “classic” lineup, almost always with that word “classic” in quotation marks, like they need to remind us that “classic” is just publicist-speak. I prefer to distance myself from that “classic” label as well, if only because “classic” feels like such a mundane way to put it. “Classic” is for blue jeans and Coca Cola and Treasure Island and radio stations that play “Whole Lotta Love.” Not that those things can’t be cool, but the 1993 – 1996 lineup of Guided By Voices is a peculiar animal, and therefore it needs its own adjective. I think John Wenzel is on the right track when he talks about GBV’s 1994 album Bee Thousand:
It is perfect, in the same subjective and tautological way that all great works of art are perfect. Its quality cannot be overstated, but it can certainly be overanalyzed, and that I usually try to avoid. Let its mystery lie, like the alien corpses rumored to exist in Wright-Patterson Air Force Base’s Hangar 18. Perhaps that’s where the album’s magic came from, some toxic alien blood infiltrating the water table of Northridge, somehow birthing a modern classic in the mind of a beer-fueled ex-jock schoolteacher.
John can’t avoid using that “classic” word near the end, but the “toxic alien blood” phrase is what I’m talking about. From here on, I’ll refer to the recently reunited version of Guided By Voices as the “Toxic Alien Blood” lineup (that’s lead singer/songwriter Robert Pollard; assistant captain Tobin Sprout on guitar, piano, and occasional lead vocals; guitarist Mitch Mitchell; bassist Greg Demos; and drummer Kevin Fennell).
Continue reading ‘Guided By Voices: Let’s Go Eat The Factory’
