A pretty mess by this one band

Tweet So yeah, perfect songs; glossy, slick, impenetrably perfect things that they are. Like marbles. Or ridiculously ornate yet also impenetrable. Like Faberge eggs. I've been thinking about them too much over the last few days, as I am want to do with something on my mind. So I'm nipping the 'perfectly perfect' song thing in the bud right now (before this blog turns into Mojo). Instead, I'm going to move on to the sort of stuff that really thrills me (although I do love the last few songs posted). Namely, messy music. Music that feels like that double whiskey you down at the exact point when you are out at a wild gig and teetering on the precarious knife-edge between the most rock'n'roll night of your life and a romantic hook-up between the right side of your face and a carton of garlic and cheese chips in Roma 2.

I called this blog 'a pretty mess by this one band'. It's the name of the first EP by Grandaddy. Back in the day, Grandaddy used to be my favourite band on account of their debut album 'Under the Western Freeway' which struck me then (and still does), as a bona fide classic. It was a doomed, melancholy affair. Forests, foliage and dreams of outer-space got romantically entwined with concrete and the city. All the while, melodic genius looked on and wept. Anyway, the EP I mentioned is pre-Freeway, and while it's good, it isn't stunning or anything. However, its title seems to neatly sum up the lo-fi aesthetic. Mess is beautiful. Accidents can be exhilarating. And perhaps most importantly, talent in the raw is immeasurably more beautiful than talent polished to a dull yet pleasant sheen in a recording studio.


Ghirlandaio. What an innovator. He painted an old man with a lumpy nose and made him beautiful while those around him were painting things that looked like Agyness Deyn crossed with Johnny Depp (with wings). He was the Guided By Voices of the Italian Renaissance.

Some songs to exemplify my tongue-tied points above

MP3: The Clean-Tally Ho!

This is the rallying call of a scene in New Zealand that had a fertilizing effect on all the 90s lo-fi American giants from Pavement to Neutral Milk Hotel. The song is all wrong. The organ and guitar aren't really friends. The recording is a shambles. The singing is distorted and out of tune. Yet, listening to it is like having the excitement which all the world's kids feel on Christmas Eve boiled down to a droplet and sprayed up your nose.

MP3: Guided By Voices-Hardcore UFOs

"Sitting out on your house/watching hardcore UFOs" sings Robert Pollard, letting us know he is into wild childlike abstraction. "Are you amplified to rock?" sings Robert Pollard, letting us know that he also loves to guzzle beer and rock out like the most pantomime stadium groups; thereby establishing the dichotomy that runs through his entire subsequent career. This is the opening track off Bee Thousand, an album which pops at the seams with some of the best rock music ever. Bee Thousand stands proudly with the best of the bands Pollard himself worships: Wire, The Who and The Beatles. Now listen to how the sound quality falls out of the mix halfway through this, the first song on the album. It may have happened by accident during recording, but it's no accident that this is the first song on that record. Hardcore UFOs is a manifesto. Guided by Voices put the biggest sonic flaw on Bee Thousand right at the start because they want the listener to think 'okay this is a fucking massive tune, but it's rough as chips'. That drop in sound is two fingers in the air to bands who spend months polishing their turds into soon to be forgotten radio fodder. It says you may be vaguely hummable, popular and super-produced but Guided By Voices are rough, alive and a zillion fucking times more incredible than you will ever be. Remember, in context, this came out around the time of some of the worst over-produced MTV-era jock rock. Uncle Bob, I salute you, and my series of blogs on Guided by Voices will soon hatch.

MP3: Guided By Voices-Echos Myron

Yup, Mr Pollard again. Here, he writes a song permeated with the same pure melodic energy that the Beatles channelled in their heyday, Yet it's handicapped by the tape hiss that makes it so precious to those who exalt it the most. If The Kinks released a full studio version of Echos Myron in 1966, it would probably be a pop standard.

MP3: Times New Viking-Teen Drama

Heirs to Guided By Voices? This is the song that kicks off their new album Rip it Off. It's a beast. What I love about Times New Viking is how they not only distort their every instrument (including the drumkit), but they also distort their singing voices. This technique gives this song a savage drive that quickens the pulse every time it's played. It's a new lo-fi anthem. Times New Viking have a formidable pop sensibility and they could have recorded a pretty slick version of this (or any other song on the record) in a nice studio after they signed to Matador. Why didn't they? Listen to the arousingly filthy guitar noise that announces itself at around 1 minute 21 seconds and then decide for yourself.

I previously threatened to blog about Guided By Voices' entire discography. Shite. This blog feels like my surreptitious start to that (it wasn't planned this way, honest). I'll try to be healthy about it and keep it at a ratio of two normal blogs to one GBV blog. It might take over my life though. Fuck.