Guided By Voices – Bee Thousand, a album that makes my ears sing

Have you ever had a conversation about the best album ever? Any serious musicophile has. Sure there’s Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Sure there’s Pet Sounds. I’d vote for Kind Of Blue, personally. And I’ll agree with having those near or at the top of the list. They deserve to be. But no serious discussion exists without Robert Pollard and Guided By Voices’ Bee Thousand being thrown into the mix. The 1994 Lo-Fi gem was recorded by GBV on 4 track recorders in the basement of Pollard’s house and is a beehive (forgive the semi-pun) of guitars and distant vocals. Some songs are complete and some sound simply like ideas for songs, never completely realized. And that’s OK, those fragments bring the whole thing together. Each track here is a great mess of a masterpiece, and for me, exists in the same pocket as Neutral Milk Hotel’s In The Aeroplane Over The Sea as one of the greatest lo-fi albums ever made. Back me up on this??

Tractor Rape Chain

why is it every time i think about you
something that you have said or implied makes
me doubt you
then i look into your cynical eyes and i know it
as if it never meant anything to me

in the first place it’s probably just paranoia
but there’s a ghost in my room
and he says i better run
it’s a thing i know – it’s a thing i believe in
won’t you tell it to go away?

Jolene, I’m Begging Of You, Please Don’t Take My Man.

Your beauty is beyond compare, with flaming locks of auburn hair. I cannot compete with you, Jolene.

Here’s some proof positive why I need the White Stripes to hit the road in 2010. their last concert DVD, Under Blackpool Lights is one of the key components to my live music collection. I can’t wait for the release of their new DVD project, Under Great Northern Lights, filmed on tour in 2007.

The White Stripes offer up a preview of their “Under Great Northern Lights” DVD.

…and I go gaga, of course. As I wipe the drool off of my candy-striped tshirt, I offer up the preview, from Whitestripes.com. The package is now available for preorder, and is shipping for March 16th.

New Neutral Milk Hotel footage sees light of day

Neutral Milk Hotel burned quick and bright. After making a few albums in the mid-Nineties, including the now-legendary In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, Jeff Mangum and the band decided to walk away from it all. Well, what happens when you make an album like ITAOTS and then promptly drop off the face of the earth? People like me try and scavenge what we can of the material that’s been left behind. This week, Merge Records made us all warm inside by unleashing a handful of videos of Jeff Mangum performing at the Knitting Factory in Philadelphia in early 1998. They are just too good NOT to post here. And if you so desire, Merge has released the videos to coincided with issuing Neutral Milk Hotel’s albums on 180gm vinyl for the first time ever. Check them out.