C or D : Guided By Voices.

Ha, I was just thinking Bob P should join up with Tommy and Paul in some kind of bizarre supergroup.

?? The Replacements were pretty pro the other night

Actually wish I were going to see the 'Mats tonight but I am under the weather.

What clips I saw/heard of the big Replacements show in St. Paul last week were pretty great. Was reminded of when Fogerty started playing CCR songs again.

stone pony footage reminds me that i saw them plenty in 90s and 00s, and don't need to be bummed that they never came to the uk in this incarnation, because that is some awful garbage.

The albums weren't very good either

Looks like it's tequila he's swigging from. Fuck's sake. When did he switch to that from beer?

Last time I saw GBV play in London - must have been 2003? - he was swigging from a JD bottle

xp i liked a couple of them, and the others had good moments, which is pretty much how i felt about all gbv post-earthquake drills

he did seem to gt extra drunk in london. he never got that nasty wasted tho.

Tequila since at least 2010. He passed it around during the Maxwell's show.

sooooooooo saaaaaaaaad
what has become of this supercreative person?!

which is pretty much how i felt about all gbv post-earthquake drills

They did an outdoor show in St Paul at a street fest about 10yrs ago before another hiatus, this was last gasp of the Billiard lineup, pretty bad, that one younger bass player dude who drove the pickup truck in that one gbv video kept asking for coke onstage

haha okay the drills album, the divorce album with chasing heather crazy xp

Just to point out, the 1st 90 mins of that Stone Pony show were pretty great, as were the 5 or so reunion shows I saw. Band seemed to be drinking a lot less at them than 1st time around. Still quite a bit, but a lot less.

On stage Tobin always looked like someone's dad filling in on guitar, daydreaming about golf while all the other guys get blasted and act like rock stars throughout the show.

None of them have released a couple of albums in the last few days? This is disturbing.

Are they all ok post recent, erm, breakdown?

T'interweb is very GBV silent post Sept18

There have been new Circus Devils and Teenage Guitar records, and there is something called Ricked Wicky coming out some time soon.

they're back together
http://pitchfork.com/news/57229-robert-pollard-tobin-sprout-play-set-at-guided-by-voices-tribute-show/

So, I'm guessing Mitch Mitchell wasn't there?

yeah that at least nullifies a few theories

As an out the loop Limey, I was suspecting rehab, after watching the above footage

Thread derailer , but there's a mention above - I'm guessing that Westerberg remains off the sauce?

Sooooooo.... Guess who's reunited again?

Kevin Fennell back in the band then?

only one who's previously been in GBV is Kevin March, right?

finally catching up on the rest of the reunion albums, they're definitely working on a lower average quality level than anything propellor thru half-smiles but its still kinda fun to scavenger hunt for the occasional jam e.g. 'males of wormwood mars'

English Little League is the only one of the new ones that was really a keeper, imo. Good songs scattered around on the other ones.

The new one is wretched.

yeah that's the one i've listened to most too. Class Clown Spots a UFO was also decent

being part of a present-day gbv crowd might have finally cured me of sometimes complaining that people at shows are all 10-15 years younger than me and occasionally call me ma'am. dudes my age and older who only go out twice a year cannot handle themselves.

Lol

Are you sure that's not the band you're talking about rather than the crowd?

ya know, maybe it's b/c i read the replacements bio fairly recently, but the extent to which pollard's drunkenness is part of the appeal for a lot of the crowd did bum me out a little. i know he claims in interviews to not really have a drinking problem, but...

and i'm not sure i can think of anyone so committed to wearing out the audience except maybe the feelies.

GBV headlining the free Village Voice summer show in lower Manhattan tom'w

and the Feelies are playing in Central Park in about 10 days

deathless geezers

i know he claims in interviews to not really have a drinking problem, but...

It seems to have escalated in recent years.

He's certainly written enough songs about drinking.

Just to save anyone the trouble: He's certainly written enough songs about drinking.

dudes my age and older who only go out twice a year cannot handle themselves.
totally otm

this is part of what has made me not care about seeing this band ever again :(

Love them, saw them twice pre-breakup and I think I'm good.

(Xpost)
This is why I restrict, with very rare exceptions, my current live music outings to jazz in its many forms and opera in which venues, among other niceties, the audience has learned to cover up its moontan with long sleeves instead of highlighting it with black rock T-shirts. Of course when streaming into headphones, it's a completely different story, the same old National Hits Day.

Are you sure that's not the band you're talking about rather than the crowd?

Jazz club audiences tend to talk too much, maybe too exhilarated by the music, like one drink drunks---or just because that's what they always do in clubs. I've heard famous musos puzzle over this, considering how much the yakkers have to pay to get in, sometimes. Maybe this has changed with cell phones? More about taking pix and trying to capture the whole thing on audio-video, and texting friends about the fabulous show happening right now? I dunno; the talking got me out of the clubs.
Anyway, I liked Pollard's Of Course You Are better than latest (?) GBV. Sent the avclub stream link to a friend who hadn't heard him or them, with my comment: def for fans of Robyn Hitchcock, early 70s Nilsson---first tracks sound like it's gonna be all hard rock, but much more variety overall, kinda psych-pop. He liked it.

was jamming "Everyone Thinks I'm A Raincloud" this morning and it's such a good song, one of the few post-90s ones that would be in play for a POX for me

on the other hand, i've finally listened to all the reunion albums and they're mostly half-baked and depressing, i kinda wish they had been released under a sideproject name - the hit rate is even lower than a lot of solo pollard

Jazz club audiences tend to talk too much,
Really haven't experienced this very often

i go to all sorts of shows and generally refuse to be intimidated by any audience even if i am by myself, but i can't say that about a gbv show. it will be full of 2x/yr partiers who are trying to cram 6 months of drinking into four hours. that's the audience i expect at a current day gbv show and therefore no can do

ya know, maybe it's b/c i read the replacements bio fairly recently, but the extent to which pollard's drunkenness is part of the appeal for a lot of the crowd did bum me out a little. i know he claims in interviews to not really have a drinking problem, but...

there was never a time, not even in their earliest years, when the extent of pollard's drunkenness wasn't completely depressing. it's generally fun for the first 2 or 3 beers, and completely not fun for the next 20 or 30. and those 2 or 3 beers take maybe 2 or 3 songs to consume. and they're short songs.

disclosure: i haven't seen 'em in a long time, so maybe things have changed, but based on the above posts, i'm assuming they've gotten worse, not better, which is all but unfathomable to me. sigh.

Don't most GBV shows go off without major hitch or embarrassment? Amazingly, I've never seen 'em but I'm planning on it in August.

btw I'm totally a 2x/year guy but I just don't drink heavy anymore, ever

grain of salt since i haven't seen them live in forever but i kind of admire pollard's self-destructiveness the way i do keef's

I don't. I think it's depressing.