Chided By Voices

So there I was listening to ‘The Maximalist’, the new solo album from Thomas White – he of Electric Soft Parade and Brakes fame – and thinking “Yeah, this sounds like an alright collection of mangled post-indie pseudo-Americana rockage that’s both a beneficial addition to the oeuvre and an alright listen” when suddenly I was humming along with a song I knew! Yes, that’s an exclamation mark! I really was disproportionately excited. I need to get a life!

You see, I love being ambushed by a song I know well when I’m least expecting it. Well, unless I’m in a shit nightclub, the song is The Monkees’ ‘Daydream Believer’ and this new previously unheard version involves a drunken rugby player in fancy dress and a windpipe-squeezing headlock; that wasn’t such a euphoric moment. 2002. Shit year, man.

But anyway, here in the relative safety of The Fly office, as the song I knew continued fighting its way out of the speakers, I went into a state of nerd-ecstasy-induced bodyshock. My ears knew what it was, but my brain didn’t. This had the most astonishing affect on my face. In fact, I think Harriet got as far as the S in F.A.S.T. before I started flapping my arms around and rasping “Guided By Voices!” in a dry throated way, like a recently resuscitated person might do.

It’s round about here you’re probably starting to get a bit bored, so here’s a video taking the piss out of Guided By Voices fans, just to keep you onside.

That video is actually accurate. Except I have a beard and slightly smaller breasts.

Now then, because I am such a colossal Guided By Voices fan, this kind of sensory blindsiding is a super-special treat. Thomas White’s cover of ‘Look At Them’ from their 1996 album ‘Under The Bushes Under The Stars’ (produced by Steve Albini and Kim Deal amongst others, it was the first GBV album to be recorded in a proper studio, and the first of many to be falsely billed as their “crossover” album – sorry, I told you I was a geek) is really rather good. As GBV covers go, it’s a pretty straight-laced rip of the original, which makes it nearer The Strokes’ authentically drunken ‘A Salty Salute’ than My Vitriol’s spaced-out ‘Game Of Pricks’, if you’re interested. Shit. You’re not are you? Here’s some more tangible multimedia involving three versions of the same song and a German school choir to try and keep you awake.

Some GBV covers aren’t well received by the militant Bob Pollard disciples (he’s the frontman, if you’re an oblivious ignoramus), let’s call them the Real GBV, a bit like the Real IRA only slightly less rational. For instance, …Trail Of Dead‘s 2006 cover of ‘Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory’ offended some pernickety types because it dared not to sound like it was recorded in a tin box somewhere west of Jupiter. I still have some shred of decency left in my body, hence I don’t mind it: 

No, I don’t know who that guy in the video is or what the hell he’s doing, but I did find this footage of a school choir in Germany performing the song too, which is remarkable – in the literal sense that I am remarking on it;

“Crikey!” I’m remarking, “That’s a 70-piece German choir performing one of the most obscure American lo-fi songs of all time at an irregular tempo which varies slightly from the original.”

You don’t see that every day.

Anyway, nice one Thomas White. We GBV nerds are impressed. Just watch out for the real hard-core losers. They’re bound to moan.