The pride of Chapel Hill breaks my heart

I had yet another "satellite radio moment" in the car the other day when a song I'd never heard came on, from NC indie legends Superchunk.  The song was identified on my display as "Slack Mother" though it quickly became evident by first chorus that the title had been selectively abbreviated.  As far as songs worth screaming along to at a red light with the windows down in the last days before fall sets in, I don't think you can do much better.  Another one I totally missed back in the day, and this one considered to be one of the seminal indie hits of the '90s??  Well, better late than never.  A quick YouTube search revealed many worthy live versions but this one is my fave so far -

In any event, as is always the case with YouTube I was pulled down the "related link" rabbit hole and hit on a cover that Superchunk did for the AV Club program "AV Undercover".  AV creates a list of 25 songs every year and invites bands in to perform a song of their choosing in their Chicago office.  As a song is performed it's crossed off, so the later a band comes in the fewer songs they have to pick from.  As the program is in its 5th year there is quite a collection of on their website, and I spent several days working my way through them.  For the first couple of seasons they had the bands perform in a little round room a bit larger than an ensuite bathroom, which I thought was really great, though recently they have moved to a "bigger" venue.  Some highlights for me were They Might Be Giants doing "Tub Thumping", Nada Surf's beautiful melancholy "Bizarre Love Triangle" and a terrific cover of M Jackson's "PYT" by the Wood Bothers.  The hit that started me down the path though was the aforementioned Superchunk cover of the Cure's heart-breakingly great "In Between Days", one of my favorite songs of all time :

If the embedded video isn't working trip over to the AV site and burn a few hours watching through some great tunes,

http://www.avclub.com/video/superchunk-covers-the-cure-38884

Let me tell you something... children

So the Maine vacation is over - this year with some additional drama by way of an emergency appendectomy for older daughter T (all is well thankfully, and our sincere kudos to the fine folks at Midcoast Maine Hospital in Bath).  I always bring a guitar and have best of intentions for major woodshedding and iPad recording while I'm there but never seems to materialize according to plan.  Despite this, some inspiration came from unexpected, non-playing sources.  Before the hospital adventure kicked in I received word through facebook that Guided by Voices was simulcasting their show from the legendary Stone Pony in Asbury Park NJ on August 23rd via LiveNation.... I managed to catch a good chunk of the 2.5h + set in real time before flaming out, but caught the rest the next day, luckily, as LiveNation only kept the complete show up for a few days.  Only clips remain, though I will try to update if someone posts a complete version.

  https://screen.yahoo.com/live/event/guided-by-voices

What a great, great show - some cosmic moments as Bob kicked in "I Am A Scientist" twice, but even more freakishly,  I was thinking at one point "wow, it would be great to hear them do "My Valuable Hunting Knife"...." and it was literally the next song they played!! Rob drank himself into a stumbling collapse towards the end - I suppose this is part of the GBV legend but I wish he would take better care of himself.  There are not many artists that I truly admire and respect while having a deep internal resonance to their music, and Bob Pollard would be up at the top of that short list.  My introduction to the band came only a couple of years ago after a mention on the masterpiece TV show "The IT Crowd", followed by a purchase of the "Human Amusements at Hourly Rates" "best of" collection.  If you know anything about Bob you'll know what a joke it is to think his output could be surveyed on 2CDs, however it was enough to knock me over completely, and it became an ever-present soundtrack to what I think of now as the "2288" era, pre-2013.  Beyond the music itself though, I concur with Jason Wendleton who stated on his blog that "the band is a symbol for what it means to be an artist".  Jason does a great job running down some of the essentials in his tribute so I'll just refer the interested to it here:

http://defendingaxlrose.com/2012/05/06/your-next-favorite-band-guided-by-voices/


I've been thinking of putting a picture of Bob sternly frowning down on me in the studio for when I get lazy, tired, and complacent to remind myself of what true creative discipline is all about.  More on vacation inspiration in subsequent posts with a couple of thrilling discoveries in the low register vein, amazing archival videos of the late Jaco Pastorius and Larry Graham.

(Sorry, no photo credit available for above but it was taken from GBV's Facebook feed)