The Releases: Motor Away (Single—Matador, 1995) / Tigerbomb (EP—Matador, 1995) / Watch Me Jumpstart (Documentary—Matador, 1998)
Since I’ve spent the last several weeks talking about things like childhood memories of playing baseball, the dangers of tech bros, and snow removal, I’ve unintentionally given short shrift to one of my favorite aspects of ‘classic era’ Guided by Voices: the fact that the band truly hit its stride once it fully committed to the practice—sorry, the art—of 4-track recording. I’ve made allusions to it of course, but with this week’s releases capturing the band in transition from a homemade project to a more polished one, 4-tracking seems to be a fitting topic of discussion.
Now, I’m probably a somewhat odd representative for 4-trackers, but all 4-trackers are probably odd representatives for home recording enthusiasts. I purchased a Tascam 424 Portastudio with tax return money during my spring break of 2003—at the time, I was a recent college graduate, subbing for six different school districts. By 2003, most hobbyists were shifting to digital recording; even back then, the Guitar Center salesman that sold me the Tascam seemed perplexed by the idea that I was investing in such an antiquated device. However, I would use that Portastudio exclusively for the next three years; and then intermittently, after getting my first digital audio interface during the spring break of 2006.
In early 2012, I temporarily returned to full-time 4-track recording for an album that my then-current band was working on. By this time, even finding cassette tapes in person was difficult—and finding cheap Type II cassettes (which are strongly preferred) was virtually impossible. By 2012, the RadioShacks that tended to be the only in-store locations to reliably find tapes of any sort had begun shutting down en masse. I managed to find a source of Maxell UR 90 cassettes at a Walgreens on the west side of Flagstaff, and over the course of three or four visits I bought out their entire supply. The nature of this project necessitated us mixing our instrumental tracks down to a laptop, but rather than bumping them back to the Tascam for another round of tape hiss, we simply opted to record our vocals into the computer. Thus, that project ultimately became a hybrid analog/digital recording.
After moving to Portland I went through a brief phase where I tried to expand my cassette recording capabilities beyond the limitation of just four tracks. I found a great deal on a used 424, identical to mine, and concocted a labyrinthine system that (kind of, but not really) allowed me to operate the two machines in conjunction with each other; but by the time my next project got rolling, the flexibility and expandability of digital recording was just too appealing to resist. In hindsight, I’d argue that we got a little too comfortable expanding our arrangements with that project—several songs easily surpassed the 30-track mark—but we never would’ve been able to achieve what we wanted to with a Portastudio. Well, probably…
That recording project wrapped up in the spring of 2017, and for the past eight years, my musical endeavors have largely been a story of fits and starts. For a good two or three years in the middle of that time, I honestly had little interest in making music—a period that corresponded with the launching of Strange Currencies in January 2020. Two summers ago, I got back into writing songs, and found myself enjoying playing the guitar more than I have at any point since high school. And at the start of this year, my friends/collaborators and I finally got serious about recording those songs.
At this point, I’ve managed to put together a pretty solid home studio. In addition to an array of guitars (mostly Jazzmasters), basses (two Fender Precisions), keyboards (including a digital Mellotron), a drum kit, and a shit ton of random auxiliary percussion instruments, I have a fully functional, computer-based recording setup. Lately though, my studio has felt oddly anachronistic: for example, I have a heater that can be controlled via an app on my phone; but any time that I’ve been down there over the past couple of months, you’d likely find me hunched over that old Tascam Portastudio—particularly during this current spring break, twenty-two years after I purchased it.
So why would someone who can work with endless tracks, make seamless edits, and have a world of quality effects/plug-ins at their fingertips choose to operate in a medium that—even thirty years ago—many hobbyists and dabblers would have looked at as obsolete? Obviously there’s an aesthetic component to any reasonable answer to that question. While “lo-fi” isn’t everybody’s cup of tea, there’s a decided character and warmth to cassette-based recording that (at least to me) has more than just a nostalgic value. You may not like the character of a 4-track recording, but you can’t deny that it has character—which is more than I can say for most hobby-level digital recordings.
There’s also a discipline required to 4-tracking that plenty of folks (me again) find refreshing. I recently stumbled on a rather obnoxious forum in which one poster could not even accept the fact that quality ‘professional’ (his word, not mine) recordings could/have even been made with a cassette-based 4-track machine; by the way, if we’re using sales as a measure of professionalism, Nebraska has sold well over a million copies. His primary argument was that, aside from demo purposes, 4-track users are merely trying to hide their lack of musicianship behind shoddy production. Personally, I’d argue that plenty of folks try to hide their shitty songwriting behind slick production and showy musicianship.
But this guy—technically I’m assuming that this anonymous poster was a man, because these types always are—is just a sore audiophile. From what I could gather, he’s either trying to justify spending an ungodly amount of money on gear and/or owns a studio—and doesn’t want anybody in on the secret that they can make just as good of music from the comfort of their own home. Besides, audiophiles and ‘professional’ engineers have always despised lo-fi. The very fact that one of the releases that I’m (eventually) going to talk about this week is a 7″ record cut at 33rpm would be enough to send these folks over the edge; in fact, most disc cutters either refuse to do so, or require an acknowledgement that they had advised against it and/or that the disc will “not sound good.”
It was in 1995 that Guided by Voices found themselves being pulled these opposing directions, generally regarded as a choice between lo-fi and hi-fi. The twin homemade (lo-fi) masterpieces (Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes) that had finally brought attention to the group also afforded them with a newfound opportunity to ply their craft in a more conventional (hi-fi) atmosphere. It was with “Motor Away” (their first single for Matador) and Tigerbomb (a six-song EP) that they would begin to make a transition away from the former, and toward the latter.
Interestingly enough, GBV opted to give their fans an easy A/B comparison between their old and new selves. The A-side of “Motor Away” was a wholly new recording of the Alien Lanes standout, captured at Re-Fraze Studio in Dayton. In this particular case, there’s not a ton of separation between the lo-fi and hi-fi versions. There’s certainly more heft and low-end to the latter; and those who love their tape hiss prominent will find the re-recording severely lacking in that department. But while the band sounds more dynamic in the single version, I’d argue that Robert Pollard’s vocal performance in the Alien Lanes take is superior; it definitely skews more Who-esque, and has a more palpable sense of urgency. Regardless, in either form, “Motor Away” is a GBV classic.
With Tigerbomb, the band attempted another pair of second swings at Alien Lanes tracks, and this time with more dramatic results. The EP’s take of “My Valuable Hunting Knife” begins with a more mechanical sound than its album counterpart; the kick/snare/handclap rhythm track very well could’ve come from a drum machine, and Pollard’s voice is treated with an almost robotic-sounding effect. There’s a discernible sheen that sets it apart from the seemingly-tossed-off charm of the original recording. However, there is something super-satisfying about the moment that this new version truly kicks in to hi-fi mode during the second chorus—almost like Dorothy opening the door into Oz—as Pollard’s homemade pop confection gives way to something genuinely anthemic.
And ‘anthemic’ is the only way to describe the re-recording of “Game of Pricks.” Expanded by nearly a minute—mostly with a slowly-building (for GBV) instrumental introduction—the new “Pricks” becomes the stadium-sized singalong that it seemed destined for. It’s clear, punchy, and dynamic in a way that Guided by Voices never could have dreamed before. It is, in a word, perfect. But the Alien Lanes take was already perfect too—despite its truly humble origins. In Guided by Voices: A Brief History, Jim Greer uses “Game of Pricks” as an example to describe a typical Alien Lanes era GBV recording session:
“Bob would run through the song on guitar with Kevin [Fennell] on drums once or twice, until he felt Kevin had a sufficient grasp on the structure. He’d then record the results. A bass part would be immediately overdubbed, and then Bob would lay down the vocals. Toby [Sprout] would place cheap RadioShack microphones where he could—the main criterion being to avoid knocking over the half-full beer cans that littered the garage floor—and operate the cheap Tascam four-track machine, which recorded on cassette… Toby would then mix down the results onto another cassette, and the song would be finished. Total time: maybe half an hour.“
You might be wondering where I come down on the lo-fi/hi-fi debate, and—having happily operated in both modes—I guess I’d say that it depends on the situation. But when the material is as great as “Game of Pricks,” the fidelity of the recording really shouldn’t matter, right? Still, for all of the punch and clarity of the studio version of the song, I can’t help but feel like something was lost in translation from the original—captured in a manner that, at least as described by Jim Greer, sounds nothing short of idyllic.
In Banks Tarver’s 1998 documentary Watch Me Jumpstart—which was largely filmed in the wake of Alien Lanes, and which I also revisited for this week’s piece—there’s a scene in which Bob Pollard and Tobin Sprout are laying down guitar and vocal tracks for “Systems Crash” (which would appear on the 1996 EP Plantations of Pale Pink) in Sprout’s home studio. Pollard sings into what appears to be a Shure SM58—an affordable, quality stage mic no doubt, but one that most real engineers in real studios would frown upon utilizing in a recording session. There isn’t a pop filter in sight, and Pollard can clearly be seen wearing the right-side headphone on his left ear. The camera cuts away to metallic (ergo, reflective) electrical boxes, a water heater, and a large cast iron vice that sits uncomfortably close to a small practice amp. They’re making a commercial recording: one that will ultimately be released by the most prestigious American independent record label of its era.
And it’s just two normal dudes, in their late-thirties, spending an afternoon making art in a basement; and they’re doing it primarily for themselves. What could possibly be better than that? After all, even when Dorothy had seen the Technicolor world of Oz with her own eyes, she still knew that there was no place like home.
Ratings: Motor Away (★★★★1/2) / Tigerbomb (8.3) / Watch Me Jumpstart (B-)*
*Singles are star-rated by their A-side; albums and EPs use the “Russman Reviews” scale; and I’ve not ever rated a movie on Strange Currencies, so—in honor of mine and Robert Pollard’s experience as teachers—I’ll go with the letter grade system for them. Not convoluted at all, right?*
Bob-ism of the Week: “You can never be strong / You can only be free / And I never asked for the truth / But you owe that to me” (“Game of Pricks”)
Next Week: Despite their most difficult recording sessions to date, the “classic lineup” produces one final classic LP.
