The Unblinking Ear Podcast 5/22/14

Six years and 10 days ago, I posted the very first Unblinking Ear Podcast. What am I doing to celebrate this momentous occasion? Pretty much nothing but if you want to buy me a cake, I'll probably eat it. Maybe I'll even let you have some too.

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The Unblinking Ear Podcast 2/20/14

I hope you appreciate that I completed this edition of the podcast last night instead of beginning a binge watch of True Detective (no spoilers, please) or catching up on the new season of Walking Dead (go ahead and spoil). However, it's a good thing Rick and Morty is on hiatus until March, otherwise you'd be S.O.L.

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The Unblinking Ear Podcast 5/10/13

Folks, this edition of the Unblinking Ear Podcast marks its 5th anniversary. Five years is a long time. I hope that in that time, we've remained as punk as Sarah Jessica Parker's mohawk or a $600 Exploited t-shirt. And if we've failed, well... failure is pretty punk, right?

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The Unblinking Ear Podcast 11/23/12

The Unblinking Ear Podcast usually publishes on Thursday. However, yesterday was Thanksgiving. While I did hope to post a new podcast last night to help replace the lack of a Starrcade or Survivor Series for your Thanksgiving night entertainment, it just wasn't in the cards.

Instead, please in enjoy this podcast on this Black Friday. Hopefully, it will soothe your nerves and help you forget about the horrible, horrible things you did to get yourself or a loved one a new cell phone of Furby or whatever.

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The Unblinking Ear Podcast 7/19/12

After an unexpected hiatus (which occurred mostly because I didn't want to spend my Fourth of July sitting in front of a computer assembling a podcast), the Unblinking Ear Podcast is back with a brand new edition last nearly an hour! Enjoy it, won't you?

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The Unblinking Ear Podcast: What To Do

I suspect most of you listen to this podcast giving your full undivided attention, likely staring at a blank wall in your unclean, under furnished apartment.

However, if you'd like to do something to occupy yourself while hearing the podcast, listener (NAME REDACTED) has some suggestions for you. All of these will be fine until your boyfriend comes home and he'll want to watch wrestling. You might be able to persuade to keep it on mute though, as whatever I happen to be playing on any given edition of this podcast is surely more tolerable than having to hear Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler.

Incidentally, there's no truth to the rumor that the Unblinking Ear Podcast syncs up perfectly to Golden Girls ala Darkside of the Moon and The Wizard of Oz.

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The Unblinking Ear Podcast: Business As Usual

Greetings loyal podcast listeners and accidental search engine stumblers!

We hope you enjoyed our previous podcast featuring nothing but new music. It generated so much buzz around the Twitterverse, you'd think we were Brodus Clay or something.

Alas, playing only music from new releases was a bit of anomaly. Instead, we've got our usual mix of new music, old music and new releases of old music. But I swear, it's good stuff, not a bunch of leftovers like so much congealed post-Thanksgiving mashed potatoes.

And even if you don't think this current podcast is especially superior to the one prior, you can't deny that it's a minute longer. Enjoy!

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Guided By Voices: Selections from Singles and EPs, 1993-95

This is a re-post of blog entry from August of last year. I've never done a re-post before but it seems to be pertinent time to update this one for a couple of reasons:

1. The "classic" GBV lineup which this post covers is reuniting for Matador 21 this weekend in Las Vegas with more dates to come.

2. The fine folks at Decrepit Tapes just put together their own playlist of recordings from GBV's 1992-96 lineup. While theirs is a more extensive overview (covering a slightly larger timeframe and albums while this is strictly non-LP), I thought this would make a nice companion piece, despite an overlap of a few songs.

3. Most importantly, the original divShare playlist has crapped out for whatever reason, rendering most of the songs unplayable. I've re-uploaded to fix this.

Enjoy!

As I was putting together my little demi-best of Matador list below, a couple of Guided By Voices 7" releases just missed the cut. During their "lo-fi era," GBV released a steady stream of 7 inches between albums, often containing something like 6 or 7 songs.

One could make the argument that these releases prepped the underground community for the breakthrough of Bee Thousand in a way their prior albums didn't. Guided By Voices may seem like fairly typical indie fare by today's standards but then their sloppy and extremely lo-fi prog-pop was fairly challenging. Indie/punk types may abhor the slick and professional, but GBV seemed to be openly mocking the concept of quality control. New listeners who didn't have the patience or intrepidity to sit through the uneven Vampire on Titus could surely endure a quick spin of a 7" EP and hear the handful of brilliant songs each invariably contained.

These smaller samples were much more digestible examples of the GBV aesthetic: rough fidelity, nonsensical lyrics, brevity, insanely catchy melodies. Of course, there was also the band's, shall we say, idiosyncratic method of choosing songs for release. Wheat and chaff were mixing freely. However, further listens might reveal that Guided By Voices' "throwaway" tunes weren't just filler, but rewarding in their own right. The band may have seemed impenetrable initially, but Pollard and his cohorts' twisted logic soon became readily apparent.

There has yet to be a thorough compilation of all of GBV's 7" material despite that a) they're a band inclined to clear vaults and compile collections and b) those records contained some of their signature songs. The latter assertion is somewhat indisputable as "Shocker In Gloomtown" from the Grand Hour EP and the superior 7" version of "Game of Pricks" are both included on the band's best of collection, Human Amusements at Hourly Rates.

The 15 songs below have been cherry-picked from various GBV 7"s from 1993 to 1995. That Robert Pollard is prolific is no secret but consider this: any artist releasing a batch of songs this strong over a two to three year span would be justly praised as a remarkable talent. Pollard did it while releasing three equally potent full lengths.

Children's Crusade: Scorpio Moon EP

Doug Gillard has accumulated quite the resumé as the guitarist for Death of Samantha, Cobra Verde, Gem, Guided By Voices and many other artists. He's also the author of one of your favorite songs. (That would be GBV's "I Am a Tree.") Before any of those bands, the 19-year old Gillard formed Children's Crusade with Starvation Army's Fraser Sims. With Sims on vocals and Gillard playing all instruments, the pair recorded an 8-song cassette-only release in 1984. By the time of their second recording session the following year, the band has been fleshed out into a full lineup, but Gillard preferred to once again handle all the instruments himself. The session went unreleased at the time as Gillard joined Death of Samantha and the group faded into non-existence.

Five years later, Scat Records issued the cuts from the final Children's Crusade session as the inaugural release in their "Cleveland Archive Series." Upon listening to them, it's hard to imagine that songs as outstanding as these sat unreleased for years. The A-side, "Blue Venus Aflame," is a six-and-a-half minute epic, sounding something like rougher-edged Roxy Music. (Not a bad thing at all.) The two cuts on the flip are also remarkable: the anthemic straight ahead rock of "Your Time Is Through" and the weird Gang of Four/Captain Beefheart amalgam of "St. Jack's Bible." Though limited to only 1500 copies, the seven inch is still available from Scat and will only set you back 3 bucks.


Download Children's Crusade Scorpio Moon EP

The Unblinking Ear Podcast: Math in the Real World

This is my 13th podcast. (Ooh scary!)

Made 2 days after my 31st birthday. (Palindromes!)

I played 3 bands whose name starts with a V. (The 22nd letter.)

It features one record of which only 100 copies were pressed. Another which has only 2 known existing copies. (I don't have either of the originals.)

And the most important use of math in this podcast is that I finally figured out how to use Audacity's "envelope" tool which means I could lower the volume on my mic levels. (Which were, frankly, way too high.)

Now give it a listen and I'll be 1 happy camper. (Thank you.)




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This Moment in Slack History: Morsels from the Last Great Era of the 7 Inch Record

"This Moment in Slack History" collects songs from 90s indie 7 inches. For further explanation, please see my original post here.



The Grifters "Queen of the Table Waters"
Okay, so maybe the first two cuts in this series were a bit disappointing as it turns both tracks were albumized and not 7 inch only. This one though is a killer and I'm nearly positive it's unavailable anywhere else. The Grifters are a strong contender for most underrated band of the 90s. (That title actually probably belong to the Kent 3 but that's another post.) I've always sort of considered them lo-fi's Rolling Stones to Guided By Voices' Beatles. (Apparently, All Music Guide feels the same way.) They never achieved the following the GBV did despite putting out some fine records, both as full-lengths (I'm particularly fond of 1994's Crappin' You Negative) and as slew of singles. In fact, no band in the 90s with the possible exception of GBV had more great material left off their albums, released only on 7 inches. Both bands are long overdue for definitive retrospectives of this material and hopefully some label with more money than sense will correct this. In any case, this one is one of the Grifters' best. I believe this was their inaugural release for big time indie Sub Pop and it was a fantastic introduction to the world at large. However, the public (by which I mean CMJ types) was nonplussed by the band's obvious greatness and after two very good full lengths for Sub Pop were met with indifference the Grifters called it a day. This was shame but now you can listen to this track and once the inevitable lo-fi revival begins you can pretend you were hip to these guys back in the day.

Oh, and there will surely be more Grifters songs from other 7 inches posted here in future. That is, unless, some label manages to put together a Grifters comp in the meantime. Come on, labels. Relieve me of this responsibility.

Play or Download The Grifters "Queen of the Table Waters"