Friday Night Record Party : Guided by Voices: Fast Japanese Spin Cycle

Guided by Voices: Fast Japanese Spin Cycle

1994

Engine Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing:1 . 3rd World Birdwatching 2. My Impression Now 3. Volcano Divers 4. Snowman 5. Indian Fables 6. Marchers in Orange 7. Dusted 8. Kisses to the Crying Cooks

Maybe my favorite GBV album cover. The hesher in the Bart Simpson shirt. The Iron Maiden backpatch. The cucumber killer whale on the back cover. It's just a masterpiece. Can we hang this thing in the Louvre already? For some reason it perfectly matches the Alternate-Reality version of the Midwest that plays out in my mind whenever I listen to the band...

This is also one of my favorite GBV EP's. 8 songs in 10 minutes. This was the first time we'd seen GBV resort to song recycling, which might have left the initial impression their reserves weren't as infinite as we had once thought, however our worries proved to be needless,... Of the re-recordings, I'd argue that "Kisses to the Crying Cooks" probably wasn't essential (it's just a breezy, truncated version of "Over the Neptune") but the re-recordings of "Marchers in Orange" and especially "Dusted" were revelatory to me. I never noticed what a tight, moody rocker "Dusted" was until I heard it freed from the murk of "Vampire on Titus." And the concertina (or whatever it was) arrangement of "Marchers in Orange" didn't really do the song any favors. But it too sounds great all spiffed up.

The big one here though is the "Shocker in Gloomtown"-level rock anthem "My Impression Now." This didn't make the greatest hits album? Listening to it, it strikes me there was really no denying how brilliant the band was at this point. They were tossing off masterpieces left and right and the quality of the material released during this era was staggering..."My Impression Now" just happened to be that month's installment.

I'm missing a few singles/EP's from around this time...Here is the list of stuff that's remained elusive to me:

I do not have Static Airplane Jive (which is another of my favorite EPs, but since I eat boiled boots for dinner, I do not own a copy...)

(I'm always on the lookout though. "Big School" and "Gelatin, Ice Cream, Plum..." are my jams for sure...

I've also never been able to score a copy of "Clown Prince of the Menthol Trailer." I don't think this was quite up to the level of "Static Airplane Jive" or "Fast Japanese Spin Cycle" but for chrissakes, it's got "Matter Eater Lad" and "Johnny Appleseed" on it. To be honest, "Johnny Appleseed" never really knocked me out until I heard it live where the song suddenly gained a spiritual glow...

Goddamn. I've never even heard the GBV/Grifters split. And that kills me...Oh, well. That's part of following Bob,. You can't own everything. You can blow paychecks trying though...

I also can never find the '94 "I Am a Scientist" EP. One of my best friends owns it and I'm always so fucking envious of it whenever I hang out at his house. He won't trade it or sell it to me either and I love him for it..."Do the Earth" rules the universe...For some reason I have an inexplicable fondness for the messy-as-hell acoustic ditty "Curse of the Black Ass Buffalo." Something about it draws me in....

There are probably some other releases I missed, but these are the big ones...Okay, it's time to get to the utterly arbitrary rankings...Here are the GBV singles and 10-minute-ish EP's ranked in order of my personal preference (and these are subject to change. All it takes is one random, drunken night when The Freedom Cruise 7-inch suddenly changes my life):

1. Fast Japanese Spin Cycle
2. The Grand Hour
3. Get Out of My Stations
4. The Freedom Cruise/Nightwalker Split

It's Saturday Night. Right? Why are we sitting around staring blankly at a computer monitor? We should be firing up the stereo, hoisting a few cold 'uns and blasting GBV until the neighbors start banging on the walls...