Guided by Voices/Airport 5: Selective Service

Guided by Voices/Airport 5: Selective Service

2001

Fading Captain Series/Luna Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. Dayton, Ohio - Nineteen Something and Five 2. Travels  3. No Welcome Wagons  4. Selective Service  5. Total Exposure   6. Cold War Water Sports  7. The Wheel Hits the Path (Quite Soon)  8. Stifled Man Casino  9. Peroxide  10. Eskimo Clockwork  11. In the Brain


This is Fading Captain Series #16. Number #15 was "Ringworm Interiors" by The Circus Devils. I actually don't have any of Bob's Circus Devils material. I had originally watched one of their videos and had a visceral "dislike" reaction towards it. The song I heard sounded like Industrial Rock or something, which is a genre I really can't take anymore (still having traumatic Gravity Kills flashbacks from the 90's) so I just never checked it out again. I have actually been digging into the Circus Devils a bit online recently and have slightly warmed up to it, so I might give it another shot one of these days...A lot spookier than Bob's normal material and it definitely has its fans...It's just that I'm not one of them...

Alright, onto the "Selective Service" mini-album/compilation/whatever. This release collects FCS #5 (The GBV "Dayton Ohio" single) FCS # 11 (The Airport 5 "Total Exposure" single) and FCS #12 (The Airport 5 "Stifled Man Casino" single), so you can already start to see the Fading Captain Series start to feed on itself. This release was much appreciated though, since I generally don't follow the singles too closely...

The "Dayton, Ohio - Nineteen Something and Five" single was the big draw here...The A-Side is an excellent, well-recorded live version of one my favorite GBV songs. I like the live version every bit as much as the 4-Track version. What it loses in poignancy, it makes up for in sheer rocking-ness. And Bob's intro, where he calls the song "Dayton, Ohio - Nineteen Something Circa and Fve" always gives me a chuckle. Whenever I'm in the mood to hear the song I usually end up playing both versions back to back because I can't decide which one I want to hear...

The "Dayton, Ohio" B-sides are really interesting. Sort of a close relative of the acoustic tracks that close out "Not in My Airforce," except much more despondent. Bob claims that "Isolation Drills" is a red herring and these are the songs that dealt with his then-recent divorce. And they are especially divorce-y, with "No Welcome Wagons" being especially brutal, since it finds Bob coming home from tour to face the fallout of an on-the-road affair:

"Pandemonium ensues, 
Sure enough fire and the dog barks, 
Let's get acquainted again,
Been so many days or should I say'So long'...
Double up your fists for the undercut, 
Pandemonium subsides, Rest assured,
No welcome wagons will be there when I get home."

Fun stuff. That they're essentially tuneless feels beside the point this time... 

The Airport 5 stuff:  A couple of pointless repeats, since "Total Exposure" and "Stifled Man Casino" are the same versions that are on the "Tower in the Fountain of Sparks" album. I forgive their inclusion since they're such great songs (and the album costs so little)... The non-album tracks basically fall right in line w/ "Tower"'s icy tone...Cold, distant post-punk type vamps. Highlights: "The Wheel Hits the Path (Quite Soon)" is sorta catchy (although it seems to fade out way prematurely as you can still hear plenty of awesomeness during its long fadeout) and "Cold War Watersports" has a fine nose-whistle in it (and an awkward guitar figure that somehow lodges in your brain)...The bluesy "Peroxide" sounds like an update of "Alien Lanes" (the song, not the album)..."In the Brain" is the sort of queasy, bizarrely sung slow jam that typifies the Airport 5 project as a whole...It's all decent stuff if you have the stomach for Airport 5...

Definitely not an essential GBV release by any stretch, but GBV fans will still want it, since it has that killer version of "Dayton Ohio" on it...All right, let's listen to some music...Here's "The Wheel Hits the Path (Quite Soon)" by Airport 5...Enjoy...

Ranking Time: This is being ranked using the "20 Minute-ish EP's"category even though it's about a half hour...Hell, it's probably longer than "Choreographed Man of War" but It just doesn't feel like it should be ranked among the full-length albums...Too slight and if you remove the repeats (Stifled Man Casino and Total Exposure) it falls right into the 20-minute range.. Anyway, here's the updated 20-minute-ish EP ranking:


1. Guided by Voices: Sunfish Holy Breakfast
2. Guided by Voices:Hold On Hope EP
3. Guided by Voices:Forever Since Breakfast
4. Guided by Voices/Airport 5: Selective Service