Boston Spaceships: Our Cubehouse Still Rocks

Boston Spaceships: Our Cubehouse Still Rocks

2010

Guided by Voices Inc.

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Track Star  2. John The Dwarf Wants To Become An Angel  3. I See You Coming  4. Fly Away (Terry Sez)  5. Trick Of The Telekinetic Newlyweds  6. Saints Don't Lie  7. The British And The French  8. Unshaven Bird  9. Come On Baby Grace  10. Freedom Rings  11. Stunted  12. Bombadine  13. Airwaves  14. Dunkirk Is Frozen  15. King Green Stamp  16. In The Bathroom (Up 1/2 The Night)


It's too my eternal shame as a GBV fanatic that I had initially missed out on Boston Spaceships. I have been a lifelong Pollard worshiper, unquestioningly  buying every new release but right around "Superman Was a Rocker" and "Elephant Jokes," I started questioning my wisdom. These were a couple releases that I was lukewarm on, so I decided to hold off and read reviews first before jumping into future Robert Pollard releases.

Man, what a mistake. Every post-"Bee Thousand" review appears to be some sort of agricultural report, more concerned with "Wheat" and "Chaff" than about the music contained within...



I tend to attribute this critical reaction to the fact that it takes an abnormally long time to process a Robert Pollard album for some reason...It usually takes me quite a few listens to finally come to a final opinion on almost any of his works. He rarely puts out albums that I flip out over immediately (except for the prerequisite 1 or 2 "IMMEDIATELY THE GREATEST SONG I EVER HEARD!!!" tracks that he puts on every record to keep you hooked) and the ones that do strike me immediately usually tend to be the ones that fade into the back of my go-to Pollard albums in the long run...

I could never get a clear picture of what the Boston Spaceships were, so I played it safe and skipped their albums..So where do the Boston Spaceships fit into the GBV discography?  Well, short answer is they're a sorta indie rock supergroup, featuring Robert Pollard and Chris Slusarenko from Guided By Voices and John Moen from the Decemberists. What do they sound like? Imagine this and try not to drool...They take the poppiest, chewiest, Who-iest, Cheap Trick-iest aspects of Guided by Voices and turn it into ultra-consistent POP-ROCK!!!! My God, this was what I wanted all along. To be honest, I consider any of the Boston Spaceship albums I own (I'm still missing a few) to be the equal or possibly even surpass any Guided by Voices record. That's right. I consider "Let it Beard" and "Our Cubehouse Still Rocks" to be roughly as enjoyable as "Bee Thousand" or "Under the Bushes, Under the Stars"...Maybe not in my favorite top-five GBV records, but in the top 15 Pollard records for sure (which sounds like a bad ranking, but Pollard is so prolific that "in the top 15" means it's the cream of the crop)...

Again, imagine this... A Robert Pollard album where every single track is a heavenly slice of perfect pop designed to burrow itself into the pleasure center of your brain. And if you're into the more oddball aspects of his work, don't despair, it's on display here too, but used to create eccentric pop like "The British and the French" and "Bombadine" which are just as catchy as the more straightforward tracks. These Boston Spaceship albums have also become a repository for "Suitcase" tracks that have been spit-shined into gleaming singles. This album's entry is "Shaved Bird" which is transformed from a melancholy, guitar and vocal fragment into the full-blown arena rock anthem implied in the original.

The best track though has to be "Baby Grace" which rocks so fucking much that I cannot conceive of a single good reason why this isn't blasting from every rock radio station in the world...It's just Pollard at his absolute best; Crunchy guitars, a crystal-clear hook, and vivid abstract imagery. One of is best, be sure not to miss it.

Super highly recommended. I can't think of another GBV-related album that has so few "lesser" tracks. The only song I'm not head-over-heels in love with is "Airwaves" which isn't even bad (it just has a sorta bland melody)...Again, let that sink in...A Pollard album with only one lesser track. I'd find this immediately if I were you...Don't make the same mistake I made and ignore this...

Boston Spaceships: Out of the Universe by Sundown: The Greatest Hits of Boston Spaceships

 Boston Spaceships: Out of the Universe by Sundown: The Greatest Hits of Boston Spaceships

2012

Fire Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1.You Satisfy Me  2. John The Dwarf Wants To Become An Angel 3. Earmarked For Collision  4. Question Girl All Right  5 .Make A Record For Lo-life  6.  Headache Revolution 7. Tabby And Lucy 8. Canned Food Demons 9. How Wrong You Are 10. Come On Baby Grace 11. German Field Of Shadows 12. Let It Rest For A Little While 13.  Big O Gets An Earful 14. In The Bathroom (Up 1/2 The Night)  15. Tourist UFO 

 

Hooo my God, this is great...I went over yesterday about how I skipped all the other  Boston Spaceships albums and went straight to this...Which in a  way, was kind of exciting...I know a few people whose first Guided by Voices album was "Human Amusements at Hourly Rates" and I've have always been somewhat envious of them...I would love to find that much great stuff in one place...Well, now I can fully relate to that experience...

By the way, I've always assumed that the band name was in reference to the cool spaceships on the Boston album covers...

(I used to have this album...It's one you don't really need to own becaise classic rock radio plays its entire contents all the time...I do have a T-shirt of it though...)

(Man, they don't do album covers like this anymore...I want to live in this album cover...)

(In posting this "Third Stage" cover I was reading the text on the site I stole the photo from, and it was talking about the album's giant hit "Amanda." I was racking my brain, trying to remember it...Since it was a hit from 1986, it seems like there was no way I couldn't have heard it, so I turned to youtube...Holy shit, I totally forgot about this song! I must have heard it 10 million times, but probably not since 1987...This song makes me want to put on a tuxedo and slow dance with a big-haired 80's girl...)

...Anyway, the band name is in reference to Boston Creme Donuts...

...which are as good, if not better than the Boston album covers...

Anyway, "Out of the Universe by Sundown" features 15 tracks, chosen by Robert Pollard himself, showcasing some of the power-pop highlights  from the overlooked Boston Spaceships albums...

From their 2008 debut  "Brown Submarine" we have "You Satisfy Me" which is, in all seriousness, one of the greatest songs I've ever heard in my entire life...It's essentially a series of effortless hooks... Your life is not complete until you've heard it 10,000 times...Somehow it's not even the best song on the album, but it does come in a very close second...

"Canned Food Demons," "Big O' Gets an Earful,"  and "Headache Revolution" all come from 2009's
Planets Are Blasted." The latter two are Big, Quadrophenia style rock...Perfect for swinging your mic around..."Canned Food Demons" is a noisy indie-punk blast with a good singalong chorus...

Boston Spaceships also released the album"Zero to 99: in 2009...From this record we have the inexplicably tender "Question Girl All Right" that makes you feel so warm and fuzzy about some "Equestrian Question Girl."  "Let It Rest For A Little While" sounds like one of those essential latter-day Guided by Voices cuts...An infectious wonder in the style of "The Best of Jill Hives."

Most exciting of all, though is "How Wrong You Are" which unexpectedly catapults itself into my top five or so Robert Pollard songs...This is why I love music so much...This song contains one of the drop-dead coolest moments in his career...The  part where the other instruments drop out and it's just the electric guitar and Robert Pollard singing:

" I live a stuntman's life, 

Support my Mother and Wife, 

I never know how wrong you are..."

I swear to you the chorus is the catchiest thing I ever heard in my life...Especially at the end when it's sung all falsetto like some sort of boy's choir...Check out the video below if you don't believe me! But I'm warning you, it's going to get so embedded in your head that you'll have to have it surgically removed...

See! I warned you!

 

From 2010's "Our Cubehouse Still Rocks" (which is an incredible title for an album!) we have "In The Bathroom (Up 1/2 The Night)," "Come On Baby Grace,"  and "John The Dwarf Wants To Become An Angel."   You probably wouldn't know it by the title, but "John The Dwarf Wants To Become An Angel" is a beautiful, melancholy rock song..."Come On Baby Grace" is also a personal favorite...You must air guitar while this crunchy riff is playing... 

We also get a whopping 5 tracks from the band's final album "Let it Beard." "Earmarked For Collision," "Make A Record For Lo-life," "Tabby and Lucy," "German Field Of Shadows" and
Tourist U.F.O. are all just as spectacular as I said they were yesterday....I probably would have traded the bizarre horn-heavy "German Field of Shadows" for "Inspiration Points," "The Vicelords" or "Christmas Girl" but that's quibbling...They're all great..

This is a killer compilation that sits quite nicely next to "Human Amusements at Hourly Rates"...



 or "Crickets:Best of the Fading Captain Series 1999-2007"

 So let's check out "Tabby and Lucy" by Boston Spaceships...Enjoy..

.

Boston Spaceships: Let It Beard

Boston Spaceships: Let It Beard

2011

Guided By Voices Inc

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. Blind 20-20  2. Juggernaut Vs. Monolith  3. Tourist U.F.O.  4. Minefield Searcher  5. Make A Record For Lo-Life  6. Let More Light Into The House  7. You Just Can't Tell 8. Chevy Marigold  9. Earmarked For Collision  10. Toppings Take The Cake  11. Tabby And Lucy  12. (I'll Make It) Strong For You  13. A Hair In Every Square Inch Of The House  14. The Ballad Of Bad Whiskey  15. I Took On The London Guys  16. Red Bodies  17. A Dozen Blue Overcoats  18. Pincushion  19. Christmas Girl  20. Let It Beard  21. The Vice Lords  22. German Field Of Shadows 23. Speed Bumps  24. No Steamboats  25. You In My Prayer 26. Inspiration Points


The 5th album by the Boston Spaceships, who are somewhat of an an indie rock supergroup, featuring Robert Pollard and Chris Slusarenko from Guided By Voices and John Moen from the Decemberists (as well as a bunch of guest stars from Wire, Dinosaur Jr, and the Dream Syndicate).

 It's extremely weird that I only own one proper Boston Spaceships album...I'm a GBV fanatic and own over 60 Pollard-related releases, yet I totally overlooked this band...I mean I heard about it, but it wasn't made clear to me how great the group was...Combine that with the fact that none of the local record stores carried their albums and  the end result was that I missed out on some of Robert Pollard's best work...

I went to Zia Records near the end of last year to pick up a copy of GBV's "The Bears for Lunch" and they also had a couple copies of "Out of the Universe by Sundown: The Greatest Hits of Boston Spaceships" which I also picked up (I'll go over that one tomorrow...)

I was so pleased when I listened to the Boston Spaceships disc that I couldn't contain myself...This was the best stuff that Pollard had put out in years...Classic after classic...A week  or two later I was able to score a copy of 2011's "Let It Beard."

And boy, this record is a doozy...A power-pop double-album: 26 songs in 70 minutes...There's so much here that it takes a couple  listens for it all to sink in, but once it did I think I've played this album almost everyday for the last 8 months...

The album is very much in line with latter day Guided By Voices albums...Not many of Pollard's trademark lo-fi fragments; this is a powerful hi-fi release with  lots of  full-length songs (quite a few even surpassing the 4 or 5 minute mark!)

  So many highlights...If you're looking for the great lost Who song, "Minefield Searcher" just might be it...Robert Pollard has devoted a lot of time and tape to capturing the glory of "Who's Next" and I think this song is where he 100% nails it...Against all odds, "Make a Record For Low-Life" is also a winning pop number, despite its too-slow, twisted riff...Seems like it's not going to work, but eventually does, which is one of the reasons I find Pollard's songwriting so appealing...

One of the biggest surprises is "Chevy Marigold" which features...gulp...soulful backing vocals! The kind you would hear on a 70's Stones record  or  maybe on "The Great Gig in the Sky"...I had no choice but to simultaneously laugh and acknowlege it's unparallelled greatness...Also be sure to check out "Tabby and Lucy" which begins like it's going to tell some sort of coherent story but in the end we're not left with much more  than "Chuckie was balls like he always is..." Still, a great chorus that would have set the stadiums on fire if anybody was paying attention...


The album closes with the grand five and a half minute  "Inspiration Points." Now, five minutes might not sound too long for a lot of artists, but in Robert Pollard terms this is a Wagnerian epic..
It's so jam-packed with killer stop-and-start riffs, catchy melodies and fun lyrics that most bands would have milked it for at least 10 minutes...And in a way, on the first couple listens, the hit and run hooks work against it, leaving you unsure of exactly what you've heard, but I'm telling you...A couple plays in and it reveals itself to be one of his finest tracks...Right up there with "Over the Neptune/Mesh Gear Fox."  If only every band got a "farewell" track of this caliber...

"Let It Beard" isn't the usual "for Pollard die-hards only" release...This is essential for anyone who still believes in the power and grandeur of Rock N' Roll...For those of us whose minds race with fevered thoughts of musical exploration when the word "Double Album" is mentioned...It's a huge loss that these guys aren't together anymore, but on the positive side, they still have four other albums of material I've yet to explore...

Let's check out "Inspiration Points" by Boston Spaceships (P.S. You Should really check this one out...And then once you listen to it make sure you immediately listen to it again...and again...and again...Then you will have successfully re-enacted my life for the past few months...)