I'd like to take Robert Pollard out to lunch

Always trying to figure out what team I'm batting for. I already have too many New Years Resolutions, but one that was killing me was not listening to new music. Barely any. So I am going to remedy that (ha) but blogging about it...I'd love to start videoblogging but I'm not sure that would be too much like taking my work home...so here we are.

I bought the new Guided by Voices in a forgetful haze on iTunes at 2 AM on Christmas Eve. Eve as in Evening, as I wasn't sleeping. As if I'd be sleeping in with my adorable nephew sleeping in the room across from me.  So today I was checking my credit card (oops) and while debt sucks (new years resolution: pay pal donate and Amazon wish list buttons on blogs), I did see I bought Let's Go Eat the Factory. This is semi significant as when I dropped my eMusic subscription when they dropped Merge, my new music listening also dropped to 0. Bad bad Ramona.

I'm not really buying new music if I'm just buying new music by old bands.

Again, I'm confused by Pollard's theology. God Loves Us simply repeats "We are living proof that God loves us!"  When I listen to his solo work all sorts of theologically beautiful messages come out. I can't remember what he was saying at that show in Seattle, but I remember it was so perfectly beautiful, mentioned Christ, and I was trying to write the lyrics on a scrap of cigarette box so I'd remember them when I was sober.

Do I have to describe the music? Can I just talk about how it makes me feel? Can I assume you know what GBV sounds like? Or that you'll know what GBV stands for....

These are things I always love about GBV:

The songs are always perfectly impossibly short. It's very rare you think a song is going on too long. By the time your brain forms that thought, it's over.

At some point Robert Pollard had to decide between being a teacher and being a performer. For me, between being a librarian and hanging around with bands.

At one point in my life I aspired to drink as much as he could. This was a mistake, not only a mistake that got me one step closer to recovery, but a mistake that I have to someday and somehow make amends to that woman from the 40 Watt Club for the night I tried to match Pollard beer for beer and ended up puking over the side of a couch she was trying to rest on all night. It was a New Years Eve show, give or take a few days.

I love they have a big fan fest and my bff said she won't go because she's slept with too many of the boys that go. I want to meet those boys too!

I love that I can put on most GBV albums and be happy just to listen in the background, but when I am driving or laying in bed and listen to the words, I find observations and humor that stick with me for days.

I love that when I was in that strange year where I was a h.s. frosh/community college student I bought the reissue box set of the first 5 albums on CD (aka Box) and I have listened to it, probably at least once a month on average, although perhaps more when I consider the weeks I would listen to nothing else, hundreds or thousands of times since then.

"My Europa" comes through sounding like something on that box set, but recorded in a basement studio.

"Chocolate Boy" song most likely to be played on NPR (I'm guessing).

"We Won't Apologize For the Human Race"...it only took 3 minutes for me to realize this is the longest song on the album. I'm imagining the strings as actual strings caging the band in here. They're quite beautiful. How can they sing the word "some" and make it rise above so perfectly? Was this just an exercise in making a 4 minute song? Are they alien or human? This may end up on my mix of awsome GBV songs I was supposed to make for Tony Perkins a few years back. A few years might be ten-ish now. 

I'm thinking it will be humbling to write this with as little research as possible. It will be humbling to be wrong.

Am I going to have to listen to an entire album while writing about it to remember what I listen to this year? I am going to have to figure out a way to remember what I listen to without doing first impression listen blogs on everything (videoblog?)

Then again, there is a reason i didn't like much music this year:

Critic-Approved Archetypes It Takes Effort For Me Not To Dismiss On First Listen As We Go Into 2012

So lets see how long I can keep up the ruse of not being a critic, I'm just on the hunt for that perfect song...or the band that makes me fall in love with them. The last band obsession I had was Psychedelic Horseshit a few years ago. That was a few years ago. That sucks.

Oh, I guess I could be more popular if I put .mp3s and stuff up with the bands I talk about, but whatever, there is so much of that and so little of me. I mean, there is usually something I want to listen to (even for a limited time) on NPR.... like the fact that this Let's Go Eat the Factory is streaming there for a limited time.