I'll Replace You With Machines
Robert Pollard's limited vinyl release Edison's Demos offers an interesting window into the Guided by Voices creative process that helps to distinguish the contributions of his bandmates and producer Todd Tobias. By showing how the songs on Earthquake Glue began, it's easy to see how they evolved. And that album, thanks to its similarity sonically with Pollard's later solo albums helmed by Tobias, show it be the GBV album where the producer's touch is most easily discerned,
"I'll Replace You With Machines" may be the best example of that process. On Edison's Demos, the song finds Pollard strumming on acoustic guitar the same riffs that Doug Gillard and Nate Farley play on the Earthquake Glue version. It's quiet -- no surprise given it's acoustic guitar and voice setup -- but even imagining it amplified, it's hard to imagine the clanking, churning rocker it would become.
Part of that credit goes to the band, of course. The song chugs along much like many of the songs on the band's post TVT albums, the band in tight lockstep as it marches to the conclusion. But there are more things going on here than one normally expects from a GBV song. As if foreshadowing what life will be like when Pollard has replaced us all with machines, Tobias layers on the sounds of a factory, Kevin March's drums augmented by aural pistons firing and other noises that create a near-cacophony of disorientation over which Pollard sings.
The change is startling. On the demo, Pollard sounds tentative. "I'll replace you with machines. I can't face you," he sings, as if admitting that he would rather deal with a machine than converse with a person. On the album, his surroundings practically force him to be defiant. Instead of the concession of the demo, his words are a boast of sorts.
It's an interesting bit of sonic onomatopoeia, and it's easily the more rocking of the two versions. But I can't help thinking that all of Tobias' augmentations, coupled with the band's unsubtle punch, have neutered the song a bit, shoehorning Pollard's words into a meaning he didn't intend.
"I'll Replace You With Machines" may be the best example of that process. On Edison's Demos, the song finds Pollard strumming on acoustic guitar the same riffs that Doug Gillard and Nate Farley play on the Earthquake Glue version. It's quiet -- no surprise given it's acoustic guitar and voice setup -- but even imagining it amplified, it's hard to imagine the clanking, churning rocker it would become.
Part of that credit goes to the band, of course. The song chugs along much like many of the songs on the band's post TVT albums, the band in tight lockstep as it marches to the conclusion. But there are more things going on here than one normally expects from a GBV song. As if foreshadowing what life will be like when Pollard has replaced us all with machines, Tobias layers on the sounds of a factory, Kevin March's drums augmented by aural pistons firing and other noises that create a near-cacophony of disorientation over which Pollard sings.
The change is startling. On the demo, Pollard sounds tentative. "I'll replace you with machines. I can't face you," he sings, as if admitting that he would rather deal with a machine than converse with a person. On the album, his surroundings practically force him to be defiant. Instead of the concession of the demo, his words are a boast of sorts.
It's an interesting bit of sonic onomatopoeia, and it's easily the more rocking of the two versions. But I can't help thinking that all of Tobias' augmentations, coupled with the band's unsubtle punch, have neutered the song a bit, shoehorning Pollard's words into a meaning he didn't intend.
Labels: Earthquake Glue
posted by John Kenyon at 6:08 AM
1 Comments:
It---the cacophony, as you call it---always sounded to me like landing gears and the smoking screetch of rubber touching down on tarmac.
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