Guided by Voices are a band who have built an empire with little more than a tape machine and a pallet of beer. There are hundreds of songs, dozens of albums and so many past members that the graph on Wikipedia has started to look like an impossible level of Donkey Kong:
Photo Credit: Wikipedia Commons
If you're already a fan, you can rest assured that there's always going to be someone who likes GBV more than you. They're like Chicago Bears or Tolkien fans that way. They can be insufferable but mean well.
If you're not yet a fan: consider Get Out of My Stations. This EP was recorded in 1993 and released in 1994, during the "classic" lineup of the band. It's limber and rough and feels like you are in the room in Dayton, Ohio, having the best basement hang of your life.
In the squall of GBV releases, this little EP is one of a kind: It is one of the few times that the Dayton, Ohio band ever appeared on the cover art, and the last time that their work was mastered by tape guru Mike "Rep" Hummel. Most importantly: it's cheap. There were about two solid decades when you could walk into a vinyl shop and buy it for $10. This was during a time when other full-length releases from that era like Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes were going for over a hundred bucks online. Any time I came across Get Out of My Stations, I would buy it for a friend.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of the EP, so I reached out to former GBV members Tobin Sprout and Mitch Mitchell, in addition to Mike "Rep" Hummel, who "lovingly fucked with" the mastering of the release.
Guided by Voices started out primarily as a studio band, is that right?
Mitchell: Oh yeah. I was still playing bass in those days. Those were uncharted times.
Sprout: It was a small group for a long time. I was on guitar, Peyton Eric was on drums and Mitch was on bass. We didn't actually have a full band until around 1994, when things got serious.
And did you always record at (singer/songwriter) Bob Pollard's house?
Sprout: We recorded a few things in the Snake Pit, like this one. But we recorded the bulk of that era in my basement out by Carillon Park, since I had a set of drums there and everything set up.
Tobin, you produced this EP. Was there a particular process when it came to recording?
Sprout: When it came to tracks with the band, I don't remember any overdubs. We would just record the band in a room and then Bob would overdub the vocals.
Mitchell: We were still in four-track mode by that point.
Sprout: I went down to a music store in Dayton and bought a Tascam. It didn't have any effects on it, the only thing you could do was change the EQ. I bought that to mess around with and it worked its way into recording a good bulk of the early music. I still have it.
You still have the 4-track that you guys used back then?! Holy shit.
Sprout: I even got it out the other day to work on it and see if I can record on it.
Photo: Tobin Sprout
Sprout: It was brand new at the time, so it didn't have a lot of glitches. The only glitches that we would have would be the ones that we caused.
Mitchell: Oh yeah, we were going off-script. We would share ideas and then experiment from there.
Were there any tricks that you would do in producing/recording on the Tascam?
Sprout: Not really. Whatever went into the machine is what came out of the machine. We would mix and bounce it down, but you tried not to bounce it too many times. On the vocals we would turn the treble all the way up. For some reason they would sit in the mix better that way. The only effect we had was the Memory Man, one of the first ones that had a chorus on it and echo. And we used that on the vocals.
What kind of gear were you using in those days?
Mitchell: I had a Frankenstein rig with a Peavey amp head and a big cabinet. I was playing an old Washburn bass.
Sprout: We had a 2×12 Music Man that I remember using a lot. I had a couple of old Fender tweeds that we'd use that I later ended up pawing for art supplies, which I regret to this day (laughs).
There's a friendly chaos to the recordings, with banter between verses and amps feeding back. It doesn't sound like the typical antiseptic studio environment.
Sprout: It was always a party going on. Bob'd have a few of his friends there, we'd have the rest of the band there. So you were always working around people sort of kicking over mics.
Mitchell: We played hard and partied hard. We all fell on our ass at some point. We'd just give each other a talking to to try and do better next time. It was kind of like playing sports that way.
Sprout: For some reason, we kept getting Rolling Rock when we first started playing. And I hated Rolling Rock.
Mitchell: If it was cheap and it was cold, we drank it.
Sprout: When we finally got to Miller Lite, we had made it. 'Okay, now we can afford some halfway decent beer here.'
Any good nosh?
Sprout: In Dayton, if somebody'd order a pizza, it was Marion's or Paisanos. There was a bar called Kramer's that we used to go to. You'd go in there and buy a quart. They didn't have normal bottles, just had these big quarts. That was like two beers right there.
Can we talk about some of these songs?
Scalding Creek:
Sprout: That was Jimmy (Pollard, Bob's brother), slamming down the amplifier. He kind of tilted it back and let it drop. I remember doing the harmony at the end. We were trying to do this Beatles background kinda thing with the 'Aaaaahs'.
Melted Pat:
Sprout: For some reason I think we recorded that at Kevin Fennell's house, in his living room. And that guitar you hear coming in halfway through, that's me. You can hear Bob kind of singing at the beginning, he didn't know it was rolling and was just trying to find his pitch or something.
Mitchell: I remember that one had oddball timing. We had to practice it for a few takes before we got it right.
Dusty Bushworms:
There's a part of the song that slides in some backwards tracking.
Sprout: I don't remember doing that on purpose. It could've been that we just found a tape and threw it on and there was already something on the other side that came out backwards. It wasn't necessarily us, either. It could have been Aerosmith (laughs).
How long did it take to record Get Out of My Stations?
Sprout: A lot of these songs we did at the same time. I remember having 6 or 7 and then we picked what we liked. Most of these EPs were done in a couple days or even a day.
Were these songs leftovers from Propellor? I saw someone say that online.
Sprout: These were sessions that were definitely done after Propellor. There was a little area of time where we put out about two or three of these EPs. Different labels asked for them, so we figured, "okay, we'll write something and hand it over."
It says on the back that you shot that cover photo.
Sprout: Actually, Pete Jamison took that. I always had a camera around with black and white film and Pete would pick it up every once in a while and do shots with it. I thought that was one of the coolest shots I'd ever seen. This beam would come into the basement, maybe for a minute, and hit like that. We had to wait until it got developed, but the way it came out, it was like God speaking to us or something. Or speaking to Jimmy.
It's kind of hard to see, but there's a person sitting on the stairs to the right. That's Mitch. Jimmy is sitting down getting hit by light, Bob's standing next to him.
Did you go with Bob when the tapes were taken to Mike "Rep" Hummel to be mastered?
Sprout: We used to go out to Harrisburg and see him. And he had this big cassette deck. I just remember him throwing it in there, pushing some buttons around, then handing it to Bob and saying, "let's go listen to this."
Mike Rep: I Lovingly Fucked With the results of what came out of the studio later; EQing, panning, "sprinkling fairy dust". It gave the songs a rougher, edgier, more in-your-face presence. People call it "lo-fi", a media buzz word that means nothing to me, except in that there was no intent to be radio-friendly, to kowtow to popular sounds of the time.
Mike, all of the records that you work on have an inscription of a snake eating an egg that is carved into the inner groove. Is this a reference to the Serpent Mound in southern Ohio?
Mike Rep: I use a loose Serpent Mound signature to reflect my approach. First comes the egg, the "swallowing" is the ongoing modification of sound in the studio, the embracing or incorporation of it.
Photo Credit: Matt Wilke
Why do you say that you "Lovingly Fucked With" a recording, rathering than just saying that you mastered it?
Mike Rep: Most folks assume Lovingly Fucked With is strictly a "lo-fi" thing, whatever that means, but I rather call it a 'folksy' or folk art approach to mixing; ignoring traditional techniques to get off of the canvas! It's learning not to fear occasional hiss – like a folk artist painting on rough hewn wood.
Sprout: Whatever he did, it was better. I'm sure he brought up the bass; he'd put records out before and knew what was going to happen in terms of pressing it to vinyl. He knew how to get the kind of 'mid mud' stuff out.
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I've seen whiny reviews of Get Out of My Stations, saying that it's just okay because the songs slow down on Side B. To those sad sacks, I must insist: play Side B at 45 rpm. At that speed, it chugs. And when it comes to fidelity, Bob Pollard has spent an entire lifetime fucking with you, so you have every right to fuck with him right back.
I've considered how ridiculous it might be to try to write about a tiny record from this band when there are so many out there. What's more, this little EP was recently re-released with other short players. But if we ignore the media that matters to us, no matter how small, we commit to the twilight of our own delights. And does the world really need another fucking article about Bee Thousand?
The horizons for the men who helped craft this sound continue to stretch well beyond Dayton. Mitch Mitchell has been recording new material for his solo project, Mitch Mitchell's Terrifying Experience, and will post updates here. Mike Rep's 40-year production and record label "OLD AGE / NO AGE" will have a page up on Bandcamp soon. And Tobin Sprout is re-releasing his EPs Wax Nails and Sentimental Stations as an LP in August, which you can order here.
In the meantime, Get Out of my Stations still makes a solid gift, although you have to pay a little more for it these days. Lost Weekend Records just sold a copy for thirty bucks. If you see it, grab it.
Mitch Mitchell agrees: "It still sounds good. And raw! Being raw is what we were all about."
Lee Keeler is a writer and educator living in Northeast Los Angeles.
