With so many Record Store Day releases slated to be tossed on store shelves this coming Saturday, we’ve been keeping our eye on a few of the more obscure and interesting titles arriving for RSD2011. I’m thinking this one is certain to be of interest to…well, 9 out of 10 of you.
Sing for Your Meat: A Tribute to Guided by Voices is a celebration of the many faces of Guided By Voices and the multitude of artists they have impacted through their music and mentality. Using a broad array of recording techniques and musical genres the artists have adhered largely to the lo-fi aesthetic of GBV but some have also mirrored the more produced side of their work, giving the album depth and raw character; an authentically GBV feel oozes from this album from start to finish.
It’s a full 17 track album with a bonus 6 song digital EP and as a contribution for Record Store Day, there will also be a DOUBLE 12” mixed color vinyl set in a full color gatefold jacket with a full color 11” X 11” poster insert.
Guest contributor Amy Kelsey delves into this special RSD release.
How to Love a Band
It’s a rare opportunity given to the 16 artists featured on Sing for Your Meat: A Tribute to Guided by Voices. Take a song written by an influential band, one loved to a cultish degree, and make it monumental—pouring back into it all the gratitude resulting from taking share of their genius. Each song is a love letter sent back to GBV, a Thank-You note if you will, and each sentiment is as unique and varied as each of the artists included are from each other.
If the depth of the field and the number of participants is any indication, there is plenty of love to be had. Lo-Fi and Indie super heroes are well represented herein: there are offerings from Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore, The Flaming Lips, Kelley Deal, and lo-fi brethren Sebadoh’s Lou Barlow, as well as the newer voices of Blitzen Trapper and Cymbals Eat Guitars.
Some of the freshest and brightest cuts are submitted by much lesser known acts, however. There is a practically miraculous version of “Watch Me Jumpstart” from La Sera, a driving, adrenalin fueled, “My Valuable Hunting Knife” from Western Civ, and a quirky, sound effect laden version of Gold Star for Robot Boy from Athens band Mass Solo Revolt that basically distills all GBV tenements into one brief sampler.
La Sera | Watch Me Jumpstart (GBV Cover)
As love letters go, this collection includes every nuance. While some songs represent their originals fairly faithfully, some wax prosaic and wonderful. It’s through excellent, well balanced compilations like these that you get a true idea what a band can mean to so many people, and it’s the best type of voyeurism into a rock and roll love life that we’ll get.
