SONG TITLES
A lot of info on these tracks is sketchy at best. I've tried to include relevant information with the title that I've deemed to be most accurate, with references to it from other titles.
With the sheer volume of the canon of Bob Pollard and company, it is more than likely that I've missed a thousand things that were cut for other songs or simply shared parts (e.g., the riff that is in "Big Boring Wedding", "Don't Stop Now" and a couple of other songs that escape my mind at the moment).
"Above The Seaside"
"All Hail The Weed King" - acoustic demo of "Weed King" with hilarious intro from Bob
"All Night Parties"
"Becoming Unglued" - a.k.a. "Captain Is Gone (Home By Ten)"
"Bender's Bluffing Muscles" - a very nice, and very short Tobin song that segues into "Delayed Reaction Brats"
"Bloody Sonic Liar" - a.k.a. "Indian Was An Angel"
"Bluegill" - a.k.a. "You And Nobody Else"
"Captain Is Gone (Home By Ten)" - a.k.a. "Becoming Unglued"
"The Charming Proposal"
"Circus World" (acoustic) - a.k.a. "Special Astrology for the Warlock Tour"
"Cruise" - a cleaner, different version of the track from the Freedom Cruise/Nightwalker 7"
"Dancing With My Gun" - lyrics and melody similar to "Big Boring Wedding", though music is quite different
"The Day Is Done" - music very similar to "Let's Go Vike"
"Deathtrot Warlock Riding A Rooster" - faster version of the King Shit & The Golden Boys song that segues into a quiet version of "Some Drilling Implied"
"Did I See That?" - live improvisation
"Do The Collapse" - a.k.a. "Superwhore"
"Each Man Who Knows You" - a.k.a. "No One Can Take You Away"
"Even Break" - a.k.a. "Isn't It Alot And It's So Far"
"Factor Bake Claim" - a.k.a. "Tractor Rape Chain (Clean It Up)" (fast version)
"Find Me A Woman" - a.k.a. "Let's Go Vike"
"Flying Party Is Here" - acoustic snippet that was mixed into "Beekeeper Seeks Ruth"
"Foolish Burger"
"Goldheart Festering Moon Directory" (acoustic and electric) - a.k.a. "Time To Right The Wrongs" and "Song of Below", respectively
"Greenface" - longer version than that on King Shit & The Golden Boys
"Hardcore UFOs" - straight rock version without the tape-defect swirls on Bee Thousand
"House to Home to Catacomb" - a.k.a. "Bite"
"I Am Decided" - GBV recording of a song that Bob gave to Kim Deal
"Industrial Morning"
"Isn't It Alot And It's So Far" - has the riff from "Break Even", but that's about the only similarity. a.k.a. "Even Break"
"Jason Lowenstein's A Wanker"- a.k.a "Trophy Mules"
"Kind Sister Repeater" - a.k.a. "Contest Featuring Human Beings"
"Lariat Man" - Tobin demo of the Bevil Web song
"Let's Go Vike" - "Let's go vike, I got a great alibi". You would think he would say bike, but it certainly sounds like vike! a.k.a. "Find Me A Woman"
"Motor Away" - demo
"Motor Away" - really nice version with what sounds like an organ in the place of guitar, but it might be a heavily treated geetar
"My Buddy Bill" - alternate title of "A Good Flying Bird"
"My Valuable Hunting Knife" - faster version of the Alien Lanes song
"Naavy" - Pere Ubu cover that was intended for a tribute but later scrapped
"Never" - hard rawkin' tune that sounds like it was recorded on a Fischer Price tape recorder!
"New World Rising" - a.k.a "Up We Go"
"No One Can Take You Away" - a.k.a. "Each Man Who Knows You"
"No Trash Allowed" - a.k.a. "Sacred Space"
"Nobody Opens Their Eyes" - a.k.a. "Taco, Buffalo, Bird Dog, and Jesus"
"Not A Bad Thing" - a.k.a. "Scissors"
"Over The Neptune/Mesh Gear Fox" (acoustic) - a.k.a. "Special Astrology for the Warlock Tour"
"Quality of Armor" (demo) - electric guitar-and-vocal-only version
"Run"
"Sacred Space" - basically a demo for "Office Of Hearts" with completely different lyrics. a.k.a. "No Trash Allowed"
"Sea of Clover" - Tobin song. a.k.a "Twig"
"Settlement Down"
"Shit Midas"
"The Singing Razorblade suite (?)" - demo version that segues into snippets of "Lucifer's Aching Revolver", part of which is unreleased
"Smothered In Hugs" - this is referred to as the "Cheap Trick" version, It's nothing like the Bee Thousand being more Deep Purple than Cheap Trick! apparently, Bob hates this song!
"Some Drilling Implied" - a quiet version of this Propeller song
"Special Astrology for the Warlock Tour" - acoustic version of "Over The Neptune/Mesh Gear Fox" seguing into "Circus World", mentioned as a lyric in "Beekeeper Seeks Ruth'
"Song of Below" - slower, full band version of "Time To Right The Wrongs". a.k.a. "Goldheart Festering Moon Directory"
"Soul Flyer" - guitar solo used in "The Who Vs. Porky Pig", outro used as intro to "Psychic Pilot Clocks Out"
"Stand Up" - is this a cover? Sounds too straightforward, both musically and lyric-wise, to be a Pollard-penned ditty
"Stumbling Blocks To Stepping Stones"
"Superwhore" - early version of "The Who Vs. Porky Pig". a.k.a. "Do The Collapse"
"Taco, Buffalo, Bird Dog and Jesus" - my favorite unreleased GBV song. a.k.a. "Nobody Opens Their Eyes"
"Talk To Me" - has the "sometimes I'm programmed" line later used in "Heavy Metal Country"
"Time Time Time (Expecting Brainchild 2)" - Verses are different, but chorus and structure are essentially the same as "Expecting Brainchild"
"Time To Right The Wrongs" - electric guitar-and-vocal-only song that combines parts of "Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory" and "Beneath A Festering Moon". a.k.a. "Goldheart Festering Moon Directory"
"Tomorrow Never Knows" - a Beatles cover, Bob denies having recorded this, but it sure sounds like him to me!
"Tractor Rape Chain (Clean It Up)" - fast acoustic version of the track on the Magnet/Darla compilation 7"
"Troops in Town" - a.k.a "Troopers In The Town"
"Troopers In The Town" - a.k.a "Troops in Town"
"Trophy Mules" - a.k.a. "Jason Lowenstein's A Wanker" according to Bob, this is the true title of this song, bet he's real happy this one got out!
"Turbo Boy" - has the "words and big black birds on a telephone wire" line from "Pantherz", but the rest of the music and lyrics are totally different
"Twig" - Tobin song. a.k.a. "Sea Of Clover"
"Up We Go" - essentially the same song as "Crocker's Favorite Song". a.k.a "New World Rising"
"Way To A Man's Heart" - strange little instrumental ditty with acoustic guitar and violin, probably supplied by Greg Demos
"Whiskey On Your Breath" - very similar to "I Am Decided"
"Why Did You Land?" - a slow moody version, but as far as I can tell, same lyrics and structure as on the The Official Ironman Rally Song EP
"Wondering Boy Poet" - piano version with Tobin vocal
"You And Nobody Else" - a.k.a. "Bluegill"
DON THRASHER DEMOS
This was a tape that Bob made for Don Thrasher so that he could learn the songs, most likely during the Propeller era.
GUIDED BY BEER
This tape is a combination of King Shit And The Golden Boys songs and a few other things thrown in for good measure. Was made before any of the other rarities tapes, and probably before Box came out, because it includes a bunch of the songs that were unreleased before Box but were included on King Shit and the Golden Boys. The only songs on here that aren't on another rarities tape (usually with better fidelity) are the last four.
EXTRA BACON ON THE NAIL
This tape is of a lower generation than the other three and was used as a source for To Trigger A Synapse and Up We Go. Everything here is on those two tapes.
TO TRIGGER A SYNAPSE
Robert Gray's pet project from 1996, and probably the most distributed compilation. The Peel Sessions are worth the tapes weight in gold. This is what people mean if they just say "the rarities tape". If the song title has quotes around it, Robert didn't know what the title was and made one up.
Here's more info, straight from the horse's mouth:
Posted to the Postal Blowfish mailing list
Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1999 18:58:07 -0700
>Anyway, back in '96 or so, I had been getting a lot of GbV live bootlegs
>in the mail (the Alien Lanes and UTBUTS shows - of which there were
>many). Virtually every time I got one, there was a few of these
>unreleased tracks/demos tacked on the end. Eventually I had
so many that
>I decided to make a tape of just rarities for myself to listen to.
It
>ended up being so long and so good that I offered to dub it for people.
>Where these songs come from, I have no idea. There is a rumor,
though,
>that Steve Wilbur - who used to record GbV in his garage before they
had
>any success - found a whole shitload of unreleased GbV stuff at his
house
>and made tapes for a few people and that they leaked on from collector
to
>collector to me.
>
>>Whay isn't the suitcase out? because Mr. Robert Grey has put
out Bob's
>music,
>>made money off it and hasn't given a penny to bob for publishing.
>
>That is bullshit. I made absolutely no money off of "TTAS" -
in fact I
>lost quite a bit of money, because I knew people would want to hear
this
>stuff. It was a labor of love. How many people on this
list have made
>tapes of the hard-to-find EP's and singles for other people, myself
>included? Is that bootlegging? Technically, yes - if those
people had
>all bought copies, Bob would have made money off it, but he didn't.
But
>no one ever harps on that, do they? Because that's "okay"?
Of course it
>is! I think if Bob would have had a real problem with it, some
>upper-echelon fish that is close to Bob would have told me to forget
>about it.
UP WE GO
This was Jeff Weaver's compilation from 1997. It also contains the songs from the GBV/Grifter's split 7" as well as a song each by Eric Dolphy, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Alex Chilton at the end.
BEYOND THE BARS AND CHURCHES
These songs are mostly demos or live versions of familiar songs, except a couple that weren't released any other way. There's a lot of talky bits between songs; this one was put together with more care than the other rarities tapes. This was made by Dan Robinson pretty recently, and he claims to have also designed a full-color j-card that must have disappeared by the time I got a copy. My copy also is a little different from this (I don't have "My Impression Now" and I do have all the songs from their appearance on the "Kit Kat Acoustic Break" radio show split up between the ends of both sides), but this is the official lineup.
CREDITS:
Initial page created by Josh Reineke. Additional commentary stolen from Michael Davies. Clarification and edification by Andy Gower.