Customer Reviews

The Pipe Dreams of Instant Prince Whippet

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

First off, this is NOT the place to start. Unless you enjoy obtuse snippets and brief flashes of crypto-pop, Prince Whippet is a confusing cul-de-sac of prog impulses and post punk florishes. Sure there is rock here but it is all filtered through that Ohio outsider vibe that has been going since the 70s. So if you are looking to brainlessly shake your booty to power pop punk, you will not even get past the door.

But if you are someone who has long been a citizen of this Wallace Stevens goes punk alternate earth, this is a veritable feast of Pollard powered indie pop. From the near textbook example of Townsend-Punk that is "Visit This Place" through the sludgy anthem of "Action Speaks Volumes" to the subtle orchestral (how often do these two words get put together?) sweep of "Dig Through My Window", you cover the many flavors of this crucial indie rock group. Like so much of the GBV catalogue, other mixed metaphor gems ("Swooping Energies, Instant Prince Whippet, Beg For A Wheelbarrow.") come to your attention with multiple listens. Coming somewhere in terms of quality between "Sunfish Holy Breakfast" and "Hold on Hope" eps, the Prince holds its title as a fantastic continuation of the long standing GBV adventure. Does what an ep is supposed to do, keep us psyched for the next long player. Not great on its own but certainly a worthwhile addition to that GBV collection you have growing in your rock'n'roll closet.

The Pipe Dreams of Instant Prince Whippet collects the odds-and-ends left on the cutting room floor in the aftermath of UT&C, and dare I say, Bob hasn't sounded this much like his old self since "Jane of the Waking Universe". Why these tracks were left off Universal Truths in favor of obvious filler like "Skin Parade" and "The Ids are Alright" is beyond me.

As I see it, one of the primary failings of the band's recent material-- including much of Universal Truths-- is a relative homogeneity that causes otherwise quality songs to bleed together into a mush of chiming guitars and cigarette-stained vocals. That never, ever happens on Pipe Dreams, where each track is clear and distinct from the one that comes before. As a companion piece to Universal Truths, it's easy to see where each cut fits into the larger picture, but the total effect of this record is far closer to that of early GBV classics, where bizarre, half-assed tracks like "Yours to Keep" and "Kicker of Elves" achieved a weirdly compelling power simply through proximity to plain great pop songs.

Some of the great pop songs included here are the bite-sized "Stronger Lizards" and "For Liberty", which both build to sublime crescendos of power and emotion before fading away less than a minute later. These tracks bear the mark of some of GBV's best work, in that you're left wanting more, despite the knowledge that what you just heard was an autonomous unit of songcrafting excellence. These morsels, however, merely set the table for the superlative "Dig Through My Window" and the closer "Beg for a Wheelbarrow." The former is a laidback pop reflection replete with key changes and a subtle orchestral backing, while the massive three-minute closer "Beg for a Wheelbarrow" has Pollard shouting, "Dig a deeper hole/ And then you'll feel better," over a climax of searing guitars and mounting drum fills. Pipe Dream's crown jewels are such a return to form that I almost imagined Tobin Sprout's voice among their backing choruses.

This, of course, is the rare collection in a Fading Captain series which has been-- and will undoubtedly continue to be-- incredibly patchy. Still, this disc implies nothing if not potential for more of the stunning songcraft Pollard built his good name on. Bob still has "it", to my amazement, and some to spare.

-Eric Carr, October 16th, 2002

This bad boy is a "lost" gem. The only thing keeping me from saying that it ranks among the finest GBV albums is it's short running time. But it's an ep. You can't hold that against it. It's like the middleweight that is considered, pound for pound, one of the best boxers in any division.

One thing I can say for sure: This, along with ISOLATION DRILLS and BEST OF..., are the only GBV albums in which "skip" isn't even in my vocabulary. Not that I press it while listening to the others, but I may consider it ever so briefly. Here, it doesn't even cross my enamored brain when I listen...Every song is a winner.

I have read that these songs are from the UTAC sessions. I consider that one to be a underrated album in the first place. Can you imagine if these were stuck on there too? Whooee, look out!

That's the question on my mind-"Will singer/songwriter Robert Pollard ever dry up creativly?" The man is a MACHINE. Most bands release an album every few years...not Guided By Voices-oh no, for Pollard, it's a new release ever few MONTHS.
Here, on "The Pipe Dreams of Instant Prince Whippet" (don't you just love that title?) We find Pollard and Co. banging out more The Who-meets the Beatles-meets REM-meets an alien from space type songs. This was recorded around the time of Universal Truths and Cycles (the bands latest album).
This release really isn't an "album", rather it's a collection of B-side type stuff.
Buy it for "Dig Through My Window" alone (the string arrangment is fantastic!), then buckle down for the rest-"Swooping Energies" stands out, as does "Action Speaks Volumes." If you like GBV you won't regret this purchase!!!

no one will mistake this for the classic era of bee thousand or alien lanes, but it is arguably the finest work in the GbV canon. most of these songs were recorded during the universal truths and cycles sessions and are better than almost anything on that LP. beg for a wheelbarrow is one of the best songs robert pollard has penned. and given his abundant songwriting output, that's saying something!

well worth your hard-earned dollars. and there you have it.

The only fault I can find with this cd is that it is overpriced for how short an album it is. But the songs on here are very high quality. Visit This Place and Dig Through My Window show GBV's more pop-oriented side. Beg For A Wheelbarrow will have you raising your beer and chanting along with Pollard next time the band comes to your town. The title track is remeniscent of older GBV, circa Alien Lanes. The rest of the tracks are no filler either. It's often hard to know what you're going to get with GBV's side releases, but this one is top knotch, even better than the quality Hold On Hope ep. If you love GBV, you need this cd. If you're only mildly interested in the band, or just thinking about picking up your first GBV record, start with another release that will give you more for your money.

_
Though a GBV completist, I recommend on musical merits -- this is a good one.

This Ep is much better than I expected considering that eight out of its ten tracks were outtakes culled from the 19 track UTAC, which I felt had its weaker moments. Naturally, I didn't think that there would be much left over to offer the listener. I thought that I would be hearing a hodgepodge of leftovers, of interest only to completists. At first this expectation held true, as I wasn't too impressed with any of the songs. But as with anything released by Sir Robert Pollard, this food takes time to digest (I think that I have been at first disappointed at with pretty much everything that he puts out). But then after the requisite period of time (needed to properly judge albums) had passed, I felt that this was indeed the best GBV EP put out of late.
This is surprising given that I am still not blown away by very many of the songs here (I would only say that Dig through my Window,and Beg for a Wheelbarrow do that for me). What makes this EP so great in my opinion is the fact that unlike other recent GBV Ep's, I can listen to this one from beginning to end repeatedly without having to skip tracks. This was not the case for me with, say the Hold on Hope Ep or Sunfish Holy Breakfast. With Hold on Hope I found that the first two tracks were decent, the next 3 (Fly into Ashes, Tropical Robots, and A Crick Uphill) were as good as anything that Sir Robert has ever done before. But after that it felt that every song was an outtake for a reason. Even Sunfish Holy Breakfast had If we Wait, Cocksoldiers, and Heavy Metal Country, but it never fullfilled me as a listener and it always lost my attention. I guess that except for the aforementioned songs, Sunfish actually does feel like a bunch of leftovers thrown haphazardly together.
But not so with the Prince Whippet Ep where the songs are strung together in such a fashion that it feels like they've always existed next to one another in the organic whole that is the EP, where the total sum is greater than its individual parts. This is a great CD to listen to at night, especially while driving. It kind of feels like hanging out with an old friend. I never feel tempted to skip over any of the tracks, and nor should you. Just don't expect many of the songs to blow you out of the water. This is a Jackie Brown in the GBV catalogue, to the Reservoir Dogs of Isolation Drills, or the Pulp Fiction of Bee Thousand. Though it may never blow you off of your seat, its great to hang out with these characters every once in a while.
P.S. Univeral Truths and Cycles was True Romance (because it takes you on one hell of a ride).

got 23 minutes? thats all you need to hear this EP by guided
by voices. when i bought this in the store i did not know it
was an EP, once i saw their was only 10 songs( which for guided
by voices is short) and its also limited. some of this album
is pointless and it wasent even like they were trying. two songs
are 50 seconds, and whats the deal with some of these song titles? beg for a wheelbarrow?
stronger lizards? but there are good songs.
the last song sounds like an anthem for an irish pub.
i like the first song and second, and
i think that stonger lizards has very cool
chord progression, but it would have been
better if it were longer, some songs are meant to be short and
some really arent. this isn't a bad album, it s good, but if
you are just getting into this group, dont buy this album.
universal truths and cycles is a very good album, with the
absoulutley great song " pretty bombs". i am going to go out
and buy alien lanes by them which is from 95, because it has
28 songs and is 41 minutes. how cool is that?