Guided by Voices “Smothered in Hugs” Live Memphis 1.15.1994

What were you doing on January 15, 1994? Personally, I can’t remember—I was 17, so it probably involved Pavement, Frank Black, marijuana, or some combination of the three. It was, however, on that date that a guy named David went to a Guided by Voices concert in Memphis, and it changed his life. And, consequently, it changed the path and form that mp3 and music blogs would take a decade later. You see, that guy named David became infatuated with the band that evening, to the point of eventually establishing a GBV radio website that would morph into what’s known today as Largehearted Boy.

I attempted to sneak in and see Guided by Voices in Cincinnati later that year, to no avail (still only 17), but we listened to Bee Thousand the entire way home and I emerged from the event a fan. In the following decade, I ended up seeing them 15 times, and the composite of those concerts is a blur of sweat and cheap beer, fist-pumping, jumping and hoarse-throated rides/walks home. Guided by Voices were the greatest live band I ever saw, and will probably retain that title for as long as I am able to go to concerts.

Not that much of that comes across in this clip, which comes from that Memphis show—the Bee Thousand tour, pre-cult following. The quality of “Smothered in Hugs” (m4v) is rather low, the video taken from the back of the venue and the audio acquired from everywhere but the soundboard. But it still gives a good impression of a band on the verge of attaining a rare level of cult iconography. A band that, at this point, had been together (in myriad iterations) for about a decade but which would gain notice for its recording technique, its tendency toward blissfully short and brilliant songs, and its iconoclastic and blindingly prolific pilot, Bob Pollard—which would all combine to create a demographically broad spectrum of die-hard rock fans unique in the annals of popular music.

(I’ve developed a bit of a video fetish of late—check here and here for what I was up to over the weekend)

Filed under: Guided By Voices  live video