Bee Thousand - Album
Bee Thousand (Album) by Guided By Voices
Guided By Voices>
Artist Biography For Guided By Voices
Guided By Voices Is An Indie Rock Band Formed In Dayton Ohio United States In 1983. The Band's Lineup Has Changed Several Times Throughout The Band's History With Its Only Constant Member Being Singer/songwriter Robert Pollard. The Band's Current Lineup Consists Of Robert Pollard Vocals Guitar Bobby Bare Jr. Guitar Doug Gillard Guitar Mark Shue Bass And Kevin March Drums . The Band's 39th Album Nowhere To Go But Up Was Released On November 24 2023. Noted At First For Its Lo-Fi Aesthetic And Typically Portastudio Four-Tracks-To-Cassette Production Methods Guided By Voices' Music Revealed Influences From Post-British Invasion Garage Rock Psychedelic Rock Progressive Rock Punk Rock And Post-Punk. The Band Also Garnered Much Attention For Its Prolific Output With A Seemingly Endless Stream Of Releases. Most Songs Are In The Two-Minute Range But Many Are Even Shorter Often They End Abruptly Or Are Intertwined With Odd And Homemade Sound Effects. Some Even Start With Songs Fully Incorporated On Earlier Albums Like How "Ester's Day" From Bee Thousand Has A Snippet Of "At Odds With Dr. Genesis" From King Shit And The Golden Boys. Formed In Dayton Ohio In The Early 1980s Guided By Voices Began Their Career As A Bar Band Working The Local Scene. As Lineups And Day-Jobs Shifted However Pollard Moved The Band Towards A Studio-Only Orientation. Guided By Voices' Recording Career Began With A Stream Of Self-Financed Independent Releases. With Only A Few Hundred Copies Of Each Album Being Pressed These Tended To Circulate Only Among The Band Members' Family And Friends. With The Release Of The Ultra-Limited Album Propeller In 1992 Of Which Only 500 Copies Were Pressed Each With A Unique Handmade Cover Guided By Voices For The First Time Gained Some Recognition Outside Of Their Hometown. This Was Due In Part To Gaining Fans In The College Rock Circuit And Bands Such As Sonic Youth R.E.M. And The Breeders. New York City And Philadelphia Were Host To Guided By Voices' Return To The Live Stage And First Shows Outside Of Ohio In 1993. At This Time The Always-Fluid Guided By Voices Lineup Coalesced Around The Core Of Pollard Guitarists Tobin Sprout And Mitch Mitchell Not To Be Confused With Jimi Hendrix's Drummer Bassist Dan Toohey And Drummer Kevin Fennell. Sprout Who Was Briefly Featured In An Early-'80s Version Of The Band Had Re-Joined Circa Propeller And Soon Became Pollard's Primary Musical Foil In Addition To Contributing Several Of His Own Songs To The Band's Catalog. 1993 Also Saw The Release Of Vampire On Titus As Well As The Fast Japanese Spin Cycle And Static Airplane Jive EPs. Over The Next Year The Band Began To Receive National Media Exposure From Sources Such As Spin Magazine. In 1994 After Culling Both New Songs And Reams Of Archival Recordings From GBV's History Pollard Delivered The Indie Landmark Bee Thousand Via Scat Records With A Distribution Deal Through Indie Label Matador Records. Soon The Band Officially Signed With Matador Concurrent With Pollard And His Bandmates Finally Retiring From Their Day Jobs To Work In Music Full-Time. The Band Surprised Early Audiences Accustomed To The Generally Shambling Lo-Fi And Collage-Like Quality Of The Records With Their Energetic Live Show Featuring Pollard's Homegrown Rock Theatrics Consisting Of Karate-Kicks Leaps And Roger Daltrey-Inspired Mic-Twirling Mitch Mitchell's Windmilling And Chain Smoking Sometime Bassist Greg Demos' Striped Pants A Never-Ending Barrage Of Tunes That All Seemed To Clock In Under 90 Seconds And Prodigious Alcohol Consumption All Around. Their True Matador Debut Came In 1995 With Alien Lanes Which Despite A Five-Figure Recording Allowance Was Constructed Out Of Home-Recorded Snippets On The Cheap. The Band's Underground Following Continued To Grow With Notices Coming From Mainstream Sources Such As MTV And Rolling Stone. After Sessions For A Concept Album Entitled The Power Of Suck Were Aborted The Band Assembled Under The Bushes Under The Stars Out Of Their First 24-Track Studio Sessions Recorded With Kim Deal And Steve Albini Among Others In 1996. However The Strain Of Heavy Touring Would Ultimately Lead To The Demise Of The "classic Lineup" With Sprout Deciding To Retire From The Road In Order To Focus On Raising His First Child His Painting And His Solo Musical Career. Sprout And Pollard Marked The Occasion By Releasing Simultaneous Solo Albums On The Same Day In 1996 Sprout's Carnival Boy And Pollard's Not In My Airforce With Each Making A Guest Appearance On The Other's Album. Pollard Maintained An Active Parallel Solo And Side Project Career Alongside GBV Releases For The Remainder Of That Band's Existence. These Records Were Primarily Self-Released. Because GBV Alumni Were Regularly Featured And Songs From These Albums Were Frequently Included In GBV Setlists They Are Informally Considered To Be Part Of The GBV Canon. Also In 1995 The Band Contributed The Song "Sensational Gravity Boy" To The AIDS Benefit Album Red Hot Bothered Produced By The Red Hot Organization. Pollard Created A New Incarnation Of Guided By Voices With Cleveland Glam Rockers Cobra Verde In 1997. The Following Album Mag Earwhig! Combined A New Hard-Rocking Swagger With Classic Lo-Fi Fragments And One Track "Jane Of The Waking Universe" That Featured The Classic Lineup For One Last Time. However After Another Year Of Rigorous Touring The "Guided By Verde" Lineup Split In Late 1997 Following Pollard's Announcement In An Interview That He Intended To Work With Other Musicians On The Next Guided By Voices Project. Cobra Verde's Doug Gillard Was Tapped For Yet Another New Guided By Voices Lineup In 1998 Which Also Included "classic"-Era Bassist Greg Demos Former Breeders Drummer Jim Macpherson And Eventually Former Amps/Breeders Guitarist Nate Farley. Departing From Matador This Lineup Without Farley Worked With Producer Ric Ocasek To Create What Was Intended To Be Guided By Voices' Major Label Debut. Initially Produced For Capitol Records Do The Collapse Was Repeatedly Delayed And Finally Released In Mid-1999 On Pseudo-Indie Label TVT. In The UK It Was Released On Creation Records . Featuring A Slick Heavily Processed Sound Previously Foreign To GBV Albums Do The Collapse Failed To Catch On At Radio And Was For The Most Part Greeted With Mixed Reviews. Through Touring Heavily Throughout 1999 And 2000 Guided By Voices' Live Act Became Legendary With Shows Often Stretching Past The Three-Hour Mark And Populated By An Endless Stream Of New And Classic Songs Pollard Solo Tracks Impromptu Covers Of The Who David Bowie And The Rolling Stones All Accompanied By Continuous Alcohol Consumption. In Addition To Multiple Swings Through The United States And Europe 2000 Saw The Band's First And Only Visits To Australia And Japan. 2000 Was Capped With The Release Of The Massive Suitcase A Four-Disc 100-Song Trawl Through Three Decades Worth Of Pollard's Enormous Reserve Of Unreleased Material. Two More Box Sets Of Unreleased Songs Suitcase 2 And Suitcase 3 Were Released In October 2005 And November 2009 Respectively. 2001's Isolation Drills Was Recorded With Rob Schnapf Who Aimed To Capture The Band's Live Sound More Closely Than Did Ocasek. Though The Album Debuted In Billboard's Top 200 And Received Higher Critical Notices Than Its Predecessor It Did Not Achieve The Sought-After Radio Breakthrough. After Departing From TVT In 2002 Guided By Voices Returned To Matador And Released Universal Truths And Cycles A Departure From The Previous Two Radio-Aspiring Albums And A Return To The Band's Mid-90's Mid-Fi Aesthetic. Universal Truths Producer Todd Tobias Would Also Record The Band's Final Two Albums For Matador. 2003 Saw The Release Of The Prog-Styled Earthquake Glue Followed By The Anthology Box Set Hardcore UFOs Revelations Epiphanies And Fast Food In The Western Hemisphere And The Greatest Hits Compilation Best Of Guided By Voices Human Amusements At Hourly Rates. In 2004 Pollard Announced He Was Disbanding Guided By Voices Following The Release Of The Half-Smiles Of The Decomposed LP And A Final Farewell Tour. On November 9 2004 Guided By Voices Performed On The Stage Of Austin City Limits Broadcast By PBS On January 22 2005. Their Last Television Appearance Was On Late Night With Conan O'Brien On December 2 2004. They Played The Single "Everybody Thinks I'm A Raincloud When I'm Not Looking ". After A Select Round Of Final US Shows Guided By Voices Played Their Final Show At The Metro In Chicago On December 31 2004. The Four Hour 63-Song Marathon Finale Is Documented On The DVD The Electrifying Conclusion In June 2010 Matador Records Announced That The "Classic '93-'96 Lineup" Of Robert Pollard Vocals Guitar Tobin Sprout Guitar Mitch Mitchell Guitar Greg Demos Bass And Kevin Fennell Drums Would Reunite To Perform At The Label's 21st Anniversary Celebration In Las Vegas In October Of That Year. A Full Reunion Tour Was Subsequently Announced With The Band Selling Out Nearly Every Date. The Tour Included Stops At Hoboken's Maxwell's And The Southgate House In Newport Kentucky Two Venues That The Band Had Built A History With Due To Legendary Shows There In The Past. When Asked By Spinner If There Might Ever Be Another Proper GBV Record Pollard Said "I've Thought About It Sometimes But It's A Very Long Shot " He Says. "We All Kind Of Do Our Own Thing. I'm Not Completely Eliminating The Possibility." The Band Played Their "last Ever" Performance At North Carolina's Hopscotch Music Festival In September 2011 However Later That Month The Band Announced That They Would Be Releasing A New Album Let's Go Eat The Factory On 1 January 2012. The Band Released A Second Post-Reformation LP Class Clown Spots A UFO On June 12 2012. A Third The Bears For Lunch Followed In November. Another Album English Little League Was Released In 2013. In A July 2013 Interview With Magnet Magazine Pollard Stated That English Little League Could Be The Final GBV Album. However In September A Fifth Reunion Record Motivational Jumpsuit Was Confirmed For Release On Guided By Voices Inc. And Fire Records In February 2014. A Sixth Reunion Album Cool Planet Has Also Been Announced For May 19 2014. In 2016 Guided By Voices Lineup At The Time Only Robert Pollard Released Their 22nd Album Please Be Honest. Pollard Played Every Instrument On The Album. In 2017 The Band With Another New Lineup Released Their 23rd Album August By Cake. This Lineup Has Since Recorded 16 Studio Albums With Their Newest Nowhere To Go But Up Released On November 24th 2023.
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Biography - Guided By Voices
Guided By Voices Is An Indie Rock Band Formed In Dayton Ohio United States In 1983. The Band's Lineup Has Changed Several Times Throughout The Band's History With Its Only Constant Member Being Singer/songwriter Robert Pollard. The Band's Current Lineup Consists Of Robert Pollard Vocals Guitar Bobby Bare Jr. Guitar Doug Gillard Guitar Mark Shue Bass And Kevin March Drums . The Band's 39th Album Nowhere To Go But Up Was Released On November 24 2023. Noted At First For Its Lo-Fi Aesthetic And Typically Portastudio Four-Tracks-To-Cassette Production Methods Guided By Voices' Music Revealed Influences From Post-British Invasion Garage Rock Psychedelic Rock Progressive Rock Punk Rock And Post-Punk. The Band Also Garnered Much Attention For Its Prolific Output With A Seemingly Endless Stream Of Releases. Most Songs Are In The Two-Minute Range But Many Are Even Shorter Often They End Abruptly Or Are Intertwined With Odd And Homemade Sound Effects. Some Even Start With Songs Fully Incorporated On Earlier Albums Like How "Ester's Day" From Bee Thousand Has A Snippet Of "At Odds With Dr. Genesis" From King Shit And The Golden Boys. Formed In Dayton Ohio In The Early 1980s Guided By Voices Began Their Career As A Bar Band Working The Local Scene. As Lineups And Day-Jobs Shifted However Pollard Moved The Band Towards A Studio-Only Orientation. Guided By Voices' Recording Career Began With A Stream Of Self-Financed Independent Releases. With Only A Few Hundred Copies Of Each Album Being Pressed These Tended To Circulate Only Among The Band Members' Family And Friends. With The Release Of The Ultra-Limited Album Propeller In 1992 Of Which Only 500 Copies Were Pressed Each With A Unique Handmade Cover Guided By Voices For The First Time Gained Some Recognition Outside Of Their Hometown. This Was Due In Part To Gaining Fans In The College Rock Circuit And Bands Such As Sonic Youth R.E.M. And The Breeders. New York City And Philadelphia Were Host To Guided By Voices' Return To The Live Stage And First Shows Outside Of Ohio In 1993. At This Time The Always-Fluid Guided By Voices Lineup Coalesced Around The Core Of Pollard Guitarists Tobin Sprout And Mitch Mitchell Not To Be Confused With Jimi Hendrix's Drummer Bassist Dan Toohey And Drummer Kevin Fennell. Sprout Who Was Briefly Featured In An Early-'80s Version Of The Band Had Re-Joined Circa Propeller And Soon Became Pollard's Primary Musical Foil In Addition To Contributing Several Of His Own Songs To The Band's Catalog. 1993 Also Saw The Release Of Vampire On Titus As Well As The Fast Japanese Spin Cycle And Static Airplane Jive EPs. Over The Next Year The Band Began To Receive National Media Exposure From Sources Such As Spin Magazine. In 1994 After Culling Both New Songs And Reams Of Archival Recordings From GBV's History Pollard Delivered The Indie Landmark Bee Thousand Via Scat Records With A Distribution Deal Through Indie Label Matador Records. Soon The Band Officially Signed With Matador Concurrent With Pollard And His Bandmates Finally Retiring From Their Day Jobs To Work In Music Full-Time. The Band Surprised Early Audiences Accustomed To The Generally Shambling Lo-Fi And Collage-Like Quality Of The Records With Their Energetic Live Show Featuring Pollard's Homegrown Rock Theatrics Consisting Of Karate-Kicks Leaps And Roger Daltrey-Inspired Mic-Twirling Mitch Mitchell's Windmilling And Chain Smoking Sometime Bassist Greg Demos' Striped Pants A Never-Ending Barrage Of Tunes That All Seemed To Clock In Under 90 Seconds And Prodigious Alcohol Consumption All Around. Their True Matador Debut Came In 1995 With Alien Lanes Which Despite A Five-Figure Recording Allowance Was Constructed Out Of Home-Recorded Snippets On The Cheap. The Band's Underground Following Continued To Grow With Notices Coming From Mainstream Sources Such As MTV And Rolling Stone. After Sessions For A Concept Album Entitled The Power Of Suck Were Aborted The Band Assembled Under The Bushes Under The Stars Out Of Their First 24-Track Studio Sessions Recorded With Kim Deal And Steve Albini Among Others In 1996. However The Strain Of Heavy Touring Would Ultimately Lead To The Demise Of The "classic Lineup" With Sprout Deciding To Retire From The Road In Order To Focus On Raising His First Child His Painting And His Solo Musical Career. Sprout And Pollard Marked The Occasion By Releasing Simultaneous Solo Albums On The Same Day In 1996 Sprout's Carnival Boy And Pollard's Not In My Airforce With Each Making A Guest Appearance On The Other's Album. Pollard Maintained An Active Parallel Solo And Side Project Career Alongside GBV Releases For The Remainder Of That Band's Existence. These Records Were Primarily Self-Released. Because GBV Alumni Were Regularly Featured And Songs From These Albums Were Frequently Included In GBV Setlists They Are Informally Considered To Be Part Of The GBV Canon. Also In 1995 The Band Contributed The Song "Sensational Gravity Boy" To The AIDS Benefit Album Red Hot Bothered Produced By The Red Hot Organization. Pollard Created A New Incarnation Of Guided By Voices With Cleveland Glam Rockers Cobra Verde In 1997. The Following Album Mag Earwhig! Combined A New Hard-Rocking Swagger With Classic Lo-Fi Fragments And One Track "Jane Of The Waking Universe" That Featured The Classic Lineup For One Last Time. However After Another Year Of Rigorous Touring The "Guided By Verde" Lineup Split In Late 1997 Following Pollard's Announcement In An Interview That He Intended To Work With Other Musicians On The Next Guided By Voices Project. Cobra Verde's Doug Gillard Was Tapped For Yet Another New Guided By Voices Lineup In 1998 Which Also Included "classic"-Era Bassist Greg Demos Former Breeders Drummer Jim Macpherson And Eventually Former Amps/Breeders Guitarist Nate Farley. Departing From Matador This Lineup Without Farley Worked With Producer Ric Ocasek To Create What Was Intended To Be Guided By Voices' Major Label Debut. Initially Produced For Capitol Records Do The Collapse Was Repeatedly Delayed And Finally Released In Mid-1999 On Pseudo-Indie Label TVT. In The UK It Was Released On Creation Records . Featuring A Slick Heavily Processed Sound Previously Foreign To GBV Albums Do The Collapse Failed To Catch On At Radio And Was For The Most Part Greeted With Mixed Reviews. Through Touring Heavily Throughout 1999 And 2000 Guided By Voices' Live Act Became Legendary With Shows Often Stretching Past The Three-Hour Mark And Populated By An Endless Stream Of New And Classic Songs Pollard Solo Tracks Impromptu Covers Of The Who David Bowie And The Rolling Stones All Accompanied By Continuous Alcohol Consumption. In Addition To Multiple Swings Through The United States And Europe 2000 Saw The Band's First And Only Visits To Australia And Japan. 2000 Was Capped With The Release Of The Massive Suitcase A Four-Disc 100-Song Trawl Through Three Decades Worth Of Pollard's Enormous Reserve Of Unreleased Material. Two More Box Sets Of Unreleased Songs Suitcase 2 And Suitcase 3 Were Released In October 2005 And November 2009 Respectively. 2001's Isolation Drills Was Recorded With Rob Schnapf Who Aimed To Capture The Band's Live Sound More Closely Than Did Ocasek. Though The Album Debuted In Billboard's Top 200 And Received Higher Critical Notices Than Its Predecessor It Did Not Achieve The Sought-After Radio Breakthrough. After Departing From TVT In 2002 Guided By Voices Returned To Matador And Released Universal Truths And Cycles A Departure From The Previous Two Radio-Aspiring Albums And A Return To The Band's Mid-90's Mid-Fi Aesthetic. Universal Truths Producer Todd Tobias Would Also Record The Band's Final Two Albums For Matador. 2003 Saw The Release Of The Prog-Styled Earthquake Glue Followed By The Anthology Box Set Hardcore UFOs Revelations Epiphanies And Fast Food In The Western Hemisphere And The Greatest Hits Compilation Best Of Guided By Voices Human Amusements At Hourly Rates. In 2004 Pollard Announced He Was Disbanding Guided By Voices Following The Release Of The Half-Smiles Of The Decomposed LP And A Final Farewell Tour. On November 9 2004 Guided By Voices Performed On The Stage Of Austin City Limits Broadcast By PBS On January 22 2005. Their Last Television Appearance Was On Late Night With Conan O'Brien On December 2 2004. They Played The Single "Everybody Thinks I'm A Raincloud When I'm Not Looking ". After A Select Round Of Final US Shows Guided By Voices Played Their Final Show At The Metro In Chicago On December 31 2004. The Four Hour 63-Song Marathon Finale Is Documented On The DVD The Electrifying Conclusion In June 2010 Matador Records Announced That The "Classic '93-'96 Lineup" Of Robert Pollard Vocals Guitar Tobin Sprout Guitar Mitch Mitchell Guitar Greg Demos Bass And Kevin Fennell Drums Would Reunite To Perform At The Label's 21st Anniversary Celebration In Las Vegas In October Of That Year. A Full Reunion Tour Was Subsequently Announced With The Band Selling Out Nearly Every Date. The Tour Included Stops At Hoboken's Maxwell's And The Southgate House In Newport Kentucky Two Venues That The Band Had Built A History With Due To Legendary Shows There In The Past. When Asked By Spinner If There Might Ever Be Another Proper GBV Record Pollard Said "I've Thought About It Sometimes But It's A Very Long Shot " He Says. "We All Kind Of Do Our Own Thing. I'm Not Completely Eliminating The Possibility." The Band Played Their "last Ever" Performance At North Carolina's Hopscotch Music Festival In September 2011 However Later That Month The Band Announced That They Would Be Releasing A New Album Let's Go Eat The Factory On 1 January 2012. The Band Released A Second Post-Reformation LP Class Clown Spots A UFO On June 12 2012. A Third The Bears For Lunch Followed In November. Another Album English Little League Was Released In 2013. In A July 2013 Interview With Magnet Magazine Pollard Stated That English Little League Could Be The Final GBV Album. However In September A Fifth Reunion Record Motivational Jumpsuit Was Confirmed For Release On Guided By Voices Inc. And Fire Records In February 2014. A Sixth Reunion Album Cool Planet Has Also Been Announced For May 19 2014. In 2016 Guided By Voices Lineup At The Time Only Robert Pollard Released Their 22nd Album Please Be Honest. Pollard Played Every Instrument On The Album. In 2017 The Band With Another New Lineup Released Their 23rd Album August By Cake. This Lineup Has Since Recorded 16 Studio Albums With Their Newest Nowhere To Go But Up Released On November 24th 2023.
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Published: 05 May 2014, 15:57
Bee Thousand Is The Seventh Album By American Indie Rock Band Guided By Voices Released On June 21 1994. It Is Noted For Its Poor Fidelity Having Been Recorded On Retail Devices Rather Than In A Studio And For Its Abnormally Brief Song Lengths. Nonetheless The Album Has Been Considered To Be Among The Most Important Of Indie Rock. The Album's Music Draws Inspiration From British Invasion-Era Rock Music And Punk Rock While The Surreal Lyrics Are Largely A Reflection Of Principal Songwriter Robert Pollard's Experiences As A Schoolteacher A Father And A Musician. Upon Its Release Bee Thousand Unexpectedly Garnered A Relatively Large Amount Of Attention Within Indie And Alternative Rock Circles Receiving Critical Praise. Due To The Album's Inferior Fidelity The Band Became Associated With An Indie Rock Genre Known As "lo-Fi" A Movement Defined By The Eschewing Of Large Studios In Favor Of Home Recording And The Use Of Analog Devices Such As 4-Track Cassette Recorders Which Lent The Music A Lower Fidelity. The Album Has Since Been Hailed As A Masterpiece And Is Considered An Essential Indie Rock Album And Among The Most Important Alternative Rock Albums Of The 1990s. Background Guided By Voices Was A Dayton Ohio-Based Band Formed In 1983. Although By 1992 The Band Had Released Five Full-Length Albums Not Including Their 1986 Debut EP Forever Since Breakfast Guided By Voices Was Not A Band In A Conventional Sense Its Line-Up Was Extremely Loose Consisting Of Whomever Of A Group Of Friends Showed Up To Short Notice Recording Sessions. Additionally The Group Did Not Put On Live Performances. Robert Pollard Thought Of Guided By Voices As More Of A "songwriter's Guild" Than A Band And Also Said That "Whoever Could Come Over Would Play. It Was Just A Bunch Of Friends Who Could Occasionally Get Together So It Didn't Really Feel Like A Band." Bee Thousand Was To Be The Band's Final Album. Pollard Was Close To Disbanding Guided By Voices By 1993 Due To Financial Constraints And Pressure To Focus More On His Family And Teaching Career Pollard Has Also Stated That The Band Was Nearly Broken Up As Early As 1991 During The Creation Of Propeller. Pollard Was Also Struggling With Writing For A Follow-Up Record To Vampire On Titus And Propeller Which Had Been The Band's Two Most Noticed Records Yet. However It Occurred To Him To "deconstruct" And "reconstruct" The Band's Older Unused Material Into New Songs. Recording Unlike Some Of The Band's Earlier Releases Bee Thousand Was Not Recorded In A Studio But Rather On Four Track Machines Or Other Primitive Home Recording Devices In The Garages And Basements Of Various Band Members. Moreover Many Of The Demo Takes Of The Songs Were The Ones That Were Used For The Album. Due In Part To Both Of These Factors Several Unusual Errors Are Present In The Album's Recording And Mixing For Example The Guitar Track Drops Out At One Point In "Hardcore UFO's" . The Band's Choice To Use Inexpensive Recording Devices Was Initially A Matter Of Economics But Eventually The Band Grew To Prefer The Sound. Pollard Said That “ For Our First Forever Since Breakfast We Went Into A Studio And Created A Very Mediocre Recording Out Of A Very Sterile Environment. I Thought "Fuck That. If We're Paying For It And No One's Listening To These Records Anyway If We're Only Making Them For Ourselves Then I'm Going To Put Exactly What I Want On Them." ” Kevin Fennel Similarly Said "When Bee Thousand Came Out We Sounded Much Less Professional Than We Did In 1982. The Music Was Much More Spontaneous." Pollard Also Said That At The Time The Band's Recording Style Was Intended To Sound Like Beatles Bootlegs. Furthermore Songs Were Usually Completed In A Minimum Number Of Takes With No Rehearsal Beforehand. In All Recording For The Album Was Extremely Brief Taking Only Three Days With Pollard Estimating That Each Song Took Roughly Half An Hour. Music The Music Of Bee Thousand Is Influenced By British Invasion Rock Music As Well As What Pollard Calls The "four P's" Of Rock Pop Punk Rock Progressive Rock And Psychedelia. Only A Few New Songs Were Written For The Album Among Them "I Am A Scientist" And "Gold Star For Robot Boy" With The Rest Of The Album Mostly Being Overdubbed Rerecorded Or Edited Versions Of The Band's Older Unused Material. While Typical Rock Instruments Such As Guitar Bass And Drums Are Dominant A Variety Of Instruments And Sounds Are Used. Recorders Are Used In "The Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory" And A Piano Is Used In The Closing Track "You're Not An Airplane". Lyrics Pollard's Surreal Lyrical Style Has Been Compared To The Cut-Up Technique Of Beat Writer William S. Burroughs. Many Of The Album's Lyrics Reflect Childish Or Fantastical Themes And Were Heavily Influenced By The Statements And Actions Of Pollard's Fourth Grade Class Exemplified By "Gold Star For Robot Boy". Pollard Was Inspired To Write "The Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory" After Having An LSD-Triggered Psychedelic Experience In Which He Perceived His Own Face In A Mirror Changing Into His Son's Face However The Song's Lyrics Are Not About This Event. According To Pollard "I Am A Scientist" Is "the First Song That Showed Some Maturity In My Ability As A Songwriter." Tobin Sprout Who Wrote Or Co-Wrote Many Of The Songs Has Been Described As Pollard's Creative Foil. Album Title The Title Bee Thousand Was Inspired By A Group Brainstorming Session During Which Band Members Smoked Marijuana. Pollard's Brother Jim Thought Of "zoo Thousand" Allegedly Inspired By A Mile Marker Reading "Z1000". This Phrase Coalesced With A Misspelling Of A Movie Title At A Drive-In Theater With "Beethoven" Spelled As "Beethouen" Which Pollard Liked Because The Misspelling Sounded Like The Name Of The Who Guitarist Pete Townshend. Other Considered Titles Included All That Glue And Instructions For The Rusty Time Machine Both Of Which Were Used In The Lyrics Of Other Guided By Voices Songs.