MP3: Lightouts - "The Official Ironmen Rally Song" (Guided by Voices cover)
01.18.2012
Beats Per Minute Premiere Latest Cover Track From Guitar-Driven Duo
Critical Praise for Lightouts:
"'The Eloise Suite' is a three-minute 120 Minutes jammer owing to some Berlin-era Bowie chime-rock—and it now comes with a music video that can be best described as 'Kubrick's 'Addicted To Love.'"
- Chris Weingarten, The Village Voice
"...a Gowanus-based duo that sounds a little like what JAMC might sound like with Robert Smith fronting. And if you listen real close, you’ll hear an honest to goodness guitar solo. Chain me down, Martha!."
My Old Kentucky Blog "Lightouts is a throwback to the joyous, left-of-the-dial guitar rock of the bygone early Nineties."
- PrefixMag
The Song:
After debuting their first official video for "The Eloise Suite" on The Village Voice a little over a month ago, Lightouts' latest release strips away the flashiness and acrobats in offering their vision of a Guided by Voices classic. While many GBV fans may quickly turn to Bee Thousand or Alien Lanes as their go-to records, Lightouts looked to 2004's Under the Bushes, Under the Stars - the last release with GBV's "classic lineup."
UTBUTS was considered to be Guided by Voices' first real stab at leaving behind their trademark lo-fi sound for a higher production level. That more polished feel, combined with "Ironmen's" inherently catchy chorus, made the song a perfect choice for a Lightouts cover. "The chorus in this track is super anthemic, but they only play it a couple of times in the GBV version, so one of the things we decided to change in our take was to play it a few more times. Of course, we also had to speed it up a bit to give it more of a Lightouts feel," says guitarist/songwriter Gavin Rhodes. Instead of ending with one chorus, Lightouts rock it out twice, and then add in a boozy, crowd sing-along round for good measure.
"I've always loved this song from the somewhat under-appreciated GBV album Under the Bushes, Under the Stars," singer Greg Nelson says. "It seems like you can hear some of the tension of the time in Pollard's opening line: 'Bitter fish in crude oil sea' which has always been a favorite of mine.'"
"The Official Ironmen Rally Song" will make its formal appearance on the flipside of Lightouts' fourth maxi-single, which is set for release on February 7th. Also, keep your eyes peeled for the duos' debut full-length, set for release this spring.
For more information on Lightouts please contact Michelle or Chris at Audible Treats.
The
Background:
Lightouts founder Gavin Rhodes started with a simple question: "Robert Smith/Emily Haines, where are you?" But this appeal to fans of The Cure and Metric didn't appear on Craigslist or in The Village Voice. The flyer was posted near the less-than-picturesque Gowanus Canal. Greg Nelson, a veteran of the NYC music scene, responded to the ad and the rest, as they say, is history. The pair exhibit a rare musical and stylistic cohesion: structured bass lines, waves of fuzzed out guitars and vaporous vocals put a new spin on the moody post-punk aesthetic of bands like Joy Division and Smashing Pumpkins circa Siamese Dream. A loosely linked concept album – Want, a meditation on what it means to follow our instincts – is in the works and in the months leading up to the unveiling of the album, the Gowanus duo is set to release a series of singles. With a tip of the hat to an analogue era in the not-so-distant past, each single will feature both an A-side and two B-sides allowing the band to offer up songs complemented by experimentation into deep-cut covers.
