The Corpse-Like Sleep of Stupidity (1992)

A mysterious album from the early 90s that contains tracks from Propeller as well as from an earlier aborted album, Back to Saturn X. I would consider it an embryonic version of Propeller, likely a transitional step between Back to Saturn X and the final product. It also contains a handful of songs that ended up on other albums or EPs, Suitcase, or were never officially released.

The Corpse-Like Sleep Of Stupidity
1. #2 In The Model Home Series (Instrumental)
2. Mr. Japan
3. Some Drilling Implied
4. Buzzards And Dreadful Crows (Suitcase version)
5. Red Gas Circle
6. Damn Good Mr. Jam
7. Trashed Canned Goods
8. Unleashed! The Large-Hearted Boy
9. Tractor Rape Chain (Clean It Up)
10. 14 Cheerleader Coldfront
11. My Big Day
12. Kisses To The Crying Cooks
13. Dusty Bushworms
14. Bottoms Up! (You Fantastic Bastard)
15. Melted Pat
16. Separation Of Church And State
17. (untitled) (AKA “Earnest Strumming”)
18. Particular Damaged
19. Good Old Mr. Expendable
20. Spring Tigers
21. Scalding Creek
22. Lethargy
23. The Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory (alt. mix)

No doubt Propeller boats a tighter, stronger sequence, but listening to Corpse-like Sleep of Stupidity I can already hear that special “classic” GBV spark running through it. The band had a way of making the grittiest four-track recording seem like peering into another world, and in many ways this is where they laid the foundation for Vampire on Titus, Bee Thousand, and everything that followed. Having said that, this is isn’t a long-lost classic, but it’s a prototype for one. Guided by Voices’ excellent new album Let’s Go Eat the Factory captures a lot of the same spirit too. What Corpse-Like really lacks are some of Propeller‘s big standouts like “Exit Flagger,” “Weed King,” On the Tundra,” and “Over the Neptune/Mesh Gear Fox.”

Opening with an instrumental version of a Vampire on Titus track and closing with a slightly more stripped-down mix of Bee Thousand‘s “Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory,” Corpse-Like is a time-capsule, providing a glimpse of some future classics at an early stage in their development. Apart from “Goldheart,” a few other Bee Thousand seeds are here too: A shouty and noisy early take on “Buzzards and Dreadful Crows” leftover from the Same Place the Fly Got Smashed sessions, and a weird, slow song that eventually builds to the familiar chorus of “Tractor Rape Chain.” Additionally, “Kisses to the Crying Cooks,” from Fast Japanese Spin Cycle, appears here. Imagine if Propeller really was the last GBV album, and these songs were left to languish in obscurity! Finally, “My Big Day” was recorded at least a couple more times. Pollard eventually got it right, but that version is not well-known.

One unusual feature of Corpse-like is the prevalence of what I’d describe as groove-oriented jams:

Mr. Japan (Suitcase)
Bottoms Up! (You Fantastic Bastard)  (Suitcase)
Particular Damaged (Propeller)
Trashed Canned Goods (truncated version on In Shop We Build Electric Chairs, long version unreleased)
Separation Of Church And State (unreleased)

Only one of these tunes ended up on an album, but two ended up on Suitcase, one on Nightwalker’s In Shop We Build Electric Chairs, and one remains totally unreleased. Thanks to the detailed writing and performance credits in Suitcase, we know that the music for these was done by Tobin Sprout and bassist Dan Toohey. Both musically and vocally, these tracks are pretty different from GBV’s usual style. I particularly like the cool, beat poetry sort of vibe from Pollard on a couple of these and I wonder whether or not the vocals were spontaneously created at the same time as the music, or if they were overdubbed onto already-recorded jams. Either way, these types of songs are not what I think of when I think of GBV. It was an interesting alley to explore that ultimately went nowhere… although a part of “Trashed Canned Goods” was eventually recycled into a Boston Spaceships song!

Apart from “Separation of Church and State,” two other Corpse-Like tracks remain totally unreleased. None of these three are particularly noteworthy.”Good Old Mr. Expendable” is less than a minute of ominously ringing chords (I think maybe just one chord, actually) and a half-muttered vocal incantation. Then there’s a 30-second track of earnest acoustic guitar strumming, often apocryphally titled “Earnest Strumming” on bootlegs. It sounds like it could be a Sprout instrumental, and it’s too bad there’s no vocal on it because it has potential for a great melody in the “Indian Fables” or “Wondering Boy Poet” vein.

Here’s the final breakdown for the songs that comprise The Corpse-Like Sleep of Stupidity:

Propeller
Some Drilling Implied
Red Gas Circle
Unleashed! The Large-Hearted Boy
14 Cheerleader Coldfront
Particular Damaged
Lethargy

Get Out of My Stations
Dusty Bushworms
Melted Pat
Spring Tigers
Scalding Creek

Suitcase
Mr. Japan
Buzzards And Dreadful Crows
My Big Day
Bottoms Up! (You Fantastic Bastard)

Fast Japanese Spin Cycle
Kisses to the Crying Cooks

Static Airplane Jive (is this out of print too?)
Damn Good Mr. Jam

Darla 100 compilation
 Tractor Rape Chain (Clean It Up)

Unreleased
#2 In The Model Home Series (Instrumental)
Trashed Canned Goods (long version, released version on Nightwalker)
Separation Of Church And State
(untitled) (AKA “Earnest Strumming”)
Good Old Mr. Expendable
The Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory (early mix, released version on Bee Thousand)