Guided by Voices - Learning to Hunt (1989)

 

1. Blue Gil

2. Turbo Boy

3. Soul Flyers

4. Let's Go Vike

5. Dust Devil

6. Uncle Dave

7. Settlement Down

8. We've Got Airplanes

9. I Can See It in Your Eyes

10. Long Way to Run

11. Where I Come From

12. Oh, Blinky

13. Telephone Town

14. The Lodger Carried a Gun

15. Soul Barn

16. Lonely Town

17. The Issue Presents Itself

18. Cox Municipal Airport Song

This is probably the most well known early unreleased album by Guided by Voices. Some of the songs would later go on to be on the album Self Inflicted Aerial Nostalgia, and one song called Taco, Buffalo, Birddog, and Jesus would later go on to be an outtake for Bee Thousand and end up on my 2 LP version of that album. In 1995 when they were compiling their first box set, they added an exclusive album called King Shit and the Golden Boys. The first side contained two songs from the unreleased album Learning to Hunt and five songs from the unreleased album Back to Saturn X. The second side mops up outtakes from Bee Thousand.

Because the band had so much unreleased material, starting in 2000 they began releasing box sets as part of a series called Suitcase, named so in reference to band leader Robert Pollard's literal suitcases full of cassette tapes. I listened to the first two cause the years for the songs seemed to be well documented. However I was hoping to create an album in the style of their classic era, say 92-93, when a different era emerged. An earlier, poppier sound from them began to unfold in the era 87-89. And by that I just mean there was a lot more material.