Guided By Voices 2: Devil Between My Toes

A big deal is made in the Guided By Voices narrative about Devil Between My Toes being their first full-length album, but at just over half an hour it’s a mere eight minutes longer than their EP. Still, Robert Pollard had already decided he’d concentrate on being more of a recording band than a performing band, and also took the bold step of including recordings in a “professional” studio alongside tapes compiled in his basement.

The R.E.M. jangle is still in place on “Old Battery”, with its punning chorus of “die hard”, and also “Discussing Wallace Chambers”, which may not have been inspired by the football player but still provides a springboard for a lyrical journey. “Cyclops” is another signpost, as it begins with an arpeggiated guitar part over open strings, something of a GBV trademark. A primitive drum machine drives “Crux”, which eventually includes some dueling riffs but no vocals, an idea in search of a song. “A Portrait Destroyed By Fire” is the anomaly here, as it runs over five minutes. A dark proto-metal dirge with buried vocals before the verses kick in, it’s mostly notable for being the first appearance of one Tobin Sprout, who would become a valuable collaborator and creative foil, to say the least. The side closes with “3 Year Old Man”, a simple exercise for tremolo guitar.

“Dog’s Out” is a more blatant attempt to write something catchy and singalongable, and for that it succeeds, but “A Proud And Booming Industry”, for all its potential as a classic Pollard song title, is more riff-noodling. “Hank’s Little Fingers” wants to be a pop song, and it’s kinda cute in that way. The song has distinct choruses, nicely melded at the end, but again it’s followed by an indulgent guitar instrumental in “Artboat”. And it’s back to the straight college rock of “Hey Hey Spaceman”, complete with happy cries of “let’s go” somehow rising above a dense, muddied mix. “The Tumblers” stands out for its almost tribal rhythm instead of the usual four-on-the-floor beat, though the lyrics are again, buried. “Bread Alone” is yet another instrumental, but this time it’s two acoustic guitars. But for some kind of horn blast grafted onto the beginning, “Captain’s Dead” has the hallmarks of a GBV classic, with crazy tempo, furious strumming, melody, and harmonies. It truly points the way for them.

Devil Between My Toes wouldn’t get wider exposure until it was repackaged in the Box box, but which time the band (or least Pollard) had become iconic. It remains of interest only to completists, and a reminder than they were just one of thousands of bands making records in their home towns across the country.

Guided By Voices Devil Between My Toes (1987)—2½