wilco

right?

wilco are the hipster's version of springsteen.

which song do they use? i've got a comp of proto-ubu stuff i've not made through yet. i could have a listen tonight.

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&uid=UIDCASS70402200601010102&sql=A3fzsa9wgq230

cool i've got that one. yeah i dig that wilco song alot.

Summerteeth roolz.

so has jeff tweedy had like work done, cos around the eye area

ksh, where u at

he won't return my calls anymore, sorry plax

Can't wait for Wilco to release its metal-influenced album so we can watch ksh go apeshit.

would buy

always thought uncle tupelo had some metal leanings every now and again.

"Black Eye" was actually the inspiration for a lot of USBM iirc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OG9LZvKDEZ0

perfect for a low key Friday afternoon hanging around

listened to Wilco (The Album) for the first time in a while last week ... prety meh, actually! Just sounded workmanlike, not very inspired. Still think this version of Wilco has a great album in 'em, but that one ain't it.

On Rolling Nels Cline Thread, I wrote:

Wilco (the album) is a much better record [than Sky Blue Sky], and one that I'll listen to much more as time passes, but it really is a "Whitman sampler of the different aspects and obsessions of Wilco," as Tweedy called it. You have the Neu! motorik thing they did on "Spiders (Kidsmoke)" on "Bull Black Nova," the obvious "I'm A Wheel"/"Monday"/"Can't Stand It" rocker tune ("Wilco (the song)"), the unassuming acoustic number "Solitaire," which recalls "Dash 7," "Far, Far Away," "Radio Cure," "Muzzle of Bees," and most of SBS. The whole record really is a summation of their career.

In that same post, I said:

Wilco is primarily a vehicle for Tweedy's creativity, and although things seem to be more stable for the band now insofar as the lineup is concerned -- no one has been fired in five years, and everyone including Tweedy (see the new Rolling Stone interview) seems to feel good about the band as a unit -- I don't think he will ever be in a place where he'd want to make another Yankee Hotel Foxtrot/A ghost is born pseudoexperimental record again. I doubt Nels will get to do any truly radical work in Wilco. (The most "radical" things he does on the new record, which are not "radical" at all, really, are these strange little backwards-guitar solos at the end of "One Wing" and "Everlasting Everything" and some feedback-soaked guitar work at the end of "Bull Black Nova.")

yeah, that's otm -- i just think they've done better versions of all of those things on previous albums.

they may prove me wrong on that last point, though. I've read them say things that gave me the feeling they might go more experimental on the next LP

maybe i need to hear live versions of these tunes -- that's what turned me around on SBS.

maybe! they were great live when I saw them last summer. still prefer to hear them play something like "Spiders" than anything on the new record, though

but yeah, i think it's sort of a mistake to look at nels cline for some injection of "out there-ness" though he's obviously capable of it. Nels is probably more interested in fitting into the mainstream aspects of the band -- he's certainly got plenty of other outlets for the experimental stuff.

yeah! i think he's said as much in interviews. Glenn too. "we just play what's good for the songs." so both of them have their side projects where they do the more out their stuff, and then when they come into a Wilco sessions they just try to suit the needs of whatever's before them.

if you look at the entire Wilco discography, Jeff's probably responsible for the most out their stuff. like the solos on a ghost is born. although Jim O'Rourke probably did a lot of crazy stuff on YHF and agib, and Bennett added a lot to the former record too

out *there*

wilco sux

http://beckyyamamoto.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/dawson-crying.jpg

i love passenger side so much

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/361308/october-06-2010/mavis-staples---jeff-tweedy

http://pitchfork.com/news/41372-wilco-start-their-own-label/

fuuuuuuuuck, "can't stand it" is a dope album opener

summerteeth is so good

however you might feel, tonight is real

listen close when you click and my face gets sick, stuck, like a question unposed

wilco circa 1999-2004 was just unfuckwithable

I love that "can't stand it" was added at the last minute because reprise didn't hear a single on summerteeth.

http://pitchfork.com/news/43449-wilcos-jeff-tweedy-releases-split-single-with-deerhoof-starts-new-band-with-his-sons/

http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/6/3068636/wilco-incredible-shrinking-tour-chicago-ibooks

PoeticLava says:
I saw Jeff Tweedy at the North Side Chicago Chipotle 6 years ago. Don’t know what he ordered.

http://www.jambase.com/Articles/118811/Wilco-Focuses-On-Covers-For-First-Ever-All-Request-Set

Daft Punk and the Replacements among many more

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcL4zJxBMH8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwHqRi468ic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYixOQ2vxzM

The clip someone posted of the 'Mats cover was awesome enough that I think the entirety of Wilco should be tapped to back Tommy and Paul.

Jeff looks like Artie Lange at this point

I was at Solid Sound this weekend. The "all request show" was quite good, esp. "Marquee Moon" and "Color Me Impressed." They also nailed "Don't Fear the Reaper" pretty well too with Nels shredding on the solo. Dream Syndicate set was the highlight of the weekend for me though. And Wilco's Saturday evening set was pretty lackluster. Fun, laud back festival.

seems fun -- at least this festival has things that *don't* happen at every other summer festival.
kwhitehead - was there any indication as to whether dream syndicate was going to do any more us dates?

tylerw- they didn't except Wynn mentioned at one point that they are thrilled to actually be playing these songs "at home". He then went on to mention that they don't often get the chance but didn't elaborate. There website doesn't indicate any more us dates. Jason Victor was very good on lead guitar but, have to say I missed Precoda and Cutler.

Foxygen were fun too but ended up getting escorted out of the festival' this from ROlling Stone:

"It wasn't the only incident involving Foxygen: the band was later ejected from the festival after the group's tambourine player was involved in a drunken altercation. The North Adams police said a member of the band was briefly detained but not charged. "They were awesome," Tweedy joked onstage later in the day. "They were a little too awesome, I think."

yeah i've seen victor play with wynn a couple times and he is great (tho obviously it wouldbe more exciting if those other dudes were coaxed out of retirement). just wondered if they were holding off announcing more dates, so the solid sound fest could say "ONLY SCHEDULED PERFORMANCE" or something.

Fascinating look into Wilco, Inc.:

http://www.chicagogrid.com/features/wilcos-jeff-tweedy-learned-grow-start-firing-friends/

Before founding Wilco in 1994, Tweedy played in alt-country group Uncle Tupelo, where he says profits were anathema. “You kept everyone who’s making money, the idea of making money, at arm’s length,” Tweedy says. “But when Uncle Tupelo ended, it became very obvious that we were in a business, because we owed people money.”

awesome, thanks for the link

it is interesting that this lineup has been so stable -- wilco, inc. must be a decent employer.

too bad all their best records came out before any of this

maybe the sun will shine again some day

the clouds will roll away

whole love was def the best post ghost is born record, so i guess i'm cautiously optimistic.

i haven't listened to the mavis staples/tweedy things... should i?

i mean, i'll probably listen to the next thing they put out however bad it is, but i think at this point i'd be surprised if it wasn't . . . [word(s)]

i haven't either

too bad all their best records came out before any of this

otm

http://pitchfork.com/news/55244-wilcos-jeff-tweedy-announces-tour-new-solo-album-coming/

i'm a huge fan of Wilco AM thru YHF, but at this point i'm probably more interested in hearing a Tweedy solo album than another Wilco album

you forgot a ghost is born

not a big fan

of ghost, i mean

must be cool to coordinate your gibson SG and jacket

and AGIB has aged surprisingly well. but i still think "i'm a wheel" is maybe the most embarrassing song released by a band in the history of bands.

here's an old post of mine: Rolling Nels Cline Thread

basically, my assessment of their career is that am and being there have good songs but aren't in the same league as summerteeth, yankee hotel foxtrot, and a ghost is born. after that, everything that's come out since has been a step down from those three, and i'm not sure how i'd rate them next to the first two

i think YHF is probably the best and most accomplished, but Summerteeth is my sentimental favourite and possibly the most fucked up in its own way.

Not a terrible line-up. Some real surprises in there, actually.

http://solidsoundfestival.com/lineup/

Looks great

So there's a new free album called Star Wars:

http://wilcoworld.net/

it's quite good

The title "Star Wars" has a nice ring to it.

That fuzz guitar on the first three or four tracks gets a little monotonous, but yeah that's nitpicking, and it's really good.

really, wow. was not expecting this, will have to give it a listen here soon.

downloading album from site, not sure what to expect from Wilco.

"you satellite" is a major jam

this is the first wilco record i've enjoyed in ages

me too. since... a ghost is born

sky blue sky was disappointing at the time but sounds good in retrospect/against their subsequent records

yeah this is really good

Wilco had been hinting at a full shift into a skronky pop outfit for a couple of albums, nice to hear them finally give in. Sounds very ... youthful? Good summer record regardless, looking forward to hearing stuff from it tonight. Love Greg Kot's take: "This is an album full of trap doors and trick turns."

yah this is nice! very summer as you said.

the end jamming out on you satellite is great

ok i downloaded this... i am going to listen to it!
wilco was prettay good when i saw them this week -- maybe a bit stadium rock-y for my tastes, but that is more my problem. they are certainly a deeply versatile and talented live band these days.

I like this?

Would never pay for another album but will listen for free

haha, this is pretty good! i don't think i've deeply disliked any of the latter day wilco albums, but i haven't felt *excited* about any of them. this one sounds kind of exciting.

Just noticed it's up on Spotify. Too lazy to unzip album downloads anymore.

Wilco album that is

i appreciate the liberal use of flange

"magnetized" is one of the best wilco songs ever

yeah wow, that one is great

My wife made me turn the album down a little. Take that, dad rock!

Love the end of "Where Do I Begin" with the backwards drums and crazy guitar lead

Magnetized is nice but compared to the closing track of the previous album it's a trifle

My favourite on this is More, I think - awesome track

Last song has some Mercury Rev vibes.

best album since Ghost, easy.

no boring stuff. yay

First five tracks are all great, really - a little bit of coasting in the second half but it's a nice record yeah

A super welcome surprise after the last couple records. Btf, I liked The Whole Love but they were obviously trying really hard to deliver a Classic Wilco Album, and while it had experimental bits it lacked the genuine adventurousness of their best stuff.

Still not into Nels Cline - he's a little too "Rig Rundown" for me. Like, even when he's trying to be raw and loose it sounds like his guitar's going through at least a whole board of boutique pedals

Really feelin' "More...", "You Satellite" and "Magnetized"

Killin' it on the 'Fork livestream right now.

they totally had a mercury rev vibe for the first half of their set tonight. even tweedy was shredding. it ruled.

That's funny, my first ever big concert was Mercury Rev opening for Wilco. I tired out halfway thru Wilco but Mercury Rev was magical, I remember Jonathan Donahue in a shiny magenta shirt.

Thought Tweedy was kinda pushy and nevery in Mavis Staples doc footage where he decided he and his son would add instrumentation to late Pop Staples tapes, but back with Wilco I am kind of liking some of this new one.

Glenn and Nels own this record.

Every album since YHF makes it more and more clear how essential Jay Bennett was to the band.

was weird/sad that the cover of the chicago reader's pitchfork fest issue had bennett on it...
http://media2.fdncms.com/chicago/imager/u/original/18327189/reader-pitchfork-2015-900.jpg

make that "ghost jay bennett"

It's the Chicago Reader; I'm not surprised in the least.

yeah that's tasteless

is ariel pink being protested by two people holding signs with rabbits crossed out. the fuck is that

also jfc @ jim derogatis with the mirror

I'm a little surprised at the amount of pushback the band seems to have gotten for playing its new (less than 12 hour old) record in its entirety at Pitchfork. The last time I saw a band at Pitchfork do something surprising was maybe when the Thermals started their set with a handful of '90s alt-rock hits. I wish more bands everywhere would treat festival gigs as more than just another night and do something unique, unexpected or one-off. Boring is a fair criticism, but no Wilco set could have countered that criticism. But indulgent? Man, Panda Bear was indulgent *and* boring, and looked stupid in broad daylight, too. But hey, different strokes ...

playing the new one is the best thing i can imagine! i would've probably liked that better than the greatest hits set i saw last week.

Glenn and Nels own the record? Exciting; best things about this band by far.

Actually, I think as Tweedy gets noisier and solos more himself it's harder to distinguish some of his squonk from Nels (on record). Obviously Nels is a ridiculous guitarist (though I'm not a huge fan, tbh), but his insane precision actually often plays to my ears as a sort of surreal restraint - that is, he is too good to totally go off the map - whereas Tweedy is an OK guitarist, but knows how to play the wrong things at the right time in I suppose a more natural (as opposed to Nels' supernatural) weird way.

My fave thing about Glenn is that his kit keeps shrinking but he keeps putting out the same amount of wildly inventive noise.

That's a very good description.

Didn't Sonic Youth play Daydream Nation at p4k? Perhaps I got this wrong.

It's the Chicago Reader; I'm not surprised in the least.

― kwhitehead, Monday, July 20, 2015 5:53 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't get it -- what aren't you surprised by, and why aren't you surprised by it?

Didn't Sonic Youth play Daydream Nation at p4k? Perhaps I got this wrong.

They did, but it was announced as part of a collaboration between P4k and All Tomorrow's Parties.

Oh yes now I remember

I never thought I'd get wistful for the days of the Red Hot Chili Peppers dressing up as lightbulbs.

Seriously, though, remember when a selling point of the first Lollapalooza was who might pop up on the stage with whom? Now it's just, like, another night, another gig. I wonder if that's the natural product of bands forced into festival labor. They have to schedule tours around fests, they don't have the luxury of saying no to fests. Once the fests and their non-competition clauses kick in, it's a matter of plugging in live dates between fests, which not only basically means festivals do become just another stop on the tour, but the bands don't have the time or incentive to make fest stops special.

Probably better discussed/debated in another thread.

I don't get it -- what aren't you surprised by, and why aren't you surprised by it?

The Chicago Reader has always rubbed me the wrong way, esp. the music writers. It's seems to be a contest as to who can name check the most obscure bands. They act somewhat record store employees did in the '90's, judging your purchases, too hip to make eye contact, etc.

And also, the general quality of writing is suspect. They have existed for too long without any real competition.

At their best Wilco strike me as competent, lifeless guitar rock, but an early 2005 show promoting AGIB impressed me. The Pitchfork set didn't. Most of Friday's performances verged on the narcoleptic.

I'll give you "competent" and "guitar rock" but at least by the standard set by several of this weekend's acts, I dunno about "lifeless."

They have existed for too long without any real competition.

I'm liking "More..." but I wish there was more liveliness to the production. The drums and bass sit so quietly in the mix and I don't think I'm a fan of the way they're using hard panning.

I'm a bit conflicted with the band. I loved everything up to YHF. I thought A Ghost Is Born was a bit aimless sounding so I stopped paying attention to them until I heard some buzz around Sky Blue Sky which I checked out but found it completely unmemorable. I picked up "The Whole Love" at the local library and I was surprised how much I dug it though. I love this new one too. "Magnetized" is a great track, like ELO on downers.

Really loving this new one, feels loose and like a band that's just letting it out and has played together for a long time

Didn't realize the new one was free until I looked at this thread. Based on one go-through in the car, "You Satellite" definitely jumped out as my favourite. Tweedy sounds a lot like Lennon on "More."

I would call this very good karma:

This message has arrived in your inbox because you downloaded Wilco's new album Star Wars. Thanks for that and we hope you're enjoying the new tunes.

Now a bit of background... We consider ourselves lucky to be in the position to give you this music free of charge, but we do so knowing not every band, label or studio can do the same. Much of the “music business” relies on physical sales to keep the lights on and the mics up. Without that support, well, it gets tougher and tougher to make it all work.

With that in mind, Wilco has put together a list of some of their favorite recent releases. We encourage you to explore it (and beyond) and yep, even march down to your neighborhood record shop and BUY. There’s a lot of great music out there, lets all try to support it. After all, it's the years of support (and purchases) of Wilco's music that allowed us to do what we did last week.

Adron - Organismo
Cibo Matto - Hotel Valentine
Empyrean Atlas - Inner Circle
Eleventh Dream Day - Works for Tomorrow
Full of Hell, Merzbow - Full of Hell & Merzbow
Game Theory - Real Nighttime
Girlpool - Before the World Was Big
Invisible Familiars - Disturbing Wildlife
Landlady - Upright Behavior
Luluc - Passerby
Ned Doheny - Hard Candy
Parquet Courts - Content Nausea
Richard Julian - Fleur de Lis
Scott Walker + Sunn O))) - Soused
Speedy Ortiz - Foil Deer
Steve Gunn - Way Out Weather
William Tyler - Deseret Canyon
Thanks for listening (and sometimes buying),

- HQ

Alright for William Tyler getting a mention!

Totally. I picked that up, the Luluc and the Empyrean Atlas, the latter two of which were totally unfamiliar to me but seemed cool enough.

thats really cool

Game Theory!

man, "magnetized." it's been a long time since a song like this made me feel like this

yeah just got that, very cool

Totally. I picked that up, the Luluc and the Empyrean Atlas, the latter two of which were totally unfamiliar to me but seemed cool enough.

I like the Empyrean Atlas too. I had to check if Nels Cline wasn´t playing guitar with them, it´s exactly the same sound and style (crying whales!)

Played through their whole catalog earlier this week. AGIB has aged really well, and in fact the first half of Sky Blue Sky is some of their best stuff. Still not so crazy about its second half but everything up to "Side with the Seeds" is A+.

i probably think "Hate It Here" is my favorite Wilco song.

http://www.spin.com/2016/07/wilco-new-album-schmilco-new-song-listen/

Nice.

For a minute there I (accidentally) forgot Wilco existed. I never listened to the last record and not sure I can remember anything from the one before it (I liked it?), been a while since I saw them live or even seen any of them around. But the radio played "You Never Know" from "Wilco (The Album)" this morning, and it was pretty good! I should probably catch up on the last decade of Wilco, see how it sounds with clear ears.

The Whole Love was the last one of theirs that I really liked across the board. Star Wars and Schmilco are kind of boring.

xp
I never liked them until their two most recent albums, which I think are terrific (I had this same convo w/you or someone else in the Dad Rock thread?)

last song on star wars is incredible but their album art is generally more exciting than their records now

they are a great live band at this point

agreed that "you never know" is a v good song. the problem with wilco (the album) is it's just kinda like "you never know" for 40 minutes

oh yeah they still rule live

i appreciate them mainly as a reliable source of income for nels cline at this point

last song on star wars is incredible

Haha, that's the weak one (IMO)!

Star Wars is appealingly buzzy-sounding, particularly Random Name Generator. Schmilco didn't make much of an impression on me but I do like Someone To Lose

for some dumbass reason they split the opening track of star wars into two tracks - kept together it'd be one of their best songs (i also love the closer)

but these pale before the opener and closer of the whole love which are worth the entirety of wilco being a thing

"Random Name Generator" and "The Joke Explained" are my primo back-to-back dad-rock jams

i am willing to fight anyone who denies that one sunday morning is the pinnacle of alt-country fyi (i mean, what else could be?)

idk for me it's "gun" by uncle tupelo ymmv

sike i actually said that to fish for good alt-country

lol i mean all i did was name another tweedy song (and "gun" is just kinda replacements cosplay so it was a cheeky response)

in terms of early jeff alt-countrier stuff i think this song is astonishing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbgsMhAjMJs

tweedy is the boss of this game tbh. linkous the holy spirit maybe

i am willing to fight anyone who denies that one sunday morning is the pinnacle of alt-country fyi (i mean, what else could be?)

― imago, Tuesday, September 4, 2018 11:23 AM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

waiting for the sun by the jayhawks?

pinetop seven will always be my favorites but they're probably a little too ornate to count as straight alt-country

with The Night's Bloom as his/their apex

Yeah, Pinetop Seven, while awesome, are sort of too esoteric. I think Jayhawks might be apex, or the first Son Volt. Wilco dropped the country stuff pretty fast.

They dropped it by Summertooth, but AM is basically an Uncle Tupelo record there are still some choice alt-country cuts on Being There, like Someday Soon (one of my fav tracks on either disc), Far Far Away, and Kingpin

I love pretty much every Volebeats album but I wish their stuff was easier to find.

Kingpin is a goof, Far Far Away was less country per se and more a nod to the Dead, I think.

I can't even believe this slander about Jay Farrar

Tweedy had great songs in Tupelo, but Farrar was the force imo

it's been twisted by the success of Wilco and the relative non-success of Farrar/Son Volt

if you want an alt-country album that Nels Cline is on, the best one is not by Wilco

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butch_(album)

Faithless Street by Whiskeytown is really great though Ryan Adams turned into douche

Kingpin is a goof, Far Far Away was less country per se and more a nod to the Dead, I think.

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, September 4, 2018 12:38 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

kingpin isn't a goof. it may be goof-y, but it's not without merit. is a fun swamp-rock workout.

far, far away definitely screams alt-country to me, with the chugging, brushed drums and the pedal steel.

if you're gonna count sparklehorse as alt country (a stretch imo)

then you gotta give it to giant sand

xpost Oh, whoops, I was thinking of Forget the Flowers, that's totally Dead-y country.

yeah agreed about Forget The Flowers (which has always reminded me of Dead Flowers too, not just because of the title). Someday Soon has echoes of the Dead in there too, but scans more country.

Uncle Tupelo is pretty clearly one of the towering peaks of alt-country but i also agree on the Jayhawks. Wilco's first album has some nice cuts but at the time it seemed like Farrar was going to be the genius and Tweedy/Wilco would be forgettable. i think part of it tbh was Farrar's singing voice being very serious and "my god that man has things to say about life." and that first SV album is great, i was all-in on them that one time.

when i think alt-country now i also think about the classic Bloodshot compilations and early Neko Case (though she wasn't really mining the same territory, it was less "alt" than she is even now to an extent.

the relative non-success of Farrar/Son Volt

You know, considering how much I love the Tupe's four albums, I really have no excuse for not pursuing Farrar's post-Tupelo output. I mean, I discovered them like a lot of other people did in retrospect in the early 2000s when the initial remaster campaign and Wilcomania first hit. I recall being in the Great Basin microbrewery in downtown Sparks many years ago, just drinking Icky like it was water and getting really happy drunk, waiting for Feist to take the stage. Somebody played a song and it was a really great, Zuma-sounding atmospheric country rocker. I was kind of taken aback when somebody told me it was Son Volt, as I gad just assumed Son Volt to be Jay Farrar's "solo acoustic" project.

*I had just assumed

Farrar is the Sonic Boom of alt country

I recall being in the Great Basin microbrewery in downtown Sparks many years ago, just drinking Icky like it was water

love it when austin posts take me back to nevada

I do what I can.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LklxmPb-J9w

Revisiting Schmilco this morning has reaffirmed its greatness... you guys are missing out if you're sleeping on this album!

She gave her body to science
So I'm not sure what's in her place
Maybe roses or Tanqueray

The Jayhawk's "Blue Earth" is one of the great alt country albums (and named after my home town)

i think the Jayhawks are perpetually slept on, they didn't really fit into the alt-country scene bc they didn't really shitkick at all, they were more jangly and folky but they were great. maybe they *are* great too, i haven't heard the recent work.

the Jayhawks album that's stuck with me is Sound of Lies, which sounds more like a Fleetwood Mac album than an alt.country stalwart.

sound of lies rules. not even close to a bad song on it, and it gets heartbreaking toward the end of the album. "the sound of lies rings funny against the truth . . ."

("blue" (tomorrow the green grass) might be my favorite ever alt.country jam, if not "chickamauga" (uncle tupelo (anodyne)) or "mountain girl" (opener on blue mountain's second album, dog days))

blue mountain was good!

Personal low point for me is Sky Blue Sky and Wilco (The Album), I don't think they are bad records per se, but they don't grab me at all except for a few highlights. Since the Whole Love they've been consistently good at doing pleasant albums. They are not unlike post-NYC Ghost and Flowers Sonic Youth or present day Yo La Tengo. You can make very valuable stuff after the peak and give incredible shows.

i still like sky blue sky a lot, those are all really strong songs

Sky Blue Sky is a personal monolith of an album for me. It wasn't always that way, though. In my 2007 year-end roundup, I wrote of it under my "biggest disappointments" category:

Wilco — whatever it was called; some repetitive piece of esoteric dreck (Nonesuch, parent company of which is Warner, who also owns Reprise, but you knew that already, you Wilco-loving whore, who probably also loves this album even though it sucks me hard)
Hi, I’m Jeff Tweedy*. I like to think I’m as brilliant as everybody says I am, much like David Bowie. However, as my latest album will prove, I’m just another mediocre songwriter riding on the coattails of being an ‘American’ roots-rocker, relying on tired out twanginess and pseudo-‘Americana’ (which is a term I don’t even understand, but it gets me five star reviews and commendable sales) riffs to pull the wool over my audience’s eyes. But I have Nels Cline in my band and he’s a ‘musician’, so it counts, y’know? I don’t even care that he rips off John McLaughlin (who is a way cooler human being) most of the time. Here’s my new album. It’s about stuff. Stuff that I’m not sure about, but I’m an American songwriter, so it’s resonating whether it really is or not. That guy at Rolling Stone likes me, so why don’t you? Also, you know all those fun dynamics that Jim O’Rourke did on our last two albums that he mixed and mastered? Well, those are gone. In favor of LOUDNESS and COMPRESSION!! Yay for contemporization of recorded music! I’m brilliant, haven’t you heard?
*(review not really written by Jeff Tweedy, but may as well have been)

Some years later, after selling all my Wilco records and swearing off the band shortly after the above was written, the backstory to that shellacking was fully disclosed and revisited upon reacquisition of Sky Blue Sky:

I was in a bad place when this album came out. I was working a terrible job at Barnes and Noble that paid next to nothing and was struggling through a relationship that I was just beginning to realize was a complete failure. It was not the wonderfully gloomy and romantic escape that A Ghost is Born was (post-script note here: A Ghost is Born was an absolute milestone to me when it first came out). It was honest, no nonsense and blunt. And, most of all, not necessarily sad, but realistic. It had songs for days, but they talked about things in a way that was not fun, in any stretch of the imagination. I went to work every day, had to hear this fucking thing confront me —usually two or three times in a shift— like a small child sticking its tongue out, taunting me, "I'm one of your favorite bands and I just made you feel worse about your life!" I, of course, trashed it, like any honest person in my position would have. And I basically swore off Wilco after walking out on that job (my first walkout of two, within a year's time, in case you were wondering [you weren't]). So, yeah, fuck these guys, right? Fucking assholes; providing such wonderful escape for two albums and then going MOR dad-rock and forcing me to pay attention to the lyrics — because, let's face it, the simple arrangements here don't offer much in the way of hearing the words "that aren't there." And what about these lyrics? They suck, right? Well, me of years past says, "YES, OBVIOUSLY" and gives you this look (angry cat image). Me now, for lack of better words, gets it. Ghost is Born was recorded while Jeff Tweedy was in the grips of pill addiction, while Sky Blue Sky is the first thing he attempted after coming clean about his dependence. I was doing my own chemical coping in those days, so why shouldn't I have loved Ghost is Born, despite my own issues? But when Sky Blue Sky came out, I was still toiling. Such stark emotional confrontation was not what I wanted from one of my favorite bands when, in the previous five years they had provided the ultimate escape: a look back at youth through the eyes and mind of someone awestruck with America's (now inexplicable) enduring prominence in the post-World War II era. Jeff Tweedy even sounds angry at his own generation (one which was now officially "old" when this album was released). His —and the band's— ambitions here seem so much less interested in being "cool" than they are in being honest with themselves. You have to rewind a bit here and understand: these were the last days of GWB's run in office and they were —and I don't think I'm going out on much of limb here saying as much— a rather bleak time. We all knew that we were under the leadership of somebody that was not looking out for us. Couple this with my own internal issues, another horrific season of summer wildfires in Reno and, yeah, it was like this plastic, sugar-coated version of someone saying, "Hey, you're not going to be okay" and then smiling the most unpleasantly empty smile at me. Fuck them. Fuck it. Fuck it relentlessly. It was not fun to hear your favorite, previously unpredictable band go Prozac Dave Matthews on you. It was excruciating, to be completely honest. They truly were the one thing I had that I knew would be mine for all time. And now, a meddling soft rock turd was excreted to leave me alone and floating again forever. Except, why now, do I hear it and just acquiesce? Like it was just a really good album all along? I have not answers for that question. But, as bleak and creepy cheerful 70's AM pop as this thing is, I have only more questions. Why was it recorded as crappily as it was? That's not what Jim O'Rourke would have done. He would have forced the band's ambition to be emotionally stark naked for their audience into the background where some keen investigative listening would have revealed it. In other other words, he would forced the band's most human album to be another weird collage of good tunes and obscure sounds (he does, however, contribute some ultimately inconsequential string arrangements). But there's a lot to be said and admired about the fact that the band chose to just streamline everything and mask nothing. I also know that this was the second of two big lineup changes in Wilco in those days, so coupled with Jeff's substance dependence-shedding, it just reeks of a back to basics strip fest. Throw things out that you can't deal with anymore. The sort of record where it sounds relatively tame to the rest of us, but was actually a very traumatic and life-changing event for those involved (see also: David and friends). What is it about? Everyday life. What does it mean? It means you're okay while you're listening to it — in the classic sense of the blues, its misery wants your company until you both just want to hug each other and smile without effort. It's very 70's soft folk rock (think the Crosby/Nash albums, America's third album and Aztec Two-Step) and there's not a whole lot here that sounds that great when played outside of the context of the album. It will pat you on the back in the locker room after dunking on your head in a game of one on one and say some sidestepping compliment like, "Your new sneakers are cool." It's one of the friendliest arch rivals you'll ever encounter. That said, 'Impossible Germany' is easily one of the band's best tunes. One generation taking the next to task through an overthought metaphor, it's an absolute masterpiece on an album that definitely needed one. This is probably my most personal review ever; very telling that it's for this album — and this band. For such a lightweight sounding album, it's pretty fucking intense on closer inspection. I just. . . I mean I can't even. . . just. . . man. It's a lot better than it's reputation. Just wish I had known better at the time.

Pretty good album, I'd reckon.

Agree with you on Sky Blue Sky. I found it disappointing at first, and years later I see it as truly great. Maybe not their best but Very Good Wilco.

Also - Star Wars is a terrific return after a couple so-so albums. I really like Schmilco though it's been a while since I put it on. Star Wars really stayed on the turntable in my house for a long time.

Uncle Tupelo - to be honest I have just never really like Jay Farrar's voice and I have never been taken with Uncle Tupelo. Even Tweedy's songs, while not exactly bad, are so far from where he'd eventually go.

Jayhawks - a consistently good band, occasionally much better than good. They have a new album out this year that's not bad.

I don't like Uncle Tupelo, or at least they've never clicked with me, but the first Son Volt album is ace.

I think of everything after A Ghost Is Born as post-peak. From that era, the two highlights for me are The Whole Love and Sky Blue Sky. Star Wars was so boring that I've never bothered with Schmilco.

Star Wars and Schmilco are kind of boring.

Star Wars was so boring that I've never bothered with Schmilco.

So weird to me! "Boring" comes immediately to my mind, as a word to describe pre-Star Wars Wilco... then they suddenly got good and interesting! (to my ears, anyway)

i was so disappointed by sky blue sky that i gave up on wilco after it. didn't last because the next record had "bull black nova" on it.

try One Sunday Morning!

Wilco (The Album) might have been the most disappointing album I've ever looked forward to and while The Whole Love was streets ahead, to me it was badly let down by about three quiet/slow/acoustic tracks which were so dreary and unmemorable. Star Wars was such a brilliant comeback - really brief, ragged, catchy, fun - elements which had been missing for some time.

Schmilco doesn't really come across as an album proper to me, it does sound like inferior outtakes from the same session even though they probably deliberately split the two albums by tone, I do think the Star Wars pile came out on top by some distance. Having said that, it's a more interesting listen than the bland self-titled album any day.

try One Sunday Morning!

― Van Horn Street

i like that one too even though the version i have is some sort of shitty pre-release with terrible sound quality. i also listened to "star wars" and liked the cover and "pickled ginger". i don't think i ever got around to listening to "schmilco". i think they're a great midwest classic rock band though.

lots of bad Wilco opinions itt

wilco is great, what the shit sons

summerteeth - yankee - ghost is born - meh

wilco the album is not bad too, yeah guess alpine static OTM

“Passenger side” sounded pretty good in the bar a couple days ago

does anyone know the address (or maybe cross streets) of The Loft? not in a creepy way, i'm just curious where it is in town, really. what it's near, etc.

...tour manager Jason Tobias, who "handles" the Wilco loft. He says, "Not a lot of people know where it is exactly. The neighborhood allows the Loft to keep a low profile, which is essentially the desired effect. A few die-hard fans know and have been pretty cool with keeping it the secret it is intended to be."

But the general neighborhood where it is, nah, there's not really anything there. Some good ethnic food nearby I guess. Asian and middle eastern, mostly.

fair enough!

Tweedy has played small benefits there, hasn't he? and haven't they given away a tour/visit as a prize? wonder if they make people sign NDAs.

oh, and thanks JiC

looking forward to tweedy's memoir

^ same. can't think of too many musicians i'd rather read

Good new Tweedy song (album coming): https://pitchfork.com/news/jeff-tweedy-announces-new-album-warm-shares-song-some-birds-listen/

this is good: http://www.wtfpod.com/podcast/episode-972-jeff-tweedy

anyone check out the album yet?

I ran through it y'day; sounded good, tho pretty mellow

anyone read the memoir? i hear good things, not into wilco but like the scene

I've listened to the new album a couple times. It's pleasant but nothing has really sunk in. Feeling ambivalent about it. By contrast I've really enjoyed the last two Wilco albums and still find myself going back to them.

I listened to Tweedy on the Maron podcast and have been revisiting the Wilco catalogue. Thoughts: Being There was my 'one', my way in, buying it at record store in South West London from a guy with a fire in his eyes from seeing them the night before: it remains a ragged wreck of an album and I still love it; YHF, while full of holes (War on War, Heavy Metal Drummer), I wear in my soul - I'm all for hyperbole and this is their As I Lay Dying, their Moby Dick; I hadn't realised just how much A Ghost is Born had affected me - this was my first listen in toto in probably five years and that run from At Least to Wishful Thinking is astounding; Kicking Television is fucking incredible.

A.M is fine, but I can kinda take or leave it; Summer Teeth I need to persevere with. I've not really explored much beyond Sky Blue Sky. Maybe tomorrow. Bob Dylan's 49th Beard might have hit me hardest today. I wasn't expecting it.

Is the new Tweedy solo record worth a listen?

I have met maybe a half dozen people from Bellevillie, Illinois in my life, even dated a girl who took me back there past the Still Feel Gone highway signs to meet the parents. Each one, within five minutes of the city's first mention in our first conversation, has told me the same piece of trivia: That Belleville's Main Street is longer than anywhere else's.

Chapter One of Tweedy's memoir? "The Longest Main Street in the World". Apparently, they ain't all just playing to type.

long Main Street in Belleville, yeah, but personally I think the World's Largest Ketchup Bottle in Collinsville wins "coolest -est" among cities of the Metro East

anyone here considering a trip to this:

https://wilcoskybluesky.com

No but I'm going to Solid Sound for the first time next month!

I was driving around the other day when "Via Chicago" came on the radio. Of course the song is great, but I didn't totally recognize it as the version I knew, so figured it was a live version, or some other session. I Shazam it and it comes up the usual "Via Chicago." Hmm, I think, that can't be right, so I do it again, and get the same result. It turns out it'd been so long since I actually listened to "Summerteeth" and the studio version that I just didn't recognize it. Listening to "Summerteeth" right now it's more clear than ever that the band really, really lost something when it fired Jay Bennett. I mean, that's old news, and obviously Tweedy has remained a good and sometimes interesting songwriter, and the band long ago coalesced into something consistently solid, especially as a live act. But Bennett brought something to the band, or at least helped shape what Tweedy and the band did, that brought it to another level. Like, there are a lot of things at play, but I couldn't imagine Wilco playing a show without touching on songs from "Being There" or Summerteeth." The stuff is just too good, even after all this time. I guess in retrospect, "YHF" was more of a transitional album rather than a peak many made it out to be, with plenty of Bennett but also showing off the first full taste of Tweedy's more ascetic aesthetic. Tweedy and the band have remained good, but I don't think anything post "YHF" is in competition to supplant any of those Bennett albums as the band's best.

Anyway, no news here, just thinking about stuff.

i think a big part of what made YHF so great was tweedy, bennett and o'rourke all firing on full cylinders with the arrangements, despite the bennett/tweedy tensions they really ended up with great results there. it's a real shame the creative & personal differences between bennett & tweedy lead to tweedy firing bennett, so much colour was gone from the band's arrangements after bennett was fired, and his songwriting contributions were really missed too.

still kinda strange that they've never quite managed to make an album that captures how great they became as a live band either. like there's been the occasional moment where they get there on record in their current post-AGIB incarnation but never for anywhere near a whole album.

with "via chicago", it's one they really transform live with it getting even more chaotic etc., the studio version's great but it's even better live

yeah they are so much better live now

could definitely go with another live album

yeah kicking television is one of their very best releases & while it covers their strongest material there's still plenty of gems since then that have become live staples ("impossible germany" etc.) that would be great to have on a new live album

yeah I feel like "Impossible Germany" has turned into their "Dark Star"

last time I saw them was a very cute moment when Nels was going absolutely apeshit during IG and Tweedy looked at the crowd, shaking his head and laughing, then pointed at Nels with his thumb like "Can you believe this guy?"

can y'all recommend a good boot

I do not but that's a good idea

That's actually a good question. I've seen them a bunch, but all the most memorable ones were up to and including behind YHF. Since then the band has been remarkably consistent live. My favorite was a stand they did here for five nights where over the course of the week they played every song they'd ever recorded to date, including the one from the Sponge Bob movie. I saw a great Golden Smog set back in ... 1998? That was when Tweedy/Wilco was still in rock and tumble shambling mode.

This was a great one I saw:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7pY6UPPbVQ

from videos ive seen the yhf tour was their weakest, due to the transitional lineup where tweedy was the only guitarist

That wasn't my experience, those shows were pretty intense, iirc. Plus Leroy Bach played guitar, too. Definitely transitional, though.

^^I saw the Austin date on the first leg of that tour. The band brought it (and The Handsome Family on that show is one of my all-time opening act memories), but there was so much going on feelings-wise: YHF was still in limbo, 9/11 was only a couple weeks old, and those combined facts almost led them to cancel the tour. The decision not too, the band later said, is why they're still around today.

Would love to get recommendations on good live boots, too. (Paging Tyler..)

Having said that, this 2011 show in the Netherlands was streamed professionally and I love it. Beautifully shot. The opening song from that stream is on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4GWGSndpag

I captured the audio back then and burned it to cdr, I'll try to find it! Can't recall if the encore is on it though, seems like too much to burn to one cd..

Setlist:
One Sunday Morning
Poor Places
Art of Almost
I Might
I Am Trying to Break Your Heart
One Wing
Bull Black Nova
Black Moon
Impossible Germany
Born Alone
Jesus, Etc.
Capitol City
Handshake Drugs
Dawned on Me
Hummingbird
Whole Love
A Shot in the Arm

Encore:
Via Chicago
California Stars
War on War
Standing O
I'm a Wheel
I'm the Man Who Loves You
Monday
Outtasite (Outta Mind)

Found the cdr. One single 64 minute track, so I'm sure the encore's not included, sadly. I'll look for the audio file on my old laptop so I can upload.

Listening now. Dear god, the synths/keys on "Art of Almost", Carl Craig should've remixed this a la "Revelee"... and the finale, it shreds!

Tweedy's written a ton of great songs, but there's a case to be made for "California Stars" as the one that's steadily climbing toward standard status. Case in point:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPmnrivfJWk

Isn't there a thread for artists whose best or best known song is a cover? This isn't quite that, but it is curious that one of Tweedy's best is a song written with Jay Bennett based on words from Woody Guthrie in at least passive collaboration with Billy Bragg.

say what

thought this revival was going to be about them going ahead with their Sky Blue Sky festival with Omicron peaking. all-inclusive at Hard Rock Riviera Maya. crazy.

I’ve been digging “she don’t have to see you” though the chorus makes no sense
Golden smog stuff is fun

xxxp the very first time I saw Wilco, I didn't know their music well enough to know "California Stars," but when they played it, Tweedy told everyone to sing along, assuming everyone would know it. (It was the only time he asked our audience to sing along during that show.) Barely anyone did, so then he joked, "maybe your parents know the words?"

not sure about 'california stars' being the most well-known thing, but i do agree it's a definite catalogue highlight.

that's an interesting thought though: what will be wilco's legacy tune?

("california stars" the current #2 on their spotify most-played; "jesus, etc." in the top spot by quite a ways)

Smooth jazz drummer

*percussionist

I think when Bob Seger covered this it kinda cemented it as a standard. Tune-wise it's a very Seger song - seemed inevitable that he'd hit it up at some point. Or maybe Seger has a way of making every song he covers (Busload of Faith, etc.) sound like a Seger song.

lol bob seger sux

Like a fuckin’ rock

"California Stars" walked so "Wagon Wheel" could run.

In all seriousness, "California Stars" was the song that got me into Wilco, a band I was aware of, but hadn't actually heard yet. I heard it one afternoon after school on our local Pacifica station, made sure I heard the DJ announce it, and then put Mermaid Avenue on my Xmas list, which Santa delivered. A few months later, Summerteeth dropped, which I picked up week of release (at Borders!) and then worked backwards.

The thing that nobody talks about but really makes the Mermaid Ave. take of "California Stars" work is the absolutely Gorgeous steel part by Corey Harris. I'd bet that's where a lot of people my age (almost 40) fell in love with steel guitar.

lol bob seger sux

maybe your parents like Bob Seger?

I’ve been digging “she don’t have to see you” though the chorus makes no sense
Golden smog stuff is fun

two

The thing that nobody talks about but really makes the Mermaid Ave. take of "California Stars" work is the absolutely Gorgeous steel part by Corey Harris. I'd bet that's where a lot of people my age (almost 40) fell in love with steel guitar.

― Precious, Grace, Hill & Beard LTD. (C. Grisso/McCain), Saturday, January 8, 2022 2:47 PM

this is definitely in line with things for me.

also, maybe i just have a very small attention span but i always felt like "california stars" was an outlier in the mermaid ave stuff - because it's so much better.

yeah can’t lie I wasn’t bowled over by either disc, outside maybe 3-4 tunes

still a cool project tho

Bill Callahan looks real comfortable in that clip, lol

lol he sure does

and the "flamenco dancer"!

had a moment with “summer teeth” the song recently. always had a soft spot for their sentimental country-ish ones

there's something incredibly depressing about that austin city limits clip, haha! i think it might be the looming shadow of bill callahan just standing on the side while everyone does little dances and claps

"California Stars" has a special place in my heart as the song that feels like the purest possible distillation of loss and grief, so much so that listening to it feels cathartic, like this cleansing tide of world-sorrow washes through me every time I hear it.

It's partly the lyrics: that sense of loss and nostalgia for an unreachable past, that sense of wanting desperately to go home, is already quite beautiful and moving. But then the Wilco interpretation brings something else to it, I think: the perspective of someone who knows that Woody Guthrie died of a horrible protracted illness in a hospital a long way from California, and so it becomes not just a song by Woody Guthrie but also, and in parallel, a song of grief for Woody Guthrie and the way his life ended. And the longing in the lyrics and the sense of grief and compassion in the music blend together into a song that I find almost too painful to listen to.

"California Stars" has a special place in my heart as the song that feels like the purest possible distillation of loss and grief...I find almost too painful to listen to.

This is how I feel about "Remember the Mountain Bed".

I believe the flamenco dancer is Robert Rodriguez's sister Patricia Vonne, who was singing backup with Alejandro Escovedo during his set and who has been putting out Flamenco-y Spanish Rock & Rockabilly records for like 20 years now.

And the longing in the lyrics and the sense of grief and compassion in the music blend together into a song that I find almost too painful to listen to.

― Lily Dale, Sunday, January 9, 2022 12:18 PM

this is an interesting thought and appropriate for this thread: i remember an interview that jeff tweedy did in the ghost is born/kicking television era where he voiced a similar sentiment. he talked about how there were records and performances that he loved so much that it became almost painful for him to listen to them because they resonated so deeply. i wish i could remember what publication it was for, but i remember his use of (a variation on) the phrase "hitting too close for comfort" changed my mind about what he was trying to convey. i remember reading the conversation and thinking, up until he said that, "what a dork, if you like the music, jam it!" idk what it was about him putting it that way, but it immediately changed my mind because i got it.

anyway, yes i totally get that vibe from "california stars." i always just assumed that the narrator has never actually seen the stars from california.

California Starts

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/cancun-concerts-wilco-dmb-omicron-1281187/

Ha, yeah, that's been a problem for bands doing these Mexico event festivals. Dead & Co's turned into an absolute shitshow. They wouldn't offer refunds for the longest time but, finally, as Omicron cases climbed they relented and offered refunds. Then about a week before the festival, Billy Kreutzmann pulled out for health reasons (he really had trouble at the end of their last tour, so it wasn't terribly surprising). Then a couple days before the festival, John Mayer came up positive for Covid and two days later his replacement also came up positive. They ended up finally canceling the whole thing the day before it was supposed to start, but after a lot of people had already flown down to Mexico. There were rumors of people who showed up to check in to their hotel and told they couldn't, since it was a package deal and the cancellation also impacted the lodging. Apparently they ended up making it right, a little, by honoring the stays of those who had traveled and refunding completely for the others. Don't know why they didn't just pull the plug earlier.

(forgive me if that's all covered later in that article, but I hit a paywall)

Who is John mayers replacement ?

Well, just for the festival it was going to be Tom Hamilton from Joe Russo's Almost Dead.

they should revive jerry's corpse for John M.'s replacement and blow minds

They should replace him with smooth jazz sax man Najee. I saw Prince once, in a small club, and they were doing a smoking version of I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man, and when it came to the solo Prince goes "Ladies and gentlemen ... Najee."

And Najee killed....

... te song.

Najee was a big reason why I skipped out on seeing Prince for so long even though I had become a huge fan. That guy just blows. (Figuratively. And literally I guess.)

Unless it's to a city where I already have friends or family I want to see, I would never travel for a concert much less a festival. Granted I live in a major city so I have the luxury of waiting for a tour to come through, but I've been burned for similar reasons in the past with traveling.

re:that RS article, it sucks when an event like that doesnt offer a full refund or any flexibility, but tbh i cant find a ton of sympathy for people who booked something like that and didn't realize it was a gamble, even pre-omicron. and then i got to this:Catching a mild case now and getting a doctor’s note stating he recovered and is no longer infectious is, he claims, the most sure-fire way to guarantee he can go to Mexico and come back freely [...] "I’m hoping to get this disease to avoid getting stuck in a foreign county or I lose thousands of dollars[...] plus if we get sick I don’t want to be stuck at a hospital in Latin America." a father who hopes to intentionally catch covid so that he can go see wilco in cancun without taking extra time off work, seems like a very cool guy, i certainly hope he doesnt get brutally dragged on twitter about this.

Replacing Mayer (or even Jerry for that matter) with a non white noodley guitar guy is a great idea. Maybe it wouldn’t fly with the heads tho

Wait are you saying you want that person to be of the non-white but still noodley variety? Or non-white and non-noodley? IMO you need the noodles.

xpost - I don't think the heads would have an issue with it at all, they embraced Oteil Burbridge replacing Phil Lesh enthusiastically enough.

Hiram Bullock hologram

yeah i like to razz deadheads but i really don't think they would have a problem with a non-white killer guitar player

They should replace him with Buckethead.

Bucketdead and Co.
Would listen

Grateful for this revive, I had never heard "California Stars"... glad to have learned of it!

Despite the gentle weirdness of that ACL clip, I think I even prefer that take to the one on the album... the song works great as a sing-along.

I read Tweedy's autobiography over the weekend and liked it very much, sort of despite myself. By way of an explanation, I've always thought Tweedy has had to fight against a perceived notion of being an everyman, someone who, without closer examination, seems to be one of those monolithic musicians who are a fixture by default - the de facto white guy with a guitar for a generation.

And the first few chapters are a perfect illustration: workmanlike, unfussy - telling the American rockstar origin story we've all heard a hundred times. I'm tempted to say that section was Tweedy leaning into his (lack of) status, deliberately painting an ordinary background as if to say 'yes, it's all true'. But as the book opens out, the gentle (ordinary) wisdom that suffuses his music slowly bleeds through the prose and it becomes a kind of celebration of the quotidian. Not in the Springsteen register - bombastic, sentimental, semi-deifying - but droller, resigned, making a virtue of keeping going and how he's worked his arse off to stay where he is.

Unreliable narrator caveats aside, he seems honest about the Tupelo stuff; it's not Lanegan, but he's candid about his addictive personality and where it's led him. Some of the score-settling is kind of ugly, inevitable but ugly (particular score-settling with Jay Bennett, a dead guy).

I guess it's kind of weird that he's become the songwriting self-help guy over the last few years but the sections of the book where he discusses his song and lyric writing processes are fascinating. Fwiw, I think he's a brilliant (and terminally underrated) lyricist. I'm off to steal Emily Dickinson verbs. For the next 5 days at least, I'll feel like I can write again.

You should read his follow-up book How to Write One Song, it's full of exercises to stimulate lyrical inspiration.

Self xp - christ, that reads like a man discovering what has been up-front and centre with Wilco for about 20 years. Worse, it reads as an apologia for a shy conservative. Eck.

Moments when you feel you're going mad (and possibly the last to know. Again.): when you play Star Wars on Spotify, the time bar is a lightsaber.

“Charlie’s fixin’ his band with the left-arm tan”
Jeff’s note to self to get a better drummer

hmm, I thought it was "van?"

Doh

Or is it “fixin’ Japan”

he's fixing his van, which he drives with the window down and his left arm hanging out ... getting tan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhmMb5jKItY

new album cousin out sep 29

i guess this is supposed to be the 'experimental' album they were working on around the same time as cruel country? i don't really hear that in the single, it's pretty restrained

produced by cate le bon? huh

Has the fandom affectionately nicknamed this album “Cos” yet

Pretty great cover image.

Surprised the title isn't an oblique reference to their music being used in every other episode of The Bear

lol was going to say the same thing.

i guess this is supposed to be the 'experimental' album they were working on around the same time as cruel country? i don't really hear that in the single, it's pretty restrained

Yeah, this is definitely more restrained than I expected, but the choice of Cate Le Bon as producer gives me some hope for the full thing. I know Tweedy was also tossing around "art pop" a lot wrt to this album when Cruel Country came out.

Can’t get into the new song. It sure does trudge along.

cruel country was so good, really looking forward to this. new song is p lovely imo

heavy george harrison vibes

it's breezy and fine but nothing exciting

boring

oh this is their psych album but it's really sleepy

can definitely hear cate le bon's contribution as producer but her bad trip vibes get reduced down to a milder underlying unease

Few sentences are more of a bummer re a Wilco LP than “All songs written by Jeff Tweedy.”

Sorry, Jeff, but you need to open things up a little.

This album certainly has a vibe but there isn’t enough to grab onto somehow, and looking over the discography I realized that the last time this band really IMPRESSED me - really, really impressed me - was Star Wars.

this album's filled with kinda interesting textural ideas but in service of songs that are barely there at all. complete opposite of cruel country (which i think is much better). nothing close to "bird without a tail/base of my skull" either

but i'd still take this one over some of their lesser albums like ode to joy, schmilco, wilco (the album), even the whole love outside of the bookends

important final clarification lol

maybe these songs will be cooler live if they let nels shred all over them

that's generally the case with wilco songs tbf

Definitely at least a cut above the albums ufo mentioned. Wish someone would impose a ban on him writing songs in first position on the guitar, or something

i think it's pretty good, certainly the best in a few years

I agree that Jeff needs to significantly shake up his songwriting somehow. This has probably been true for 10 years but it gets more true with every album.

If they can't make a great album with that band and CLB producing, guess what the problem is?

Not working with a producer that will push them further?

idk his songwriting was the best it'd been in a long time on cruel country and so it's a shame that hasn't carried across to this one

and le bon has clearly pushed them a bit here, just tweedy is back in sleepy/plodding mode so it evens out to just being ok

I haven't really listened to the last few, but I do feel they need someone to push them out of their comfort zone. Like, an *active* producer. Like, hell, get Alan Sparhawk to produce *them*.

I'll still catch their shows, which are great, but I definitely lost interest in their albums a while ago. I kept a few gems on each, but The Whole Love and Star Wars are the last ones I might want to play in their entirety. A Ghost Is Born is probably the last great album they've done IMHO.

they should get sparhawk & bj burton in

I haven't really listened to the last few, but I do feel they need someone to push them out of their comfort zone. Like, an *active* producer. Like, hell, get Alan Sparhawk to produce *them*.

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, September 29, 2023 3:17 PM (thirty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

feel like you're making assumptions that Cate Le Bon wasn't active

I haven't heard it yet! but I would say active enough that it's not boring. assuming it is.

You can hear her on this record, but let's be honest, it would take a pretty strong producer to push Tweedy around at all.

The new album is fine. Just don't get how he's more prolific than ever but his vibe is so lethargic

he's got unlimited access to a free studio space near his home. and he has time. he goes there every day and writes another song by himself, with his friend / studio manager hitting record. there's nothing at all to push him in any sort of interesting direction or force him into any sort of urgency, etc.

the other guys in the band contribute to the arrangements, but by that time the song is pretty much set - especially the vocals and vocal melodies, which imo are the biggest issue with Wilco songs right now.

i am somewhat speculating here, but to me that sounds like a pretty direct path to the rut he has been in for 10 years now.

idk he wrote some pretty solid stuff on cruel country so if they just took a more self-consciously arty approach to the arrangements again with some of tweedy's stronger, more direct songs then that could be quite decent

apparently the songs on this one weren't all written together or anything though, tweedy got le bon to dig through a bunch of demos & studio outtakes from the last 10 years and pick out songs to work on. it sounds like some were more recent songs that they'd been working on before they got side-tracked with cruel country, but some date further back.

oh see, i didn't know that part about le bon digging thru the archives. i guess by "somewhat speculating" i mean "talking out of my ass" :)

i agree that Cruel Country contains strong material ... it's just too long, imo, but if they'd kept it to 12ish songs, it'd be a post-YHF high point.

i didn't either, i just read a bunch of recent interviews because i was curious. they gave le bon a lot of control over the shape of the arrangements too

idk what i'd cut from cruel country though, it's definitely longer than it needs to be but there aren't really any obvious duds

maybe what we need more of from them is exploratory jams like "bird without a tail"

They were still writing and playing with teeth on Star Wars, I guess that was 8 years ago but I had given up on them kicking out the jams again when that came out and proved me wrong. “Cold Slope” is top ten Wilco for me I think.

Star Was is indeed fantastic, seems odd that the Schmilco half was was the most blah thing they've put to tape

That's for sure - it's like they decided to put out the interesting stuff first, and if people like it, maybe they can put out the boring leftovers as a holding pattern.

that’s bullshit imo, schmilco is full of great songs and bizarre shit

i understand why ppl think it’s boring, it’s a much calmer and subtler palette, but it’s pretty much just as wacky as star wars, just from the opposite angle

I haven't heard the new album yet, but... Unlike most everyone I genuinely think all of their/his albums have at least a few high quality songs. The vibe has definitely gotten sleepier and staid as he's gotten older, and its understandable why most people would interpret that as Jeff running in place creatively.

However, while the artistic "shifts" are subtler, I still believe I could distinguish near every album from one another if you were to play me a random song from side B that I hadn't listened to in a few years. And they still sound like Wilco and no one else, and I'm not sure who you could point to that sounds a lot like them making music today, and that suggests to me that they still have a unique sound that is mainly due to Jeff's songwriting and their undeniable musical talents (Glenn, Nels). I'm not going to pretend his songwriting is anywhere near as good as it once was, but I'm perfectly happy to listen to a new Wilco album every year or two even if 75% of it is just ok.

Great post Indexed, I think there's a lot of truth to that.

I haven't heard it yet! but I would say active enough that it's not boring. assuming it is.

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, September 29, 2023 5:11 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

well keep us posted

For those who missed the Wilco/Tweedy poll, there were songs from 18 different albums that made the top 77, every album but Love is King had at least one song that received a vote, and roughly ~60% of his songs received at least one vote. Like any band that's been around as long as they have, I think there are just different fans for different "eras" of their catalogue. Everyone seems to like YHF, and most everyone seems to like Summerteeth, but after that I think it's pretty wide open.

what confuses me is why there needs to be six people in the band

To be fair, they tour a lot and rarely seem to hire additional personnel for those tours like some other long-running acts, so maybe six is ideal?

The best, or at least most intense, I ever saw the band was in the early YHF days, post Bennett, when iirc they were a four-piece, with Leroy Bach swapping between keys and guitar.

I actually thought this was an interesting read:

https://www.insidehook.com/article/music/wilco-cousin-review

Not sure I'd 100% cosign all of it, but some really good points about how weird expectations have gotten around this band and how specific fans seems to want to hear specific things. I've listened to Cousin twice now and I like it well enough. I do wish there was a little more Le Bon weirdness evident, but close listening reveals quite a bit under the surface.

That's great. Thanks for sharing it.

Everything said in that article makes sense if your point of reference for experimental music is Radiohead, as it is for the author.

they should get sparhawk & bj burton in

― ufo, Friday, September 29, 2023 4:38 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

Hell, just have Tweedy make the hot tag with those two and you’d have a Wilco I could get behind.

I've been going through a stack of bootleg CD-R's that I dug out of storage, and one of them is (most of) Wilco's set from Summerfest in Milwaukee, WI from July 4, 1998. Great soundboard recording, possibly no generational loss, this is right on the heels of Mermaid Avenue. (Billy Bragg is even playing that same day, albeit in NYC, drawing most of his setlist from that same album as well.) The standout is actually the-yet-to-be-released "I'm Always in Love," and I never realized how much they sweetened it up for Summerteeth. When I first heard it there, I immediately thought "Beach Boys," but here it sounds like it came out of a spot-on cover of the Velvet Underground's "I'm Waiting for the Man."

There’s some pretty interesting shit happening on Cousin, I’m beginning to realise. The songs sound slightly listless on a casual listen but there’s a submarine pull to them which is kind of sick and thrilling. I’m a bit obsessed with “Levee” at the moment.

i'm realising cousin feels most like a sequel to a ghost is born? similarly mellow/restrained with a lot of songs driven by piano or fingerpicked acoustic guitar, and weird atmospherics in the background. i'm appreciating it more now and it even holds together better than a ghost is born even if it doesn't reach the same highs. they should probably put out a follow-up live album though because i bet the songs really work better live, just like a ghost is born

they've also just toured japan for the first time in 8 years so maybe there'll be progress on that third loose fur album at last?

This has probably been mentioned upthread somewhere, but after years of wondering what the cover of summerteeth was supposed to be I looked it up. It's a person blowing a gigantic bubble of bubble gum.

they really are the best live band in the world it turns out. easily one of the best shows i've ever seen. they jammed out "bird without a tail" for 9 minutes and it really deserves to be a permanent live staple now. "at least that's what you said" was genuinely kinda life affirming as silly as it sounds. even "how to fight loneliness", which is hardly my favourite, was pretty great and way better than the album version

is kotche the best drummer in the history of rock?

i wish i'd managed to get a ticket for last night too now

Kotche is great. He's the king of underplaying, which is an invisible skill that often goes (not surprisingly) unnoticed. "Check out all the stuff he's not doing!" But he's really sneakily creative about what he's not playing, and you know he's one of the greats because everyone, from other drummers on down, recognizes he's great *despite* the underplaying.

I still haven't heard the new record (or the previous three, tbh), but the new song I hear sometimes ("Meant to Be"?) is really good and not at all what I expected. Super poppy, sounds a little like the Pretenders.

what really stuck out to me about kotche was how much nuance there was in his playing, it was incredibly detailed. he was pretty much always doing something interesting and intricate, though never doing too much. cline is an absolutely incredible player too of course and it was pretty amazing how much the two of them add to the pre-yhf songs.

the last two albums are some of the strongest they've made in quite a while, especially cruel country, they're definitely worth checking out. "bird without a tail" off cruel country is the best thing they've done in over a decade, although the studio version pales in comparison to what they've turned it into live. they finally have a second "impossible germany" and sansone gets to go wild alongside cline on it

Cline gets much of the attention but I think Kotche is the most talented musician in the band. Both have created a style completely their own that is immediately recognizable and yet impossible to recreate. I've never heard anyone say "check out this new band, their drummer reminds me of Glenn."

new ep is rather nice! it's material they didn't finish during the cousin sessions but it's generally better than most of what made the album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgUC__tTkGw

Is there anywhere else to hear this than YouTube?

(Thank you for sharing ,ufo - just weird this isn’t on Bandcamp or a streaming service)

it's on streaming services but idk why it isn't on their bandcamp yet

this ep is probably their best front-to-back release since sky blue sky? there's a lot of ideas here and they're all good and they're completely playing to their strengths for once

Up on Bandcamp now (and I see it on Apple Music)

Whoever handles this in their camp just didn’t have these things in place right at midnight

I’ve enjoyed this EP more than I’ve enjoyed anything this band has done since Star Wars

i quite liked the last two albums as well so they're on a bit of a roll at the moment

yeah this is excellent!

Really good! Not sure why they couldn't have incorporated much of this into Cousin... which itself is fine, but balancing out the more sleepy Wilco I think others would agree would be welcome these days

It just kind of rollicks by so satisfyingly. Being 18 minutes helps. A nice early summer listen.

Anyone else at Solid Sound this weekend?

This release came out out of nowhere and I was fully expecting it to be some tossed off affair but it’s got at least three excellent album-worthy songs on it. What gives

xp I'm at Solid Sound. Really enjoyed the deep cuts set last night.

Hey, this EP is really nice indeed... first thing by them that has caught my ear in a long time. I'll have to check out last year's album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rExVHkv6Dk0

the main thing people who haven't kept up with them for a while have missed is "bird without a tail"

and “levee”

wow i sure do love silly goose wilco

Ufo, that was the song I liked most from that record

https://scontent-lga3-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/462446110_1123090705840286_1663477607333735029_n.jpg?_nc_cat=100&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=127cfc&_nc_ohc=uUPt6mplJUIQ7kNvgGYeVw2&_nc_ht=scontent-lga3-2.xx&_nc_gid=AuiS_Gi2aQ4t9pKDFguJsQG&oh=00_AYCjxuZRB7lVn7C77PiZzgzqnr3ombJ4O2jiJmCfyO9H3A&oe=67130FB5

Ah, yes, a helpful list of 65 or so albums, both new and old, most of which I have never heard of, to catch up with.

you better get on it!

Given the number of *Wilco* albums I haven't gotten around to listening to it would be highly ironic if I sought out any of these mysteries on their recommendation first.

Well, they’re certainly right about the Hard Quartet.

billie eilish and chris corsano should make a record together. would buy!

Lotta Wilco threads.

I was driving home from somewhere last night and the radio was playing a Wilco show from the archives. It was "Outtasite (Outtamind)" and they were absolutely killing it. I thought to myself, man, this must be from the "Being There"-era, I miss this kind of performance, this band used to be absolutely killer. And then they played "Spiders (Kidsmoke)" and I thought, oh, this must be from some time after "A Ghost is Born," this band used to be absolutely killer. And then they revealed it was from a residency as recently as *2017*, and I thought, man, what a great band.

they still are absolutely killer live

<3

I've been listening to the Ghost box set pretty much non-stop for a couple of weeks now, and I think it's now my favorite album of theirs. Being There>Summerteeth>YHF>A Ghost Is Born is one of the all-time 4-album runs, in my opinion.

I had some stuff on shuffle over the weekend and the live version of "Christ For President" from the Boulder show included with the Summerteeth deluxe version popped up and it was so good! I almost skipped it because the studio version never did a lot for me, but this live take smoked.

They remain a great live band and honestly their last few albums are unremarkable. Not weak, just not nearly as interesting as their live work.

they remain a great live band *capable* of life-changing live shows, and also live shows that are almost as unremarkable as their past few albums, i would say.

like, imagine if they really decided to do a serious "see, we like experimental music and we can really play" flex concert. would be incredible.

to use a sports-ism, their ceiling is insanely high ... i'm not sure they get close to it, ever. or at least very often.

their last two albums were decent enough and their best material since sky blue sky, and they're still way way better live. idk how the band i saw a year ago could possibly put on an unremarkable show - maybe to someone who's seen them like five times already but their average live show is still going to be way above most other bands out there, surely

well yes, that's probably fair. i think they're the only band i've seen in 4 different decades ... maybe 10 times total?

I've seen them a bunch, in numerous line-ups, and while there are some shows that I recall being better than others, I suspect that's largely because of the number of times I've seen them has made me take them for granted. Because I am sure I've never seen them play a *bad* show.

First time I heard them play "Impossible Germany" (in Prospect Park, I think 2012) may be my favorite moment at a Wilco concert. But for overall experience, it's hard to beat the first time, simply because it was the first time and one of the very first rock concerts I ever saw. I think Jeff Tweedy is the only act that I really saw grow old in-person, or at least go from black hair to completely grey.

the show i saw last year is probably the best show i've ever seen from anyone, though i'm sure it helps that they were touring behind their strongest material in a while. if a third of the show had been from ode to joy rather than from cruel country & cousin then it would have been a bit worse, but i think even that would have been excellent

Golden smog’s version of “glad and sorry”is playing at the bar

Hell yes.

I do bang on about it, but “Levee” off Cousin is an astonishing track, its own mysterious world. Recommend loud, immersive listening.

Def. one of those bands that is simultaneously overrated and underrated.

Perhaps every fan vacillates between love of the music and their self-perception of “being a Wilco fan”

Won’t you take me to the store and the drunk tank
I got five dollars we can put in the bank

Catching them tomorrow, hard to pass up a hometown gig.

The band was at its most mellow and Dead-y for much of last night's two sets. Not my favorite mode, but a good soundtrack to a summer night, I guess. Couple of acoustic versions of rockers ("Spiders," "I'm Always in Love"), a rare performance of "It's Not That Simple," ended with a cover of "U.S. Blues" (as if to drive home the Dead vibe). Not the most memorable show, imo, but chill. I know I'm in the minority, but so many years down the line and I still think Nels is a snooze of a guitarist.

Always happy to see John get his due.

How's the new solo record? I'm a bit intimated by its run length but really liked the "Lou Reed" single they put out.

Tweedy - Sukierae (Jeff Tweedy and son) discussion here - it's very good!

It's great, best thing I've heard from him in a while. There is a solo Tweedy thread where we (a couple of us) agreed that were it a Wilco record it would be up there.

jinx!