how long will your average wilco fan put up with all this (gasp) experimentalism?

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i see deerhoof will be opening for wilco on a few dates in the midwest. i mean, i know most opening bands are summarily ignored, but really now... this one's not even close. this raised the above question in my brain. now, in chicago, tweedy is a deity. just ask greg kot and jim dero. but like, that last song on a ghost -- how much play is that getting in the homes of being there fans? the list can go on, but you get my point, i ass-ume.

― frankE (frankE), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 17:43 (twenty-one years ago)

they made new fans that replaced some of the old fans. no, seriously, they did.

― scott seward (scott seward), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 17:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Is Ghost selling well? I don't keep up with charts or anything, so I've got no idea. There just doesn't seem to be anywhere near the media saturation that accompanied YHF two years ago.

― Johnny Fever (johnny fever), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 17:46 (twenty-one years ago)

The average Wilco fan knows what to expect from Deerhoof because the average Wilco fan has read about both bands on PFM. So they'll be mildly prepared and will pretend to like Deerhoof even if they don't.

― MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 17:46 (twenty-one years ago)

Deerhoof isn't that experimental anyway. Their live set has some definitely Who-like rockin' moments.

― hstencil (hstencil), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 17:47 (twenty-one years ago)

"So, Jeff Tweedy vomits ["A Ghost is Born," July]? Well, I laughed so hard at the new record, I almost threw up. Wilco were my favorite band up until Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Anyone who really listens to Wilco's music knows that A Ghost is Born is self-indulgent and just plain boring. When the next record comes out and drug addiction is no longer the excuse, people will see how much Jay Bennett and Ken Coomer brought to this band."

P.L. Foerster
Los Angeles

[SPIN, Oct. 2004]

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 17:49 (twenty-one years ago)

the average Wilco fan has read about both bands on PFM

i dunno, maybe living in chicago skews my views. i mean, they are a WXRT pet. no matter what, they'll have some upper-20s BigTen graduates chugging brewdogs down and talking over the band. they're as likely to see counting crows or matchbox 20.

― frankE (frankE), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 17:49 (twenty-one years ago)

I saw The Handsome Family open for Wilco in Austin back in '01. By my estimation, at least 75% of the audience "didn't get it."

― Doobie Keebler (Charles McCain), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 17:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Wilco - "they're just so damn WEIRD!"

― Gear! (Gear!), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 17:51 (twenty-one years ago)

frankE OTM.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 17:51 (twenty-one years ago)

I know three obsessive Wilco fans. Weirdly enough, all of them are also huge Radiohead fans. But after that, only one of them listens to "weird" stuff. The second likes Rufus Wainwright, Magnetic Fields, and late 80s/early 90s college rock. The third loves Pearl Jam and R.E.M.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 17:54 (twenty-one years ago)

The biggest Wilco fans I know (aside from myself and a couple of friends) have an alarmingly high number of Phish, Counting Crows, and DMB CDs in their collections.

― Gear! (Gear!), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 17:55 (twenty-one years ago)

wilco have a very divided fan base, every time I've seen them it's been like that, with half the people being your standard fratty dudes who like the country stomp and drink a lot of beer. i imagine if they didn't like A Ghost is Born they won't bother showing up this time.

I still think Summerteeth is more experimental than either of the last two records, personally, so I don't think this is all just a result of "no-jay-bennet"

― kyle (akmonday), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 17:55 (twenty-one years ago)

Also there are a lot of bitter No Depression subscribers who don't like anything Wilco's done other than A.M. and the country tunes on Being There.

― Gear! (Gear!), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 17:57 (twenty-one years ago)

most days, i think id rather drink beer with country-stompers than with jim o'rourke.

― peter smith (plsmith), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 18:56 (twenty-one years ago)

That's what I thought, but then I saw O'Rourke playing drums to Smoke On The Water on the School of Rock-DVD and I changed my mind.

― strom (strom), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 18:59 (twenty-one years ago)

i think id rather drink beer with country-stompers than with jim o'rourke

apparently jeff tweedy feels differently.

― frankE (frankE), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 19:10 (twenty-one years ago)

Except for the fact that Tweedy doesn't, you know, drink.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 19:17 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't think Ghost is *that* weird. Mind you, my brain's been fried by plenty of Beefheart and Krautrock, so I probably don't hear music the same as all the No Depression Nazis. ;)

― stew s, Tuesday, 5 October 2004 19:18 (twenty-one years ago)

I should add that the Glasgow crowd went pure dead mental for Spiders and Nels Cline's guitar abuse was thoroughly groovy. The album is well balanced - you've got beautiful songs like Company In My Back and some crazy shit too. It's all good.

― stew s, Tuesday, 5 October 2004 19:20 (twenty-one years ago)

i DID like seeing orourke on that schoolofrock dvd, its true.

― peter smith (plsmith), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 19:22 (twenty-one years ago)

Except for the fact that Tweedy doesn't, you know, drink.

yes. but if he did drink, he'd rather do so with Jim O'Rourke than with said country stompers, no?

― frankE (frankE), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 19:38 (twenty-one years ago)

So the older stuff doesn't sound like this, I take it?

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 00:10 (twenty-one years ago)

A Ghost Is Born debuted in the top ten. It was a top ten album. Think about that.

It's my least favorite since A.M. overall but "Spiders (Kidsmoke)" is my fave song of theirs ever. Someone needs to stage an intervention with Tweedy over his lyrics. First two albums didn't have lyric sheets. Summerteeth (my fave by far) had a small one. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot put one song on every other page. A Ghost Is Born had them in children's book font in a large book. Now there's a BOOK coming out with a CD rather than the other way around. Where do you go from there?

― manthony m1cc1o (Anthony Miccio), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 00:25 (twenty-one years ago)

you ditch the cd and just release a book, d'oh.

― jed_ (jed), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 01:42 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, not to pontificate, but Wilco's "experimentalism" is rather safe. It might be fair to say that they push the envelope a little of how out there you can get on a pop record, but they're still not that out there. Certainly no more out there than Radiohead got on Amnesiac and Kid A, causing no great detriment to their popularity.

― Hurting (Hurting), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 01:51 (twenty-one years ago)

Agreed, a very safe album. What do they do use except some nice fuzzy electronic noises and some elongated song structures? It makes Neil Young's Transformer sound like The Boredoms.

Still, it's, y'know, OK.

― Derek Walmsley, Wednesday, 6 October 2004 16:19 (twenty-one years ago)

I prefer the Wilco of Yankee Hotel and Ghost to Summer Teeth. ST is a great album of summer pop, but the arrangements seem overegged, with that Jay guy piling on the mellotron, organ, guitar etc etc.

― Stew S (stew s), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 18:28 (twenty-one years ago)

I agree about Jay going a bit too nuts on the mellotron, but i do like Summerteeth perhaps most of all, followed by Being There and Yankee. I need to play the new album more, but I really don't think the "lite" experimental approach suits Tweedy as others have said. I don't go to Can or Amon Duul for awesome singer-songwriting, nor do I want the opposite from Tweedy. The guy has the ability to make fantastic, simple songs almost better than anyone. I say stop f**king around! But, umm, you know, I still think it has merit etc...

― piers (piers), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 23:02 (twenty-one years ago)

wilco fans get over the fact that they're horrible, they should be able to look past the 'experimental' bits.

― keith m (keithmcl), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 23:14 (twenty-one years ago)

It's not so much that the "experimental" bits are difficult to look past or challenging, it's that they're boring.

― piers (piers), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 23:25 (twenty-one years ago)

I stand by my initial opinion Ghost is better than anything they've done before, though admittedly the first time I heard it I was really drunk.

― Gear! (Gear!), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 23:31 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't really care what they do as long as they help Nels Cline pay his bills and finance his other projects.

― Al (sitcom), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 23:41 (twenty-one years ago)

Not to mention drummer Glenn Kotche who may be the best/weirdest/most creative drummer in mainstream rock.

― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 7 October 2004 00:01 (twenty-one years ago)

(i am not a wilco fan.)

the wilco fans in my office -- and there are quite a few -- seem to like their experimentalism quite fine.

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Thursday, 7 October 2004 00:25 (twenty-one years ago)

I agree Eisbar - it must depend - maybe in the States, wilco fan don't equal experimental fan. Other countries, maybe less of a divide.

― piers (piers), Thursday, 7 October 2004 00:42 (twenty-one years ago)

I think Wilco fans are split between people who like "Pitchfork indie" and those who like Jayhawks country

― Gear! (Gear!), Thursday, 7 October 2004 00:44 (twenty-one years ago)

Er...I like Pitchfork indie and Jayhawks country!
Although I don't like the boring AOR side of alt.country (see Uncut mag) or the the boring whiny side of Pitchfork indie.
Does that make sense?

― Stewart Smith (stew s), Thursday, 7 October 2004 09:30 (twenty-one years ago)

Well, as long as they sound nothing like Uncle Tupelo, I am satisfied. I guess I liked the pure pop direction of "Summerteeth" slightly better than what they are doing now though.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Thursday, 7 October 2004 10:00 (twenty-one years ago)

Uncle Tupelo were a great band, although Tweedy didn't really come into his own until their last album, Anodyne. Acuff Rose and New Madrid are great songs.

― Stewart Smith (stew s), Thursday, 7 October 2004 11:34 (twenty-one years ago)

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