Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

Well I kind of just leaped onto this board without invitation, if you are the Scott P. who came before me, I will happily fall back to the diminutive of my name!

Tom - thanks for the thoughts. I guess it is interesting, and I have to admit the Village Voice review touched on some thoughts that were in my subconscious. I still don't like the review, but I will admit the seeming "snowball effect" of rave reviews made me a little uneasy. I am, however, glad to see Wilco getting praise they deserve and if the critics are shouting too hard, it's kind of an "end justifies the means" type of deal for me.

Alex, glad you got the album. It's cool to see the reactions of people who just bought it. I really, really wish my first listen had been off the CD in my car, not streaming from the web in my office at work. I feel like I missed that one chance "first impression" in time forever! But the CD keeps getting better for me, that's the good news.

Cheers, scotty

Mark, you are referring to the sainted Marc Bolan. To me, Jeff Tweedy sounds like Jerry Garcia. A lot. Which is ok. I just got YHF a couple days ago myself, and find it to be pleasant, but I can't think of anything interesting to say about it. Yet.

No, no, no. Sorry! Didn't mean to grumble -- I rarely have time to post as it is. No worries.

"The fact that Wilco had to buy back their new album from an unimpressed record label - Reprise - only to then sell it back to, effectively, the same company, says it all.

The laughable lack of vision or interest in invention coruscating through towering leper colonies the world over cocoons these industry idiots, whose only concession to complexity is an expenses bill or a tax return.

'War On War' is the first single from that very spurned album, the rather brilliant and universally lauded 'Yankee Hotel Foxtrot', which, remarkably, runs predecessor 'Summerteeth' pretty close on the wonderful barometer.

Naturally more accessible than sections of the album, 'War On War' is still full of atmospheric static, far-off melodic passages and juddering radio-wave distortion, yet retains a precise pop element that was clearly just too damn 'out-there' for a bunch of executives who should be shot."

- Ben Gilbert

But an interesting postscript is that Gilbert later (just today) reviewed Wilco's show at the Astoria - and was largely disappointed. It's too bad.. I think they are having trouble with the new material in a live format, and without Jay Bennett. And Tweedy supposedly gets gripped with intense stagefright before various shows.

I love the song with the violin, I wish more of the record sounded that vital.

The Stravinsky mix:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOMOB0I7rOc

As is, once it gets past the intro, I'm not sure it really works - it feels a little sloppy at times, like it needs more finessing. Very interesting though.

(To clarify, I mean the mix and getting the sample to really work within it.)

I listened to some of this box set today and I think Tweedy should send Jim O'Rourke a bouquet of flowers once a week for the rest of his life

Paul Ponzi otm.

agreed so far. I like the sorta mangled “when the levee breaks” drum take on the unified theory take.

It's not something I'd want to buy, but it plays like a great collection for a research library - something I'd explore only once or twice, but invaluable in showing how this album was made.

there's a few real gems & it's an absolutely fascinating insight into the creative process behind it, one of the very best as far as these sort of deluxe reissues go

Absolutely. I knew a lot was written (or rather speculated) in terms of how the album evolved, and I remember Kot (either in his book or elsewhere at the time) mentioning that one of the big misconceptions surrounding the album was that O'Rourke was all about adding experimental elements to it when he mainly took thing out as if he was distilling the mix. Even with those details, it still left a lot to the imagination, so it's really edifying to have these recordings finally available.

*took things

I started off thinking 'the song is strong enough to survive anything' but jeez, I had to turn it off about 2 minutes in. The drums are actively annoying.

the one song that _is_ more experimental in the final mix is "poor places", very different from all the earlier takes. i'm up to the barrel-scraping "lonely in the deep end" disc now.

barrel-scraping

I'm surprised no one's been cheeky enough to title a box set bonus disc that very phrase.

From these descriptions it sounds like 'yankee hotel foxtrot (drag city edition)' -- messing around in ways that could be unlistenable or brilliant or both.

I'm surprised no one's been cheeky enough to title a box set bonus disc that very phrase.

― birdistheword

https://gentlegiantmusic.com/GG/Scraping_the_Barrel

From these descriptions it sounds like 'yankee hotel foxtrot (drag city edition)' -- messing around in ways that could be unlistenable or brilliant or both.

― The self-titled drags (Eazy)

you could definitely put together an "all-avant-garde" version of the album from the stuff here. maybe i'll work on that project!

the album version of "poor places" is so different because restructuring it so radically was o'rourke's idea so that happened at a very late stage in the process

ok, i went ahead and did it:

Lost on the Sidewalk: The Unlistenable _Yankee Hotel Foxtrot_

Finally, Wilco has their own _Black Belt in Boogie_ - an unlistenably avant-garde record that everybody hates and which probably _isn't_ releasable. I am, of course, a staunch defender. The haters may claim that the John Bonham drums on "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart" are way overmixed, that the talkbox on "Pot Kettle Black" is wholly unnecessary, that the overly obtrusive Stravinsky interpolation and the gratuitous use of numbers stations recordings ruin what otherwise would be perfectly fine songs, that the keyboard wobble and woozy Mellotron on "Reservations" is way overdone, that "Has Anybody Seen My Pencil?" is obviously an unfinished jam that _maybe_ could have been a song if they'd done some actual work on it, that for God's sake they had perfectly good songs like "Jesus, Etc.", "A Magazine Called Sunset", and "Shakin' Sugar" that would have been _greatly_ improved the album, maybe replacing something like the obvious Radiohead knockoff "Remember to Remember". Nonsense. The album is _perfect as it is_. Y'all just don't appreciate the sublime artistry of Jeff Tweedy and Jay Bennett.

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart (The Unified Theory of Everything)
Kamera (The Unified Theory of Everything)
Radio Cure (Here Comes Everybody)
Has Anybody Seen My Pencil? (Lonely in the Deep End)
Venus Stopped the Train (American Aquarium)
I'm the Man Who Loves You (American Aquarium)
Ashes of American Flags (Stravinsky Mix) (The Unified Theory of Everything)
Pot Kettle Black (The Unified Theory of Everything)
Remember to Remember (The Unified Theory of Everything)
Poor Places (Yankee Hotel Foxtrot)
Reservations (The Unified Theory of Everything)

there's a 6 minute version of "poor places" on the long-ago bootlegged 'engineer demos' collection (but unfortunately left off the boxset) that's clearly an early take of the new structure that o'rourke came up with - the piano is still a fair-bit more bar-band than the album version etc. - so i'd include that version on that

good suggestion! jeez, i can almost hear mal evans counting to 32 on that one.

Thanks for that mix rushomancy, going to cobble together a playlist once I get a chance to rip the box.

yw! i actually put together two more mixes:

Not for the Season: The pop _Yankee Hotel Foxtrot_

It was hard to know what to expect when it was announced that Wilco would be working with Jim O'Rourke, but it certainly wasn't this album of 2 1/2 to 4 minute pop songs. It's catchy, but there's not really a lot here that wasn't done better and with more emotional depth on _summerteeth_. In some ways it's even a callback to _Being There_, what with the banjo on songs like "War on War". There's some interesting experiments, like the Optigan on "The Good Part", but overall? A solid double, maybe. Not a grand slam. A little bit of a disappointment given that before the album came out they were playing some pretty interesting tracks live, like "Cola" and "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart". Might be nice to hear studio recordings of those songs - it's rumored they were dropped due to record company interference. A shame if so.

Not for the Season (Here Comes Everybody)
Kamera (Here Comes Everybody)
Cars Can't Escape (Here Comes Everybody)
War on War (American Aquarium)
Jesus, Etc. (Yankee Hotel Foxtrot)
Shakin' Sugar (American Aquarium)
Pot Kettle Black (Yankee Hotel Foxtrot)
Poor Places (American Aquarium)
Heavy Metal Drummer (Yankee Hotel Foxtrot)
The Good Part (Here Comes Everybody)
I'm the Man Who Loves You (The Unified Theory of Everything)
A Magazine Called Sunset (The Unified Theory of Everything)
Anniversary (American Aquarium)

---

Lost Poem: The _Yankee Hotel Foxtrot_ basement tapes

Wilco's projected followup to _summerteeth_ (often known as "Here Comes Everybody", though the band abandoned that name before they abandoned the sessions) is one of the great "What ifs" of rock history. The band had started recording what was supposed to be a more experimental follow-up to the album, and was working with Jim O'Rourke. Unfortunately, the sessions were a chaotic affair, beset by personnel changes, with the recording collapsing after Jay Bennett's acrimonious departure/firing (depending on who you ask) from the band. While the sessions were productive in that they were the root of Tweedy and O'Rourke's long-running Loose Fur project - and indeed, "Not for the Season" would show up on the Loose Fur record in longer, more experimental form as "Laminated Cat" - one can't help but wish that Wilco had at least managed to finish the record. Songs like "American Aquarium" and "I am Trying to Break Your Heart" had genuine potential, and it's a shame that they were never finished. All that remains is this rough bootleg of loose rehearsal jams.

American Aquarium (American Aquarium)
Poor Places (The Unified Theory of Everything)
Pot Kettle Black (Here Comes Everybody)
Not for the Season (American Aquarium)
Has Anybody Seen My Pencil? (Lonely in the Deep End)
I'm the Man Who Loves You (Lonely in the Deep End)
Jesus, Etc. (The Unified Theory of Everything)
Remember to Remember (Here Comes Everybody)
Lost Poem (Lonely in the Deep End)
Love Will (Let You Down) (Lonely in the Deep End)
The Good Part (Lonely in the Deep End)
Ashes of American Flags (Here Comes Everybody)
I Am Trying to Break Your Heart (American Aquarium)

listened to the live set & the versions of "misunderstood" and "sunken treasure" on there are wildly different arrangements i'd never heard before, fascinating

Didn't see this shared yet:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/arts/music/wilco-yankee-hotel-foxtrot.html

Tweedy had a solo version of sunken treasure with that arrangement from early 2000, but I hadn’t heard the full band accompaniment (or I probably have and age is doing its thing :/)

I recently got the 2CD version and wanted to figure out what else I should cherry pick from the Super Deluxe box. This was very helpful: https://raisemyglasstothebside.wordpress.com/2022/10/02/wilco-yankee-hotel-foxtrot-outtakes/

It's crazy how the skyline in NYC looks exactly like the cover art for YHF but without the need for filters or anything else. Stay indoors if you can.

looks exactly like the western U.S. every August/September for the past 5-7 years, too.

Pictures of Marina Towers here today would capture a near-cloudless sky blue sky.

xp i know my last comment was annoying. forgive me. i kept it off social media all day and let it slip here.

hope it clears out soon, east coast.

Thriftbooks is selling the big-ass vinyl box for $81 after taxes, free shipping. I never even considered buying the box but that's a hell of a deal.

https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/yankee-hotel-foxtrot/1000304988/#edition=65465728&idiq=54276503

!

thanks for the heads up

Thanks!