wilco

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