Mr. Kinsley

I'm going to have my 6th grade english classes submit some for this. Should be interesting since they've never heard of Wilco. I'll play some songs and for them and have them write what comes to mind. It's a combo teachable moment/public service. I'll try to post some of it here later.

Unless I just missed it, I was very surprised that Rush in Rio made the list and not Exit... Stage Left. Otherwise, with a couple of other exceptions, not a bad list.

i want that guitar

but you a-holes are too good

damn vc damn you*

*Not actually entered, just how I feel about all you who are entering the contest. That is all, carry on.

So, I never watch the Office, but they were filming at the school I teach at. On my hallway where my classroom is to be exact. One of the characters apparantly starts a reading room in the local high school, which, being Van Nuys Middle School, is neither local nor a high school. Also out in front of the school they put clumps of snow by the main entrance and some barren fake trees to make it look like winter. Of course it was actually 95 degrees. Has this episode aired yet? They filmed about a month ago. Is this an ongoing plot line? It will be funny to see what they do with it. The next day they also filmed downstairs in another hallway for Parks & Recreation. Only in LA.

Why I love the live version of Via Chicago

caccophony builds

dissonant static but then

harmony snaps back

three and sixty three

cost diet coke and unsmoked

why would you buy smoked?

pat and john's duo

they could defend all seasons

but they chose autumn

rising up from the

uncle tupelo ashes

lazy rock critics

Crap. I spent all day thinking to myself, "That guitar is SO mine!"

Not so sure about that now. Y'all are gooooood!

Thanks! I got on a bit of a roll and just went with it. Took about a half hour. I came up with the one about Pat, then it just didn't seem right to leave everyone else out! I'll probably be ruled out due to overkill.

Well, then I'll post them here so I can copy them into individual emails more easily. I got a bit carried away.

Set #1: one per member (these all work as a set)

channeling townsend

rock god play and posturing

yeah strike that pose pat

in back but not lost

melodies rain down from mike

laptop boy no more

forget the earthbound

string and pedal transcendence

nels floating above

glenn's rattling sticks

time triumphantly locked-in

fell in love indeed

steady through and through

thumping never soared so deep

anchor around john

somberly funny

enjoyably serious

tweedy's dues are paid

Set #2: random stuff I thought of.

song stuck in my head

left over from halloween

will stay 'til new years

picky Wilco fans

snobbish fan club complaining

is this a demo?

Can we enter more than one per email? Or should I send multiple emails? Should I mount the SG on the wall or do I dare play it?

Here's an excerpt from an English to Italian to Irish to Japanese to English translation:

 

Suddenly,

I used to be half the man I

I was not in suspension, shadows,

Oh, yesterday was a surprise.

 

She

I go, instead, I do not know really.

I said.

Something wrong, now I said yesterday, in time.

I think even Paul would say, "Whoa. That shit was deep."

So, Kidsmoke had a post over in Just a Fan where she put an Italian review of W(ta) through a translation program and the result was rather poetically hilarious. This gave me the idea to take songs and put them through said program several times in different languages to see how it changes. For instance, I put Jesus, Etc. through an English to Spanish to German to Italian translation and it turned out to be rather interesting.

Jesus, do not cry.

That you can trust me honey.

It is also possible to combine what you want.

I'll be around.

You rightly stars.

Each one is a setting sun.

Tall buildings shake.

Sad voices escape, singing sad songs.

Tuned ropes hanging down her cheeks.

Bitter melodies turning your orbit.

Losestar had a good one.

"At Least That's What You Said," English to Spanish to French to German to Russian back to English.

(Non-English words deleted, likes I particularly like bolded)

When I at once have sat down in a bed?

Whether you have you??

To cry, whether circulation can?

If I proceed, you to me? What?

I shall arrive to the house,

About, whether can? all means you,

just the leaf me only

at least is, that you spoke

They? Yours it is mad?

when you you? At you?

Your sad steps I am free, what I have pens?

What does it have? Tons?

around of you to k?

The violet eye purple though I took it you

I, still thinks, that we are at least serious,

who is it That you spoke

So my assignment/question for you is, what songs can you try and how many different languages does it need to be filtered through to get it "just right?"

OK, OK, back on topic people! I'm going to start a new topic for this buffoonery in Someone Else's Song. Please keep it to commentary on the Italian review article. Sorry Donna!

Sorry to hijack the thread for a moment, but this gives me an idea - a whole new way to write lyrics! Write something, put through a lang. trans. program into another language, say spanish maybe. Then do it again into japanese, then italian, then back to english. I wonder how Wilco lyrics would fare?

OK, I tried it with the first part of Jesus, Etc. Went from english to spanish to german to italian, then back to english:

Jesus, do not cry.

That you can trust me honey.

It is also possible to combine what you want.

I'll be around.

You rightly stars.

Each one is a setting sun.

Tall buildings shake.

Sad voices escape, singing sad songs.

Tuned ropes hanging down her cheeks.

Bitter melodies turning your orbit.

OK all you songwriter types - don't forget to give me credit in your Grammy acceptance speech!!

Am I the only one here who doesn't know what "math rock" is?

Um, hello? Three is a magic number? Duh.

Wow. I expected A-Man to inform me that this was a duplicate of a thread from 6 months ago and 4 people would take a peek and that would be that. I certainly didn't expect 3 pages of fisticuffs!

Weird. I was just thinking yesterday that they should make a movie about the beginning of the Beatles. As usual I'm a day late and a dollar short. Some of it makes me want to say "I call bullshit!" The bit on the top of the bus. The drama with the aunt and the mom about John being 'stolen.' Besides, John and Paul met outside at a party/gig. They showed them meeting in what looked like a school gym. Little things like that bug me, but I'll undoubtedly check it out anyway!

Here's a little article a buddy of mine forwared to me about The Loft that he came across online. Mostly info we already know, but the online version has some nifty photos.

http://loftlifemag.com/mu/?p=3503

Here's the straight text for the link-averse.

The Wilco Loft

For the past ten years, behind the brick walls of an industrial building in the Irving Park section of Chicago, the Grammy Award-winning, genre-bending Wilco, and many of their musical guests, have been not-so-quietly making music.

According to Jason Tobias, the band’s tour manager, who also handles the Wilco Loft, “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.”

Anyone with a DVD player, however, can go inside the Wilco Loft—it served as the backdrop for Sam Jones’s 2002 documentary I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, filmed during the tumultuous production of the band’s near-mythic album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. That album, famously dropped by the band’s label for being “uncommercial,” went on to become Wilco’s biggest commercial success. So, it’s no wonder the band continues to record there. Frontman Jeff Tweedy invites local and like-minded musicians to share the space’s ability to produce incredible sound.

Just last year, musician Andrew Bird spent four days recording at the Loft. He spent the entire first day arranging the studio space just to get the right violin sound. Using microphones placed around the room, he was able to pick up the acoustics of his violin as well as the sound of the amps bouncing off the walls. The sixty-plus guitars sitting around the room all hummed along, as the vibrations from everything else shook and resonated the steel strings, adding even more texture to the sound. The Loft is, essentially, an instrument of its own.

Somehow getting the strings of 60 guitars to vibrate together, without ever touching them, might seem fantastical, but the Loft’s “brick box” layout allows for such playful effects. “The stairwell, elevator, and bathroom have all been utilized for specific sounds while recording,” says Tobias. Grocery-carrying neighbors have been known to take the stairs when Wilco is recording in the elevator.

So the building itself actually shapes the recording? Yes and no, answers Tobias. “We have built out some things here and there to make it a bit more functional for recording, but most of the uniqueness comes from the gear.”

Forget bric-a-brac; Wilco’s “gear” crowds every inch of the space—pianos, keyboards, sound boards, guitars, amps (new and old) fight for elbow room over a mishmash of traditional Oriental rugs. A row of communal bunk beds lines one end of the room, perfect for creative catnaps or to houseguests before and after tours, but no one sleeps there on a regular basis.

Although categorized as a live/work space, the Loft is conveniently within walking distance from where Tweedy lives, so the space is mostly work.

While many musicians choose to set up shop in a living room, bedroom, or basement because of a lack of other options, Wilco’s decision to create music in their own self-sufficient live/work space has definitely worked in the band’s favor.

And why not take the reins of their own recording? Tweedy and his bandmates know how much recording studio fees add to the unnecessary pressure to make every minute in a rented studio count. The purchase of the Wilco Loft was not just a stroke of creative genius, but a wise economical move. Turns out Tweedy and his fellow Wilco members are also very shrewd businessmen.

Having access to one’s own studio also changes the entire process of creating an album, notes Tweedy. With an extended period of time for the recording process, each member of the band has that much more time to experiment with the band’s museum-quality collection of interesting and ultra-rare instruments.

Feel like creating bold imagery out of raw sound, as the band did on A Ghost Is Born? Alter the levels with an MCI soundboard. Want to capture a shift of tone with lyrics like “she begs me/ not to hit her”? Reach for that rare 1965 Fender Jazzmaster—or experiment by being less “experimental,” as they did with their 2007 release, Sky Blue Sky. “From old radios, classic amps, posters, vintage recording equipment, hundreds of new and vintage guitars and drums, [the Loft] is basically a candy store for musicians,” notes Tobias.

The variety of items used to produce and distort sound is fitting, because, as Tweedy explains, “the nature of my musical interest is to be pretty curious and to shift.” Just like the everchanging, unintentional design of the Wilco Loft itself.

“The space is constantly evolving,” says Tobias. “During the ‘Yankee period’ things felt open and spacious, and now things are a lot more condensed, due to acquisitions. If something needs to be moved or set up in a specific place, something else needs to be moved in order to accommodate it. It’s a constant challenge to make it spacious, organized, and functional.” Wilco (the album), the band’s seventh album (released on Nonesuch Records), includes a track called “You And I,” featuring Canadian chanteuse Feist, that was recorded entirely in the space. This time around, the band was able to truly “sculptthe sound” according to Tweedy. Turns out the seventh member of Wilco is the Irving Park Loft itself.

Story by Caroline Henley

Photography by Charles Harris

So what happens if you have to pee while you're in line? Are there reasonable facilities close?

See blue guitar pictured above.

This is multiple levels of awesomeness

 

This is a bit like finally seeing a DJ you've been listening to for years. My mental image and the real Louie just didn't quite sync up. Fortunately, I like the real-life Louie better! I am perplexed by the guitar thingy, though.

I was going to post something snarky about how pointlessly redundant this thread is on a Wilco fan board, but after thinking about it I decided this feels more like that video where the Bee Girl finds all the other people dressed as bees running through a field. It's nice to have a place where nobody says 'What's a Wilco?'

So, yeah. I like Wilco. No matter how redundant that may be.

What the hell is this?!?! How did I miss it?

This would be so hilariously creepy! Stand in the front row and stare at Glenn the entire time.