tongue-tied

Got the vinyl boxset last night, was disappointed since I ordered it within minutes of the record going live on the official Wilco store, that I got a number in the mid-4000s, but, I guess they never did guarantee low numbers. Would have been nice though.

Yeah, I ordered mine two days ago and got #323. Completely random I assume.

As someone who has been cycling through RTJ2, Sukierae, and Deerhoof's La Isla Bonita constantly for the last two weeks, it's a bit bizarre to read Spencer's review of RTJ2 as requested by Greg Saunier of Deerhoof. Or maybe it makes perfect sense.

They lost the plot after Yoshimi. Which is a shame, because I believe Steven Drozd has more talent in his pinky finger than most bands have collectively. Their uneven output put me on the fence, but the recent firing of their drummer was the canary in their drug-hazed coal mine. 

The Sgt. Pepper cover is way more interesting than it ought to be, but never much fun. There are good contributions (Autumn Defense!), and compelling studio trickery, but scrambled together into inanity. Drozd singing "Fixing a Hole" works the best because it's the least mussed-with. The woman singing "She's Leaving Home" sounds lovely, but unfortunately is copy and pasted out of a better performance.

Considering less than half of the tracks are non-album tracks, I think a more coherent release would've been a 2-disc collection of those and a judicious selection of demos. 

Luckily, that's what the vinyl release is (though they did drop one or two). Now if I can justify paying more than $50 for it... 

Whoa. I thought Loose Fur was done. Can't wait.     

Great episode. Jeff's bit was funny. Not as funny as the owl landing on Sam Elliott's arm, but few things are.

I wish I could collect white albums for a living. Is he a trust fund kid or something?

Doesn't seem like an uber rich hobby: he's accumulated almost 700 copies since age 15, some donated, and he's never paid more than $20 for a copy. At most he's probably sinking several hundred dollars a year into this, but that seems pretty mild when you think of compulsive collectors.

I usually think of these types of collections as a chore, but I'd really like to see this one.

Till the End of the Day

Mr. Pleasant

Misty Water

Waterloo Sunset

Death of a Clown

Strangers

Have a Cuppa Tea

Wicked Annabella

Rosemary Rose

Muswell Hillbilly

Time to make a mix

I think in four years time, CDs are pretty much cooked (as in

Question for FLAC fanatics: I'm really curious about the dilemma with iTunes-only tracks (or Amazon-only, etc.), do you wait patiently for these tracks to show up on CD or FLAC downloads? Or do you buy (or steal) the track?

Their punishment for bilking customers is essentially a promotion for customers to buy through Ticketmaster again. Harsh.

Why a sad face? That's nearly identical to WTA, which was their best peak. And they're indie now, so KA-CHING.

 

I ordered this so long ago I forgot I also got the strawberry-colored version of their reissue of Deerhoof's album Milk Man, and in the meantime I picked up the banana-colored version at my local shop. Doh!

I made the same order, but my strawberry pink LP turned out jet black. raspberries.

also, kudos to everyone for keeping the Raccoonists announcement hush-hush.

That's true, but I think Whole Love has styles we haven't heard in Wilco albums before and in sharper contrast. There have always been shifts, but I can't remember anything like Art of Almost, I Might, Capitol City even more so. Jeff's singing on Standing O, Whole Love, and Born Alone is distinctly different from songs you might compare the music to. Wilco has a dozen songs with string arrangements, but Black Moon also achieves a distinctive sound.

What I still don't get, given the band's reverence of the LP, is that they constantly edge over album length. Six or seven minutes is poor excuse to spread the album over two LPs, in my mind. 2 to 4 tracks a side gets tiresome. I love the Whole Love, but I would have also loved two records this year that made beefier LPs.

I'm just going to throw in my expert sales analysis and say the 18% dip in first week sales is primarily due to the 100% decrease of Feist.

Man that song on Late Night was bad. Check these guys for a pulse, seriously.

Standing O was the one that on first listen I groaned at, but I think it's just the Big Dumb Rock intro that threw me off. It's a very unique Wilco song. I dig it.

The physical form should arrive in the mail any day now. Anyone got it yet?

Also, Greg from Deerhoof was interviewed about their free live album 99% Upset Feeling and was questioned about Wilco..

You guys have opened for Wilco. Although they are of course an amazing band, especially live - give at least one reason that you are a better band than them.

 

Smaller carbon footprint. No upright piano to tune. Quicker load-in. Fewer members to split the takings. More athletic frontperson. Too DIY for a recording engineer. Only one of the two to open for Radiohead. Only one to have the nerve to ask the other for a collaboration.

from http://ripitup.co.nz...f-the-week/2702

sidebar: I was surprised by The Whole Love's cover because it's the first Wilco album cover that's not a photograph.

Wilco records are usually a little different than the CD/digital tracks, right? I remember YHF has some fun, if slight, changes. I wholly support bands that use different takes/mixes for a vinyl release, as well as changing up the track order, or even adding/removing songs. Listening to a record is a bit of an event, and from my experience if I haven't pulled a record out in a while (and have become accustomed to the digital version), every little difference makes the experience that much fresher and pleasurable.

That's not to say any particular change can't be a bad decision, but what use is there for having one "definitive version"?

Yeah it took me about five minutes until I conceded there was no way I wasn't ordering this. Instant gratification!

Amnesiac

The King of Limbs

Hail to the Thief

Kid A

In Rainbows

Haven't really listened to the others.

i particularly like Jeff's facial expression after being called a dutiful chicago boy.

So why did they forget their real-life island selves in this after-life/time-free/hurley's-party world? Does everyone go into a state of denial upon death?

I have no qualms about sub-plots and details going unexplained (though there was still a lot of material that would have made for good television if they had spent time on it), in fact I felt this season was cringe-worthy at points for obvious exposition, but the more I think about the very end, the more I feel it dodges conceptual questions in favor of a story that's more (...) black and white. It's difficult to point out where it fails in that sense, it's certainly open-ended enough to still consider fate/free will, science/faith, etc., but the show seemed to progressively reduce itself into "The Story of Jack's Moving On". Of course it needed to end with Jack, and this ending was appropriate as any in terms of his character, but it undermined a lot of the show's development. The finale was great television, well-written, emotional, dramatic. It played with expectations as well as in any season, it was fun, impressive in how it handled so many character interactions naturally, and in that sense it was a satisfying ending. It was also a bit of a cop-out.

I thought it was an amazing ending .. I cried and cried and cried. I'm happy that so many things were left unanswered because no answer is better than the wrong one. I still want to know who built the statue.

 

As far as the Western religion references, while there were reference to other religions (which I missed cos of my teary eyes), the Christian references were in abundance throughout. Hello, Jack's Dad was Christian Shepard? I'm no Jesus freak, but did go to Catholic school, and we called Jesus the Good Shepard all the time. And the whole water - to wine thing, plus piercing his side, sacrificing himself so others could live. Lots of Christan references oin one episode.

Plus a long shot of a statue of JC.