mpolak21

From an interview with St. Louis Magazine.

Yahoo! is the new leader in the backhanded compliment clubhouse, their headline for the Whole Love review: It Sounds Like Wilco Might Be A Good Band Again. Understandable given the band's noted pro-Google and stretching back "Lycos, go get it" stances. --Mike

Watching Monty Python re-runs on American Public Television and later BBC America developed a real sweet spot for British humor in me, so I have a real love for Fawlty Towers, Blackadder, Father Ted, and the Alan Partridge shows. --Mike

No, Glenn's had one in his percussion arsenal for awhile. --Mike

In the case of those two songs specifically I think the lyrics are what turn people who are not fans of them off. I agree Walken's arrangement is great, I love the solo guitar break and then everyone else coming back in behind it.

I was extremely moved and inspired by this post, my latest one in the "Streaming The Whole Love" thread is my attempt at using this idea as a template for one of the things I've been thinking about while reading Whole Love reviews. Thank you for voicing this concept and encouraging this direction. I very much agree. Also, because of the name, my mental image of reading this story was of Ronnie Barker meeting Sir George.

I've kicked this idea around in a few PM's and wanted to share it here. I'm sure at some point during this weekend some if not all of the Wilcos probably checked the Internet to see what the buzz was on their new record. Now, the general consesus on The Whole Love has been very strong. I haven't seen anyone totally evisacrate it. Even our old friend and passionate new Wilco hater, Essox, hasn't rallied against it. But, and this where the Wilcos actually reading it comes in, how do they take reading to the back-handed compiments. Cause, I am sure they love seeing something like "The Whole Love

Aug has a vastly different perspective than I do on this matter, but it's nice reading a different idea than the usual, "the latte swigging, Animal Collective worshipping, Pitchfork reading hipsters loved all the weird noises on YHF and AGIB, but then dismissed SBS and WTA as 'dad rock' because they weren't 'experimental' enough' conclusion. I don't know maybe I do like 'jams,' I am aware of Phish drummer Jon Fishman's advancements in using a Vaccuum Cleaner as musical instrument. I think may have one Leftover Salmon disc buried in a pile somewhere. Something, something, something String Chees

Well with the reaction it's getting if they do the online request thing again, One Sunday Morning will certainly be in demand. I'd hope a lot of this album works it way into the live sets. They can pull the quieter stuff off, hell I've heard them open with Radio Cure before. A lot of these songs will translate well live I think. --Mike

Cooper Black (the font on Pet Sounds' cover and the credits of FX's Louie) or Futura (the font on all Wes Anderson's movies). --Mike

Tremendous story, what an incredible expierience meeting Sir George would be. And he's right about Maxwell, even as an unabashed McCartney guy, that song is bloody awful. --Mike

One Sunday Morning, when I'm straight I'm going to open up your gate... Wait a minute, wrong song.

If you're still looking for a downloadable copy of the stream, here's some friendly advice. Those us who have it naturally got inundated with requests. It is pretty easy though going through a line of ten e-mails or ten PM's and just copy and pasting. It's more efficient than reading through a thread looking for every "PM me please" post. So, the fastest way to get it is to just track the thread for the people that said, "I have a copy" and go to them. Hope this doesn't come as some stodgy asshole lecture just trying to make everyone's life a little easier. --Mike

I quit my college newspaper in a pretentious tizzy, and by that I mean I passive aggressively stopped taking assignments from the editor, because they didn't call my music column "Dancing About Architecture" as I requested. They went with "Mike's Music," which even though I am five years wiser and more mature than I was as a collegiate, I'd still quit if they called it that. Listening to TWL again, only way Nels solo on Art of Almost would be better is if there's a "I buried Paul" ish comment buried in the mix of him saying "I got your 'weather channel guitar solo' right here" before he star

I will not direct you to go back and read this whole thing, so I'm bumping this, offer still stands.

Yes, indeed. Right, now most of us are listening to this shitty 128 Kbps rip, and it still sounds great, imagine it on CD, or vinyl or even iTunes quality. Pat helped mix this too right? The layers on this really stand out. --Mike

Yeah, I can see the YLT-ish qualities of the record. It has a nice contrast of really pretty stuff, some rockers, it's well layered. My hope was that this one would be kind of a sprawling record like YLT's I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass, featuring everything this lineup can do well. So far, so good. I feel a lot of Jay Bennett's spirit here too. Pat and Mike came up with some positively inspired keyboard layers, and some of Jeff's melodies have a Tweedy/Bennett-ish vibe to them. I don't want to deride the guys in the band now, there all super talented, they deserve all the c

I hear what you mean on that cut, I can hear that on Black Moon a bit too. I think I was railing against reading One Sunday Morning and Capitol City were AM-ish cuts at one point, I should have been more clear. --Mike

First of all, bloghole is an inspired put down, good work. Secondly, yeah, I was reading all this stuff about parts of the album sounding like AM not sure I hear that at all. But I think I remember reading a Tweedy quote along the lines of "every album I ever make, no matter what, is going to be called alt-country by someone."

I was trying to write something like that, but you got it at the point I wanted to make a lot more eloquently. --Mike

One Sunday Morning is masterful. I have been playing it over and over. Reminds me of when I got Yankee and sat in a room for an hour just listening and trying to wrap my head around I Am Trying To Break Your Heart.

What was Capitol City called? "Pure twee shit." Well, I fucking love it, but I think "pure twee shit" could be used as a way to deride a lot of music I love: solo Colin Blunstone, Randy Newman, early Bee Gees, etc. So, I am probably a bad judge.

Love the end of Born Alone, great Glenn moments in that beat. Jeff's songwriting is very strong on this one, seems to be a great confluence of tunes and arrangements. --Mike

Augie Meyers approves of the organ hook in I Might.

Nels solo on Art of Almost is my favorite thing he's done on record with them.