Golden Smoghead

I'm 54, and can still be completely bowled off my feet by some albums. So I guess I'm proof that that doesn't necessarily ever go away.

While not as well-cured as the right honorable gentleman Kidsmoke, I can attest that at age 31 -- married 11 years and with 3 kids, no less -- some albums still rock my socks. For example last year I finally took advice I'd been getting for awhile and checked out Drive-By Truckers. First time I heard their cover of Warren Zevon's "Play it All Night Long," my balls basically fell out the bottom of my pants.

Everyone's different, but I have noticed I'm more drawn to relatively extreme/"pure" music, compared to my younger days. The one thing I have less patience for in music is mellowness, and it's part of why the last Wilco album I really really like is AGIB. I do relate to the previous poster though, YHF was just the perfect album for me at that moment of my life... Early 20s, young family, losing touch with my parents and siblings and entering the work force for the first time... Something about that album just hit the correct reflective note for me at that time. Yet nowadays, I can tell that probably 1/3 of the songs I am only into for nostalgia reasons.

So to me, I still get off on the rockier Wilco, or else the early alt-country stuff. But when I'm in a mood where I'm looking for quieter music relative to this band, I find the stripped-down sincerity of Jeff's solo work fits better for me than the chiller full-band songs that have been so prevalent on the last two albums.

They were great live this past weekend in Charlottesville and the new songs sounded solid to me. I've been avoiding the stream because I have some bizarre purist thing that inclines me away from pre-release streams (I realize there is no logic in this).

They also mentioned the Tom Petty touring stuff, badass.

okay, i have a question for all you eels fans. i love shootenanny. really like that record. however, its the only one i physically own. what comes next? theres so many.

 

also, this isnt like "whats the best eels record, man?" nor is it what comes chronologically next. its like "well, if you dug shootenanny, you should definitely check out ____________."

I think "Daisies of the Galaxy" is probably the most-similar to Shootenanny. However you might also check out Souljacker if you're into the more-rock-y side of Shootenanny.

The new songs sounded great last night. My ears are still ringing and I can't hear crap.

This post gets me STOKED for the show in a couple weeks!

Crappy demo from when my current band was just staring out:

http://www.myspace.com/mellowfarmers

Yeah not sure about how valid these DC fan complaints are. Personally I hate the 9:30 club and am happy the two Charlottesville shows are not worknights (a Friday and a Saturday).

I've been to 9:30 twice and both times it was kinda douchebag central. Everyone talking on cellphones throughout an Old Crow Medicine Show concert was the worst.

I'm going to the Charlottesville show on the 27th! Hell yeah!

I assume OP made the video, I say good effort and interesting post. I'd be interested in seeing if you do any other ones, the real weakness here was the scenario IMO. Maybe if you have the lyrics to "Hell is Chrome" in a religious setting, or wartime environment, it'd be more interesting.

Again I appreciate the post and whoever took the time to do that. I just think you should stick with it and see where it goes.

No Violent Femmes song has aged as well as 'American Music', to me.

Agree! Thought I was the only one.

Unfortunately, I don't think much Wilco has done since AGIB can really be characterized as "exciting." "Mature," "creative," etc... Sure. But for me Kicking Television is probably their best album since AGIB.

That said, I do think W(TA) is an improvement over SBS, which I've eventually totally deleted off my iPod after trying to get into for all this time. (Just killed the last couple tracks a few weeks ago.) W(TA) is still on my iPod and there are moments I really am pleasantly surprised by, but overall there just seems to be a lot less energy in the band's last two studio efforts.

I think if W(TA) was from some band I'd never heard of, I'd probably be a lot more impressed, it's just impossible for me to not compare it to their other work. SBS made me more cautious about Wilco, and put up my radar for the "dad-rock-factor" and I think you hear some of that same weakness on W(TA).

BTW I also think A.M. is one of the best Wilco albums, so I'm sure that makes my opinions suspect to most people on this forum.

In my defense, I didn't mean the way Kerouac put the words together. I mean they sometimes tried to sing too many words in a verse. I actually love Kerouac's manic style, but I'm not sure anyone outside of rap should try to sing that way. The better songs on this disc, to me, are the ones where they focus on his better images (as in Sea Engines) but do not try to sing 5 pages of prose in a song.

Didnt we all just crush this guitar??

Maybe we should consolidate these threads and call it "Ugly Guitars We Can't Afford But Wouldn't Buy Even If We Could, Seriously"

I listened to this album quite a few times this week.

It's a little too low-key for me in places, and the wording can feel pretty awkward at times, but overall I think a few of these tracks shouldn't be missed and the album is definitely a lot better than most stuff I bought this year.

Biggest surprise for me was that I enjoyed the songs vocalized by Gibbard more than any of the Farrar ones. To me the musical high points are the couple times when the two guys are harmonizing along with a pedal-steel guitar.

I think my favorite track from this band is "Bible and a Gun," especially the version Jason Ringenberg recorded solo with Steve Earle. Guaranteed goosebumps! Will be interesting to see if age has mellowed their sometimes frantic approach.

I agree with every single letter, space, and punctuation mark in this post. Thanks for the heads-up this is coming out, OP!

Like I said, it's personal taste and all that. But I think nowadays, everyone knows the Beatles, but the musical forebears that led up to them are less known. McCartney is cool and all, but should he REALLY be more famous than Chuck Berry among people under the age of 30? I am not convinced.

Put another way, I think you can just trace back this "importance" argument until it becomes nonsense. If you want to talk about the invention of pop music etc, I think Hank Williams deserves more props amongst the mainstream than what he gets. Yes, we're all tired of people deifying him, but you can make a parallel case for why he's super-important and whatnot, and we're not really a standard crowd, amirite?

I am also curious as to a couple questions among the respondents in this thread:

1. If you had to pick just one, would you prefer to have only-pop/rock-related-music, or only country-derived music?

2. If you had to pick just one, and the other would disappear forever and you could never hear it again, would you prefer the Beatles, or Dylan?

My answers:

1. Country/western-related music

2. Dylan

In other words, I think this thread kind of relates to what musical heritage appeals most to you / what styles of music you are into. Beatles are great and all, but I prefer the line of music that goes through Waylon and Willie into the modern-day country and alt-country and Americana, as opposed to the line that leads up through rock and all that and into indie-rock. So to me, the Beatles are the someone else's granddad, who definitely influenced everyone, but don't directly appeal.

I'm with you, Wild Frank. I respect how "important" the Beatles are, but really couldn't stand to listen to any of their albums for a long time. Later on, I did some force-feeding to myself and realized I basically just don't like the way some of the melodies are put together. "Hey Jude" and "Yesterday" typify the kind of Beatles songs I just can't stand.

Yes, they were great innovators, but that doesn't mean they're automatically the best. That's like saying the Wright Brothers were the best pilots ever, because they flew the first airplane.

Meanwhile, I really would rather listen to Buddy Holly, or Elvis, or Woodie Guthrie, or Bo Diddley, or Little Richard, or the Stones, or the Who, in terms of pre-1970s music. It doesn't make me a bad person, or stupid, or musically illiterate. It just means I have different taste, and I think it's awfully close-minded to say that people who dislike the Beatles just have no taste in music. It's called personal taste for a reason.

I also love the Gorillaz vs Spacemonkeyz remix of the first album - great dub.

This one is a grower, but I agree. Took me awhile to get into it, but once it was there it felt like a friend.

I don't know much about Garage Band (anything) but it kind of sounds to me like maybe you have too much ambient noise in your recording space. It took me like five months to figure out my bathroom light (adjacent my bedroom) was actually adding a hum to some tracks. Not sure, but it does kind of sound like you're describing just generic noise. If so then that is almost inevitable, it's just something you try to limit / manage.

My most miserable recording sessions at home always happen in summer, because my air conditioning unit is a major no-no for any kind of vocal recording.

In terms of workmanship the Gretsch is very well built. My only complaint with it is that some of the stock components, the pickup switcher and jack in particular, are pretty cheap. (This is an easy swap that i have not yet got around to doing.)

 

The Gretsch will never have the resale value of the Gibson, it's true, but that is largely because of the Asian-made issue. If the exact same guitar could be labeled "made in USA" it could easily triple in value, because it is at least as good an instrument as the Gibson (except for the switcher and jack).

I totally agree with everything you wrote here. I have a Gretsch Electromatic from that same timeframe, and it sounds fantastic, AND I had to swap out the jack. $500 for guitar + $20 for the jack, but I think that thing sounds like gold. Actually here's me playing it on these demos:

My band, it's just me and a drummer and harmonica. Gretsch on both the electric tracks.

Counting Crows are one of those bands that got me really into music, I think I was 16 or 17 when "August and Everything After" came out. That said, I'm not sure anything after "This Desert Life" is worth listening to other than a track here and there.

BTW when I say they got me into music, I mean like, completely. I didn't even discover Springsteen until I heard their version of "Rain King" that includes 2/3s of "Thunder Road" and said to myself, "I am really missing whatever that other song was..." So much love for the Crows, and here's to hoping Adam can un-douchebag himself someday.

I actually really like the old Gibsons, quality-wise. I have one of those SG-"Les Paul"s and it kicks ass. I just think it's not surprising to see them pull crap like this.

Eh I don't think this is as big a deal as you guys are making it out to be. Just look at all the other sellout family estates (Bob Marley certainly comes to mind)... This kind of thing is more or less bound to happen. Shame it's Jimi, but I suspect he was experienced enough to handle this, wherever he is.

Also, don't glamorize how Gibson ever used to be. They only built the Les Paul after Fender came on the scene, there is a great NPR interview from a couple years ago where he talked about it pretty bitterly. Add in the way they mishandled the whole SG situation (putting his name on that guitar without asking in 1961), etc, etc and I think Gibson winds up as the most cynical and misguided of the guitar companies on this kind of issue.

I think we see this kind of crap more in the music world b/c musicians (and luthiers etc) are basically artists and not business people. So when they hit on a good idea, with rare exceptions, sooner or later the artists are economically compelled to move over and let some suit who thinks they know music make the decisions.

I have read this whole thread, and still hope Jeff reads the board. Reason being, he can stress less about shows.

WE'RE ALL DOUCHEBAGS OUT HERE, TWEEDY. IT'S OK IF YOU JUST PLAY THE INTRO TO SPIDERS ALL NIGHT.

Um, actually, don't do that last part. But still, I do think this thread reinforces that no matter what they do, Wilco will get shit, so just keep doing whatever the fuck you want, man.

OK. A little snoozy for my taste.

VC is blowing my mind on Farrar-related projects today. This is pretty badass, can't wait for more info / hear it.