lost highway

NPR posted a pretty incredible graph on their website today:

I like it. Doesn't feel like a Wilco song to me, but I like it.

Did Spencer play drums on it?

In this game you don't have to be smart enough to mastermind collusion. Just willing to let your team do it when they put it in front of you as a winning strategy.

Manafort's 'not guilty' pleas is interesting. I'll be really curious what Mueller has prepared and how much Manafort's cache of lawyers can do to combat it.

^ I'll take all of the above.

This is nuts! I wasn't around for Watergate, so I'm pretty riveted to see some crazy American history happening in real time.

Yeah, CNN got pretty psyched about getting the scoop on that one. It is either something huge, something tiny, or something in between which is importantly leading to something huge.

We live in an era where I am forced to acknowledge that George W Bush might have made the world ripe for Trumpism through his foreign policy disasters and economic blunders, but he's totally right about Trump and I'm glad he said it. Hey neoliberal, thanks for calling out the populist you're right about him and he was right about you!

So wait, is John just playing bass for Ray LaMontaigne, or is he featured as another performing songwriter?

I'm looking for details on what all is included in the deluxe versions (especially Being There) but they haven't put them up yet.

Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes!

On second look. No, probably not. Just a visit to a cool/historic studio while on tour, I'm guessing.

Wait.... Are they making a new record? Not at the loft? What?

Lameness. So glad I caught him on tour a couple years ago. He brought so much joy through rock music.

Lorde. I love Lorde way too much.

Thanks! That's maybe the only Bennett and Kotche version (maybe same the next night of that tour). I wish it was as good a capture as some of the others. I never realized how few shows feature both members.

I farted around in the Wilco Archive for a bit and found they opened with it in this show back in Nov of 99. https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/0B5xZV5X8KwRCTzFDdkhraklaXzA Much more Jay Bennett guitar forward doing the loud electric tremolo stuff. Ken Coomer mostly stays out of the way and does a couple loud crashes during the noise part. Not nearly as developed. Now to find an '01 version with Jay Bennett and Glenn Kotche... I'm curious.

That era was the first time I saw it, but then again it was the first time I saw them so I figure I missed some things.

Yeah, someone with a deep vault of all the live shows might be able to find a show in maybe 98 or 99 and see how they played it way back when.

I thought it interesting when reports said that Trump and McConnell had backed an "establishment figure" and how an upstart had won. If I'm correct, many Trump supporters still see him as challenging the establishment, when he is the establishment. Sure it's a new regime, but there's a new definition for "business as usual in Washington" and that business is full of cronies, but also dysfunctional.

They still have a week to pass something with a simple majority, although that's looking slim again- thank the Gods.

I suppose that makes it a truly gutsy piece of art. It connected with someone and infuriated another. I'm really looking forward to Jawbreaker-24 Hour Revenge Therapy, and I've been saying that Wilco-A Ghost is Born is the greatest Wilco story never told. It might have some tough times in it, but of the most "classic" Wilco records, it's the one not immortalized by Kot's book, or a documentary. It's really an artistic peak and the transition from sick Tweedy going in, to healthy Tweedy going out on tour with the record.

I've read a ton of them, their range of quality is completely disconnected from the quality of the album they're about (which those are all great anyways). Memorably good: Velvet Underground, Eliot Smith XO, Television Marquee Moon, Beach Boys-Pet Sounds (music theory heavy, but that's kind of my bag) Memorably bad: The Replacements-Let It Be (Colin Meloy decides to make it a story about how he discovered rock and roll, ugh), Radiohead-OK Computer (complete with a semiotic analysis of the compact disc as a media format)

Nice to hear Spencer is still at it. I really like the design on that website, it's unusual and charmingly minimal. I also am jealous that he's a young man in college with a rack full of API preamps in his home studio, that didn't happen to me until I was around 30.