You Can Be The Stone

See I'd always thought it was O'Rourke playing the intro to that, but you're right it is Jorgensen. I love Mike's playing and wasn't trying to knock him it all, I just prefer Leroy particularly the live shows from his era. What's really amazing is he's playing some of those parts a la Steven Drozd of the lips while playing second guitar to Jeff at the same time. My personal favorite piano moments on Ghost are Handshake and ATLWYS both are which feature Leroy, though Mike is all over Hummingbird.

 

As for Jay, well listen to YHF and Summerteeth, nuff said.

 

--Mike

Oh man, Leroy's work in "Handshake Drugs" is especially amazing. There's such a weird, pastoral vibe in it that seems to sum up a lot of AGiB.

Easily "You Are My Face". Every band member has a clear and equal influence on the song; the song itself is the perfect balance between pastoral beauty without lulling, and experimental without being alienating. Tweedy's lyrics are better than ever;

And plus; "I have no idea how this happened!"

Let's not forget that he's a great songwriter and vocalist too; listen to Autumn Defense self-titled, "Where You Are", "This Will Fall Away" and "See You Now".

I'm wondering what everyone else thought of the sound engineering;

I couldn't hear Nels whatsoever on 'Side with the Seeds', nor Mikael on 'Walken', hell, I couldn't hear John on any of Kidsmoke.

Bring back the Roots!

Every show i have been to at Merriweather has been wracked by traffic (but then again, I was arriving from the south a la D.C.)

 

Leave early, arrive early. Or, leave late, arrive whenever. Be warned!

But you were supposed to sugarcoat it, or at least flat out lie!

Now I'm bummed

I'm going to Merriweather, and leaving Fredericksburg at 6:00 PM.

Apparently Low gets on at around 7:30, and I'm wondering how long Low has usually been, and what the gap between them usually is? Trying to figure out how late I'll prolly be.

I remember leaving GMU on a weekday evening to see M. Ward, The Shins, and the White Stripes about a year and a half ago, and for some freakish reason, 495 Eastbound was clear as the sky blue sky.

I'll be at the show tonight; I hope there's plenty of people-in-the-lawn-based banter again!

I listened to Summerteeth the other day. I can never rank the Wilco albums (other than AM at the end), but Summerteeth is always great to listen to, especially with headphones on when you can really hear all of the overdubs and other stuff going on.

 

It was the 2nd Wilco album I ever listened to about 2 years ago. I'd love to see them start playing a few others from the record during live shows, but that's not for me to decide.

It seems like a lot of Summerteeth has gone to the solo shows now; Kot's book gave the impression that Jeff regretted having to bury the songs in the studio

SBS says hello.

 

SBS making Summerteeth irrelevant is laughable. Haha

 

Ah, the most predictable response imaginable =)

 

I'm probably one of the biggest ST overproduction whiners around but the songs themselves kick the ones on SBS to the curb. If you see them played live there's a palpable difference in intensity and energy when they play something like Shot In The Arm compared to, well, anything on SBS. You don't have to take my word for it, dig up that Bonnaroo live stream download that was posted and see for yourself.

 

Yes, "A Shot in the Arm" has some ass live. I most particularly remember them *effing nailing* it at Lollapalooza. While intensity is great, so is the great shape-shifting subtleties and dynamics of the post-Reprise material. "Impossible Germany" won't have the intensity of "Shot in the Arm", but "Shot in the Arm" also won't be the greatest thing Television never did either. Although, I will admit that so far, judging from the bootlegs, SBS in a live setting doesn't seem to have that raw power that many of the "Ghost is Born" songs had live.

Ok, guess I got a little self-righteous there with that statement.

I've given ST a lot of unjustified flack just as I've been gushing over SBS lately, but I listened to the album recently, and actually enjoyed and appreciated it for the very interesting album that it was. It seemed to so accurately capture the hell that was described in Kot's book. It was also the first album where they played the re-invention card so well, so yes, very essential, artistically. However, I hope the band doesn't return to the album's three flaws; bloated production, lyrics that came from planet trying-too-hard, and despair without equal contrasts of hope (and dumping it onto the last track doesn't really count).

Ken Coomer *owns* ELT...

As for Summerteeth, I think SBS has pretty much made it irrelevant.

This thread gets my seal of approval!

I have mixed feelings about the song; I think in terms of sequencing, it's probably the most natural bridge between the middle section to the final three songs; great lyrics, and great songwriting, but I thought it just had some very weak arrangements.

Yeah, it is actually in D Major. The tabs section has it in the A scale, so I was just being lazy; still, it's relatively the same, pretty much.

so yeah, i was playing the chords for "either way" on the piano, and i'll have to say, i'm loving the bridge (either way, i'm gonna stay, right, for you.) It sounds so deceptively simple, and it's hard to notice it at all, because it kind of gets drowned out with the string section and all that, but hearing those chords on their own, on just the piano... they are so gorgeous. It so seamlessly jumps from the A scale to the C scale for the bridge, something so hard to do. And when it does hit the C scale, it should sound so different and contrasting, since C scale has no flats, while A has 3. But in fact, the chords seem to sound even more pure than the verses, as if it was meant to go there. And last but not least, it seamlessly outros back to the A scale, into a wonderful Nels solo! yeah, "weather channel on the 8's" indeed, pitchfork.

The only song that loses any value in the live setting for me is "I'm The Man Who Loves You." The tempo gets all sped up and its way too mechanical and electric in a live setting. Whereas on the record it has a nice mid-tempo pace and it feels very laid back all around, especially with the acoustic guitar.

Thank you.

Another good drone/non-conventional piece is the Green Typewriters tracks on Olivia Tremor Control's Dusk at Cubist Castle. What I like about that one, as well as Less Than You Think, is the drone is followed by a tight pop song. Like you're put into this trance then "wake up" to a nice tune.

late greats.

"I am trying to break your heart", purely based on the vibe though, not neccesarily the lyrics.

I don't think one is better than the other...

Theologians is the most delicious piece of candy since "Drive My Car" on the studio version, and rocks live.

Walken and ITMTLY are also rocking live, but have a genuine earnestness on the studio version.

Handshake Drugs is fucking amazing live, but the studio version also has a mysterious, hypnotic groove to it.

Kidsmoke has more firepower live, while the studio version has more dynamics.

And so on and so on. Everything in its right place.

I'm one of the fans who's not been floored by SBS. I'm continuing to listen to it quite a bit, and there are individual tracks/moments that definitely strike me as genius, but the whole of it has yet to really connect. I don't agree with those who critique it as "safe" or, as I think Pitchfork put it, "dad rock," though I think I can see where that perception comes from -- SBS is plenty experimental structurally, but fairly straightforward sonically. That is, songs like "You Are My Face" and "Impossible Germany" have tons of Wilco idiosycracies, but it's all in the chord progressions, countermelodies, rhythms, etc. We're used to hearing this experimentation more in the arrangement and production, I'd say -- "Misunderstood" and "Via Chicago" being two examples that jump immediately to mind, both being fairly straightforward as far as songwriting but offering mindblowingly unexpected and thrilling takes in how those songs are delivered. What makes YHF such a deeply affecting album for me isn't just the quality of Jeff's songwriting but the unique and moving way that the three chords of "IATTBYH" are constructed to expand and wander and build...

 

Anyway, SBS seems to do almost exactly the opposite. The band has put as much detail and effort into the tracks as ever, but now that's all focused within the songs themselves, and the delivery of those songs is what I think strikes some people as Eagle-esque, or whatever. I think personally I am still trying to get my brain around this new Wilco sound, but that doesn't mean SBS won't grow on me, and I certainly give Tweedy and company credit for continuing to play in new territory record after record.

Thank you! Even Pitchfork had their heads too far up their asses to realize that!

That's My Bush was groundbreaking.

"George, you may be a bad president, but sometimes, you're an ok husband!"

"Often when we say a record has "atmosphere," we mean it as a put-down. From Sgt. Pepper's to the present, a record's sonic appeal-- the effects, the mood, the spaces between the notes-- is inextricable from how it hits us. But when an artist pushes atmosphere in place of songs, it's frequently thought of as a crutch. Most listeners don't trust a mood to grab their hearts the way they trust, say, a human voice; nobody counts on production to deliver the "money note." ~Pitchfork's review of "Return to Cookie Mountain" by TVOTR

Initially, I thought Pitchfork would give SBS a positive review. Sure, there was that stereotype of Pitchfork that made me think otherwise, but I figured that judging from the quote I posted above, they'd be smart enough to see SBS as a good album full of many deceptively simple songs, and appreciate it for what it was, avoiding the usual dad-rock crap-journalism. But nah; they just interpret it as boring dad rock, when YHF itself had many boring songs saved only by some good studio gadgetry. I don't mind if someone doesn't like the record, but it just shows that Pitchfork is nothing more than a bunch of indie snobs who will wet their pants at incoherent noise* like Boards of Canada, Grizzly Bear, and Tv on the Radio, but will trash something direct and genuine out of fear that their hipster rating will take 20 negative hit points for doing otherwise.

*All very good bands btw; I just can't listen to them on a daily basis.

Plus, Hate it Here probably filled its niche

Here's On And On And On from the same May 28th show. Fifth time played ever, first time in over a year, first time with the rockin ending.

 

http://www.sendspace.com/file/le8fw3

Love those harmonies!