dondoboy

I am sure this has been done before but in the spirit of the post dealing with your favorite Wilco songs, which ones do you skip on your car CD player?.........

 

Hell is Chrome

Spiders (Kidsmoke)

Dash 7

At Least that's What You Said

Leave Me (Like You Found Me)

Wow, really? 1, 2, and 4 I'd never skip.

Radio Cure

What Light

I'm seriously having trouble finding more I'd intentionally skip. I probably wouldn't play all of SBS, but its growing on me.

http://classicrock.about.com/od/history/a/rock_myths.htm

That's great. The Book(s) of Rock Lists has a great one as well. We were trying to find more.

A friend and I were discussing this, I thought I'd throw it out there for people to discuss:

5 Rock and Roll Myths

1. The Monkees were not a real band

2. Oasis sound like the Beatles

3. The Clash were punk rock and the Sex pistols were not

4. Nirvana were "anti-rock stars"

5. Lennon was avant-garde and McCartney was a square

Enjoy these and add some if you like.

Tough one but:

Theologians

ITTBYH

Hotel Arizona

Poor Places

Late Greats

and the last 45 seconds of Walken

If you only see one concert in your entire life, it should be the Flaming Lips. It is a spectacle to be seen.

Agreed. Its not just a concert, its a Happening. I've seen them 9 times and each time had been different and wonderful. I'd drop everything if they came within 200 miles of my town and go. Incredible.

Its a weirdly written article, isn't it? With all those headlines? I suffered through it only to realize I still don't like him, don't believe a word he says, and really don't care what he's doing. And he looks like a fat Brett Michaels in that ridiculous picture.

Silly as it sounded when it first popped in my head, I think that "Box Full of Letters" may be a not-so-straight forward love letter type lesson. Displaced anger or disappointment are the basis of many great works of writing.

Sorry, did you want Maxim... idiot

The good old Book of Rock lists has it like this:

1. The Beautiful Ones--Prince

2. Beck's Bolero--Jeff Beck Group

3. Civil War--Guns and Roses

4. The End--The Doors

5. Fire--Arthur Brown

6. Gimme Danger--Iggy

7. Helter Skelter-The Beatles (John)

8. Hey Jude--Wilson Pickett

9. I Feel Good--James Brown

10. Jump-Van Halen

11. Let it Loose--The Rolling Stones

12. Mildred Pierce--Sonic Youth

13. Scentless Apprentice--Nirvana

14. The Strain--Bonzo Do Doo Dah Band

15. Twist and Shout--The Beatles (Paul)

16. Why--Lonnie Mack

17. Won't Get Fooled Again--The Who

Don't know if I agree with all of it and its a little old, but there are some doozies in there.

Alright, to make up for my Radiohead bashing I give you this:

"The magnitude of Radiohead derives from its rarified cultural position: Its is the only hugely popular arena-rock act that is taken seriously by virtually everyone (Ahem). As such, the band is the de facto idea leader for pop music in general, and every decision it makes is perceived as significant. Everyone expected the old model for album sales to eventually collapse or evolve, but that was mostly theoretical until Radiohead released "In Rainbows" with no specific price tag.

Thom Yourke lives at the vortex of this machine, directing both the trajectory of the music and the shaping of its perception. He is obsessed with the technology that alienates him, skeptical of the media that lionizes him, and constantly inventing ways to work as a singer-songwriter on the largest possible scale. His politics are a tad predictable (anti-globalism, pro-environment), but he applies them in unpredictable ways. He's primarily critical of himself, sometimes suggesting that Radiohead will stop touring to reduce its carbon emissions. However, the most fascinating thing about Yorke is simply the reality of his situation. Any new music he makes is guaranteed to be influential, because everyone else will be responding (or reacting) to the baseline he establishes. Yourke is shackled with the unique responsibility of leading the only band that inadvertently matters to everybody"

Written by Chuck Klosterman for Esquire magazine. October 2008

I don't know if this makes them the best band in the world, but boy they sound important, so I'll watch my words. Maybe.

Yeah, but it would be a lie.

Radiohead is the best band in the world, Wilco is the best band in america

Oh, enough of this crap already, Radiohead is not the best band in the world.

Conor Oberst and the Lipstick Valley Hams!

I always get excited when I hear any news of a new album. Although I fear being as disappointed as I was with SBS. This time I will seek out tracks beforehand to avoid blowing 20 bucks on album that, frankly, sucks.

did Glenn have braces?

Only on his hips

Brian Henneman played guitar on A.M.

 

Jay Bennett wasn't in Uncle Tupelo, either.

Henneman was in Coffee Creek with Jay and Jeff

It could be he doesn't know about it...

 

LouieB

Well, if that's the case the list is tainted and someone should loan the boy some albums.

Leaving off Summerteeth is a mistake and leaving out the Bottle Rockets altogether is just retarded.

you skipped the show on purpose? i HAD to skip the show, after finally getting a ticket, and was heartbroken.

i can understand why a few might not want "trite" love songs from jeff tweedy (or anyone).

but where have you heard the SBS ones before? many of them may be love songs, but they're hardly trite.

as for "pandering," no way. did you listen to the interviews in the dvd? this is what he felt and experienced,

not what he thinks others wanted to hear. listen to him speak about it before throwing the label "pandering" at him.

i think your reading is way off, but you're welcome to it and there will never be an album suited to everyone.

Sorry, haven't been here in a while. I'm sure my opinion was/is influenced by Tweedy saying that it was a record for his wife. Where I find that sincere and as good a reason as any to write songs, its the sort of thing I don't want to know about. Pandering was meant to address that aspect. Paul McCartney was often pandering and trite and he's Paul McCartney. And I'm less concerned about what he feels and experienced than I am about what I feel and experience by putting those headphones on or seeing the show. And I'm not married to his wife. I have tremendous respect for the band and the songs and all the records.

I didn't mean to sound like a jerk.

After a year, I'm still disappointed. So much so that when they came to town, I skipped the show. By far the worst record lyrically. Pandering, almost trite love songs at points. I don't listen to it anymore.

You can always borrow mine. Just return it!

I too have questioned the veracity of mr. bennett with his side of the story. The story seemed completely offered to say what a great guy he was to comfort Jeff in his time of need. Given the timing of the interview it certainly is suspect, although still entirely possible.

I question the veracity of everything Bennett says at this point.

hate it here was wilco trying to send a message that we shun corporate and tv world but if you dangle the carrot we will eat........

 

Walken to me is one of their worse live songs. Havent liked it since they played it on the preview tour 2 years ago........

 

But to be on a program where the opening skit was Hillary the Arse I am sure Jeff didnt like sharing the Green room with her and secret service. Guess she inhaled so he could enjoy the music........

 

Glad I didnt stay up for Wilco performance As i have stated SNL is on the way down the tube as its cast and humour are slack.......

 

Now lets see if the band can make Charlestonians happy this summer. All it would take is a 3 hour show with no opener and a few apologies and a free beer for all and just to make it a deal throw in breakfast at waffle house for everyone.......

 

It seems what would make Charlestonians happy is if they skipped you guys altogether. Y'all seem to have enough fun moaning about a postponed show. A cancelled one should send you over the moon.

I certainly don't see them as huge poster-boy stars. The Replacements played SNL a couple of times and they were never huge. Wilco's had one gold record. I've had fun turning people on to Wilco this year, for this record.

I didn't see this posted:

And so it ends: After five nights, and about 13 hours of music, Wilco's residency in Chicago came to a close Wednesday night. It did so with a wallop of feedback rather than a celebratory rock 'n' roll bang. Guitar notes howled like freezing winds off Lake Michigan, and violin strings were teased and left to sway like a creaky door in a blizzard.

"There's so much less to this than you think," were the last pre-encore lyrics sung by singer Jeff Tweedy, a humble, almost guilt-ridden bow out of five ambitious nights of music. At 30 or so songs per night, it was one of more than 150 songs Wilco sang over the past week in its hometown. It also completed the band's goal of performing all 81 songs from each of Wilco's six official studio albums.

Live, "Less Than You Think" proved no less self-indulgent as it does on record, a beautiful keyboard-driven lament for about two minutes. Then some agonizing, un-listenable noise for the next 12 minutes. But it was fascinating to watch guitarist Nels Cline file his guitar notes, and see Glenn Kotche lightly decorate each piece of his drum kit while bassist John Stirratt left his instrument to create a dooming bellow.

The message seemed clear. While Wilco may have gone into this residency with a chance to explore its past, it would leave it with a promise to be no less brave in the future. It would have been easy to end the night with concert staples such as "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" and "A Shot in the Arm," but even in a week meant to celebrate its back-catalog, Wilco would find a way to challenge and test its fans.

And anything less from this band of alt-country rockers-turned-pop-experimentalists-turned-soulful-explorers would have been a disappointment.

Earlier in the week, I reviewed the first two nights of Wilco's residency. For the final three, I put down the notepad (after all, I was watching the shows on vacation rather than work), and here are five final observations from this week-of-Wilco:

-- "Showbiz should be more honest:" Watching a band work through its catalog -- some songs of which it hasn't performed live in nearly 10 years -- is watching one unafraid to show its warts. But Wilco also isn't too self-important to laugh away its faults. When introducing "I Thought I Held You," from Wilco's 1995 debut "A.M.," Tweedy pleaded with the crowd to go to the restroom. Referring to the overly-earnest country song as a term that isn't fit to print here, Tweedy said, "I got to be honest with you, this song is [expletive]."

But when he finished, Tweedy noted that "showbiz should be more honest." Such openness came easy to Wilco over the five nights. On Monday, the group launched into "Kamera," a staple of its "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" days, full of keyboard loops and soaring guitars. But the version here was loose, and nearly fell apart, with Tweedy asking, "Was that my fault?" He then admitted he had forgotten how to play the tune.

-- John Stirratt is under-appreciated no more: The Wilco bassist, and sole original member alongside Tweedy, is sometimes overshadowed by the band's more flashy, relatively recent additions -- a guitar scorcher in Cline or a rhythmic whiz in Kotche. With all of Wilco's lineup shifts, it's easy to overlook Stirratt's understated bass lines, which are the melodic foundation in each of Wilco's six records.

The band's hometown crowd seemed hip to this, and turned Stirratt into a star Wednesday night. Stirratt took over the vocals on "A.M." cut "It's Just That Simple," the one non-Tweedy voiced song in the Wilco canon. Stirratt proved well-suited for the plaintive country plea, and it was the second time in five nights Stirratt was allowed to sing it. (Allowed?)

The crowd cheered the first time it was played on Saturday, but went nuts on Wednesday, giving Stirratt an extended standing ovation. Tweedy embraced his bassist, and the front-man encouraged the crowd to keep cheering. Stirratt visibly struggled to hold back the smiles and play it cool.

It was a touching moment of the residency, and a welcomed one. With a revolving cast of musicians, Wilco has sometimes been wrongly categorized as a Tweedy solo project. But that's never really appeared to be the case. Wilco is more an ever-evolving band, as each Wilco album reflects the strengths and weaknesses of that particular lineup. But more important, each Wilco lineup has been more than capable, and its members are always given the opportunity to flex their muscle.

-- A look ahead: When Wilco's 2007 album "Sky Blue Sky" was released, it represented a move away from some of the electro-pop flirtations of "Summerteeth" and "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot," and offered a bit less of the prog-rock tones of "A Ghost is Born." With strands of country again popping up in Wilco's music, it was viewed as a bit of a return to Wilco's roots. But side-by-side with early albums such as 1995's "A.M." and 1996's "Being There," the songs were far more intricate and nuanced than anything Wilco pulled off a decade ago.

The "Being There" lineup with drummer Ken Coomer and multi-instrumentalist Jay Bennett was apt at roughing-up-the-edges of a mid-tempo Southern rocker such as "Say You Miss Me," but the current Wilco incarnation slogged through it. The Wilco of 2008 was better at handling the "Being There" songs with more space to them, such as "Misunderstood" and "Sunken Treasure." The latter, in fact, received two slightly altered versions this week, and an eerily bare version of the song opened Wednesday's show.

Of the songs that were performed four or five nights, a number were from "Sky Blue Sky," including "Impossible Germany" and "Hate it Here." Both represent relatively new strains to Wilco's repertoire.

While "Hate it Here" is a fun if slight song on record, live it turns into a full crowd sing-along, and features some of Tweedy's strongest, most impassioned soul singer vocals to date. "Impossible Germany," meanwhile, represents Wilco as a three-headed guitar monster, with multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone joining Tweedy to offer counter-melodies to the solo sketches of Cline.

Wilco seems comfortable and taken with both, and the guitar assault of "Impossible Germany" and modern soul of "Hate it Here" would be welcome areas for the band to further explore.

-- More to come: After completing its encore Wednesday night, the crowd was only willing to budge after Tweedy reassured its fans that it would be staging a winter residency in Chicago in 2009. "We'll do this again next year," Tweedy pleaded. Earlier, Tweedy promised that the band would further explore its B-sides and non-album cuts next time around.

For those in other cities, expect Wilco to trot out more and more of its older songs as it hits the road. The band is taking requests on its website, and spent Wednesday night playing what Tweedy said were the songs it had the most fun with over the residency. Hopefully that means much more of the mini-symphony of "Pieholden Suite," an absolute gem of a song from "Summerteeth." Other repeats Wednesday night included "Casino Queen," "War On War," "Box Full of Letters" and "Pot Kettle Black."

-- Wilco is a dude's band: Even as the band's recent "Sky Blue Sky" has taken a turn toward soul romanticism, Wilco remains a band for the boys. Each night when the venue's doors were opened, the line to get in the Riviera was split down the sexes. Of the hundreds who lined up early, about two dozen were females. As the temperature dropped below 6 degrees Monday, and the female line dwindled to nil, one male fan asked, "You think I could pass for a woman?"

Photo: Wilco in Los Angeles, Richard Hartog /Los Angeles Times