Yaz Rock

Just want to chime in on behalf of Wilco Karaoke and the contest winners. I really enjoyed the Friday night show and I thought the singers acquitted themselves quite well. Wilco Karaoke was fun and added an element of surprise to the event - what songs would they do? What would the singers sound like? Would they be visibly nervous or confident? etc. Putting the lyrics and visuals up on screen was a great idea too (love the random cat video that played during one song). I wonder if those of us up front enjoyed it more than those in the back?

I agree with the comment of "what other band could pull this off" and I think also "Where else could Wilco pull this off?" Solid Sound makes so much more sense than some random venue mid-tour. The vibe of SS is as much about connecting with old friends and making new ones, as it is about seeing Wilco, and it was cool on Saturday to see some of the contest winners in the crowd, or around town, and to see other fans compliment them on their performances. Kudos to all. I'm enjoying listening to some of the recordings out there too of the individual songs.

As for the other artists, Mdou Moctar was the definite highlight for me. I'm glad my friend suggested before the fest to check out his music and that we go see him. Mdou and his band rocked and I will be seeing them again for sure.I also enjoyed Ohmme's set.

Oxford Pennant Shop was cool but I didn't have enough money to buy all the awesome stuff in there! The jugglers & gymnasts (not sure of the troupe name) who performed Saturday afternoon were entertaining. Somehow I missed the Rock and Roll Photos exhibit and the Around North Adams exhibit, both of which I'm sure I would have liked. Glad to see Samosa Man was back but unfortunately he was set up near the entrance/exit, and I didn't notice him until on the way out Saturday night.
 

Ordinarily I'd post some photos but I won't be able to do so for a while, maybe I'll check back here in a few weeks.

Another great Solid Sound in the books and as always a memorable kick off to summer =)

Hmmm.  I already own "Warm" on CD.  I wonder if Jeff will make available "Warmer" alone (without "Warm"). 

2 CD set is 12 bucks, which is what single CDs usually go for anyway. I don't feel like I'd be paying twice.

But it certainly is does seem like a waste of resources and product to include Warm, when likely most folks who'll buy Warmer already have Warm.

Hell is Chrome. Or is that, like, anti-color?

I swear I predicted that Friday would be Wilco with guest vocals by other musicians at the festival, but I am not finding that thread. Definitely an "interesting" idea to open it to the fans, but I don't think Wilco would pick anyone who would be so bad to kill the vibe. Maybe this could have been reserved for a daytime slot on Saturday, or something, to be inclusive and fan-centric and interesting, and still keep the Friday show as full on Wilco.

Now, even if the show is a cool "moment", will you listen to the roadcase?  =D

Thanks for the great write up bbop!!   I care!!

 

This may also be old news and (SPOILER ALERT on new Warmer songs.......)   He introduced some new song (I think it was during the encore portion) saying he wrote it for his wife.  He quoted the first verse and the final lines were, "I'm a piece of work, and you're a work of art".  Then he said, that was too sweet so I changed it.  And he left it at that.  I wasn't sure if that was a joke or not.  When he got to that line in the song, he sang, "I'm a piece of work, and you're a work in progress"!!!  Naturally, that line got a big laugh from the crowd

In New York, that line was "I'm a piece of work, but you're no walk in the park."

Thanks for the review, Paul! Your write-ups are getting better and better.

Nice to see you too, Tyler!

Yes, I was at both Town Hall shows in 2001 as well as the November 1999 show (my Wilco first!). I've had an audience recording of 9-27-01 all these years, (I might have 9-28 as well). Jesus Etc isn't on there, and I trust that the setlists on Wilco Base are relatively correct.

I remember at the time expecting that, well, they *had* to play Jesus Etc, right? And being surprised that they didn't. I guess it was just too soon and the lyrics too close to the tragedy..

Back to these two shows, interesting that everyone on the floor stood up for the encore night 1, but sat back down for the encore night 2, and that we all felt reluctant to sing along with Jeff - seemed like he would have welcomed more singing along.

Great shows, I enjoyed night 2's setlist a little more than night 1. There was some of the same exact banter (re; the story behind "Open Kimono", and the changed lyrics to another new song - Guaranteed, I think) two nights in a row, but Jeff did have one or two new stories tonight. One was about him no longer wearing the Stetson hat because he played a show in Texas and half the audience was wearing the same hat - copying his style   He also had some riffs on the crowd from night 1 which were funny (Paraphrasing: "Last night wome woman told me to not wear these clothes tonight. That I am wearing the same clothes is a big F*#k You to her."). Lol.

Contrary to popular Jeff Tweedy opinion, Wilco did not play Jesus Etc at Town Hall during their September 27-28, 2001 shows.

And it appears that Joseph Arthur was the opener at that 2003 gig. Must have been a hell of a night indeed. I'd love to see a show there someday too.

Thanks as always for your reviews bbop!

"Wilco T-Shirt Mysteriously Appears in Closet on Eve of Man’s 35th Birthday"

https://thehardtimes.net/music/wilco-t-shirt-mysteriously-appears-in-closet-on-eve-of-mans-35th-birthday/

LOL.
 

It has been a while since I bought concert tix on TM. Can anyone explain this BS I got?

"We apologize. We are unable to complete your request on this device.

That's amazing, thanks, Paul! I always wondered what the original Guthrie takes sounded like and if Wilco was close or far-off in their interpretations/guesstimations. Nice to see one of them surface.

Dang, I forgot to write down all the shows I saw this year, and with so many shows being paperless tickets I might have trouble recollecting all of them. Some highligh  sin no particular order.

Pearl Jam - September 2 - Fenway Park, Boston MA

Soul Asylum - August 17-18 - Penn's Peak, Jim Thorpe/Club XL, Harrisburg, PA. Witht he Jellybricks in Harrisburg.

Jeff Tweedy - June, Clearwater Festival, Croton Point Park, NY

Lucius - March - Levon Helm's Barn, Woodstock, NY

Drive By Truckers - July 5 - The Colony, Woodstock, NY

Erika Wennerstrom - March - Brooklyn Bowl, NYC (opening for Drive By Truckers)
Old 97s - December 12 - Space Ballroom, Hamden, CT

Neko Case - January - Capitol Theater, Port Chester, NY
Richard Thompson - November 17 - The Egg, Albany NY

Gin Blossoms - February 21 - Paramount Theater, Peekskill NY (New Miserable Experience tour)

Mike Cooley - December 5 - Highline Ballroom, NYC

 

The band didn't even have it for sale at their merch table last night, so I don't have the album yet, but the songs the Old 97s played from their new Christmas album are actually really good. Particularly Snow Angels.

In 2012 I started getting into Joseph Arthur, after seeing him open for Soul Asylum. Later on I saw something that said he opened for Three Fish at Wetlands in NYC in 1999, a show I attended. I always remembered, for whatever reason, that David Garza was the other opening act, but I have no memory whatsoever of Joseph Arthur. So I missed out on knowing who he was for another 13 years.

I also haven't been reading books much in recent years (the internet has killed my attention span, I swear), but I finished Let's Go in just a few days. It was probably the right length for a book of this nature, but I also could have kept reading. I felt like there was much in there I didn't know, or added details that fleshed out stories I only knew part of. I didn't realize, for example, that the incident with Jay Farrar's girlfriend took place four years before Son Volt broke up.

Jeffs's typical stage banter humor pays out well in the book - there were many laughs throughout. Jeff will be discussing something quite serious and then finish the paragraph or story with a deadpan crack. Like his section on how people converse and communicate, and how he feels he isn't on the same wavelength with most other people. "How 'bout the Cubs?" "Yeah, the Cubs, they're going to die someday. All of them... They could be dying right now while we're siting here making conversation about baseball." LOL. I really relate.

RE: one of the questions posted above, I think Jeff is clear about his feelings on the handling of Jay Bennett's departure from Wilco. Jeff didn't tell Ken Coomer personally that he was being fired, so he made sure to tell Jay. And as for his reasoning, Jeff stated that "I fired Bennett from Wilco because I knew if I didn't, I would probably die." I think Jeff was/is sad that it didn't work out with Jay, or rather moreso that Jay didn't get the help he needed to get clean. I don't think Jeff has any regrets about his own part in handling the situation.

And that story leads in to what I think is the key takeaway from the book:  "There are only three people I've committed myself to completely for the rest of my life: Susie, Spencer, and Sammy." In other words, Jeff doesn't want to be defined by Wilco, or by Son Volt, or by who is or isn't in Wilco. He describes the concept of a band consisting of permanently-fixed band members as an impractical fallacy, and something that no musician needs to be bound by. That so much of the book is about Jeff's family tells where his true priorities, and legacy, are to be found.

There was also some unintentional humor in the book. When Jeff talked about going into rehab, he mentioned that he was put into the "Pride Wing" (section for "fragile" patients who wouldn't be best served in the parts of the rehab center that were "a little rough." In reading that passage, I somehow missed a letter and read "Pride Wig." And I am thinking, why they hell did they make poor Jeff Tweedy wear a rainbow wig at rehab? Like, that was the celebrity disguise of choice? It wasn't until I read more on the next page and figured it out.

There are so many other parts of the book that I enjoyed, from his recollections of Belleville to his work with Mavis. Even if Jeff didn't cover all the bases as in-depth as we all might have wanted, I appreciate that he was able to dig deep into those stories that meant most to him to share, that he thought would best illuminate who Jeff Tweedy is.

I have to add Adam's House Cat - Town Burned Down to my list. Just picked it up the other night. This pre-Drive By Truckers album holds up with Patterson Hood's best material despite being recorded a decade before Southern Rock Opera, when Hood was just in his early 20s. Unfortunately the album wasn't released, and the tapes were lost, and then much later rediscovered, and the record finally came out this year.

Drive-By Truckers

Trapper Schoepp

Erika Wennerstrom's "Sweet Unknown" is far and away the one album from 2018 that I listened to a lot.

Other albums that I picked up include:
Lucius - Nudes

Neko Case - Hell-On

Richard Thompson - 13 Rivers
 

I’m about 200 pages in and am shocked no mention of Gary Louris or Golden Smog ! Am I missing something? Still great read so far and I laughed at his meeting of Michael Stipe

Agreed, especially as I feel like I've read elsewhere that Louris/Smog helped Tweedy find his footing and musical confidence after UT. The book is great and I am really speeding through it enjoyably. But it feels as if Jeff has written long answers to a list of questions he was presented with, and somehow no one thought to ask about the Smog. Seems that Louris just doesn't come up among Wilco fandom as much as Jay/Jay/Billy Bragg have.

Skimmed the Uncut article in a newsagent. Again some pointers to the memoir being an interesting read.

 

A while back I saw something somewhere that mentioned a ghost writer being involved. Can't pinpoint where and don't know if it's true.

If it is I would hope that it is acknowledged in the book, since JT's sense of humour is the major part of my becoming a fan rather than a listener and I'm wondering how that will manifest itself in the writing. I'm sure many here who feel a connection of some kind would also like to know if the book represents a truly authentic voice, perhaps especially for the audiobook of course. Even if this is the case, it won't detract from all the new insights and information, but I would like to know one way or the other.

I imagine most celebrity bios aren't actually written by the celebrity - ie, they didn't sit down at their computer for hours upon hours, day after day for a year or two, to actually type things out. I believe it's usually done by oral interviews with a ghost writer who then patches together the various topics into a cohesive narrative. I don't think they'd actually change the wording much though.

I caught Eric Stuart last night at the Bitter End in NYC, a hometown show for the now-Nashville based musician. Here's a track from his most recent album: Something 'Bout the Girl.

Art of Almost Wilco.... picked this bad boy up this summer in Central New York. I'll be wearing it at Solid Sound next year.

Rhett Miller wrote "The Believer" that morning after hearing the news of Elliot Smith's death and debuted the song that night at Fez Under Time Cafe, a small club in NYC he used to frequently play.

"Insightful and Accurate" sounds like it could be the title of an early-era outtake. It could also roll off the tongue as "Insightful Inaccurate", which sounds like a typical Tweedy lyric. Jeff should write this song for bböp.

You're welcome fellas!

And now, some photos.

Full Set