Three dollars and 63 cents

Yeah, it's their 4th of July show from Battery Park last year. Cool cover art for it, too: Mine didn't have far to go, since they're based in NYC, which is probably why I got it so quickly. They also threw in a Rough Trade/4AD sampler from last year, too.

My pre-ordered CD and vinyl came yesterday. The album sounds great! I only listened to the stream once because I wasn't crazy about the sound quality, but the album is as good as I remember it being. Definitely better than most if not all of the 2000s output (I do have a soft spot for Sonic Nurse, though). I think my favorites after the first few listens are Antenna and What We Know.

Yeah, that's what I thought, too. That must've been pretty mind-boggling!

I'd be willing to contribute,too. Honestly, I've always been surprised that the board has been completely free. Maybe if it wasn't it would keep some of the clowns away.

Unless you're trolling, you do too care. You're just flustered because people are bringing up plenty of specific, valid points to refute your sweeping generalizations.

What I don't understand is why so many here feel like people have to choose Jay OR Nels, as if it's impossible to appreciate both of them. There's no reason to choose, as far as I'm concerned. It's pretty well known around here that I'm a huge fan of Nels's work both with the band and as a jazz and experimental artist, but I'll be the first to admit that YHF and Being There are my two favorite Wilco albums. Liking Nels doesn't mean I hated Jay, which seems to be what a lot of people are assuming about people who like Nels's contributions to the band. Why are people still bickering over this af

Oops...double post. I was trying to post this when VC broke again.

Maybe this should be on a VC t-shirt In December, I drove two and a half hours to the Rochester show. Aside from that, I've always had to drive 4+ hours, and I know there are people here who always have to make even longer trips. Hell, I drove 14 hours for the St. Louis shows last summer. But you know what? I've never been at a show that wasn't worth the trip. Wilco tours far more than most bands do, and they still play a lot of smaller venues. It's not like the six of them get together and Jeff asks, "So, which cities should we screw on this tour?" and they make a list and all laugh dia

I tried so hard to like that book, and I just couldn't get into it. He seemed so whiny. I came across this at the library yesterday after I already had an armload of other books, but it sounded too good to pass up: I'm about 75 pages into it, and so far it's been funny and enjoyable. There are a lot of the typical rock band cliches, but there's some substance beneath them, and I'm hoping he turns those cliches on their heads by the end of the book.

Check out the Surly Brewery in Brooklyn Center if you have a chance. Their website says they give tours on Fridays. http://www.surlybrewing.com/index.php

The June issue of Downbeat has a story about Alex and Nels. Read an excerpt of it here. It should be available now. I'm going to go try to track it down tomorrow.

You're exaggerating. Besides, let's keep this thread positive, okay?

In Greg Kot's book, Jeff talks about his discovery of a collection of shortwave-radio transmissions that in many ways inspired YHF (including the album's title). During that part, he says something that right away clicked for me as being a central theme in Ashes: "The recordings got Tweedy thinking about geography, distance, the desire for human connection in a time glutted with media, apathy, and convenience stores. 'I started writing from the viewpoint of America as this imagined space, the America that exists in everyone,' Tweedy says. 'There is nothing more abstract to me than the idea o

I so wanted to believe this was another stupid internet death hoax. What horribly sad news. I haven't been a Wilco fan since the early days and never saw the lineup that included Jay, but he had a hand in a lot of songs that have carried me through a lot, both good and bad. May he rest in peace.

With as gossip-hungry as American media has become, I have a hard time believing there wouldn't be plenty of coverage already if this were true, given how much attention the lawsuit got in places that don't tend to cover Wilco. For what it's worth, the NY Times has an obituary for a rich old guy whose name just happens to be Jay Bennett. I hope that's where the confusion is coming from.

AM--Too Far Apart BT1--Misunderstood BT2--Dreamer In My Dreams ST--How to Fight Loneliness YHF--I Am Trying to Break Your Heart AGIB--Muzzle of Bees KT--Ashes of American Flags SBS--You Are My Face W(TA)--Bull Black Nova MA1--One By One MA2--Remember the Mountain Bed This was tougher than I expected it to be.

I've got about 75 pages of this left that I'll probably finish later today: Then I'm going to try to zip through J.D. Salinger's Nine Stories, because my library books are due on Tuesday.

Great news, Donna!

I'm about 80 pages into Alec Foege's biography of SY's early days, Confusion Is Next. So far, I'm really enjoying it. I've heard the other SY biography is better, but I'll need to special order it from the library, so I figured I'd start with this one. Stearns is pretty obviously a SY fanboy, but once you get past that, his book about Daydream Nation is pretty good. It helped me to figure out why I tend to like Lee's songwriting best--he admits he's been pretty heavily influenced by Raymond Carver and Richard Ford, two writers who I love.

St. Louis July 17. For free! Under the arch! I might head out for it From STL's Riverfront Times:

They'd also probably do a pretty good cover of "Cover of the Rolling Stone"