theashtraysays

Saturday at the Crave festival (local food & music festival here in Lexington), a Chicago band called JC Brooks & The Uptown Sound opened with a very upbeat cover of IATTBYH.

After a complete drought in August, September looks much better. Four in a month is a very big month for me. 9/8 - Steve Earle and the Dukes 9/13- Drive By Truckers 9/25- Wilco 9/28- The Decemberists

I was thinking the same thing. Not many deep tracks or rarities outside of the recent 20 year tour mix in the post-SW portion; lots of familiar tunes so that the festival crowd would get some of what they expected after 34 minutes of generally unexpected. Almost apologetic. The Independent show was certainly an exception all around. I'm hoping that SW stays in its entirety for a while (at least through Bloomington - ha!), and that the boys don't go to a blending-in approach for a while. This is something unique for them (playing a whole record) and I hope that many more of us easterner di

As today is "new music Friday", I decided to listen to the Spotify "new music Friday" playlist. I gotta admit, there wasn't much I liked. If it was even somewhat tolerable, I gave the whole song a listen. But there were still a lot of skippers, and the vast majority was just not very appealing. 20-some songs in, and the only one that has really piqued my interest was EL VY which turns out to be Matt B from The National in a side project...

Bump of the decade. It's back, and there's enough new technology and gizmo's, societal woes, and dysfunctional politics to fuel this guy for a mighty long time. Love this guy. Absolutely love his stuff.

Bump... I'm enjoying this record immensely.

Interesting company there... the Iron & Wine cover of Talking Heads' This Must Be the Place was kinda cool. And yes, nice to see Wilco show up in unlikely places.

I'm still crazy about this album. The recent live versions really sound great. Nice to have some new songs live to add to the 20 year tour stuff. Cold Slope has some Pops Staples style guitar influence which I was hoping for. Cold Slope / King of You is a great little 1-2 pair at the back end of the record. You Satellite is still my favorite both musically and lyrically. Taste the Ceiling would have been better off on Sukierae.

And apparently scared off Mikael's owl....

the lyrics are also up on the wilcoworld web site just a couple days ago. some are a bit "obscure"... much less straightforward than the last couple albums. mine so far is from You Satellite (which is also my current favorite track): I've come all this way to hold your hand I became a calendar while I was waiting

watch out for the chicanery limit. it sneaks up on ya.

WOOT! Bloomington, center section, row 8. This was a very pleasant pre-sale experience! No drama! No anxiety!! No shopping cart mysterious disappearances!!!

New album, new tour dates. William Tyler supports. Presale Wednesday, on sale Friday. Sept 16 - Kalamazoo State Theatre - Kalamazoo, MI Sept 17 - Masonic Auditorium - Cleveland, OH Sept 21 - Le Métropolis de Montréal - Montreal, QC Sept 23 - State Theatre of Ithaca- Ithaca, NY Sept 24 - Hill Auditorium - Ann Arbor, MI Sept 25 - Indiana University Auditorium - Bloomington, IN Sept 28 - Orpheum Theater New Orleans - New Orleans, LA Sept 29 + 30 - Stubb's Austin - Austin, TX

That's the thing that I noticed (and like) most about this record. They sound like A BAND. In the best possible way, melded together and just bringing some rock. There were hints of that as you said in several other songs over the past 10 years with this lineup, but this album seems to capture it across all the tracks really well. A couple other observations after several spins over the weekend... I love how You Satellite is in the center of the record. It's a great song that just fills up my entire mind when I listen with a good pair of earbuds.... gorgeous. But once again, the record fo

Ah, the ol' bribery approach. Cool beans!!

This is a great little interview. The whole family is in the car coming back from picking up Sammy at camp with the interview on speakerphone. Quite a hoot.

Today I plan to use google maps to find a route to work which takes around 34 minutes instead of the usual 20.

My first reaction: They sound like a BAND.

EXACTLY,

The hometown shows, and in particular these multi-night runs, are really something special. I can imagine that such a show probably wouldn't go well in a market which has limited hardcore fans and in a normal one-night show. Playing rarities which only 10% of the audience gets excited about sounds like a bad idea to me. And the hometown crowd just can't be duplicated. I kicked myself for years for not going to the original residency. I went to 2 of the winterlude shows, and it was an amazing experience. Sure, it's inconvenient (as is SSF, which I attended this year for the first time).

HOLY S---!!!

Thanks!

odd.. I only see Wait for Love where it says "interview and Wait for Love". Low Key is Low Key. Does anyone have a more direct link to the interview (besides the Pitchfork article)?

My first SSF, and I certainly hope it will not be my last. Actually my first "festival" (I'm too old for that crap!). I can't ever imagine going to a Bonnaroo, but this was amazing. My favorite parts: - Being surrounded by fanatical Wilco peeps, including old friends and meeting new ones and putting VC screen names and faces together. - Three great Wilco / TWEEDY / JT shows, each one unique and special. - The beach ball popcorn moment... thanks Donna for heading that up! - Via Chicago on Saturday night, in the rain, right in front of John's speaker hearing his harmony part extra clearly, was

No collaborations that I know of. No sign of him on Sunday at all. I loved his set on Saturday. Jim Elkington played a couple tunes in the set. Richard's bass player was an interesting cat as well.