thermocaster

Hey there! Just set up my IAC page. Here's the link.

Also, just got my album set up for sale on iTunes, if anyone's interested enough.

Thanks. Loving the other VC music I'm hearing on the site.

"Song About The Moon" by Paul Simon.

Did anyone mention "Sad Songs & Waltzes" by Willie Nelson (and later covered by Cake)?

The electric guitar solo leading to the double-electric part of "Wiser Time" by the Black Crowes.

"Sway" - Rolling Stones

"100 Years Ago" - Rolling Stones

"Third World Man" - Steely Dan

"Strawberry Letter 23" - Shuggie Otis

Both "The Rover" and "Ten Years Gone" by Led Zeppelin

About 2002, Jay isn't on it. I think Mike probably recorded it, and may have played the synths on it. Jeff is on the lead guitar, Leroy is playing the piano and he might be on the acoustic as well. John's playing the bass, Glenn's drumming. I like the early version a lot too, there's a slightly haunting quality about it.

 

--Mike

Thanks for the info, Mike. That seems to make the most sense.

This video seems to be about halfway between the EP version and the studio version in terms of arrangement. I love Tweedy's bizarro decision to capo at the 12th fret.

I wouldn't mind if he released Homegrown early. Kind of like the performance series from Volume 1.

Are there any bootleg tapes of that album floating around? I've got live versions of some of the songs (i.e., the stuff from ABD), but I don't think I've ever heard any studio versions of them.

So whats your favorite record? Mine by far (well right now at least) is "Easy Beat."

 

Is it just me, or is Toby Leaman a freakin sic bass player? His tone/style is right out of the 70's... I especially love his bass line on "Today".

 

I also don't know how he can sing lead and play those bass lines at the same time. Can't wait to see him do it live.

I gotta go with We All Belong myself. Some excellent songs and melodies.

Easy Beat has some great melodies, but the production values aren't quite there yet. Fate is remarkable too...but I ever-so-slightly prefer Scott's songs to Toby's, and while Fate has two epic songs from Toby (The Ark and Army of Ancients), We All Belong has those two monster songs from Scott near the end (Ain't it Strange and The Way The Lazy Do) which just blow me away.

I am seriously considering heading down to the Friday ACL show just to see Dr. Dog and Blitzen Trapper back-to-back on the same stage.

this sounds interesting. i hope it doesn't mean that the original TFA wont be on the vol II.

It is a possibility that it won't be, though. I remember reading something a while back about how there are no actual "original" TFA tapes left, because the way they made that album involved some bizarre on-site mixing scheme using a mobile tractor trailer. So there's no chance of remastering the tapes, since they were mixed on-site. Or something like that.

I feel fortunate to have somehow scored TFA on vinyl about 10 years ago.

Interesting.

Am I the only one who would rather see a new OTC album over a new Jeff Mangum album?

I find myself listening to Cubist Castle and BFA far more than Aeroplane (or Avery Island, for that matter).

Does anyone know approximately when the MTLM version of Handshake Drugs was recorded? Was it during the YHF sessions? After Jay left the band?

Also, which do you prefer...that version, or the one on AGIB?

For me, I got hooked on the EP version, and it took me a long time to appreciate the AGIB one. Eventually the latter version won me over, although it's funny how little production changes can alter the entire attitude and mood of a song.

The AGIB version reminds me (in a good way) of Stereolab. Which is appealing in and of itself.

The solo Tweedy version (and the pre-AGIB live versions out there) are also excellent, despite the entire nature of the song being different.

It's a good song that can survive two radically different approaches.

Hmm...

1. Muzzle of Bees

2. Poor Places

3. Hell is Chrome

4. Not for the Season

5. I am trying to break your heart

6. She's a Jar

7. Radio King

8. A Shot in the Arm

9. Passenger Side

10. California Stars

11. New Madrid

12. Summerteeth

13. Venus Stopped the Train

14. Cars Can't Escape

15. Red-eyed and Blue

16. Spiders

17. Gun

18. I Must Be High

19. One Wing

20. Impossible Germany

Ticketmaster fucked me out of 2 reserved seats. Fuckers.

Same thing happened to my girlfriend...we both tried going through the Ticketmaster presale. Both got "DANCE" tickets at 11:57, but then her order got screwed up by something inexplicable.

Fortunately, mine did not.

She got back on and tried again 5 minutes later and all they had available was mezzanine.

Sweet, my first ever floor tix for a Wilco show.

How is the floor at UIC Pavilion, incidentally?

I'm going with my girlfriend today. Quite a weekend of music --- saw the Black Crowes up in Waukesha last night. Going primarily for The National tonight. And hitting up the Blitzen Trapper show at the Empty Bottle tomorrow night.

From what they've been saying over on .net, I figured this would really suck.

It doesn't. It's not bad, really. Perhaps not great, but it's certainly doesn't deserve the kind of abuse being heaped on it.

I don't have a million dollars, but if I did, I'd bet it that Mike Powell is white.

You win a million dollars!

DORKY-looking white guy, no less.

It's still on iTunes, too.

I always wonder the same thing. You don't need specialized training to be a rock critic, they do the same thing we all do: sit a home and give a record a listen a few times and then they write about it. Their opinion is no more or less qualified than anybody else. On the other hand, I have been on the other side of that and when my first record came out

my very first review, which was quite favorable, had suggested that I resorted to a few "melodramatic cliches" and I nearly cried!

Eh, people want validation. They get wrapped up in rooting for a band the same way they'd root for a baseball team, and they look to people with public voices (i.e., critics) to validate their rooting interests. Rather than, you know, just enjoying the music because it's good music (to them).

It's stupid, honestly. I don't begrudge critics their opinions, but there's nothing that any of the people at Pitchfork or Rolling Stone know about music that makes me believe their opinion of albums or bands is somehow SUPERIOR to mine or yours, and that therefore I should follow their advice on what is good or bad. The whole field of critical commentary has always been a steaming pile of crap, whether it dealt with drama, books, music, or film. Very rarely will you ever find someone who TRULY is an expert at what they're reviewing, since most true experts understand that the concept of grading a performance or a recorded work on some idiotic 0-10 scale is about as useful as a mesh condom. And the hideously arrogant and hypocritical social clique of the "indie rock critic" is probably the worst of the lot, because they feel compelled to cast this vomitous aura of superiority over everything they write.

We're fortunate in that Wilco have been media darlings for a long time, but I'd have gotten into them (and enjoyed them immensely) even if every critic panned them as overblown and unoriginal --- which, incidentally, I suspect we'll read about in 2011 or so.

Have you tried EZDrummer yet?

Google it. I've been using it on my projects for 3 years and haven't been disappointed.

This is a little random but so am I so I'll carry on regardless... Does anybody know what key harp Ryan Adams uses on the Whiskeytown song 'The Ballad of Carol Lynn'? I'd be ever so grateful if somebody with a full set could tell me. As somebody who only owns an Eb and a C, I find it frustrating that it's a trial and error thing when you want to play along with something.

 

mini rant over, please help...

Circle of fifths, man. Remember.

Also, reference this: Crossharp chart

That was pretty awesome, thanks for posting. Ditto all the comments so far. I also enjoyed the trumpets at the end...you managed to give it a bit of "Only a Northern Song" feel with that.

I've done the "record a cover song to get out of a rut" thing before myself. Now I try to start every album recording session off with a cover version of something, just to loosen up the mind (and the fingers).

 

Perhaps because it was partly conceived in Neil Finn's studio in balmy New Zealand, rather than the bleakly windy environs of hometown Chicago, Wilco (the album) is a record of great warmth.

Something tells me Pete's only exposure to Chicago was seeing it in IATTBYH. I'm driving up there today and "bleakly windy" is about the last term I'd use to describe Chicago this time of year.

Pretty sure those guys were part of the Max Weinberg 7.

Just got my PM...thanks, Alex!

I'll go on record as saying I enjoyed that immensely. The part where the background vox kick in made me think of 1966-era Beatles for some reason.

This strikes me as a mood piece more than anything else...and it creates quite a mood. Something tells me this one will work best while driving late at night, on the interstate, with the windows down. Nice, relentless rhythm in the background to boot.

So does that make "Kicking Television" the equivalent of "Time Fades Away"?

And what of Journey Through the Past?

It's an interesting thought, though --- particularly since both of them had major falling outs with record companies (wrong decade, though). Of course, if the years hold true, that would mean that we're due for Wilco's foray into vocoders in about 2016.