choo-choo-charlie

All I want for Christmas is ... ummmmmm ... a cheap sunset on a television set.

DOUBLE LYRIC!!!

All I want for Christmas is snowflakes melting in the breeze

YASSSSS

All I want for Christmas is a lot of your records.

Also, Donna — may I post this same thread/question over at the Facebook fan group? All they seem to want to do is post a “rank the Wilco albums” thread twice a week. Need some fresh ideas to get the noobs thinking beyond this ancient exercise.

All I want for Christmas is a day off on a bruised road.

Capital City has blown me away. I love it. Jeff’s voice, the change in lyrics, the solo guitar. I long for that era of Wilco.

I love this original version too. The foundation of the lyrics are there, but clearly not fully formed yet. But pretty damn good as-is. It's amazing to me that the band passed on this song for so long...or maybe Jeff quit pitching it after it didn't make it to Being There until he found the "right" album for it.

Is it just me, or is there a pretty loud click in Misunderstood, around the 1:22 mark? Almost sounds like a mouse click. It's there on the regular remastered CD and on the 24-bit FLAC. My original Being There CD is at my parents' house, so I can't check if it appears on the old version, but I never noticed it before and it's driving me mad!

I wouldn’t call it loud by any means, but if you’re listening for it, yeah, there’s a clicking sound buried in there. Sounds like a button from someone’s flannel shirt brushing up against a guitar.

This might be one of those "Today it would be" questions (which might ruin the intensity of your setup), but........

 

Today I had a moment with "Hell is Chrome" a little after sunrise when the second cup of coffee hit, where I thought every other song must sound stupid because it's so perfect.

This is a pretty damn good answer. I have moments with this song all the time.

^ A big part of this problem is production aesthetic. Autotune has become insidious and ever present. I think hearing mathematically perfect pitch, even as the technology has allowed engineers to apply it less obviously, creates a different emotional response- just like hearing Glenn Kotche's rhythmic pocket versus a drum machine. I remember Neko Case saying she wished more artists had the balls to stand up to whatever slick producer is in the room and just say, "Give me 9 or 10 more takes, I'll get it. I don't need pitch correction."

 

Wilco records have a emotionally effective lack of phony production gloss, most specifically on the vocals.

 

Also as a side rant, autotune is training a generation of children to be scared to sing, because every time they turn on a radio or TV all they hear is mathematical perfection.

PREACH

You have all made some excellent points, and done so in a way that is better/clearer than whatever I would have said.  As an aside, I notice that many of you mention that Tweedy isn't a "technically" great singer.  I would agree with that, and it makes me wonder how many singers I enjoy listening to in rock and pop music who are technically great singers.  I'm certain that is a very low number.  

 

Getting back to Jeff, I always notice in his interviews that he answers whatever question is thrown at him in a straightforward and honest way.  Never any bullshit or head games like you get in many music star interviews, and he usually manages to say something that is a direct bullseye statement about some aspect of music or performing, or about other aspects of his life.  You can hear that he is speaking with unfiltered enthusiasm, and from his heart.  Several times I have come away from his interviews almost jealous of his ability to speak about things in such a clear way.  Things people often overthink or try to make as mysterious as possible. I feel like those qualities come through in his vocal performances.

The best singers, in my opinion, are the ones who fall in this realm and don't really care about being "technically great." What they do have is an extremely unique timbre and character to their voice, something that is entirely their own and instantly recognizable. They write and sing melodies that best suit their voice, dynamics and range, and play to their strengths as vocalists. No attempted acrobatics, unneeded histrionics or showmanship. Just pure, straight, genuine singing, from the heart and from the soul.

One of the worst examples of "vanilla wallpaper" vocals, to me, is top 40 bro-country. I have some friends and family who enjoy that stuff (which is totally fine) but when they're playing it when I'm around, I literally cannot tell the difference between any of the artists. It all sounds the exact same to me, like someone set a "standard" sound at some point that they're all trying to reach. Some "comfort zone" of singing that's "required" to be a success in that genre. I feel like I've listened to a wide enough range of music my whole life to have a pretty discerning ear and be able to recognize talent when I hear it -- even in a genre I may not care for -- and I just don't hear it in this genre. 

Anyway, didn't mean to digress on a country-hatin' rant. Jeff Tweedy rules. 

Two things:

1) My wife and I are in bed watching TV. She is drifting off to sleep having no desire to watch the documentary I had on - Man In The Sand. There is a scene in which Billy Bragg & Jeff are asked what to they want to achieve with the album they are making. Bragg gives this laborious speech on how he wants to make a political statement, do this and that, blah, blah, blah. The camera turns to Jeff and he says: "I just want to make an album that doesn't suck." My wife opened her eyes, lifted her head off the pillow and laughed.

 

2) The opening scene to the Sam Jones' documentary - we see Jeff driving his own car (a Subaru, I think), in the morning, to his own little (at the time) studio, the Loft. The camera moves a little to the right and we see Sponge Bob Square Pants hanging from the rearview mirror.

 

You see,I grew up watching so many rock documentaries in which you see the musicians, sitting in the back of the limo, with a bottle of Jack Daniels, at 1 PM in the afternoon, being chauffeured to their private Lear jet, that you expect to see this every time. So I was floored when I saw Jeff. It was my own personal Hotel Arizona in reverse. I found a rock star that didn't behave like a rock star.

Sorry for going on for so long, but to sum up:

 

1) he has a great sense of humor

 

2) he's a regular guy

 

Oh, and he sings good too! 

Amen.

I remember the chapters in Greg Kot's book about the Mermaid Avenue projects. Billy was so caught up in trying to make some grand political statement, which is why he gravitated towards songs like "All You Fascists," though he did pick some of Woody's more poetic tracks -- which is what Jeff was after. Jeff said something to the effect of "I'm interested in Woody the freak folk weirdo" or something like that, hence songs like "Hoodoo Voodoo," which provide some levity to balance tracks like "Eisler On the Go."

I love what so many of you have said about the uniquely lovable quality of Jeff‘s voice. I’ve never been able to figure out for myself what it is about it that I find so completely compelling, but I know that even if I’m listening to something random on shuffle and I hear Jeff clear his throat I know immediately it’s Jeff Tweedy clearing his throat. There is something about his voice that instantly resonates with me like no one else’s.

Like the first couple seconds of Red-Eyed and Blue!

I'm laughing at the entire notion that Jeff might be judged for not being a "technically great singer." He's got such a unique timbre and character to his voice, a pretty good range and very good dynamics. He can whisper with the best of them (Schmilco), get soulful and melancholy, and rip and wail when needed. Plus he knows how to use his voice to fit his songs and the overall sound...he isn't and never has been a singer focused on histrionics or showmanship in the "pop singer" sense.

Like I said, PM me if you don’t have a download card in your life.

Thanks!  It's great to find this site.

 

I'm referring to the versions of AM and Being There on HDTracks - they are 44.1KHz/24bit, so theoretically slightly better than the 16bit CD versions, but who really knows?  These titles were both previously available at 96/24, as well.

 

Just curious.  I'm looking forward to spinning the vinyl, later this week.

Ah, I guess I wasn't aware of anything other than the vinyl or CD versions that were/are for sale on the website. I rip my CDs at the highest possible ALAC quality and so far I have been very pleased with the audio quality of the remasters. And I feel like I have a fairly discerning ear. :-)

Like I said, I would have skipped buying it on vinyl had I realized that 90 minutes of content wouldn't have been available to me with this purchase. I clearly didn't read carefully enough. That's my mistake. Regardless, anyone who purchased this, vinyl, CD, whatever should be able to agree that not including 30% of the content give or take is screwy.

 

As for how much I listen to vinyl, I assume that was the case for most people. Maybe I'm wrong, but I assume between commutes, 8 hours in the office, etc. that most people consume music on the go and that records were for those instances when you can sit down and truly enjoy the experience. I don't know. It's why that cartoon in the New Yorker is so true!

 

Haha, that cartoon is great. Non-vinyl enthusiast friends always make those types of comments to me when I get to talking about it.

PM me.

Has anyone listened to the HDTracks 44.1/24 version? Any comments?

Welcome to Via Chicago. 

Not sure which version to which you're referring. I purchased the CD sets for A.M. and Being There. They sound great.

Sounds like you should’ve just purchased the CD version, then, if you self-admittedly don’t listen to vinyl much. Or at least checked to see if a download was available before purchasing.

I went for the CD sets. No download codes, but why would I need them? Took me 20 minutes to rip all the discs into high-quality audio to put on my phone.

The pricing for records is kind of all over the place these days. $80 is steep (especially when you convert it to Canadian) but it's on par with the Kicking Television and Alpha Mike Foxtrot boxsets, if AM/BT is as good of pressings as those boxsets, I'm fine with that. You're completely valid about the download code though.

EDIT: It could be worse, check out this Paul McCartney boxset of 8 LPs for $240. And only three of them are good!!

 

While we're complaining, where the heck is my Passenger Side download? Did anyone get one?? The website still says:

 

Yet I never got an e-mail nor is there a link under my downloadable products page on the Wilco Kung Fu site.

 

 

My Passenger Side download links arrived in my inbox today along with a shipping confirmation for my CDs...

I am liking it much more than I expected. Love Out of Sight, Out of Mind, Losing Interest, Why Would You Wanna Live, and I Can't Keep From Talking.

I’m holding out until my CDs arrive, but I am particularly curious about Wilco’s take on Jeff’s Golden Smog contribution.

I don’t know, not sure I like the new song. Seems like he’s trying to be too literal and direct — I always thought Patterson’s best work were his story-songs.

Ugh, damn it. His songs and riffs stand among some of the greatest in rock ‘n roll.

If anyone has a link to an mp3 rip of this, it would be greatly appreciated. 

This just took place LAST NIGHT. Even if someone did record this, it's common courtesy to give them 24, 48, maybe even 72 hours or more to get it formatted, uploaded and shared before requesting it. Some "tapers" might have other items on their to-do list of everyday life other than immediately getting a rip of a webstream up less than 24 hours after it takes place. 

That being said, if you check out the "Greatest Lost Track of All Time" forum here (which is where you should always check first!) you'll find that there's a torrent up at Dime a Dozen:

http://viachicago.org/forum/30-greatest-lost-track-of-all-time/

It's not an MP3 rip, but it's a start. And, FYI, the webcast is currently available on YouTube here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqYueJcBcOk

Enjoyed the show via the webcast/stream. Very tight playing all throughout. Nels tore IG apart, as per usual, but I was really excited to see Jeff destroy Spiders. I've always really loved Jeff's lead playing and hope that we may get more of it in the new material they're working on next year. Pat got very little love from the camera, which panned over to Nels when Pat belted out the opera outro to "Candyfloss." Oops. Great to hear a deep cut like that, plus Passenger Side and Box Full of Letters. Endearing to see Jeff introduce the band and share the correct pronunciations of their names. :-)

I’ve heard rumors to that effect. Did you notice in that preshow interview that Jeff referenced the Tweedy band he has with his sons. Plural.

Sammy sings!