nalafej

Glenn's drumming / percussion sounds on those new songs are everything that everyone says they are, and more.  He has a TON of "accoutrements" that he uses to make all the sounds.  For at least one song, he uses a Cabasa (kind of a wooden wheel on a stick with steel balls on the outside, which is usually rotated in your hand) which is attached to a pedal that he plays with his foot while all 4 of his hands are busy otherwise.  

 

All 4 hands! That's just not fair!

I was a little disappointed it was Navy Blues and not One Chord To Another or Between The Bridges, which I think are stronger albums. But the songs sounded great live, that album really does hold up. There's a few really good songs on that album like Stand By Me, Yeah that you would never otherwise hear. After they did Navy Blues they left the stage for about 20 minutes and then came back and did maybe 15-20 songs from throughout their career, with every album from Twice Removed to 12 represented (sorry Smeared). The crowd was really into it and sang along to every song, even the non-singles and deeper cuts. The whole thing was a blast and probably the most fun I've had at a show in a long time, even my wife who's not a huge Sloan fan thought so.

Sounds really fun. Thanks for sharing your experience. I am now 2x more likely to attend in Chicago.

Nice they doing Navy Blues? I’m seeing them play that in Feb!

I was wondering about this. I'm a Sloan fan, but I'm not sure I would dig a Navy Blue album show as much as a typical show. How was it?

The book is great for all Crowes fans. The stories make it. The writing is somewhat sophomoric with a lot of lame foreshadowing at the end of each chapter. Tons of Chris bashing and surprisingly (to me anyway) a fair amount of shade thrown at Rich too. He does a fair amount of talking about the early days, mostly getting to know and be friends with Chris though. I think you'd like it.

There was someone doing a Wilco live show streaming site. But I think it is gone. I never really messed with it. 

sooutoftune.org - it was great and I miss it. 

good listen although it is really annoying that they edit it and remove blank space...

Yes, I realize it’s unlikely. You said the album sounds like On Fillmore + Jeff. Hence, my question if Darin is on it, because he’s the other half of On Fillmore with Glenn.

Probably beating the dead horse with this clarification, but...Just like some people say Art of Almost sounds like Radiohead, I'm saying OTJ sounds like an On Fillmore album. Not that all members of On Fillmore are on it. 

Your nepotism comment notwithstanding, I think it’s safe to say that rather than a falling out where they’re not friends anymore, it’s maybe just more of a thing where Darin lives downstate (like a five-plus-hour drive from Chicago) so to rehearse for occasional one-off gigs, it’s just more of a hassle to get the band together. Obviously Darin was brought on when the band was gonna be a regular touring act for a while during the Sukierae cycle, but now that it’s more of a one-off band, it was just easier to keep it to folks who are local?

 

And maybe, musically, Darin and the rest of the band aren’t as compatible as they could be. He obviously comes from a much more experimental, improvisational background and since they’re not gonna be touring for the foreseeable future, perhaps it made sense to just quietly cut the chord now.

 

I saw Darin recently at a small solo show/interview he did in Chicago and while he didn’t say anything directly about the Tweedy band, Jim Elkington stopped by and things seemed cool. So I wouldn’t necessarily read anything more into it other than that Darin probably won’t be playing with the Tweedy band for the foreseeable future. But what are they gonna do, send out a press release about it? Things like this happen with touring bands all the time...

That all makes sense including criticism of my nepotism comment I've always been a fan of Darin's playing. Almost pulled the trigger on William Tyler tickets for tomorrow and would have loved to seen DG perform with him again.

Hold on, they had a falling out?

I guess it could be jumping the gun, but he didn't make it to Solid Sound for the first time in 2019 and hasn't been playing with Jeff's solo band (I like to call it Jeff Tweedy & Nepotism) in quite a while. He also hasn't tweeted about Wilco or Jeff in a long while and didn't put his association with Jeff in a few recent gig bios.

So, Darin Gray is on this album?

I'm not buying the album to get the liner notes to confirm - and you are likely joking anyway - but a Darin appearance seems unlikely given Jeff and Darin's apparent falling out. I meant to imply that the record has adventurous percussion as a base.

Who said Pat is pissed?

Quotes from aftershow threads:

A couple of people have pointed out to me how Pat doesn’t seem to be smiling very much on stage of late, in general, and I hope that doesn’t hint at anything being amiss.

No eye contact with the rest of the band even during the 3 guitar thing at the end of IG. He was mopping over his keyboards in what appeared to be a half-hearted way most of the time.

Agree that Pat looked a bit disconnected/bored early on

It's a disappointing album. Boring would be my one word description. I get that I've been with the band since 1995, but why would anyone listen to this beyond a few listens instead of putting on Ghost, Yankee, BT or AM?? It's Jeff's worst vocal performance. There are very very few melodies and choruses which are always appreciated in my book (I love Warm and Warmer and they didn't have much in that regard either, but it is more missing here in a full band context.)

It's basically On Fillmore + Jeff Tweedy featuring 2 appearances by guitar virtuoso Nels Cline and textures by Mikael Jorgensen. No wonder Pat is pissed.

Everyone Lies is an instance live classic

Ha. That might have been a different looking music video...

Also optimistic that if Sammy says Ode to Joy is his favorite, it's going to be goooooood.

I read that as Sammy's fav was Ghost. Found the Chipotle stuff very funny.

I came very close to be able to attend this show and would have loved to take in the bbop love. Thanks for your writing on this tour bbop. Enjoying them each day...

Jenny Lewis

 the sets will (probably) be identical.

Could be. Last time they played Chicago it was 4 shows at Chicago Theater. Tickets were cheaper then.

They performed 106 songs over the 4 nights with 49 unique songs. That's not bad for mixing it up.

I never realized the noise on Via Chicago was supposed to replicate walking under the L. It works!

me either! is this new news? Seems almost like revisionist history!

Looks like some more openers for US shows have been announced. The Bottle Rockets in St. Louis is cool! Shall we start a campaign for Wilco to play AM front to back?! What better place to do so??

Also seeing Solid Sound alums Deep Sea Diver for MI, PA, VA, OH, IN, KY shows and Dickie (who had an album produced by Pat) for Cedar Rapids.

Amazing to me that any show at Rosemont Horizon could be released commercially in any format given its horrendous acoustics.

Springsteen

(You probably know this - but Oasis and The Black Crowes actually did a tour a together in 2001.)

Oh yes, the Brotherly Love Tour. Don't forget opener Spacehog (also with brothers). This should have been a great bill, but it was a lackluster evening in Chicagoland anyway.

He also had that As The Crowe Flies thing going on. Apparently - he left his 3rd wife and took up with the girlfriend of the guy who did all the artwork for that band. She is in that Chauffeur's Daughter video.

Wasn't it odd that it was/is actually called 'As the Crow Flies' - without the e on the end of crow?? I sort of wondered if somebody made a mistake.

And Marcus King - who I respect - but don't really care for all that much. 

Marcus didn't play the last couple gigs though. The band with him had a lot of potential but was not gelling when I saw them...

Still completely bummed about how CRB imploded at the end and then with Casal's death makes it even more so...

I haven't seen the story on this other than it happened. Are there details somewhere?

Darin doesn't mention playing in Tweedy or with Jeff in the bio used for last night's gig.

https://ess.org/esscalendar/option-daringray