Albert Tatlock
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Posts posted by Albert Tatlock
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The house in Surrey?
There is actually a blog out there dedicated to John's old house.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinfauns_(Surrey)
Actually, after reading that I don't think I'll bother - it has now been redeveloped and is unrecognisable
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Boy that result is so hard to take. By the letter of the law the decision is technically correct, but there have been several equivalent tackles in this tournament that have been yellow cards at worst and often just penalties. Such an immense effort by the 14, but unfortunately we made about as many little mistakes in that game as all the others put together, and Hooky had a poor game. The French captain was visibly embarrassed in his post match interview.
Part of me wants Australia to win now since they come to play in Wales in a few weeks and we'll get a crack at them, but NZ deserve it for their consistent superiority over the years, and only the Welsh can appreciate what it means to them given the similar religious status of the game in both countries. Then again, the French being the French, they might do their usual trick of pulling one fantastic performance out of nowhere.
P.S. More people watched the game in Cardiff on giant screens at the Millenium Stadium than were in the ground at Eden Park
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George's old house in Esher is a couple of miles away from me. It's been redeveloped but apparently still recognisable. I've been meaning to cycle over there one day for a look but haven't got around to it yet - it's away from my usual routes around Hampton Court and along The Thames. Also, the pub where John's long lost Dad was working when they finally met up is a few hundred yards from me.
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Agree about the French - Bobby Windsor played them 5 times and got his nose broken each time, but on their day - sublime. Several years ago Racing Club of Paris played in the French Cup Final all wearing pink bow ties and swilled a refreshing glass of champagne in the middle of he pitch at half time. And match days in the towns of south-west of France are great.
Definitely with you on the Wales - AB final. Enjoy the games. My Welsh female boss has been out there for 2 months. Shame Carter can't enjoy what should have been his moment. McCaw looking crocked too? Huge respect for that pair and the way they conduct themselves. Weepu may be the unexpected hero - enjoyed the way he stood up last weekend. We can Just enjoy being there and you can get the title that you have deserved for the last how many years - or maybe not ... :-)
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He loves it when an album comes together.
I like the moments when he tosses his maracas/tambourine over his shoulder randomly during the IATTBYH dissonance - as if anyone but him could hear it make a difference :-) But that attention to detail has come up trumps with TWL.
Seriously, very impressed (though the barnet needs some work).
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Nothing too interesting but here you go ...
Wilco's Jeff Tweedy talks 'Whole Love,' new labelby Chris Talbott - Oct. 11, 2011 11:04 AM
Associated Press
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- A couple of decades ago, a young tough Jeff Tweedy thought he was punk rock.
That's nothing compared to how out there the 44-year-old Wilco frontman and father of two feels these days.
"To be honest, at this age, I feel like what we're doing now is more punk rock than anything I could've pulled off during the conformity of punk rock," Tweedy said. "To me, growing up and being an adult playing rock music is almost revolutionary. I'm not talking about just getting older. I'm talking about acting like a mature person and advocating growing up, which gets a lot of bad ink as far as rock people go."
In a sense, Wilco's eighth studio album, "The Whole Love," represents the final step into complete rock 'n' roll adulthood -- true independence. They recently jettisoned their perfectly good record label and started their own, dBpm Records -- punk cred for the DIY initiative, for sure.
They rarely tour more than a few weeks at a time, carving out a private life that allows for children and wives and a life. While that doesn't sound very punk, in Tweedy's world view, it's as good as a tall blue mohawk and a pair of Dr. Martens.
"It's not something people want you to do," Tweedy said. "People want to have some sort of vicarious idea that you can stay irresponsible and immature forever."
"The Whole Love," which was released last month to generally strong reviews, debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200 albums chart with 82,000 copies sold. They finished off a U.S. tour last week that included two sold-out shows at The Ryman Auditorium in Nashville.
Tweedy was loose and in good humor in his hotel room during an interview, wearing a denim jacket and his trademark tousled hair. He was full of funny, self-deprecating stories and playfully feigned exasperation at the petty travails of life on the road.
"He's a lucky guy and he knows it," said Wilco manager Tony Margherita, who's been with Tweedy since he was part of the seminal alt-country band Uncle Tupelo. "(It) does generally feel like a pretty good family business, and that's a nice thing if you can do it on your own terms."
It's been that way a long time musically for Wilco, the band that famously fed at the same trough twice when it was dropped by Reprise over creative differences, then signed to sister imprint Nonesuch to release a milestone album. Even back then, they thought of leaving the traditional label paradigm.
"It's funny, I think even back on 'Yankee Hotel Foxtrot' when we were kicked off Reprise, it was pretty obvious what was going to happen," bass player John Stirratt said of their eventual decision to start their own label. "You could really see the writing on the wall. We thought, 'Gosh, should we try this now?' It was considered."
Instead, Wilco released four studio albums on Nonesuch, a label all genuinely respected. But when Tweedy, Stirratt and the other members of the Chicago-based band -- guitarist Nels Cline, drummer Glenn Kotche and multi-instrumentalists Pat Sansone and Mikael Jorgensen -- had the chance to break away, they took it. And it's been better than expected.
"We've had the feeling of freedom for a long time and certainly it seems like the freedom is really fun, because any sort of idea we have we can really follow up on it and sort of pursue," Stirratt said. "I think you, as the label, if you have the work ethic and everything, you're always going to do a better job for yourself than someone else is going to do. Frankly, we've already seen that the way this album has rolled out."
"The Whole Love" features a little bit of everything for the ever-opinionated Wilco audience. It starts with a two-song warning shot -- the seven-minute stuttering, jagged lope of impressionistic opener "Art of Almost" and the fuzzed-up attack of the delightfully obscure tone poem "I Might."
"We wanted to kick the door open and have people expect anything else to happen," Tweedy said. "And anything else kind of does happen."
The title track is a dadaist salute to (perhaps unrequited) love and the 12-minute album closer "One Sunday Morning" carries the stately gravitas of a biblical passage.
Tweedy and Stirratt think "The Whole Love" is the finest example of Wilco. Combined with the launch of the label, Tweedy said he and his bandmates have really achieved every goal they've ever had.
"But there's a much more elusive goal that I think takes a lot of work and I think is just valuable, and that's a goal to stay inspired," he said. "It's a goal to keep feeding this idea. That's kind of your job now, to stay into it, to not get jaded, to listen to young bands."
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Finally my copy arrived. Which bits have been messing with your mind in super stereo?
Right now I'm absolutely knocked out by all that's going on during Dawned On Me - castanets! The silky smooth transition from vocals to guitar at 1:46.
Love the 'flub' at 0:06 on I Might.
In general I'm loving the backing vocals that are a most welcome feature of the album.
More to follow as I listen, maybe.
P.S. Thanks for all the extra time at the coalface Mr. Sansone
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So far I've managed to find:-
Sunday 26 February 2012
Wilco Sunday 26 February 2012 Sentrum Scene
Oslo, Norway
Monday 27 February 2012
Wilco Monday 27 February 2012 Globens Annex
Stockholm, Sweden
Friday 2 March 2012
Wilco Friday 2 March 2012 Ancienne Belgique
Brussels, Belgium
--- Bit of a gap - maybe Paris/Souhern Germany?
Thursday 8 March 2012
Wilco Thursday 8 March 2012 Alcatraz
Milano, Milan, Italy
Friday 9 March 2012
Wilco Friday 9 March 2012 Estragon
Bologna, Italy
Sunday 11 March 2012
Wilco Sunday 11 March 2012 Aquarius
Zagreb, Croatia
... and if you feel like calling in to the UK again lads ...
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That's on this week, Wed & Thu nights, on HBO.
Any good?
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I support longer posts. Not saying I (will) agree with/read all of them, but I believe the board is a better place for more considered opinions, elongated explanations, personal 'features'/experiences, etc. i.e. kind of a blog to which the whole community can contribute 'articles' rather than being limited to one individual. There are lots of like minds brought together by some shared interests after all. Please continue. Byeee!
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Nope. I did not do that, but it was definitely moving. Wow.
Ah, sorry - though from what I have learnt here over the years you are a nice enough person that explains why I thought you might have. Take care.
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Hey Sarah - as the only Sarah from (near) Atlanta who is a Wilco fan that I know - did you do the Henry saw Wilco thing? It's on WilcoWorld - causes section. Good work!
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Yes. Still awaiting new stock according to Play.com - can only be a good indication for the band though I suppose that orders have exceeded their stock estimates. Between 3 and 5 days to go before I can slap on the cans and get the full headphones experience..
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I uued to write for this site when it was just starting (I was keen but out of my depth as far as being a full on muso was concerned - just lucky to know the couple of guys who started it - and we all met via Wilco/Via Chicago). It's obviously moved on to bigger and better things ...
“It was definitely chaotic”: TLOBF talks Yankee, Hotel, Foxtrot with Wilco’s Glenn KotcheBy Finbarr Bermingham on September 28, 2011
Glenn Kotche is a busy man, as you might expect from the 41st best drummer of all time, as decided by Gigwise in 2008. If he isn’t jugging drumsticks and tambourines, it’s a three-year-old and a one-year-old. (“Either way, my hands are always full…”) When The Line of Best Fit calls him at his Chicago home, he’s buzzing. Wilco, the band he’s been a member of for a decade, are about to release their eighth album, and their fifth with Kotche at the helm. The Whole Love was recorded in Wilco’s own studio, on Wilco’s own label. Things have come a long way since he joined in January 2001.
What unraveled shortly after he replaced Ken Coomer as Wilco’s drummer is a part of rock and roll folklore. Kotche had recently played alongside frontman Jeff Tweedy and multi-instrumentalist and producer Jim O’Rourke in Loose Fur. Tweedy encouraged both to join his band, hoping to replicate the sound of his side project, and allowed O’Rourke to have free reign over the production of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, the follow up to Summerteeth. O’Rourke’s inclusion led to a series of rows between Tweedy and Jay Bennett, the late, former guitarist, who was dismissed after the album was recorded. The band’s record label, Reprise, rejected the LP. Wilco were dropped, but retained the rights to the album, which they released through Nonesuch (ironically, like Reprise – a subsidiary of Warner Bros). The album’s recording was documented in I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, one of the greatest rock and roll movies ever made. The album, Wilco’s most successful, has gone on to become one of the most critically acclaimed of our lifetime.
Kotche’s memories are clear, if understated. “Yeah, it was definitely chaotic. The membership changes, the record label, the friction: it was pretty crazy, but in some respects, it was business as usual for me in that a lot of the bands I’d worked with at that point were troubled. Rarely do you find a perfectly healthy band that works really well together and all get along all the time. I remember just thinking that I would do my best and get the job done and hope things would turn out all right. Eventually, they did.”
“When I joined, they’d already recorded the record. I was brought in and redid all the drum parts, which made all the other parts a little different, so they were retracked and reconfigured. When Jim came in to mix it, though, he really turned things around. He stripped away layers and layers and layers. Man, did he do a job. People always say to me: ‘that must have been a crazy time?’ and I guess in some ways it was. Thankfully we’re in a better place now, though.”
Wilco have had the same line-up for six years; an unprecedented period of harmony. The band are growing old together, gracefully. Kotche thinks they’ve come to appreciate each other and to treasure their individual talents. “We have different musical personalities, for sure. Some of us are coming more from the left, some of us from a more traditional angle, but we all respect each other, meet in the middle and bring it to the band. We all have different side projects, so anytime we have a break, we go off and do our own things and when we reconvene we bring something from those experiences to the table.”
The dynamics of the band have changed, too. So much so, that they’re unrecognisable from the anxious figures portrayed in Sam Jones’ documentary. “Things have changed drastically since I joined the band,” Kotche says. “We’ve had membership changes and every time you have that, you have a completely different dynamic. This is the longest line-up we’ve had and there’s a certain comfort, but also trust that comes with that. There’s no asshole in the band. We all get along and really trust each other musically. This was the first record that I‘ve been a part of that there’s been no huge drama. There was no major event and we’re all the happier for that.”
The latest album, The Whole Love, is Wilco’s most challenging for a while. After the soothing, AM-friendly Sky Blue Sky and disappointment of the self-titled follow up, it’s good to have them back on form and Kotche says the recording of the album was the most enjoyable to date. “On this record,” he explains, “I get to hear a little better what I already knew about the guys in the band. I think there was a little more ambiguity or openness on this record. Jeff’s very generous and it’s obviously his band, but he listens to everyone and that’s how the songs have developed on this record.
“It’s different every time we get to the studio. On Sky Blue Sky, for example, we all made it together. The last time, a lot of the songs were finished when Jeff brought them in. We just fleshed out the arrangement. With this one, there’s a good balance. For certain tunes, Jeff had written lyrics and chord changes. We recorded it and then someone else had an idea, they wanted to try something different. Then I weighed in with a different drum pattern and the song was getting pulled all over the place. We just started over and redid the whole tune. There were a few tunes like that, where we flipped them upside down until we had something that resonated with us. We’re all super excited and happy with this one.”
If he isn’t recording or touring with Wilco, you might find Glenn popping up on an album by Phil Selway (Radiohead), Andrew Bird or Seven Worlds Collide (with the members of Crowded House and Split Enz). On the off chance, when he’s not performing as a member of Loose Fur or On Fillmore (another Wilco spin-off), he just might be composing jazz or classical music with Kronos Quartet or John Luther Adams, or penning essays on Steve Reich for Do It Yourself Percussion. He’s a chameleon of a percussionist, constantly flitting between projects. But Glenn Kotche, the conversationalist, is polite, measured and articulate. He’s happy to talk about any one of his endeavours and grateful that The Line Of Best Fit is able to hold its own in dialogue about them each.
Classically trained and intellectually motivated, he’s an anomaly in the hedonistic world of rock and roll tub-thumpers. He’s big enough to laugh at the irony of being sandwiched between Tommy Lee, from Mötley Crüe and D.J. Fontana, Elvis Presley’s sticksman, the world’s 40th and42nd best drummers, respectively. But right now, he has more important things to occupy his thoughts. Those nappies aren’t going to change themselves, you know.
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Yup, very excited the way the young guns are coming through. Llanelli's academy really producing the goods - great given that they were cash strapped and had no other option. Cardiff should have done the same and developed local talent.
In a couple of years this could be a great team - aan anything that happens now will be excellent experience to put in the bank for those times. Not too worried about Shane - Halfpenny has been in good form. Would even play him full back. Hook would be a nice option and I hope he recovers for the quarters but Priestland is doing a marvellous job.
Two great weekends of rugby coming up!
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Also apparrently Nick's dad's name is Drain,is that a common name for a bloke over there.
Err, no. :-)
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And if you can just indulge me a bit more, this is still one of my favourite duet songs, and as a UK teenager into New Wave at the time had some effect on starting my journey to Americana and beyond.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vV1bjfgr4U
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I know you can all search YouTube of your own accord, but just had to add this too. If only they could have operated as one entity at the time instead of all the enforced switching between Nick, Dave Edmunds & Rockpile.
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EDIT - SORRY, JUST SEEN THE OLDER THREAD FROM LAST WEEK
This is fantastic - many many great facts e.g. late for his own wedding because of a bet on a boxing match
Used to like Carlene back in the day.
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It got Exclaim's seal of approval! Plus a nice little interview with Jeff.
Little isn't the word - that goes on and on. Nie one - thanks.
Raccoonista
"And generally, once we have the title, we don't need any other words because the Raccoonists have a very strict "No words" policy. It only allows for titles and maybe slogans here and there."
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Blimey, they're everywhere. Is there no refuge from this media blitz?
http://www.billboard...005373072.story
Wilco's Jeff Tweedy on 'The Whole Love,' Diva Moments & Pompous Journosby Jillian Mapes, N.Y. | September 27, 2011 5:30 EDT
There's something about Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy that suggests that, generally speaking, he does what he pleases. In recent years, this includes starting Wilco's own record label (dBpm) and music festival (Solid Sound), and oddly enough, covering the Black Eyed Peas. One day he's giving major labels their just due ("I wouldn't be who I am without a major label, I really wouldn't," he tells us) while swiftly bashing the sort of rock writers who have long-championed his band's signature style of alt-rock meets Americana.
But nearly a decade ago, Wilco devotees watched -- mouths agape -- as the band's major label released them from their contract, set off by concerns about how they could market a "difficult album" like band's completed work, "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot." The album stuck it to the proverbial man, going on to become Wilco's best-selling (674,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan) and most beloved album to date. As chronicled in Sam Jones' griping documentary "I Am Trying To Break your Heart," which chronicles this strange personal and professional limbo in Wilco's history, the band took "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" to Nonesuch Records, which remained their label until the recent founding of dBpm. The extraordinary punchline, however, was that the album was passed from one Warner Music Group-owned label to another, earning team Wilco twice the paycheck -- and sending a signal this is not a band to mess with. "I think 'Yankee Hotel Foxtrot' and the movie 'I Am Trying To Break Your Heart' made everybody pretty gun shy about saying anything to Wilco about what our records should sound like," Tweedy admits with a chuckle.
Yet the band's eighth album "The Whole Love," out today (Sept. 27), marks a turning point for the band, particularly in a business sense. Out on their own in the label sense, yes, but Tweedy explains to Billboard.com that Wilco's been working toward this moment for ten years. Tweedy's other topics of choice include the band's diva moments (or lack thereof), how "The Whole Love" reminds him of a certain Woody Allen film, and possible "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" reissue ideas.
Wilco certainly has a varied discography, and to me, "The Whole Love" sounds like Wilco but doesn't really sound like any specific previous record. Where do you see it as fitting in with your discography?
Tweedy: I can't think about things in any other way than "this is the best we can do right now." We really had a great time making this record. Wilco's really process driven and enjoys the touring, so that really makes it almost impossible for me to see it from any sort of long-term career perspective. I agree that it sounds like Wilco somehow; I don't really know what that means but it sounds familiar to me. And at the same time, I do feel like it's a pretty fresh-sounding record and doesn't have a whole lot of direct references to exactly what we've been doing on other records. I'm glad you said that, though. One interview I did last night, the guy told me, "You know, I got bad news for you -- you really f*cked up in naming this record." And I'm like, "Why's that?" He says, "It should be called 'Wilco (The Album), II.'" And I said, "Why would you say that?" And he was like, "Cause every Hollywood executive knows that you gotta name the sequel '2' so people know…" And I said, "But you're taking that totally out of context." You'd have to have a hit with the first record for that to make any sense." But it was really, really condescending. I was kind of shocked by it.
You know, there's a certain strain of journalists that think that if they're really confrontational and rude, you will take that as them being honest, and respect them more. And I don't want journalists to be honest with me when I'm talking to them; I want them to lie to me and tell me how great my f*cking record is! Or don't talk to me -- that's fine too [laughs].
You have a courtesy to play our game, and we have a courtesy to play yours. Plus I have to say, [seven-minute opening track] "Art of Almost" feels like such a change from "Wilco (The Album)." I was really pleased to see you guys return to a long-form jam in places on this record. Was that was a conscious decision?
Not really. Every song is approached with the same sort of curiosity as to what its shape is ultimately going to work best. Some things seem like they get in and get out and make their point, and other things seem like they open up a lot of doors musically.
It reminds me of Max von Sydow's character [Frederick] in "Hannah And Her Sisters." He's a grumpy old artist, and he says, "I will not sell my art by the yard," because the rock star is coming to his studio to try to buy a painting and he wants something really big cause he has a really big sofa.
"The Whole Love" is the first record on your newly-formed label, dBpm [short for Decibals Per Minute]. Has it been a challenge starting the label with Tony [Margherita, Wilco's longtime manager] located in Massachusetts and the band based in Chicago?
I don't have any real interest in being a label executive [laughs] -- that's just not my role. And the way things are with modern technology, it's pretty easy to stay abreast of things that I need to know about. But for the most part, it's really good for us to delegate and trust the people we work with, especially people that we've worked with forever who do our bidding.
Tony Margherita is such an extension of Wilco. It's almost like Brian Epstein/Beatles situation, where he's forever tied to you in the minds of a lot of fans.
It's very fortunate, for me and for Wilco, to have had such a long and just overwhelmingly positive relationship with a manager when it's very rare for people to even have their first manager, or one manager a year even [laughs]. Tony and I met when I was very young and he was my manager at the record store I worked, Euclid Records in St. Louis. He helped Uncle Tupelo send out a bunch of cassettes to labels, and took one trip with us in our van that was a death trap, then helped us buy a new van. Tony's been an all-around true believer, altruistic guy for a long time.
In "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" [documentary chronicling the recording of "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot"], Tony essentially says, "What's the value of a label when we can tour to make money for a record that we can put out ourselves, and our fans will get it and we'll tour more?" Was that idea behind creating your own label instead of staying with Nonesuch, a label you appeared to have had a positive relationship since your fallout with Reprise Records?
It's been an idea for as long as… how long ago was that [the filming of "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart"]? Ten years ago? In that time, technology has helped make that more of a possibility. Certainly we worked to become more self-sufficient in handling the tasks that would be traditionally handled by a record company. Our record deal ended without a whole lot of fanfare, to be honest. There wasn't a whole lot of negotiating with Nonesuch at the end of the deal. I was somewhat surprised by it, but I guess they realized that we weren't going to be that interested in any traditional arrangement, and so it just never got very far with them. Once our deal was up, we looked around a little bit to see if there was a situation where we could kind of do what we've been doing but maybe have the business side of things - most specifically, having the percentages reflect the actual division of labor on our side. And most of the labels, as you can imagine, just don't see it that way.
I think to their credit, I think Anti- [dBpm's distributing label] didn't necessarily see it that way, but saw that there was opportunity to have something as opposed to nothing in a relationship with a band that has a lot of ability to take care of itself. We have our own label, Anti- certainly has a lot of resources that we're able to utilize, and so far it feels like the way things have always worked, or at least have worked for the last four to five years for us, except that there's a lot less bureaucracy and a lot less red tape for us, and a lot more direct communication, which I think is just going to be grand [Laughs]
Wilco recently hit the road behind "The Whole Love," and you guys have quite a bit of new and interesting merch for sale on the tour. Some of your more unconventional merch -- like the Wilco bike, Wilco pet garb, or the Wilco coffee - how does that come about?
I'm actually not a coffee drinker. The Wilco coffee thing came about because Intelligentsia is here in Chicago and John [stirratt, bassist] and Pat [sansone, multi-instrumentalist] are big fans, and they made some connections. It was kind of a surprise to me that we had Wilco coffee. It's more a collaboration with a local business that we feel is doing something cool, rather than straight-up merch. Some people think it's kind of weird, but I think it's kind of fun for us to reach out to other people doing stuff that we like and seeing if there's any way that our worlds connect. And for the most part I think it's been pretty successful.
Try to be creative about how you run your business, be creative about how you tour. I feel like we're even creative about [laughs] -- I'm really blowing our own horn here -- but our hiring. I like not having a whole crew made up of guys wearing goofy fannypacks and official t-shirts. Our band has real connections with our crew guys. Most of them have really great talents outside of just being a guy on stage as a crew guy.
You know, I don't think Kanye West probably hangs out with his crew too much. I could be completely wrong about that, but I would imagine at that level, it's probably much more frequent for people to have the no eye contact clause [laughs]. And I just can't imagine that being very fun. I just don't think that I would enjoy it to be that isolated and that exalted in my milieu, like I'm some sort of Queen Bee or something.
Wilco doesn't ever have diva moments?
Not usually. You could probably find moments where you'd probably get crew members that call me Elvis here and there, but I don't think so. Honestly, all joking aside, I just don't look at it like that at all. Obviously I'm treated differently and the band is treated differently because the venues treat us differently, but the way we are on our days off is pretty much as egalitarian as you can get.
One final thing. You made "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" ten years ago, and it remains Wilco's most successful album to date. Have you discussed any sort of reissue including material that didn't make the cut? Anything you'd want to revisit?
That is sort of a recent trend, isn't it? I think that there's enough stuff there that it might be kind of a cool thing, and it has been discussed a little bit. There's a whole other version of the record, like an earlier rough-mixed version of a lot of the songs that's been circulating, bootleg-style, for a long time. It would be nice to maybe have it be all in one place a little bit more officially, but there hasn't been any specific plan put in place as of yet. It's likely to happen at some point.
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I'm surprised by how many reviews are coming in. I generally don't read reviews and I haven't read any of the ones posted here but it seems like there is a hell of a lot media writing about Wilco. I've always found it hard to gauge how big Wilco is around the world. Does this seem like the normal level for a Wilco release or are they reaching a wider audience this time around?
Seems like more than usual to me - maybe the band mamber themselves are more inclined to give their time for soundbites etc. given that they're totally working for themselves with their own label now.
Meanwhile ...
Drowned In Sound 7 / 10
http://drownedinsound.com/releases/16532/reviews/4143654
Wilcoby Aaron Lavery 09:05 September 27th, 2011
It’s common to talk of constant change when it comes to Wilco, and for a while it was a tried and trusted catch-all comment to make. Constant line-up changes and stylistic jumps meant that from debut A.M. to 2004’s A Ghost Is Born, fans could expect something different from each new Wilco record. Gritty country-rock? Dark avant-pop? Rattling state-of-the-nation experimentation? You can direct people towards whatever Wilco release will float their boat.
Since A Ghost Is Born however, the pace of change has slowed somewhat. With a constant line up in place, 2007’s Sky Blue Sky and 2009’s Wilco (The Album) have had their own identity, but were united by a more relaxed, composed musical direction. Some fans, particularly those who had fallen strongly for the group’s more ambitious middle records, were perplexed by songs about fixing washing machines that took musical inspiration from George Harrison rather than Neu! Others simply put it down to a band, and in particular a frontman, who had settled on a personal level, and was now simply trying to enjoy himself whilst still pushing gently on his musical boundaries.
The Whole Love finds that man, Jeff Tweedy, still attempting to do so, but also recognising that he has surrounded himself with a band expertly poised to bring his creations to life, and to shake up such a mixture could spoil the flavour.
This version of Wilco can certainly do the left-field thing well. Opener ‘Art Of Almost’ is probably the closest the band have ever got to the strange American Radiohead tag that dogged them around the time of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Opening on a glitchy beat and a surge of strings, it then slinks along around Tweedy’s confessional lyric and John Stirratt’s prodding bass line. Twice the song descends into some ambient flutters before it finally surges into the final straight of pounding drums and Nels Cline’s furiously intricate guitar.
That they follow it up with the smart pop of ‘I Might’ captures a lot of what Wilco are about on The Whole Love. They’ve dabbled with something, proved that they can polish something off as well as anyone, and are already on to the next thing.
‘I Might’, with its insistent rhythm and chirping Hammond, is exactly what should be placed in a time capsule to describe power-pop: maddingly catchy, well-crafted, and destined to never trouble a pop-chart in its lifetime. As an opening duo, these two tracks take some beating, setting up The Whole Love to be the riposte to those who say that Wilco don’t have anything interesting left to say.
That it doesn’t go on to do this isn’t to say that The Whole Love descends into blandness. It’s just that after bringing such elements directly to the surface, they then allow the more frayed edges of their sound to disappear back below the surface. Take ‘Black Moon’, an acoustic strum that builds a fair amount of dread throughout its four minutes, Tweedy’s sparse croon joined by pedal steel and strings as a mounting tension builds…before drifting off into the sunset. It’s a beautiful track, and proof that sometimes a sketch can be just as affecting as an oil painting.
Truthfully, just like on their previous two albums, there are a few tracks that in lesser hands would be filler, but here have enough interesting elements to make them worth return listens. ‘Born Alone’, for instance, trundles along until it disregards any notion of a chorus in favour of a burst of shiny noise. ‘Capital City’ is one of Tweedy’s rare (and not always welcome) excursions into what could be deemed show tune territory – you could imagine someone kicking a leg and doing some serious jazz hands as they belt it out. However, the remaining five Wilcoers seem to have taking it as a chance to indulge in all sorts of musical meandering behind their singer, giving it more of the edge of the circus than the West End.
It’s not until The Whole Love’s final track that something else distinctly out of the ordinary appears, in the shape of the beautifully languid ‘One Sunday Morning (Song For Jane Smiley’s Boyfriend)’. Tweedy should write some more tracks for people’s paramours if they turn out as gorgeous as this 12 minute shuffle. With a folksy refrain and Tweedy’s spare narrative tying the track together, flourishes of piano and spindly guitar runs flesh out the track and stretch its legs.
A harsh take on The Whole Love might say that there’s just three tracks worth pulling out of this record, but that’d be wrong. Just like Sky Blue Sky and Wilco (The Album), there’s songs that are more ambitious and some that are more successful, but all of them fit as a cohesive whole, just as on every Wilco album so far. Like its two predecessors, The Whole Love has been made entirely by the six middle aged men who currently play a part in Wilco, and it’s an accurate reflection of their talents. For them to attempt anything else would be a lie.
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http://arts.nationalpost.com/2011/09/26/parsing-the-‘entity-that-is-wilco’/
"Can I have a sip? … Oh, that’s incredible. That’s flavour! That’s flavour!”
Sansone, standing up, reminds him, “We got a strict sound check.”
The band’s publicist pipes up: “I don’t want Jeff on my ass!”
Says Sansone: “No one does.”
Amen to that.
Official reviews of The Whole Love
in Just A Fan
Posted
Americana UK. 8 / 10
http://www.americana-uk.com/cd-reviews/item/wilco-the-whole-love-dbpm-records-2011?category_id=175