gabepride

I always chuckle when I see the phrase "audiophile-quality MP3." As George Carlin said, "That's like 'military intelligence,' man. The words don't go together."

Actually, the Spiders you heard at Richmond was pretty close to the original version of the song, which was first played live in 2001 and featured prominently in Wilco's sets in 2002. It was the first song played at my first Wilco concert, 10/14/02 at the 9:30 club. Check out http://wilcoarchive.com/wilco%2020020427/ for what is pretty widely considered one of the best recorded instances of the original version, from 04/27/02. Agreed that How to Fight Loneliness was sublime in Richmond. It was my 10th Wilco show (12th, counting Jeff Tweedy solo shows), but only the first time I've seen them

I'm not a John Mayer fan myself, but I saw him live for $4 when I was in college, and that motherfucker can play guitar. He's really a hell of a blues guitarist.

A friend of a friend. Double hearsay is generally considered pretty unreliable, I guess, but my source had previously told me about Elvis Costello coming to The National before that was announced, so I thought the Wilco rumor was reliable. And thankfully, it was.

Is the official announcement good enough?

Meaning this is happening.

Wilco. The National. March.

No doubt. The Coast Is Never Clear and Yoko should've been strong contenders for this Pitchfork list (although Yoko is kind of a second-rate YHF, I still really like it). And while I'm whining about albums left off the list, how about The Apples in Stereo's New Magnetic Wonder, or either High Water Marks album?

My PJ album ranking: 1. Yield 1. No Code (tie) 3. Vs. 3. Vitalogy (tie) 5. Ten 6. Binaural 7. Backspacer 8. s/t 9. Riot Act Yield and No Code are interchangeable for me, at the top spot. I like Jack Irons on the drums and Vedder's lyrics introspective. Vs. is next, and it stands up remarkably today. But some days I like Vitalogy just as much, so I'm gonna call that a tie. Ten is next. The production on it is horrible, I'm tired of the songs on it, but there's no doubt it's a classic. The reissue and the Rock Band release helped rekindle the flame for me a little bit. Getting rid of the rev

Crapduster? LOL.

Yeah, I've seen Being There on vinyl in stores several times, and picked up a copy for myself not too long ago. But I'll be buying the 180-gram reissue for the better sound quality, and selling my used copy. If anyone on here wants it, send me a PM.

Yep, 'Can't Stand It' skipped the first time I played it. I've played it twice more since, and it hasn't skipped again. Have you tried playing it two or three times?

I have that Sony player. Did you look at the bottom of the platter? The belt should be wrapped around it. If it is, then line up the cut-out in the platter with the gold knob on the upper left of the player. Reach through the cut-out in the platter, grab the belt, and wrap it around the knob. Then you're all set. On the other hand, if the belt is not wrapped around the platter, and it was nowhere else to be found in the packaging, then it didn't come with one. Sony could send you a replacement belt, or you could take it back to the store for an exchange. If you opt for the exchange, you migh

Side 1 includes Wilco (the song) through You Never Know. Side 2 includes the rest.

This sounds way, way better on vinyl than on CD. Holy crap.

Nope, no CDs at all.

In my experience, it's hard to find good vinyl at Plan 9. The guy who used to buy their used vinyl off people now runs this new place on Robinson. I'm based in Charlottesville, and the vinyl selection at the Plan 9 out here is just pathetic.

It varies with quality and rarity. He doesn't sell stuff that skips, not even in the dollar bin. The Joni I got sounds great, for a dollar. The Bowie I got is new, virgin vinyl for $20. They had a bunch of Who stuff between three and nine bucks--and on the nine bucks end, they were U.K or Japanese pressings of Who's Next, for example. You can find cheaper stuff at other record stores for sure, but it was all reasonable, and they have a great selection of stuff I actually want to buy, which is more than I can say for Plan 9's basement on Cary St.

I went to the store in Richmond mentioned upthread. Deep Groove Vinyl, at 317 N. Robinson. Lots of great stuff. I picked up David Bowie's Aladdin Sane and Joni Mitchell's The Hissing of Summer Lawns, the latter for only a dollar. They also have a bunch of rare Hendrix, for those of you who mentioned you were looking for some of that.

Of course, there are many ways to interpret any piece of music, and no one has the "correct" interpretation. I hope my post above didn't seem narrow minded. But if the question is, "Has Jeff said anything about what it means?" then the answer is yes; he said it's in favor of flag burning as an act of protest. He was only talking about that one lyric. The song as a whole is about much more, for certain. Also, it's possible that his own understanding of what that lyric meant was different when he wrote it, or has changed since late fall 2004. I don't doubt that his view on it at the time was col

$3.99 is good enough to make me jump! Listening now. . . .

That speech he gave about flag burning came during one of the California shows from November 2004. He was very clearly bummed about the Bush re-election. He says during one of those shows, "Don't mourn; organize." There's no two ways to interpret what he said about Ashes of American Flags, particularly the lyric in question. It's about praising the act of flag burning, not as a means of properly disposing of a fallen or tattered flag, but as an act of political protest.

Greg, did you ever name that store in Richmond? Apologies if I missed it. Consider me another vinyl disciple. Today I tried to listen to an mp3 of Sleater-Kinney's Light-Rail Coyote. It was a VBR mp3 encoded with the LAME plug-in on EAC, which at the time was pretty much the height of mp3 encoding. But it was utterly unlistenable through my Sennheiser HD555s. Too tinny--the cymbals especially. It sounded like I was listening through a tin can connected with string to another tin can. I threw on the vinyl copy and had a much nicer experience.

The same thing happened here. A minor problem for those of us who have all these tracks on our iPhones already, but still a bug that Smartley-Dunn will want to fix.

Mine crashes every time I hit the back button to return to the previous menu. But no, it's not just the website. It allows you to stream every song from the studio releases, and the Ashes audio files. Unless the website does that too, and I just never noticed.