gabepride

saw both Richmond and Bethesda the next night and the acoustic set and the segue into and out of was sweet both times, with different songs in Bethesda - Reservations into Spiders (which is so cool acoustic! who'da thunk?) and Passenger Side last acoustic into Airline to Heaven electric.

Highlight for me of the acoustic set at Richmond was How to Fight Loneliness, it was sublime, kind of a bossa nova vibe.

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 play it. I loved every second.

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.

gabe do tell us how you got your info

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.

Source?

Is the official announcement good enough?

?

Meaning this is happening.

I've only been to the National once (Of Montreal) but it sounded great, and really seemed like a wonderful venue. And it's general admission, always a plus.

Wilco. The National. March.

that said, Beulah >>>>> The Shins, so there's that.

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 reverse reverb and the rest of the 80s hair metal production tics helped immensely, although I wish they had kept the compression and dynamic levels of the original release.

Binaural I like a lot. It takes me back to a very specific time and place, my senior year of high school. I got it the day of release at the now-defunct Blue Dog in Fredericksburg, VA. My gf and I tore into the packaging and checked out the artwork in the car. I was a little disappointed in the art, but I still remember the feeling of excitement. Of the Girl and Insignificance were early favorites. I saw Pearl Jam live for the first time in 2000, as a high school graduation gift.

Riot Act I liked for a few weeks in 2002, before the new album excitement wore off. I tried to convince my Pitchfork-reading college roommate that it was a great album and PJ was a great band, but he was having none of it. On sober reflection, he was right, about the album at least. I never got into the self-titled album, and saw the band only once in 2006, despite having seen them several times on their 2003 tour. My interest was waning. Backspacer I like more, but I saw the band last summer at their first MSG show and just didn't have a good time. That was the best I've seen them play, with the best singalong crowd and everything, but I just wasn't into it anymore. I'm not going to see them on this tour, and doubt I will next year when they come around again.

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.

I ordered the new Summerteeth LP from Amazon, only to discover that the 1st track skips right out of the package.

 

I sent it back and got a new copy. The new copy skips in the exact same spot. I looked at it and there are no scratches whatsoever. However, upon closer examination, it looks like the left and right sides of the groove are fused together at the place where it skips. The entire rest of the album is fine. Bummer!

 

Anyone else having similar problems? If not, does anyone want to trade for my extremely rare defective copy?

 

I called WB today; I guess they're going to email me with a response. Was just wondering if anyone else was having the same problem.

 

P.S. If you have yet to buy it, you might want to choose somewhere other than Amazon. They may have a bad batch, while other places may have non-defective copies. I'll post my response from WB when I get it.

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 might want to open the box before you leave the store to make sure there's a belt in there.

Sorry, I missed that you already got a replacement. But yeah, if I remember correctly, the belt comes wrapped around the bottom of the platter.

how do the songs break down by side, ie which songs are on which sides?

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.

Meh. I'm not at all picky with records, and I really only buy vinyl if I see interesting looking albums for cheap prices. I've had no complaints with Plan 9.

 

Does this place on Robinson sell CDs as well? They are still the large majority of my music purchases these days.

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.

Hmm. I will have to check that place out once I move back to Richmond. Other than Plan 9, and this tiny place on Pine St, I haven't been to any other record stores in Richmond. This Robinson St one sounds promising, though. How affordable is it overall?

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.

He could very well have meant it that way in the context of the show, but I think the more apt interpretation is the one about leaves/flags/rebirth that shanerator mentioned. In my opinion, at least.

 

I've always thought the song was much more self-absorbed than it was about any sort of social commentary; the American culture artifacts that he references in the lyrics see to be happening around him more than defining him. He's looking for rebirth, and he seems to be doing so on account of a profound emptiness, but I don't think that emptiness is directly related to the artifacts or flag-burning or American culture.

 

The whole song is very subtle, and I've never really tried to take it literally because I doubt that's how it was intended to be read. Very impressionistic.

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 colored by the political context.

On a related note, at the Charlottesville screening I had the chance to ask Brandon Canty to comment on the theme of the decay of the American downtown and how it relates to the song. He said the band really wanted to talk about it. He said this is what America looks like now, and anyone who's been on the road over the last 20-30 years knows it. He said the "dirty little secret" of the DVD is that it's presented in reverse chronological order (a secret the members of this board already knew). They filmed that soundcheck performance of Ashes last minute as an afterthought, and included it as the opening shot because it provided a nice frame for the film musically and thematically. The camera lingers on the portraits of all the old country greats to highlight the history of these performance halls and to root the band temporally and geographically in a space that in many towns is disappearing.

oh, btw, for those who want to buy it on the cheap or check it out cheaply and legally, it's the Amazon mp3 deal of the day today and is only $3.99

$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.

If you're streaming a track and decide to play a different track, the app doesn't seem to respond to the request.

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.

Does anyone have the Dr. Dog 2007 live Bonaroo tracks that itunes offered? I've been looking for that album but can't find it anywhere. I bought them and had it in my itunes Library, but for some reason, out of the blue, I couldn't play it anymore. Then about a month ago my hardrive crashed and now I lost them for good! If anyone is willing to help me out- I'd really appreciate it!!

If you call up iTunes and tell them what happened, chances are good they'll let you re-download.