King oscar

"More to come"

Perhaps in a book of your adventures...

I know a fellow traveler and recovery lawyer, a profound and prolific writer, who may be coaxed into such a literary adventure....

Happy birthday and thank you for the field reports! 

Thanks, bbop.  Good to hear about Jeff!

43 minutes ago, bböp said:

About halfway through the second of four sold-out shows at the venerable Largo at the Coronet Theatre — which, incidentally, is located at 366 N. La Cienega Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90048, USA; GPS coordinates: 34° 4' 40.548'' N, 118° 22' 34.032'' W — Jeff paid his longest visit to Banter Corner for the evening in response to an audience member's request for the song I'll Fight and a few other requests that were subsequently yelled out. At first, Jeff suggested — in a nod to the chaos that has transpired in the U.S. House of Representatives this week as it attempted to elect a new Speaker — that each person with a request should raise their hands, ask for some time, be given the floor and make a speech in defense of their request.

 

Then almost as quickly, he changed his mind, reconsidered his idea and decided to reclaim control of the show. "Let's face it," Jeff said, drily, "the only people who have a request loaded up and ready to go are people who have a need for a very specific song for a very specific reason and (this) is the only way to keep me from playing requests that are dogshit." He went on to try and reiterate a point that he had made the previous night, which is that during this point in a recording cycle when he has recently been in the studio working on new material, he often could not remember many of his older songs off the top of his head. "I have reached a threshold of songs that  I can remember, and it's a fucking lot. I think I have an aptitude for remembering songs," but want to be transparent about not playing certain requests or messing up some songs.

 

That dynamic made for an interesting show on Night 2, when nearly half the setlist (nine of 20 tunes) was comprised of either material from Wilco's most recent album, Cruel Country and new and/or unreleased songs. The upside was that apart from one of those new/unreleased songs, the wrenching Having A Hard Time, and a cover of Fleetwood Mac's Little Lies that likely only came about because someone in the front row gave Jeff a 7-inch record with that song on it as a gift for his jukebox and Jeff decided to thank him by playing it again, the rest of the set featured no other repeated songs from Night 1.

 

Of the new/unreleased material, both the show-opening Say I Love You Again and Infinite Surprise were played more than once on The Tweedy Show and of course we heard the debut of Having A Hard Time the previous night, so the only new, new song — I'm pretty sure — was one that I'll call Evicted From Your Heart (though I'm usually terrible at guessing what actual song titles end up being). This was, to my ears, almost a power-poppish tune with a catchy chorus that featured the lyric "I'm evicted from your heart/I deserve it," and in which the narrator asks "Am I ever gonna see you again?"

 

Following the repeat performance of Having A Hard Time in the first encore, it wasn't immediately clear whether or not Jeff would even come back out for a second encore. After the main set, he had sort of peeked out from behind one of the stage curtains before returning to the stage and remarking, "Admit it, it would be pretty cool if I just didn't come back," before confessing, "I don't have that kind of fortitude." But a second encore was even less assured than the first. Fortunately for the audience, Jeff didn't take too long to re-emerge again and close out what had been a fairly sedate set with a couple of crowd pleasers to restore some proverbial balance to the Force. (During the show-closing I Got You (At The End Of The Century), I couldn't help but think how cool it would have been if the comedian/musician Fred Armisen, who performed an unannounced 20-minute opening set of musically inclined jokes with an electric guitar, suddenly burst through the doors at the side of the theater and started windmilling. Or something.)

 

Actually it was one of Armisen's bits about how guitar players were cheating by using capos, which he called a crutch, that provided a couple of other quick visits to Banter Corner by Jeff. In his first real comments of the show, five songs in, he noted how he had already "played a bunch of songs without a capo." And later, during his aforementioned lengthy chat with the audience, Jeff shared, "I told Fred I was gonna play the entire show without a capo just to fuck with his joke, but I need a crutch."

 

I'm no guitar player, but Jeff certainly didn't seem like he needed too much assistance on what were a couple of personal highlights of this Night 2 set. There was the unexpected and rarely played Venus Stopped The Train, a Yankee Hotel Foxtrot outtake that Jeff wrote about in detail on his Substack a few months back. After learning some of the real inspirations behind the song, which was always pretty devastating anyway, it made it even more intense to hear it played tonight. Also in that category was an almost equally rare solo performance of Everlasting Everything, which Jeff also discussed on his Substack a couple of months ago. That's another tune I don't expect to get tired of hearing anytime soon, even though it is not exactly a barn burner.

 

Of course, not everyone got what they wanted to hear during the just-shy-of-90-minutes duration of Jeff's set tonight. What, you might ask, ever became of the gentleman who had requested I'll Fight and kicked off what turned out to be a prolonged set of remarks by his troubadourial tormentor? Well, after an extended visit to Banter Corner by Jeff, the requester had the cojones (or was it simply determination?) to raise his voice and firmly ask for I'll Fight a second time.

 

An amused Jeff, after reclaiming the floor, asked if the man had been in attendance the previous night. He replied that he had been, and confirmed he had also requested I'll Fight then. Jeff continued, asking if he would be at the show the following night and the night after that. (Yes, and yes.) Finally, Jeff relented and conceded that, "I'll maybe play that song Sunday." Something tells me that the gentleman's persistence might eventually pay off. We shall see. If that doesn't keep you tuning in to these proceedings — and I know a certain A. Tatlock will surely be waiting with bated breath — then I don't know what else would.

 

Here was the complete setlist, as played, for Night 2 at Largo (2023 edition):

 

new song-Say I Love You Again

I Know What It's Like

new song-Evicted From Your Heart

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

Venus Stopped The Train

Ambulance

Via Chicago (w/harmonica)

Even I Can See

One Sunday Morning (Song For Jane Smiley's Boyfriend)

Hearts Hard To Find

Please Be Wrong

Everlasting Everything

new song-Infinite Surprise

Falling Apart (Right Now)

-------------------------------------------

Little Lies [Fleetwood Mac]

California Stars

A Lifetime To Find

new song-Having A Hard Time

-------------------------------------------

Pecan Pie

I Got You (At The End Of The Century)

Thank you for the entertaining summary.  

Dear Chief Scribe:  Baseball writers often travel with the major league team they are covering.  Wilco certainly is the major leagues. Therefore, they should find a seat for you on the team bus!  

Thanks for the updates bbop.  I like them even when I see the show live or via live feed.  I really like them when I cannot attend the show!  Its been cool to see the Tweedy band come together and I look forward to more adventures!  

So true!

5 hours ago, SleepThinkers said:

 

My pet already has a name and a pedigree name, however I think a Tweedy name is needed. Incidentally, my other half wanted to call him Jeff Tweedy as Gilmore Girls/Paul Anker reference...

Our dog's Tweedy name is now Daphne.

I am out of the loop on Jeff's world renown pet naming services.  Please fill me in.  

1 hour ago, ZiggyBratwurst said:

 

Wally Pipp lost his job to Lou Gehrig.

Thanks everybody.

(I don't know what or who Wally Pipp'd is, but as I said, I'm glad to help when needed.)

Thank you, Paul and Vince, for the notes!  

The Tweedy Show Monday August 24 Episode 88

 

# animated intro on screen

-- Jeff mentions that today is his birthday eve

-- Jeff sings a bit of The Cramps' I Was A Teenage Werewolf for Sheba's birthday

-- Jeff strums a bit of Sunken Treasure

Sunken Treasure (w Spencer on drums. For Jenny's birthday)

-- Susie mentions that Jeff wrote the foreword for a picture book coming out: Gregory Crewdson's An Eclipse Of Moths.

-- Susie mentions that the face masks came in today & Spencer shows off the face mask plus the cool packaging

Natural Disaster (w Spencer on backing vocals)

-- Susie chastises Jeff for putting on work boots without socks after taking a bath

-- Spencer tells a story about Cher who wants to save the post office by working there to help out. This leads to Jeff singing a bit of the chorus to Cher's If I Could Turn Back Time

You Are Not Alone (Mavis Staples cover w Spencer on backing vocals)

-- Jeff talks a bit about Justin Townes Earle

-- Jeff kids around that they should stop the show at 100 episodes

-- Jeff's watch has an episode

I Have Always Been Here (Roky Erickson cover sung by Sammy. For Ohenia's birthday)

-- Jeff says that vagina has been said on The Tweedy Show more than the Dr. Ruth show and that someone probably has a spreadsheet of that info

Little Hands (Alexander “Skip” Spence cover sung by Sammy w Spencer on drums)

Revolution (The Beatles cover sung by Sammy w Spencer on drums & backing vocals)

-- Susie mentions that YouTube cut off the audio the last time Revolution played over the jukebox

Tugboat (Galaxie 500 cover sung by Sammy w Spencer on drums)

-- Spencer & Jeff have something to say about the shooting of Jacob Blake by Wisconsin police

Reincarnation (Roger Miller cover)

Kudos to Sean for the masks and the tear-away, post-card packaging.

What Are They Doing in Heaven

Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow

Thx bbop. I appreciate your updates.  

I care and am grateful for the reports.  Thank you.  Happy Happy.  

Love the updates.  Thank to both you.

Love these updates!

Thank you.

Top Notch.  Thanks.