jff

18 hours ago, kidsmoke said:

Jeff, I hope your doggo's reports come back as benign or at least treatable! It's so emotionally hard when a pet is suffering.

Does your wife feel ready to re-engage in person at her jobsite? I think we've all gone a bit feral in the past year and a half! Good luck to her.

Last night's show was flat-out charming! I don't use that word for much but it totally fits here. Pat and Glenn were relaxed and enjoying themselves. Agreed on Pat's musical skills! His mouth trumpet rawks! 😄

Thank you.  I feel like I've been grieving over the last year, noticing her getting older and slower and having a bad day every now and then.  I wish I could set that aside and just enjoy the time we have with her with no distractions or conflicted feelings.     

Neither me nor my wife are ready to reengage.  I'll have to go back in a couple weeks, and I'm not looking forward to it at all.  There's no part of my job that I can't do 100% satisfactorily from home.   Our workplace is very old fashioned, almost military-like, and does not value flexibility for its employees, so it's going to be a tough and somewhat demoralizing transition.

What luck to have tuned in last night! I've only watched a few of these shows, and never an entre episode.  I tuned in just in time for How to Fight Lonliness.  

I really needed something like that to wrap up the weekend.  Today is "telework is over" day for my wife, and I had to take my dog in for cancer testing this morning, so I was feeling pretty sad about a number of things last night.  These performances and all the silly banter did a god job parting the clouds.  

On 5/28/2021 at 3:02 PM, suites said:

Anyone know how to get on a list for upgrades, in case anyone cancels?

 

Cloud 9 customer service can provide you the upgrade request link via the portal you used to order your package.  

1 hour ago, dagwave said:

Can’t Wait!
There were off site daily morning excursions/ tours subject to “reservations” and additional fees plus an event for Positive Legacy doing environmental clean up with Jeff. Should be announced later I’m thinking. 

 

Many non- alcoholic offerings from very skilled bartending crews across the resort.  Also saw a sign for recovery meetings on resort- Hard Rock should have info.

 

Pumped (more pumped) to see Ms. Mavis added to the fun!!!

Thanks, that is good to hear.   I know my wife wants to take me to one of the cenotes. She did one a few years ago with her mom and it has become one of the all-time travel highlights of her life.  I'm looking forward to hearing the details of the Positive Legacy project.  

1 hour ago, calvino said:

 

Maybe Wilco can sub out the Wharf Rats ------ still going strong at GD affiliated shows.  I always thought that was one of the greatest things at a Dead show - always having them available. Oddly enough, the other thing was searching for and finding great looking mushrooms (though those days of me searching for those are long gone). 

I was actually just thinking about that aspect of their shows the other day.  I was reading a discussion on a different forum about various things the Dead pioneered in the touring business, and it brought that to mind.  I remember hearing about the sober groups at their shows when I was in that scene in the '90s, though I didn't recall they were called the Wharf Rats.  That's a good, welcoming name.      

I'm hoping to finally get to meet some VCers at this thing!   

I'm curious to know from those who were there last year if there were any type of social meetups or support activities/resources for people with addiction issues.   Events like this tend to aggressively promote alcohol use, and a member of my party had to give up alcohol a couple years ago.  Do any of you who were at SBS or similar events at this resort recall if they offered any non-alcohol beverages that are a little more exciting than bottled water/soda/tea/coffee?  Like non-alcohol beer or alcohol free cocktails?

We're booked.  The onsale for us was really hairy, and we got a worse room than we wanted at a higher price than expected.  Not exactly sure how that math works.  My brain is too fried from other life stuff right now to figure that out.  Nevertheless, we're very happy to finally be attending a Wilco festival, with an extra day on the front and back ends!

We didn't go last year, and we have never been to Solid Sound (though we have traveled several times to see Wilco), but we are making plans to go to SBS this time.  Hopefully we'll be able to book one of our preferred room types during the general on-sale.  

41 minutes ago, SarahC said:

Noooo… you’re thinking riverbend! That festival finally kicked the bucket after over 30 years or something. I have great memories from going as a kid, but the last 10 years or so they were booking awful acts. We used to sneak in through the aquarium loading docks after work. 
the festival Wilco is playing is moon river. It was originally in Memphis, but I think it outgrew where they were having it, so it moved to Chattanooga for some reason. 
i actually got to perform on the kids stage there in 2019. I had written a bunch of songs about animals for my job at the aquarium. 

 Riverbend, yeah, that was the one.

This new festival sounds really good.  I would definitely go see Maddison Cunningham, Molly Tuttle, Seratones.  Maybe Dawes.  Maybe Lake Street Dive.  For me to even have heard of that many of the acts, much less be actively interested in seeing them, is a far better ratio than most festivals.  

6 hours ago, uncool2pillow said:

Turner and King just getting in now is a travesty.

King has been in the HOF as a songwriter since 1990.  This will be her second induction.

I think they intentionally hold back worthy inductees so there will always be one or two non-controversial "cred" inductees each year.

I'm convinced they also make sure to induct someone every year that will get people talking about how much the HOF sucks.  There's no bad publicity.

Don't get played.

3 hours ago, SarahC said:

Holy shit. They're headlining a small fest here in Chattanooga in September. Holy shit. 
I have to figure out how to afford tickets. 

It's at a little park downtown-- where my husband and I had our first date. The 2nd time ever Wilco will have played Chattanooga. The first was 1999 at The Bay (a heavy metal club that I never actually got to go to, because I was 11 in 1999). 

Is that the River Fest, or something like that?  My wife and I drove up to Chattanooga in the '90s while that festival was going on, just as a coincidence.  When we pulled into the Aquarium parking around lunchtime the sound crew was blasting King Crimson to test the PA system.  Later that night we got to see James Brown from outside the fence. 

5 hours ago, nalafej said:

 

That latest release front of house series is a show in Eugene about two weeks prior, September, 2003. Late enough in the YHF tour (if it really was that) that you got 3 AGiB tunes. Love that mix and some of those arrangements are a real pleasure to listen to.

I remember there being some songs in the set that I didn't recognize, which I assumed at the time were from the upcoming album.  I can't remember what the songs were.  It was definitely a good while after YHF had come out.  I even remember talking to a friend well after YHF had been out, but before AGIB, and telling him that I had never seen Wilco, but was really hoping to, and being envious when he said he saw them in Atlanta in support of YHF.  So it felt like a long time had passed between YHF and when I saw them in Des Moines.  The show I saw didn't really feel like they were promoting any particular record.   

EDIT:  Here's the setlist.  I do remember them starting with ALTWYS and knowing for sure it was a not yet released song.  

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/wilco/2003/val-air-ballroom-west-des-moines-ia-2bd65462.html

I'm pretty sure YHF was when I saw them for the first time, too.  It was Jeff, John, Glenn, and Leroy, with Michael as an auxiliary member offstage.   We traveled to Des  Moines to see them at the Val Air Ballroom.  The opening band was Carla Bozulich's Red Headed Stranger, with Nels on guitar. 

That trip was the beginning of a goal my wife and I made to visit all 50 states.  We had each been to probably half of the states prior to that, not all the same ones, and not together.  But we figured we could knock out the rest of the states together.  We've been working really hard on that since then (except for the last year thanks to Covid) and in one month we will complete our goal and visit our 50th state, on my wife's 50h birthday:  Hawaii  

On 3/13/2021 at 10:45 PM, kidsmoke said:

 

Nah, I'm sure she'd be "into" the "process" if you just explained. 

I'll have to make sure she understands her motivation...which is to record garbage can percussion sounds on a recording that'll almost definitely never get any farther than my little Tascam recorder before Glenn Kotche does the same thing on a Wilco record that gets released world wide.  Just so I'll have bragging rights.

With that understanding, she's sure to see the importance of this effort and deliver a performance filled with heart and soul.

As a bonus, there's going to be a big electrical storm later this week, so we can go out there and do a storm version of it, too.  She won't mind getting soaked and possibly struck by lightning. 

We watched Hunt for the Wilderpeople this weekend.  It was terrific.  Not new, but highly recommended.  

On 3/10/2021 at 10:39 PM, kidsmoke said:

 

We'd have to nail it on the first take.  I don't think it'd go over well if I said "Drag the trash can back to the curb and do it again.  This time with feeling!"

12 hours ago, kidsmoke said:

 

😂😂😂 I hope Glenn reads this because I know he's always looking for new percussive sounds!

It might be a bit distracting though, if in the middle of the noisy part of Via Chicago, Glenn strode offstage and then returned dragging a trash can.

I should go out there with a hand held recorder and get my wife to pull in the trash cans.  Maybe I can beat Glenn to it.

Yesterday I found my old copy of the Wilcovered/Ode to Joy Uncut magazine, so I reread the article.  It talks a bit about how percussion is sort of the lead instrument on Ode to Joy.  I remember a lot of reviews emphasizing that, so I decided to listen to the record earlier today and pay specific attention to the percussion.  I hadn't listened to this record since before Covid, so it was all pretty fresh to my ears and I was hearing some details I hadn't picked up on previously.   Sure enough, there was percussion rumbling away in the background.  It was getting gradually louder, almost thunderous, and I wondered why I had never noticed it before.  Glenn was making quite a ruckus. 

But then I realized it was just my wife dragging the trash can up the driveway from the curb.

My weekend was very productive.  On Friday, we had an all day fire in the fire pit I built a few weeks ago and burned a bunch of old branches the previous owner left in a big junky pile by our fence.  Then on Saturday we finished landscaping around the fire pit area with a zillion wheelbarrow loads of mini slate chips and old bricks.  Yesterday, I removed and closed up the doggie door on the door to our porch (It's actually a door for a large cat, but our dog figured out how to wiggle through it and would let herself out,  but NEVER back in, at all hours of the night).  Our dog is getting too old to squeeze through there anymore without it bothering her hips, so we decided to close it up for the benefit of all of us.

We also found time to finish watching Schitt's Creek, which was wonderful, and a mostly quite terrible episode of SNL.  

Oh man, I love Klark Kent.  Now there's an act that deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.  Well, maybe not.  But I do genuinely love that album.  Maybe my favorite album ever where all the instruments are played by one person.

14 hours ago, calvino said:

With Chick Corea's passing - I wonder people's thought on jazz fusion bands and the R&R hall.  As far as musicians in the hall that played jazz - Miles Davis is in, but I think that's it.  Herbie Hancock had some crossover appeal. 

 

That being said, does Miles even belong?  Rock and roll definitely influenced Miles, but I think he influenced rock and roll, too. I think he should be in the hall.

 

 

That's a good question, and in order for them to be in they'd have to be able to tell a story that connects fusion to rock in a direct way.  Like, did fusion really impact rock in a substantive way?  I'm not convinced it did, but I could be talked into it.  I think it'd make more sense for Jimi Hendrix or Cream to be in a Jazz Hall of Fame than for fusion musicians to be in the Rock Hall of Fame. 

By and large, the jazz artists that influenced rock, and continue to influence rock, predated fusion.  I don't really see  post-fusion rock being different if fusion never happened.  A lot of rock players who were jazz oriented (particularly a lot of the '60s British rock guys) got their jazz influence from pre-fusion.  Where jazz is most evident in American rock is bands like Chicago, Blood Sweat and Tears, and that kind of thing, which are mostly informed by the horn arrangements of big band jazz era.

Fusion certainly influenced bands like The Dixie Dregs, Sea Level, Jeff Beck, one or two songs from career slump-era Allman Brothers, maybe mid-'70s Dead, and Phish, and some metal (I can hear it in Voivod),  but I don't know if that adds up to enough to get the fusion guys into the hall.  It depends, is fusion really the source for what these rock bands did, or are all these fusion and rock bands going to the same jazz well to find their inspiration, and as a result coming up with similar results?  If it's the latter, then fusion is not really a strong influence. It's more like a coincidence, or a clique from another school who just happens to be doing similar things as the clique from your school.

The strongest argument may be fusion's use of synths, but one could argue that Stevie Wonder, Funkadelic, prog bands, and others were doing that at the same time, or earlier, are that's where rock picked that up from.

1 hour ago, ih8music said:

 

I think Devo was much more influential to other 80's New Wave bands than the Go-Go's, especially given that they only lasted what - 4 or 5 years?  Yes, the Go-Go's had bigger hits than Devo but I don't believe that's the most important criteria.

That's probably true.  The Go-Gos accomplished something that had never been done (first all female band to write and perform their own music and have a #1 hit).  Devo wasn't the first to do anything that I know of.  Firsts are a huge deal in music and the music business (and the Hall has proven itself to be primarily a business focused entity.) That's why I feel the Go-Go's should have been in already and if it had to be one or the other, it should be the Go-Go's first, even though I'd rather listen to Devo and bands influenced by Devo than The Go-Go's or bands they influenced.

But I hope they both get in this year.  Both deserve it.

12 hours ago, ih8music said:

I personally think Devo deserves to be in the RRHOF much more than The Go-Go's

I love Devo.  More than the Go-Gos.  Both deserve to get in.  But I am curious why you think Devo deserves it more.

There is no plausible argument for why the Go-Go's should not get in, or aren't already in.  That's probably true for Iron Maiden, too.  The rest could be argued for and against.  Pretty decent list, all in all, FF notwithstanding, ignoring of course that there are some MASSIVE oversites that are still not up for consideration. 

Worth noting is that Carole King has already been inducted as a writer.  This nomination is for performance.  I love her, but I don't think she (or anyone else) deserves to be in twice when there are so many who should be in but aren't in and have never even been nominated.

I really enjoy the Gateway album with John Abercrombie, Jack DeJohnette, and Dave Holland.  Especially the opening tune.  I remember the first time I heard it, maybe ten years ago, I thought "Nels definitely lifted some of Abercrombie's shit."  Haha.

Bill Frisell was a major player in the ECM universe for a while, but I generally prefer his post-ECM releases.