fortuleo

1/ Taste the Ceiling

2/ Magnetized

3/ Cold Slope

4/ More…

5/ The Joke Explained

6/ Where Do I Begin

7/ Random Name Generator

8/ You Satellite

9/ King of You

10/ Pickled Ginger

11/ EKG

We all marvel at the seque from You Satellite to Taste the Ceiling, one of the very high points of this album. But what if Taste the Ceiling opens the second side of the vinyl ?

I am an « Hummingbird » guy. I am an « I’ll Fight » guy. Even an « Open Mind » guy. Well. I’m not that open minded concerning music in general, except with the bands I love. And I do love Wilco. Yeah, I’m a Wilco guy.

I know this board and the Wilco fanbase in general has evolved from the No Depression age into something completely different, which is only natural considering the line up changes and the reinvention of their sound. But, it is true I’m an « I’ll Fight » person as opposed to a « Bull Black Nova » guy. I don’t care that much if they « rock » or not. I don’t care if they « deconstruct » or « experiment » all the time or not. I’m not a Krautrock fan, nor am I a drone addict. I understand most people here value Loose Fur much more than they value, say, Golden Smog, but not me, I don’t. And what does it even mean ?  Isn’t « All the Same to Me » an experimental track ? And « The Ruling Class, » well, isn’t it a catchy infectious country pop number ? With whistling ??

When I listen to YHF nowadays, or AGIB, I don’t even hear the supposed weirdness of these records anymore. I only hear great songs, great little pop tunes, great folk numbers, great rock’n’roll tracks, great playing, great vocals, great sounds.

The same could be said about SBS. I remember the not so great reception of that album at the time of its release, its « mellowness » being harshly criticized here. We all know now it is a wonderful record, don’t we ? While listening to it we don’t hear « mellow Wilco » anymore (as if it was a bad thing). We hear « Either Way » and « You Are My Face » and « Impossible Germany » and «Sky Blue Sky, » as fabulous a run of four songs to open an album as any in rock’n’roll.

I really hope the same happens with Star Wars. I hope in a few month, we will not only marvel at the rocking droning fuzzing experimentalization of these new songs. I hope we will not only admire the genius of the flow, the brilliance of the sequencing, the fun and surprise and energy of it all but also the enduring quality of the songwriting. I hope the consistency and conciseness of the album as a whole will only lead to reassess the quality of each individual song. I really do. I'm pretty sure that is what will happen. I guess I am a « Taste the Ceiling » guy, as opposed to a « You Satellite » guy, if you will. But yeah, I’m a Wilco guy.

Well, the problem is not only that we've already heard it all. The problem is that some of us have already bought everything. I mean, I've bought YHF, then I bought it again (the australian tour edition, which wasn't neither cheap or easy, from Paris), I've bought all the soundtracks, comps, tributes and benefit CDs to get the likes of "Old Maid" (superb), Let Me come Home (fabulous) or Any Major Dude (marvelous), I've bought the CD singles and all the extended editions etc. of every album, having already bought the initial releases. And I'm not talking about vinyl editions (which I bought).

And I already have compiled my own "rarities" playlist with the EXACT SAME SONGS on it (except it includes the Whole love bonuses as well). It still is gonna be a beautiful release, but it's a little bit annoying. At the same time, maybe it's exactly what this is all about : not forcing the most dedicated fans to buy it by putting three unreleased songs on it. If we already have everything, maybe we shouldn't bother. After all, we won't feel compelled to buy the "best of" set…

And maybe that's the most annoying thing, here : I don't have any good reason to buy this set, except that it's gonna be a tremendous frustration if I don't…

I still don't have the finished product. Can someone please confirm 1/ who sings Jaicell Blues 2/ when Jolly Banker was recorded ?

Does anyone know what songs are Bragg's and what ones are Wilco's on Vol. III?

Bragg : Bugeye Jim, My Thirty Thousand, Ought to Be Satisfied Now, Go Down to the Water, Don't You Marry, Union Prayer

Wilco : When the Roses Bloom Again, Listening to the Wind That Blows, Chain of Broken Hearts, The Jolly Banker (who knows for sure when this was recorded ?), Ain'ta Gonna Grieve

Bragg (vocal) & Wilco (band) : Jailcell Blues (not 100%sure who sings lead), Give Me a Nail, Be Kind to the Boy on the Road, I'm out to Get

Corey Harris (I think) : Gotta Work, Tea Bag Blues

As I remember, there was always a great following in France for the Inmates, who were kind of legendary as bearers of the garage and pub rock flames when it wasn't fashionable anymore (nor yet). Unfortunately (for me), I was a little young first, then much too naive to know anything about those clubs until more recently. Now, I vividly remember the reissue of the Beatles album like 10 years ago, it got fantastic press, and it was very exciting. The New Morning is great, but waaaayyy too small for Wilco these days. At the same time, I love when the bands (wilco especially) play very close to each other, all packed with their gear in a tiny place. But you know, you put your finger on the main problem of Wilco and France : they never played outside Paris. When they do come, they play one date in Paris before taking off to go play 5 or 10 gigs in the UK. They never worked this country properly, tried to break this country as they did for Spain or Belgium or whatever. Never been to the cities you're mentioning. By the way, you were on New Rose, right ? Maybe you remember my good friend Louis Thevenon ?

Damn, I wasn't there. But I REGRET IT, I love the Inmates, the ONLY band that would open an album of Beatles covers by Little Child !! So cool ! And close it by I'm Down… In the 80's, when the Beatles were unbelievably uncool ! Now, that's what I call rock'n'roll.

No idea ! I'm gonna ask. But I've been at la Maroquinerie so often that there's a good chance I've seen you play there ! If I only knew who you are…

I've done the same as victor79, trying to contact everyone to try and see why Wilco didn't come to Paris more often. The answer was that it's almost impossible for them to make any money if they play their usual 800-1000 people venues. They've waited all these years to receive an offer for a venue like this one, which can hold 2500 seated people and make it profitable for them. When it was announced they'd play the REX, I had the chance to talk to John Stirratt. I warned him about this "sitting issue" and he told me "oh, don't worry, we know how to work these places." In my opinion, the other night, the real problems were 1/ security were instructed not to allow people to dance close to the stage; 2/ the REX always sells "VIP" seats with Champagne as an excuse to charge extra money ; 3/ the setlist WAS designed for a sitting audience. 4/ no one in France knew that you could make requests on the Website. But don't blame it on the french audience. The show at the club "la Maroquinerie" in 2005 or 2006, was duly reviewed in MOJO as one of the best EVER. Myself, I've seen the band in four different countries, and it was by far the most satisfying.

But the money issue is where it's at : they played two concerts in Brussels, thus playing for more or less as many people as in Paris in one, but surely making much more money…

They hadn't played in France since 2007 (and we were VERY frustrated by that fact), so they were clearly a little self conscious about what image of the band they should present. I mean, when they play for crowds that get many chances to see them, they tend to vary the setlists a lot. But in this case, it was more "Wilco as it should be" if you see them only once in 5 years or once in a lifetime. Thus the emphasis on the "experimental" side of the band (BBN + Spiders + Germany + Laminated Cat + Handshake Drugs + One Wing + Misunderstood + AoA, etc.) which was a little bit overwhelming for my taste, but fantastically played nonetheless, and also informed by the 'comfy' style of the venue. I mean, no "I'll Fight" or Hummingbird for us. Only real surprise : Box Full of Letters. Handshake Drugs was a particular highlight and all the newer songs sounded terrific.

yep, sorry, I didn't know if it was ok to post a link. Figured everybody could google it easily enough.

speaking of "rare tweedy", I recently found jeff's unreleased version of "I'll be your baby tonight", recorded for the I'm not there soundtrack but ultimately not used.

Most of the songs from the albums up to AGIB were as good if not better when performed by Tweedy solo than they were with the full band arrangement. This hasn't been the case anymore since SBS, and I suspect it won't be the case with most tunes on TWL. Does it mean that the songs per se are less good or is it proof that the band has improved a lot ?

it would have been a better album if they'd left out Open Mind.

I'm pretty sure Jeff Tweedy would like to be the one to open up your mind about this kind of simple songs.

I read somewhere that Capitol City dates back a long time. Jeff hasn't written such a good set of pop chord changes since hummingbird, which itself was from the Bennett era.

What we can all agree on : atmospheric ballads good ; strings on Black Moon great ; lyrics excellent ; more up tempo crowdpleasers than on any post YHF record ; tremendous opener ; impressive closer track ; fantastic low voice by Jeff on some songs ; it is their best album since AGIB.

What we will endlessly argue about : capitol city (me, I just love it, in a hummingbird kind of way, I already can picture jeff with the mic in hand and no guitar doing the show on that one) ; which ballad is best (I say Open Mind and Sunloathe) ; which up tempo songs are the strongest (I say I Might and Born Alone, by far) ; is Art of Almost as good an opener as IATTBYH ? ; is One Sunday Morning their best closer or not ? ; is it their best album since YHF ?

Stirratt owns this record...

so true…

but… but… you mean we will be allowed to DISCUSS the album after that ?

The problem with your theory is that Wilco's fan base has increased significantly over the last two records.

You're probably right. But for those of us who became fans at the time of BT, ST or YHF, it's fair to say that we probably would not have become infatuated in the same way if we'd first listened to SBS or W(TA). I think that's the main reason why those discs are often dismissed by people who kinda 'like' them but know they would not have fallen in love with them. It's like an old friend who has changed a lot. Sometimes you still like/love him, but you're saying to yourself "if I'd met him now, we would never become that close".

The real question is not if W(TA) or Sky Blue Sky (or The Whole Love) are good, bad, better, disappointing etc. The question is "would I have become such a fan of this band by discovering them with these albums". And the real answer would be 'no' for most of us who first heard the band in the Bennett years. The last LP that could really gather new fans was probably AGIB, because it could seduce the "art rock" crowd. I like/love the subsequent albums, but I like /love them as valid additions to the band's oeuvre, and I'm almost certain they were made with that intention. I doubt I would have become an absolute fan of theirs with these two lps, but that doesn't prevent me from citing "Either Way", "You Are My face, "Deeper Down" or "Ill Fight" amongst my favorite Tweedy songs.

It's very true. To me (the album) is not as much a summation of their work up to date as it is a little "generic". Allow me to make a comparison here : an album like "Shootenany" by Eels is a "generic" Eels record, each song being "in the vein" of something they did before, but less good. While "Blinking Lights" is a true summation, the masterpiece that encompasses all that is great about them (him). W(TA) falls short to achieve that because there is not enough gravitas or depth in the lyrics, harmonic structures or band performances, in spite of some great songs (for me : Deeper Down, Country Disappeared & I'll fight). That's why on this board, everybody has been disappointed by this album in the long run. What is funny, though, is that everybody here has completely different 'favorites' and 'least favorites' songs on the album, "I'll Fight" being a good case in point.

FUG EM. The lady is a true original. I think the problem is most people who have heard her stuff don't listen to that sort of music in the first place, they're beatles fans. Its not surprising they don't get it.

 

When I read that Nels was playing in Yoko's band I couldn't think of a better match. SO PERFECT. Would love to see her with nels and thruston, now that would melt faces.

I think this observation is very interesting. Because there's a fairly good chance that many Wilco fans are Beatles fans themselves, especially people that got aquainted with the band during the "Bennett years".

So, if we follow your idea, it wouldn't be surprising if they didn't "get" Nels' contribution to the band… See what I mean ? It could be an acurate description of the divide between people who prefer the Bennett line-up and people who prefer the current line-up.

Then again, some of the more "Beatley" music Wilco ever made is on SBS (Hate it Here) and W(TA) (Everlasting Everything)…

Well I might have some sort of an explanation.

In recent years, I think they never played outside Paris. Most of the shows were excellent, one (at a venue called the Maroquinerie) was absolutely outstanding. One of the issues might be that a large part of the audience consisted in american people. Each time, Jeff did a little chatter routine like "hey, are there americans here tonight" and the response was always very loud, by far out-staging the 'local's' response. It might well be that the band thought "oh well, we like to play for americans, but isn't it what we do every other night of the year ? ».

Secondly, Jeff once said that it was kind of hard for them not to lose money when they play in France, because of some tax regulation. Seems like most of the time, the venues are not so big, and the deals they get from promoters aren't good enough to balance this tax problem.

Finally, the fact is they just DON'T SELL shit in France, no matter how hard they try (or maybe they should try and go all around the country to 'work' the crowds, but they would lose even more money, wouldn't they ?). I don't know why it is so, but it is : even when they got good press, it didn't change anything, they never broke through over here. Nobody seems to care, except for a bunch of us. You have to remember that the whole 'americana' movement had a hard time in this country back in the nineties. Bands like the Jayhawks, Tupelo, Wilco, Son Volt, Whiskeytown, Steve Earle et all never made much of an impression. We prefered britpop, what are you gonna do ? It changed recently, but a little too late, and the result is that Wilco only has the reputation of being this "indy, quirky, post rock experimental krautrock weird sounding proto-prog band", which, I believe, DOES NOT seem very appealing to french record buyers.

Last november, they had a date in London and, two day later, a date in Brussels, Belgium. Between the two shows, they had a night off. Well, you need to know that the Eurostar brings you from London to Paris in two hours time. Then, Paris-Brussels by train is like 1h30. I'm sure they left this date free to try and secure a deal to play in Paris. Ultimately, nothing happened.

They must have taken a direct plane from London to Brussels…

The Snake the Cross the Crown "CottonTeeth"

Beulah "Yoko"

Dawes "North Hills"