Jahfin Posted August 16, 2011 Author Share Posted August 16, 2011 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strider Posted August 16, 2011 Share Posted August 16, 2011 Awesome...TOTALLY AWESOME! NOW I really can't wait for the new record...sounds like they've decided to unleash Nels! You can have your Black Sabbath, Def Leppard and all the tired classic-rock geezers trading on nostalgia...I'll take something fresh over something stale any day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jahfin Posted August 16, 2011 Author Share Posted August 16, 2011 I keep reading comments from fellow fans that this album has the potential to bring back some of the fans they've lost along the way and I've yet to figure out why. I know they turned off some of the fans when they pretty much abandoned their more country leanings with Summerteeth but I haven't heard anything from this new album that reminds me of A.M., Being There or the Mermaid Avenue records. What I've heard from it so far sounds more like a natural progression of the sound they've established with Sky Blue Sky and Wilco (The Album). Perhaps they shook off some fans with those albums but it's not like they've ever stopped sounding like Wilco altogether. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strider Posted August 16, 2011 Share Posted August 16, 2011 (edited) Just as I didn't abandon Led Zeppelin when they came out with Led Zep III or the eclectic Houses of the Holy, I've never been bothered by whatever direction Wilco has chosen. A good band, after a time, begins to achieve its own aura, so that whatever far-flung influences they use, or sounds they experiment with, it all comes out "sounding" like the band. No matter what, Led Zeppelin SOUNDED like Led Zeppelin, whether they were filtering folk, arabic or country music. Pink Floyd always sounded like Pink Floyd. I feel the same way about Wilco, whether it's the early alt-country albums, or the later, more noisy ones...it's all Wilco to me. A band should progress, in my opinion. Your tastes and influences change and expand as you grow older, and a good band's music refects that journey. Otherwise you just become stale and stagnant like AC/DC, a 60 year old man running around in a cheesy schoolboy's outfit. One benefit I have, is that this is primarily the only band's website I visit and post on the message boards. So I am spared at having to hear what some anorak has to say about Wilco, Radiohead, Sonic Youth, or any other band that's still active. I know what I like and don't need to have my opinion validated by a group of trainspotters usually engaged in a battle with each other to prove their coolness and fan-cred. Edited August 16, 2011 by Strider Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jahfin Posted August 16, 2011 Author Share Posted August 16, 2011 (edited) Aside from Back in Black, I'm not really a fan of post-Bon Scott AC/DC but I also don't really think of them as "stagnant" either. I think they do one thing and they do it really well. Chuck Berry and George Thorogood are no different. As for differing opinions, in addition to this board, I visit others dedicated to Jimmy Buffett, R.E.M. and the Drive-By Truckers. I get a pretty wide range of opinions on music that way but unfortunately, very few that crossover. The one exception being the Drive-By Truckers board, it's not that unusual to find people there that also like a lot of the same artists I do from Dylan to Tinariwen and most everything in between whether it be bluegrass, rock, country or reggae. I know of several friends that grew tired of Wilco circa Summerteeth who also stopped liking a lot of alt.country because they thought many of the newer bands sounded too generic. Funny thing is, they say they would still like Wilco if they were to start sounding more alt.country-ish again. During this period, some of these same friends began championing garage rock, everything from the Nuggets-era bands to the newer stuff by the likes of the Dirtbombs and the Reigning Sound. Well, you can pigeonhole the fans of those bands just as easily as you can fans of alt.country. That's the danger in following trends just for the sake of trying to be "hip", it's all so very superficial. I like what I like whether it's deemed "popular" or not. I get chastised by fellow music fans for liking Jimmy Buffett or Rush (just to name a couple) but it doesn't bother me because I don't give a shit about what makes me hip or popular, I like whatever music moves me at the time. That's why I like everything from the music I grew up on, whether it be Waylon Jennings, Zeppelin or John Prine to newer bands such as Megafaun, the Decemberists or Mount Moriah. I've even had people on this board try to pigeonhole me as a fan of nothing but country music because I like the Drive-By Truckers or the Band of Joy. For one thing, it goes to show they don't know a thing about the Truckers because if they did, they would know they're not just a country band. They also play punk, hard rock and often times a mixture of all three which is what makes them what they are. Same for the Band of Joy, there's much more at work there than just the roots of Appalachian music or I'm sure Plant himself (not to mention the members of the Band of Joy) would have grown tired of it a long time ago. Thing is, I like all kinds of music whether it be bluegrass, rock n' roll, country, reggae or ska. If I only liked one type of music I would get tired of it very quickly. Apologies for the tangent but I guess that's my way of saying that I have also followed Wilco through all of their various stylistic changes throughout the years but have never felt the need to "jump ship" either. I may not have cared that much for A Ghost Is Born but it was a path I was more than willing to follow them down just because I trust their musical instincts. You never know what one of your favorite artists may open your ears to. Edited August 16, 2011 by Jahfin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strider Posted August 28, 2011 Share Posted August 28, 2011 30 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whAsuAyaDu4&feature=youtube_gdata_player Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strider Posted August 29, 2011 Share Posted August 29, 2011 (edited) 29 Edited August 29, 2011 by Strider Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strider Posted August 30, 2011 Share Posted August 30, 2011 28 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzU8o_ScBkk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strider Posted August 31, 2011 Share Posted August 31, 2011 (edited) 27! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLnsFR4E8mk&feature=youtube_gdata_player Edited August 31, 2011 by Strider Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jahfin Posted August 31, 2011 Author Share Posted August 31, 2011 Review of The Whole Love from Uncut. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strider Posted August 31, 2011 Share Posted August 31, 2011 Damn...I was hoping for an entire album of Nels going crazy. Now I don't know what to expect as that review is all over the map, so-to-speak. No matter...not to put anyone off their lunch but I've got a hard-on in anticipation of this album. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strider Posted September 1, 2011 Share Posted September 1, 2011 26! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strider Posted September 2, 2011 Share Posted September 2, 2011 25! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jahfin Posted September 2, 2011 Author Share Posted September 2, 2011 Greetings and happy Labor Day weekend in the U.S., happy late summer to those of you in the rest of the world. We've got a few announcements and then we're gonna get out of here and fire up the grills for what could be the last time this summer as a world tour awaits. So with that in mind, (Glenn: a drumroll please) here is the next group of North American tour dates. Ticketing info will follow in a week or so. Nov. 29: Dallas TX Music Hall at Fair Park Dec. 1: Austin TX Austin City Limits Live at The Moody Theater Dec. 3: Kansas City MO Uptown Theater Dec. 4: West Des Moines IA Val Air Ballroom Dec. 6 & 7: Minneapolis, MN State Theatre Dec. 9: Milwaukee, WI Riverside Theater Dec. 10: Detroit, MI Fillmore Detroit Dec. 12: Chicago, IL Civic Opera House Also, less than 150 tickets are left for the September shows in Indy, Toronto (both nights) and Boston. And for all of our North American tour dates (in case you missed the announcement on Facebook and Twitter), we're starting the Fan Video Project this week. Details here (in short, we want you to create a video stage backdrop for the band). If that isn't enough, we're gonna do a special under-the-radar stream of the new record tomorrow for Wilcoworld only. Here's the deal -- as a reward for your labors, ours, and those of our forefathers/mothers -- starting at 12 Noon Central time tomorrow (Saturday) and for 24 hours straight we're gonna stream The Whole Love in its entirety, at wilcoworld.net. That's right. Your first chance to hear the whole thing is tomorrow. Trust us, you'll be glad you made time to check it out. Next up, The Whole Love is officially out and in stores on September 27 -- which is less than a month away. Have you preordered yours yet? If not, you can at our store, iTunes, the ANTI- Records store, Amazon and many indie retailers. We suggest you give a listen, maybe check out a couple of the videos we have up on the site, and then pull the trigger and order one for yourself and maybe a couple more for holiday gifts. What the heck, may as well get an early start, right? More soon. Have a great holiday weekend. Cheers (sound of bottles & cans opening....) - Wilco HQ wilcoworld.net Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DewieCox Posted September 2, 2011 Share Posted September 2, 2011 http://www.tristateindie.com/?p=23470 Stream it tomorrow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strider Posted September 3, 2011 Share Posted September 3, 2011 ^^^Thanks for the heads up Jahfin and Dewey. 24! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strider Posted September 4, 2011 Share Posted September 4, 2011 23! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strider Posted September 5, 2011 Share Posted September 5, 2011 22! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strider Posted September 6, 2011 Share Posted September 6, 2011 21! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strider Posted September 7, 2011 Share Posted September 7, 2011 20! Dewey, THIS is what you get to look forward to seeing when you finally see Wilco in concert...Nels is EPIC in this song! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPAbjNT7nQY&feature=youtube_gdata_player Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DewieCox Posted September 7, 2011 Share Posted September 7, 2011 20! Dewey, THIS is what you get to look forward to seeing when you finally see Wilco in concert...Nels is EPIC in this song! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPAbjNT7nQY&feature=youtube_gdata_player Hells YEAH!!!! Love that tune. Really I'm hopin for this but really this Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jahfin Posted September 7, 2011 Author Share Posted September 7, 2011 (edited) From TheAtlantic.com: Watch Wilco's New 'Born Alone' Video and Read the Story Behind Its Lyrics Since starting up 17 years ago, Wilco has combined influences as divergent as the Ramones and Woody Guthrie to forge one of the most distinct and experimental sounds in American popular music. The Chicago band's previous incarnation, Uncle Tupelo, gave rise to the alternative country genre with their 1990 album, No Depression. Formed in 1994 after that band's dissolution, Wilco won two Grammy Awards, including best Alternative Music Album. Rolling Stone named their 2002 release, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, the third best album of the last decade. Here, singer Jeff Tweedy shares the story behind the hand-written lyrics for "Born Alone," off their new record, The Whole Love (out September 27). The music video for the song, which premieres today, is below as well. I brought a little travel guitar with me on vacation over the new year in Mexico. One evening I started playing a bit and came up with the main riffs for the song and recorded it on my phone. The melody and chord progression came about in maybe five minutes. This song came around at the end of the process of making this record. I dug up that piece of music again at my home in Michigan—a we have a lake cabin where I come out and write sometimes. I wasn't coming up with anything specific, so I opened up a book of American poetry and randomly turned to the Emily Dickinson pages, no one poem in particular. I took a lot of words, most of them verbs, and put them against words that looked appealing to me from Whittier and other 1800s poetry. It's just looking at the words and writing a little poem trying to use as many of them as possible. If I'm lucky it all starts to settle meter-wise on the melody I have in my head, and then a certain amount of tweaking goes on to coax out a little more feeling. It's an exciting way to write, without trying to steer the ship in any one direction. When I took the song into the studio I really had the lyrics nailed down. One of the first things we did was sit down and learn the song on acoustic guitars and then came up with an arrangement that included a bridge that wasn't there originally that's a variation of the main melodic theme. I thought this lyric at the end—"born alone, born to die alone"—sounded like one of the most dire things that you can sing, but also defiant. I had strong feelings singing that lyric and wanted it illustrated in some defiant, triumphant way. So I came up with the idea that we would end the song with a Shepard tone, which is a series of chords that when repeated continuously sounds like its descending or ascending. It's kind of a musical trick—it sounds like it's endlessly going deeper and deeper into the abyss. [Guitarist Nels Cline] was asked to play the main theme that I had written quite a bit. He's always deeply involved in the sonic textures and coming up with guitar tones, and he adds many, many variations as the song goes on, and there's little runs and Nels cannot be held back any longer playing this simple, repetitive, almost inane riff. He frees himself periodically. It's a deeply collaborative process, even when something like that main riff is being dictated. I can play that guitar riff. I can't make it sound like that. It's a natural assumption that we would feel liberated artistically [to record on our own label], but there hasn't been a whole lot of interaction between the band and labels, especially in the studio, for a long time now. Since Summerteeth, there's rarely been any record company presence in or around the studio. I don't think it really enters into it that much for us. Sure, we've afforded ourselves freedom maybe at the expense of our relationship with record labels. But we've been doing what we want to do for a long time. --Jeff Tweedy, as told to Alex Hoyt Edited September 7, 2011 by Jahfin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strider Posted September 8, 2011 Share Posted September 8, 2011 19! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strider Posted September 9, 2011 Share Posted September 9, 2011 Sorry I'm a little later today than I expected... 18! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strider Posted September 10, 2011 Share Posted September 10, 2011 17! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0JYKOTUdd0&feature=youtube_gdata_player Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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