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Underground > Radio & Music >

Wilco

00:33 / 15.02.02

Anybody else really looking forward to this new album, "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot"? I was checking out the trailer to the documentary called "I'm Trying To Break Your Heart" and find the new songs growing on me. I've never been a big fan of them (especially their last album "Summerteeth"), but these new songs sound really good. Not to mention that the Mermaid Avenue albums are brilliant. Or maybe it's just that I'm bummed out & Tweedy's music is like aural quaaludes. Perhaps the best words I could hear on a dateless Valentine's Day:

"You'll be happier when I'm gone/
but I'm much too busy to worry/
I'll be sad/
You'll be mad/
But I know we won't be sorry"

Well?

Matthew Fluxington

01:42 / 15.02.02

I've been in love with that record for a few months now, I've posted about it a few times already, and have put up a bunch of the lyrics in the LOYL threads... It's just amazing, a real breakthrough for that band. They were okay before, but this album is just another level completely, especially the song "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart" and "I'm The Man Who Loves You".

I feel a really nice sense of vindication in the inevitability that this will be Wilco's defining record, and will likely be their bestselling record in light of their old label dropping them for the record being too 'uncommercial' and weird.

Jim O'Rourke did the production, by the way...

07:34 / 15.02.02

They're supposedly touring the UK in Spring. Have any dates been confirmed?

19:03 / 15.02.02

quote:Originally posted by Fra Dolcino:
They're supposedly touring the UK in Spring. Have any dates been confirmed?

As of now, they only have a few gigs posted in the west coast of the US. Maybe they'll make it to Europe & the UK for the summer festival season. Wouldn't surprise me in the least, as I really think they'll try & over-expose themselves on this tour (as opposed to only doing gigs in the Midwest, like they've done in the past).

Also, saw John Stiratt's side band (The Autumn Defense) a couple of months ago opening up for Slobberbone. Twas OK, but nothin' to write home about. And saw Jay Bennett a couple of weeks ago in a snobby wine bar. Great laid-back performance, despite the bar bieng full of yuppie-types that wouldn't shut up to save their soul (twice Jay stopped playing until the dorks in back would shut up). He played some unreleased Woody Guthrie stuff &, from what I could hear, his stuff sounds almost as good as the Wilco stuff (he's been writing his own material for years). He seemed pretty bitter about his dismissal/quitting Wilco, quipping "That last song is about when your girlfriend or your band leaves you". Man, I felt bad for the guy....

11:31 / 16.02.02

Flux I never did thank you for sending me YHFT - it got lost, then I got it a few days before I left the States so I just forgot. But thank you.

I haven't listened to it too many times but not because I don't enjoy it. I think Flux you're on the trail here - it WILL be their defining record. It's absolutely gorgeous. "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart" is just.... gorgeous, beautiful, slow, romantic. Listening to that album on my last trainride out of Chicago actually made me cry. But then Wilco has been known to have that effect on me. They just do such a wonderfully eloquent job with lyrics, and of course great musicianship.

"She's a Jar" (from Summerteeth) gets me every time.

09:06 / 20.02.02

When is Yankee Hotel Foxtrot coming out?

Matthew Fluxington

02:32 / 21.02.02

According to Wilco's official page, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot will be out in North America on Tuesday, April 23rd. I don't know about the rest of the world.

22:18 / 26.02.02

quote:Originally posted by Fra Dolcino:
They're supposedly touring the UK in Spring. Have any dates been confirmed?

I stand corrected. Here are the UK tourdates I recently got off of Pollstar:

Thu 05/09/02 Dublin, IRE Ambassador Theatre
Sat 05/11/02 Glasgow, UK Queen Margaret Union
Sun 05/12/02 Manchester, UK MDH
Mon 05/13/02 London, UK The Astoria
Wed 05/15/02 Oslo, NOR Rockefeller Music Hall
Thu 05/16/02 Hamburg, GER Grunspan
Fri 05/17/02 Cologne, GER Prime Club
Sat 05/18/02 Nurburgring, GER Rock Am Ring
Sun 05/19/02 Nuremberg, GER Rock Im Park
Fri 05/24/02 Paris, FRA Le Divan du Monde

07:01 / 27.02.02

Thanks MW! The Astoria on the 13th, it is.

[ 27-02-2002: Message edited by: Fra Dolcino ]

09:55 / 06.03.02

For anyone who's interested, here's a recent article in Rolling Stone about Jay Bennett's new album (3 CD's worth in all):

"Wilco's Bennett Out On His Own"

Kali, Queen of Kitteh

09:55 / 06.03.02

Duuuuuude. I liked Son Volt so much better...

<waits for the barrage of beer cans to hit her>

No, wait....

04:25 / 11.04.02

Seeing as the new album is almost out, I thought I'd see who's the opening act. Turns out that the opener on the European gigs is none other than Preston School Of Industry. Lucky bastards.....

04:34 / 11.04.02

P.S. Moderators, there's a duplicate thread (minus my last post/this post--Kali was the last post) that can be deleted. I would've tried to delete the 1st post in the cloned thread, but I didn't know if it would 1)delete both threads or 2) would only delete my 1st post.

Matthew Fluxington

14:21 / 11.04.02

Um, it's taking a long time to get rid of all the duplicate and triplicate threads - you have to delete them one by one, it's very tedious. I've currently got 270 waiting for deletion in my inbox.

I'll see what I can do...

20:42 / 23.04.02

Bump.

Its out today.

Bump.

06:20 / 24.04.02

Pitchfork Media gave it a 10 and Music-Critic.com gave it 5 out of 5.

Also, the WIlco documentary "I'm Trying To Break your Heart" to be released July 26th in NYC, Aug & Sep't elsewhere.

Nifty fun fact: The cover art comes in the origional brown as well as blue and white

19:25 / 24.04.02

Other nifty fact: I do believe the towers on the front are Chicago's Marina Towers.

I'm really just happy they finally got the album released.

15:46 / 26.04.02

I've been listening to this a fair bit over the last few days, and I'm slightly disappointed. Can't quite put my finger on why. Maybe I just miss the old Wilco.

Actually, that's probably it. Good as Summerteeth was, it it didn't hit me the same way that AM and Being There did. At the moment, Jesus, etc. is by far and away my favorite track on YHF, with I Am The Man Who Loves You coming in second.

It could well grow on me yet. I avoided downloading the tracks, prefering to go for the 'event' feel of getting the CD home, unwrapping it and listening to it in one uninterupted sitting rather than in drips and drabs as would have happened had I got it off Audiogalaxy, so I've not had long with it.

15:56 / 26.04.02

Changed my mind as soon as I posted that. It's a far better record than Summerteeth, musically somewhere between that and Being There. I really don't care for I Am Trying To Break Your Heart, but that's always been the case with their attempts at tunes where the instrumentation is slightly discordant (see also Hotel California). It may just be that fact that that's the first track on the album that's pissing me off with it a bit. Not a particularly good choice for opening track.

Knodge - YOUR nemesis!

16:08 / 26.04.02

I am really enjoying this album. Being There is a better album for me, but this one is pretty damn good.

I am also enjoying 'Jesus, etc.' the most at the moment.

Matthew Fluxington

16:21 / 26.04.02

No way! I think "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart" is one of the best opening tracks that I've heard in a long time!

23:21 / 30.04.02

Just a heads up that Wilco is going to be on Dave Letterman tonight (4/30).

13:59 / 01.05.02

You know I really like "Being There" myself but there I completely disagree that that is a better album. "YHFT" is more risk-taking, and more sophisticated. Hmm. Maybe "Being There" can be more fun at times, but I think YHFT is fun as well.

I agree with Flux on "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart." It's a beautiful opening track.

Fun Fact: The album cover is a picture of the Marina Towers, right here in Chicago!

04:39 / 10.05.02

BTW, am I the only one that's amazed that YHF is a Top 20 album? I mean, given the lack of radio airplay, the unorthodox production & the fact that it was free on the net for so long. Seriously, who'd of thunk it?

Rolling Stone story on next project: "Decibels Per Minute"

"dBpm, as Tweedy calls it, is a schizophrenic experience. Parts of the improvised second half of the album sound like a mad hybrid of very early Sonic Youth, the free-form Pink Floyd of Ummagumma and the abstract percussive interludes on Frank Zappa's "art" projects such as Lumpy Gravy"

For good or ill, at least nobody will be able gripe that it sounds just like "A.M."....

08:01 / 10.05.02

I'll be extremely suprised if anyone releases an album I like more than YHF this year.

MW- When I bought my copy there were four or five other people (complete strangers) buying it at the same time and everyone was talking about how much they liked the album. I think that a lot of people that got it off the net are sending a fuck you to the record company.

Matthew Fluxington

17:55 / 09.06.02

There's a very high quality real audio/windows media player recent Wilco show here on the House of Blues website.

The sound quality of this recording is just about flawless, and the performance is very strong.

This is the setlist, so you know what songs are which, they don't tell you on the site:

1. Spiders (Kidsmoke)
2. I Am Trying To Break Your Heart
3. War On War
4. She's A Jar
5. Kamera
6. RADIO CURE
7. A Shot In The Arm
8. Ashes of American Flags
9. Jesus Etc.
10. Heavy Metal Drummer
11. Pot Kettle Black
12. Not For The Season
13. I'm The Man Who Loves You
14. Hesitating Beauty
15. How To Fight Loneliness
16. California Stars
17. Reservations
18. I'm Always In Love
19. Red Eyed and Blue
20. I Got You (At The End of the Century)
21. Outtasite (Outtamind)
22. Misunderstood

10:15 / 24.07.02

Excellent Wilco story on an excellent site (PopMatters.com--seriously, check this site out): here & an AICN review of "I'm Trying To Break Your Heart" here.

Murray Hamhandler

15:35 / 24.07.02

Here's a larf for yez: Wilco is working on (possibly finished with?) an album w/The Minus 5. 'Twas originally supposed to be released by Mammoth...but they dropped it!!! Didn't the fella at Mammoth responsible for this debacle see the severed head of the exec who axed YHF? You would think that these highly paid monkeys would care more about keeping their jobs. Jeez.