For the Wilco fans with no plans this Saturday night....

[EStreetJoe]

DoubleDown... you need to cross California Stars off your list. It's a Woody Guthrie song that Tweedy did an arrangement for. So if you want to turn people on to Wilco, shouldn't you have only Tweedy originals on the list?

 

[Dedo]

They do take time. Wilco is one of my favorite bands (probably top five of all-time) but there were only three Wilco songs that I knew I loved the moment I first heard them -- Via Chicago, Misunderstood, and Jesus, etc.

The others required a few extra listens. But man, once they sink their teeth into you, they don't let go.

 

[John]

oddly, john's seen 'em in concert and still says that shirt... go figure

I enjoyed the show -- and your mom's cooking, thanks again -- but does every other song have to end with that forking screeching guitar stuff? It's like they're sabotaging their music with that shirt.

Maybe I'm just not sophisticated enough to get it.

 

[write then drink]

DoubleDown... you need to cross California Stars off your list. It's a Woody Guthrie song that Tweedy did an arrangement for. So if you want to turn people on to Wilco, shouldn't you have only Tweedy originals on the list?

actually, Tweedy and Jay Bennett wrote the music

Woody wrote the words

not together

absolutely beautiful song

 

[EStreetJoe]

DoubleDown... you need to cross California Stars off your list. It's a Woody Guthrie song that Tweedy did an arrangement for. So if you want to turn people on to Wilco, shouldn't you have only Tweedy originals on the list?

actually, Tweedy and Jay Bennett wrote the music

Woody wrote the words

not together

absolutely beautiful song

California Stars IS an absolutely beautiful song. Tweedy and Jay Bennett had great material (and inspiration in the spirit of Woody) to work with in this case.

 

[Double Down]

I was aware that Woody wrote California Stars (and by the way, I do think it's cool that Gutherie's daughter gave all those old unused Woody lyrics to Wilco and Billy Bragg so the stuff could live on; very cool), but it's such a pretty song, it's worth includeing.

Plus, it's sort of like saying "All Along the Watchtower" can't be included in a collection of Hendrix songs because Dylan wrote it. I mean yeah, but you gotta have Watchtower on your list.

 

[fever_dog]

uncle tupelo sucks compared to wilco.

that's like saying the Beatles suck compared to Wings

listen to Anodyne
listen to Still Feel Gone
listen to a live recording or two

then come back and run a correction

saw tupelo live a number of times. own all their records and too many bootlegs to count.
they were great. but the mythology surrounding them and their "invention of alt-country" -- as tweedy snidely refers to it -- is WAY overblown.

the tupelo catalogue simply doesn't stack up to wilco's.
they are an inferior band in all facets.

but keep believing and perpetuating the myth of how great and important they were, and act as if the louvin brothers, carter family, the byrds, creedence, dylan and neil young never existed.

 

[pallister]

No one ever argued any of that shirt you just said. Take you pretentious "I know eveything about music" bullshirt somewhere else. Junkie was right about you.

 

[danny_whitten]

Damn, they were only 20 years old. Isn't child father of the man?

 

[Del_B_Vista]

DoubleDown... you need to cross California Stars off your list. It's a Woody Guthrie song that Tweedy did an arrangement for. So if you want to turn people on to Wilco, shouldn't you have only Tweedy originals on the list?

Actually, it's not an arrangement. It was a Guthrie lyric that Tweedy and Wilco put the music to. The Mermaid Avenue albums were projects with Wilco and Billy Bragg doing that to a few of the reams of Guthrie lyrics that he never got around to writing music for (or that he never saved the music for). I'll give you it's not wholly his song, but that's a bit more than an arragement.

And it's my favorite song Wilco/Tweedy does.

 

[EStreetJoe]

I don't care for any of the Wilco albums I've heard (Summerteeth, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot) but love California Stars.

So it appears my attempt at being a wise-ass in implying that Tweedy's only good material with Wilco was written by and musically inspired by Woody (since I'm guessing Tweedy was channeling Woody and not following his own muse for the music) bombed.

 

[HoopsMcCann]

i was late the the wagon, and the first wilco song i heard was 'i am trying to break your heart' -- i immediately hit back and listened to it three more times before i ever got to kamera


and fever's right

(and i do love when knowledge is dismissed as pretension)