Wilco - Monday
March 3rd, 2008 by frightwig
The best Rolling Stones song never written nor performed by Mick n' Keef. From I Am Trying to Break Your Heart... and Jay Bennett's last performance with the band, if memory serves. EDIT: On closer inspection, I don't see Jay Bennett on stage, so it must have come in the film after Tweedy fired him.
My daughter is doing her cute bouncy hoedown dance, saying, "Hop! Hop!" So it must be good stuff.
This entry was posted by frightwig on Monday, March 3rd, 2008 at 12:01 am and is filed under WGOM Videos, frightwig. It is one of 83 entries by the author. We are no longer accepting Letters to the Editor on this post.
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Andrew replied on March 3, 2008 at 7:50:06 am
I had my Wilco cd in my car coming home from AK's last night. "Either Way" started playing, and for whatever reason, I actually listened to the lyrics and really heard what Jeff Tweedy was saying - "Maybe you still love me, maybe you don't / Either you will or you won't./ Maybe you just need some time alone / I will try to understand, either way. " I know there was recent discussion about the writing on Sky Blue Sky, but that hit me like a ton of bricks.
Whiffers replied on March 3, 2008 at 9:12:39 am
This has inspired me to start my week with a Wilco playlist on my iPod.
I think Wilco could be a damn good 'pop rock' band if they wanted to go that route. This is one of my favorite 'pop-y' songs of theirs, but my absolute favorite is "Just a Kid" from the Spongebob Squarepants movie soundtrack.
Algonad replied on March 3, 2008 at 9:43:02 am
I always thought they had a lot of songs you would categorize as 'pop rock.' The problem is that there is no place on the radio anymore for pop rock unless it was recorded before 1990.
I always thought a song like "Late Greats" would be a song a lot of people would like.
Whiffers replied on March 3, 2008 at 11:08:51 am
It seems like they have 2-3 'pop rock' songs on each album. The first time I heard "Late Greats," I had that same thought. I screamed radio hit to me, but alas it never happened.
Good point about there being no place for it on the radio these days, at least outside of The Current here in the Twin Cities. Fortunately I have my XM receiver here at the office to save me from the sh*tty radio scene.
Algonad replied on March 3, 2008 at 12:46:27 pm
The Current is hit-and-miss for me. Sometimes, I'll tune in and I'll hear Wilco followed by TV on the Radio followed by the Black Keys. Other times, I'll hear French electronica followed by The Partridge Family. Or it will be the Singers-That-Whisper hour.
E-6 replied on March 3, 2008 at 10:07:38 am
If you're so inclined to add some live Wilco to your iPod, this would be a fine place to start.
E-6 replied on March 3, 2008 at 9:42:02 am
Is this from American Beauty or Working Man's Dead? heh.
You're right about the Stonesy feel on this one, much more so than on the studio version. Cool stuff. How about something from A Touch of Grey?
Actually, this one owes more to Sonic Youth or Television than anything. The best Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd song they never wrote.
frightwig replied on March 3, 2008 at 11:39:09 am
Of course the "Monday" clip predates their Dead period, but "Impossible Germany" is a good example of what I was talking about. I hear Television there, I hear a bit of Sonic Youth, and it reminds me some of Luna, but that's also got Jerry all over it!
I should say, btw, that I think Kicking Television is an excellent live album. I can hear why people might start following them around the country looking for a Miracle. Do you think they would honor my request if I went and yelled out, "Ripple!"?
E-6 replied on March 3, 2008 at 11:47:12 am
Luna has Jerry written all over it? Uh, Velvet Underground and Television, maybe, but I don't hear Jerry. Then again, maybe I just don't wanna hear him. I'm a big fan of Dean Wareham and Luna. I liked Galaxie 500, too.
Of course the "Monday" clip predates their Dead period...
I know, but my bit needed a set-up.
frightwig replied on March 3, 2008 at 12:42:37 pm
No, "Impossible Germany" has Jerry all over it.
Of course you realize this means you're getting some Dead this week.
E-6 replied on March 3, 2008 at 1:14:02 pm
Back when I was at the U of M, the 400 Bar on the West Bank would schedule a couple of bands that drew a Deadhead crowd. (I usually avoided the bar on those nights.) So, one day I went into the men's room only to discover that they had painted over 30 years of graffiti. A blank canvas. Tabula rasa. And me with a Sharpie in my pocket. I wrote two things: "Bury the Dead" and "Bomb the Mars Hotel" -- the latter, a song title from a Chicago band called Eleventh Dream Day, the former my own idea. I went back to the bar a couple of weeks later, only to find that I'd started a bathroom riot. Angry, indignant words all aimed at the author of those two phrases: me. They called me every name in the book. It was pretty funny. Who knew the hippies had so much hatred? Somewhere in this tangle of words, someone had written, "I f---ed your mother." Good one, Pigpen, I thought to myself. Right beneath it I wrote, "Go home, Dad. You're drunk." That graffiti stayed up until they moved the bathrooms when they remodeled and expanded the place many years later.
frightwig replied on March 3, 2008 at 3:37:35 pm
The Dead were just a folk group who loved the blues, jazz, and acid. If you like American roots music and folk-rock, not to mention Tweedy's attempt to fuse country-rock and jazzy guitar, but hate the Dead that much, I'd guess your reasons may not have all that much to do with the music. Anybody who recorded with both Bob Dylan and Ornette Coleman can't be all that awful, can he?
E-6 replied on March 3, 2008 at 5:17:43 pm
To borrow a line from the great Canadian power-pop band Sloan, "It's not the band I hate, it's their fans." (As far as I know, it's not about the Dead.) I'm talking about the generation of kids, many of them trust-fund babies driving daddy's BMW with the cute dancing skeleton bummer stickers, that glommed onto the group in the early '80's.
There was a coterie of Deadheads that swam in many of the same circles I did in college. While some of them were actually pretty cool folks, with diverse tastes in music, a lot of them were enormous buffoons. They dismissed anything musically that wasn't Jerry-related, dressed like slobs in their dirty tie-dye, and had piss-poor grooming habits. I wanted no part of it. It probably didn't help matters that I was heavily into the Velvets, the Dolls, punk, post-punk and the city's own rich musical scene at the time. I think a lot of it was just me trying to rile 'em up a bit. Punks v. Hippies. No harm, no foul.
A number of my music buff friends are or were big fans of the group. I know just as many that hate them on principle. I guess I just found it impossible to separate the fans from the band. As a result, I may have missed out on some good music. Who knows? (It's not like there wasn't a whole world of wonderful music to listen to with giving into the Grateful Dead, however.)
Stick some in the queue and (try) change my tune.
By the way, I was at the Dead/Dylan debacle at The Dome. My college GF's brothers were pretty crunchy, insisted I go.(Worst concert facility, ever.) I wore my Give 'Em Enough Rope T-shirt (with the buzzards picking at the cowboy.) I think it made a lot of people sad.
And for the record, I think American Beauty is a pretty nice LP.
brianS replied on March 3, 2008 at 6:29:34 pm
a lot of them were enormous buffoons...dressed like slobs...and had piss-poor grooming habits.... I was heavily into the Velvets, the Dolls, punk, post-punk
Heh. My (granted, limited) experience with punk fans in college didn't really allow me to differentiate them much from deadheads based on their grooming habits. Less tie-dye and dreadlockage, more spiked, leather collars and spiked hair and metal-punctured skin. But cleanliness? Perhaps I never got close enough to really sniff the difference.
although I guess pills and coke in general smell a bit less than weed....
E-6 replied on March 3, 2008 at 8:27:46 pm
You're right, the punk rock crowd wasn't exactly the model of cleanliness. But I, for one, never had anything against soap and water. Or deodorant, for that matter. I skipped out on the spiked hair and piercings, too. It was the music that spoke to me, not the fashion. When I wasn't sporting the de rigeur band-t, Levi's, and combat boots, I was donning vintage suits --"dead-guy clothes" as one of my brothers put it -- and a fab collection of paisley shirts. (I was an art-major, after all. I needed to look the part, dammit!) Ragstock and the DT Salvation Army could make a college student look and feel like champagne on a cheap beer budget. I never had the "onions" to go all Johnny Thunders, though. It was more of a John Doe meets Paul Weller thing. Shabby chic, if you will.
I suppose I was a bit of prick back then. Some things never change...
frightwig replied on March 4, 2008 at 6:13:39 pm
To borrow a line from the great Canadian power-pop band Sloan, "It's not the band I hate, it's their fans."
That's the trouble when a band you like gains a popular following. Either you give up your stake or you have to come to grips with the realization that you share certain tastes with the Wrong Sort of People.
I saw the Dead in concert three times, and my daughter thinks both Hagrid and Jerry Garcia are Daddy, but I also like punk rock. So I just don't know what to do with myself. I ain't got no home in this world anymore.
brianS replied on March 5, 2008 at 11:14:19 am
Huh. Did you know that Woody wrote not one, but SEVEN songs with "Hanuka" in the title?
I never knew he had such a thing for the Maccabees.
freealonzo replied on March 3, 2008 at 3:42:58 pm
Great Story E-6.
Musically, Wilco right now is practically Beatle-esque. Not culturally mind you but musically. Their last Four (Five probably) albums have explored a lot of different musical themes but all within a "pop-music" structure. Musically, lyrically, song quality, it's hard to find a band that has exceeded what they've been doing lately. The distance from A.M. to Sky Blue Sky is just as great as Introducing...The Beatles is to Abbey Road.
If you want to read a take on Gram Parsons click on my name.
E-6 replied on March 3, 2008 at 5:19:30 pm
Thanks. I will check out your GP post.
brianS replied on March 3, 2008 at 6:31:03 pm
any blog that celebrates Mark Trail is a blog that deserves at least a second look
SBG replied on March 3, 2008 at 6:36:52 pm
I'm a regular visitor to freealonzo's site.
davidwatts replied on March 3, 2008 at 9:26:22 pm
Wilco was on SNL this past Saturday. great stuff