In February Wilco is doing a five night stint at the Riviera Theater in Chicago. From the email:

Over these 5 nights the band will endeavor to perform every song in their now extensive ouvre (or is that canon)? This includes all the studio recordings and their contributions to the Mermaid Avenue records. Plus, who knows what else? To further clarify, the plan is NOT to do the material sequentially or chronologically. Rather, they’re just going to attempt to cover it all over the 5 shows.

Wow. I can’t wait for the recordings.

Hello,

Just to let you know?

Your ?In Rainbows? discbox has now left w.a.s.t.e. in the UK

You can expect delivery of your discbox in the following estimated times.

UK 1-8 days

Europe 1-14 days

Rest of World 5-18 days

Wherever possible (especially to customers in the USA), we?ve sent these by road and sea.

December is a busy time of year for postal services globally, so please be patient.

We thank you for your custom and hope you enjoy your discbox when you receive it.

Best wishes.

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Ever since being inspired by Gizmodo’s Boycott of the RIAA in March, I’ve been debating in my head the best way to get music from artists that I listen to who are on RIAA labels. I’d like to probably get the new Nine Inch Nails album and the new Wilco album that is coming out next week. At the same time, I don’t want to really give money to RIAA record labels.

I came to the conclusion that I wouldn’t have a personal ethical problem if I bought the albums used. The record labels wouldn’t see any of my money, and the bands eventually get my money because I like to go to shows.

Disturbingly, the other day Jacob posted about a few laws being passed in various states through influence of the music industry that impose heavy burdens on buyers and sellers of used CDs. The laws are so restrictive that they have already resulted in some record stores simply getting out of the used CD business altogether and pulling used titles from the aisles.

Always try to find out a reliable hosting package and dedicated servers to host your website on the World Wide Web. The fast connectivity of adsl also speeds up your work. It’s always good to save a backup of your website on the hosting you have purchased. A few hosting companies also offer web design services to their clients or provide free email marketing services for advertising purposes.

It may be old news, but as I was browsing through Rolling Stone (a free subscription just started coming to me, I don’t know why), I saw this little bit about the Universal Music Group, the RIAA, and Nine Inch Nails:

Universal Music Group, the world’s largest record company, recently launched a worldwide crackdown against Nine Inch Nails fans who posted songs from the band’s new album, Year Zero, on music blogs. But according to sources close to NIN, the label didn’t realize that frontman Trent Reznor leaked the tracks on purpose, as part of an elaborate marketing campaign for the disc…

One song-poster who was billed and sent a cease-and-desist letter reported that a month later

“Universal contacted me, stating that all of this was a big mistake. Some persons weren’t aware of what other persons were doing.” The company returned his money and invited him to see a NIN show and meet the band.

Jessica had originally tipped me off about this track-leaking phenomenon some months ago by pointing me to her friend Patrick’s site, where he’d gathered up some coverage of it. I haven’t really been keeping up, but it sounded like a fascinating plan. Too bad the record companies are full of morons.

A bit more than a week ago I got an email announcing a sneak preview streaming of Wilco’s forthcoming album, Sky Blue Sky on their website. I couldn’t get the plugins to make Quicktime work with Firefox on Ubuntu and didn’t have enough time to make it work just to listen at that time.

Then they announced they would be doing it again last Sunday. Thinking that it’d be great to get a full two months of listening before the album comes out I made sure to get set up to record it.

I ended up not figuring out a simple way to do it in Ubuntu. Had I spent more time I’m sure there is a way, but I’m just much more familiar with my soundcard options and audio functionality within Windows, so I rebooted into Windows for the first time in many weeks.

I did get the entire album saved in the mono version that was streamed. All in all I must say I’m happy with it.

Now, the title of this post has nothing to do with the Soul Coughing song I took the line from, but simply serves as a way for me to talk about the various ways I’ve listened to this new Wilco album.

First I listened to it as it was streaming on my computer and then once or twice at my computer after that. I don’t feel like I focused on it because I’m always doing other tasks at the same time. The only thing I remember that stuck out to me was the guitar work on “Impossible Germany”. I also seemed to discern some sort of coherent influence on the album. I don’t feel like I know enough about musicology to place it or anything, but the whole thing feels like it goes well together and that it came from somewhere.

The next day I listened to it while I walked to and from class. With nothing to do but listen and walk I picked up a lot more detail in the songs. I began to get more of a feel of them. I would have to say my impression is that Sky Blue Sky is a very relaxed album. It doesn’t have the seriousness of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot or A Ghost Is Born. None of the songs are really emotionally intense, which is not a criticism. It’s a good collection of songs. The album feels to me like Wilco wrote a bunch of songs and gave them to us saying: here, we wrote these, have a listen sometime.

I then tried the album in my car as I was driving. Usually I get the most out of music when I’m driving because I really pay attention. Maybe I was distracted, but the album didn’t engage me as much in the car as it did when I was walking. Maybe it’s a walking album, just as some albums are driving albums.

In any case, I do like it. I’m sure I will even grow to like it more. First impressions always must be reviewed after listening to an album for months and interpretations change. I also look forward to picking up the CD and hearing the stereo version and having the artwork in my hands.

I downloaded the song “What Light” from Wilco’s MySpace page and put it up on my Vox page.

technorati tags: wilco, sky blue sky, listening

Last night was my 3rd time seeing SY on tour in support of Rather Ripped this year. Maybe because of that or because I was behind tall people the whole show, I wasn’t entirely blown away.

The openers were way out there. The Skaters played one song for 20 minutes. It seemed like guitar fuzz only to me, but I actually enjoyed it. 16 Bitch Pile-Up was a bit different. They played mostly tape loops and effects boxes. Jeff (a fellow MLIS student that went with me) said he thought they sounded amateurish. He’s a fan of experimental music like I am, but I do see his point. Some of the clicks and pops and scratchy noises didn’t seem like there was much thought put in to them. They did have some really great sounds toward the end of their set though, mostly when the music became full and loud.

The crowd absolutely hated this band. I’ve never heard nastier things being shouted at people on stage before. I wish Sonic Youth knew how the crowd reacted to the noise and then threw the same stuff at them. I’m always up for a half an hour or more of feedback from them. They actually seemed to do a little less of that this time. “Teenage Riot” had a long outro of guitar drones, but there wasn’t much else in the set.

The set with a few annotations:

Candle (great surprise as an opener)
Incinerate
Reena
Eric’s Trip (I would’ve liked to see another Lee song since I’ve seen this 3 times)
Do You Believe in Rapture?
What a Waste
The World Looks Red (what a treat!)
The Neutral
Rats
Jams Run Free
Pink Steam (the best of the new songs played, this song rocks)
Or
———
Turquoise Boy
Teenage Riot (the crowd went wild, it was great to hear)
———
Lights Out
Shaking Hell

technorati tags:sonicyouth, wiltern, losangeles, liveshows, music

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On Sunday I went up to San Francisco again to see Sonic Youth. This time it happened to be at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium because they were opening for Pearl Jam. I went with my friend Capri and we had a pretty good time.

We were a bit late because of my fantastic navigation skills around the streets of SF. Sonic Youth was already playing when we got inside. They sounded great to me, of course. We opted for finding seats in the balcony somewhere because neither of us are particularly huge Pearl Jam fans and we knew sitting would be nicer than standing the whole show. Our view ended up being about even with the right side of the stage. I actually think it was a really cool angle. We could see everything happening on stage from above.

Sonic Youth still played many tracks from their new release even when in the opening slot. They didn’t opt for the popular hits that the crowd may have known. It must be so difficult for a band to be playing with another band who has a huge following when their sounds are not the same at all. There was one guy who shouted out during “Or”: This fucking sucks! Maybe he was drunk already.

Since we were late I didn’t get the whole setlist written down. I haven’t been able to find it online yet, either. That might be a good thing because then I can’t be disappointed by what I might have missed. Here’s what I got:

–
100%
What a Waste
Mote
Do You Believe in Rapture?
Jams Run Free
Pink Steam
Or

Even though it was short for me, it was still a treat.

As for Pearl Jam, they played pretty well. The only stuff I’m familiar with comes from their first three albums and there was a fair amount of it. It was really interesting hearing “Garden” from Ten. I didn’t expect to hear that at all. The highlight for me was probably seeing “Better Man” because Ed didn’t even sing the entire first verse–he left it up to the crowd who filled in very nicely.

I had tickets to the Tuesday night show, but I decided not to go because getting up there on a weeknight would be a hassle, and I had already seen them. I found a friend who needed tickets for his sister so I wasn’t stranded with $120 worth of tickets on my hands either.

technorati tags: sonicyouth, pearljam, music, liveshows, sanfrancisco

Last night I went up to San Francisco to see Sonic Youth at the Fillmore. They snuck in a solo show before the shows with Pearl Jam in the next few days. I was really happy about that. They played for close to two hours–much longer than they probably will play when opening for PJ.

On the Sonic Nurse tour I was pleased to realize that Sonic Youth will never become a touring “Greatest Hits” band. They played all but one track off of that record during that show. Last night they played every new song off of the new record, Rather Ripped. I thought it was quite a treat. The few other songs they played were exciting too. The ending of “Pattern Recognition” was long and furious and quite lovely. “Expressway to Yr Skull” was unexpected but very welcome. I love how they made it just kind of disintegrate on itself.

I started taking note of the setlist about halfway through with memos on my phone. This is what I got down, anyway:

Incinerate
Reena
(I Got a) Catholic Block
Pattern Recognition
Do You Believe in Rapture?
Eric’s Trip
What a Waste
Sleepin’ Around
Jams Run Free
Rats
Turquoise Boy
Pink Steam
Or
–
Lights Out
Shaking Hell
–
The Neutral
Expressway to Yr Skull

technorati tags: sonicyouth, fillmore, sanfrancisco, music, liveshows

A couple nights ago I saw We Are Scientists and Arctic Monkeys at the Warfield with Jessica. (She took all the photos.)

It was quite an adventure just getting there. We got stuck behind a fresh accident on the freeway before we could exit for our usual In-N-Out Burger in Mountain View. After sitting for at least 15 minutes in traffic to go just the 3 miles up the road, we finally exited and got to wait another 10 minutes in the Drive Thru line. Then, traffic was a little thick for another 10 minutes or so back on the freeway, once we started going the right direction. The Northbound on ramp to 101 eluded me after buying our burgers. We actually made it to the city about right at 8:00, when the show was supposed to start. We saw Mike, Jessica’s buddy that we were meeting there, right away. He had snagged a good standing spot on the first level up from the floor.

We Are Scientists came on at 8:30 instead of 8:00 so we did just fine with time. I think they play better when they are an opening band. When Jessica and I first saw them they were opening for Bishop Allen to an almost nonexistent crowd at the Independent more than a year ago. They blew us away at that show.

I thought their playing the other night was at that same level. The crowd was not theirs; they were mostly there for Arctic Monkeys, so We Are Scientists had to play that much harder to make an impression. Most of the songs bled together through waves of distortion and feedback (the kind of stuff I love; reminiscent of Nirvana performances). Keith was at his finest, flailing about and molesting his amplifier with his guitar to produce some wonderful noise. His microphone and stand did not get off scot-free either. By the end of the set they had been abused just as well.

They played every song from With Love and Squalor without branching out to older material or anything else. Still, the songs from The Wolf’s Hour EP are my favorites and so I’m glad that 4 of them are on the new album and are staples of their live set.

As for Arctic Monkeys, I had never even heard their music before the show. I thought they were a pretty good band. Most of their songs are loud and fast paced. They really exploit having two guitarists and it adds quite a bit to the music. Their songs are catchy, but at the same time I think that were I to listen to them frequently they would become tedious and repetitive. The crowd really loved them. Lots of hopping up and down was going on. A pit even broke out once or twice. To me, they put on a good show, but I wasn’t blown away or anything.

[shamelessly cross-posted here, here, and here]

technorati tags: livemusic, warfield, rock, wearescientists, arcticmonkeys

I set alarms to wake up at 9:45 on a Saturday. I had 4 different browsers open to the Ticketmaster site. And still there were no Tool tickets left when the first page came up after hitting F5 repeatedly.

Who wants to get me tickets? They are only about $500 a pair now on eBay.

technorati tags: tool, tickets, music, concerts