Update of yesterday's "On Wilco"

This is the type of lazy reviewing I was talking about yesterday. The kind that kust references other music instead of actually assessing the album on its own merits. Thank you Rolling Stone for the relevant example. And more often than not, this is the type of review you often see from Rolling Stone, where you learn much more about the reviewer and their ability to recall obscure bands from their extensive personal catalogue of music. Good music critics, such as Rob V.A. out in Minny, need no such literary crutches. This schmuck at RS can't even get two sentences into his review before he drops the oft cited Steely Dan reference. Lame.

Second thing to note: swung by the local Bux this morning to grab an americano (when there is one on every street corner, as there are here in DC, they all sorta fit the description as the local one), when low and behold, fucking SBS is for sale. In a goddamn Starbucks. Right next to the Michael Buble and the Bob Marley 73-75 Live albums. Lame. Uber-LAME. When I was mulling over how to best describe the latest album, "the type of music you could buy with your morning latte" never quite crossed my mind. And yet, fittingly, that is a perfect description. Tame. More boring moments than exciting ones. Background music. The type of album you could pickup at your local Bux with your morning latte.

On Wilco

Tuesday, May 15. I purchased Wilco's latest, Sky Blue Sky, from my local record store Melody Records. Now, first something on Melody and local record shops. I admire you, independent record store. I find the idea of record shops in this day of iTunes and eMusic and Napster and all that shit nostalgic and quaint and existentially awesome (who knew retail could be quaint or existential). And this is why I am willing to pay $3-$6 more per album than I can purchase the music for on-line. I often venture into Melody on Tuesday afternoons to see what came out that week. For me, having the liner notes and something physical to flip through on my first few listens to any new album makes for a much fuller experience, as opposed to buying digital files of songs off the internets. So thanks Melody, and good luck to you.

As for Wilco, I think it is very commendable that they continued their recent tradition (since YHF) of making the album available to listen to on-line before it is available to purchase. Does it encourage piracy and discourage record sales? According to recording industry conventional wisdom, yes. But I don’t really trust or respect the recording industry’s wisdom on much, so fuck them (especially RIAA). And so: props to Wilco. I think since they have been doing this they have even increased their album sales, so keep on keepin on, fellas.

Anyways, onto SBS. [Note: It's sort of annoying to me that Wilco encourages the reduction of their album titles to acronyms, starting with YHF—which actually made some sense given that the moniker is a reference to the Radio Operators Alphabet Always—and then continuing it with AGIB, but whatever.] Since I admire Wilco’s practice of releasing the music early and since I am a big fan and since I like liner notes and album art (nerd, I know), I had to buy this album on Tuesday, the day it came out (would a real real fan have pre-ordered it on-line? Not sure, but I like my local record shop [see above] and enjoy the physical activity of going and searching through tons of music). ANYWAYS, always the sucker, I paid $19.99 for the deluxe edition of this album. This means I got the DVD with 8-9 songs recorded live from The Loft, as well as fragments from an interview with Tweedy. AND, the real bonus of buying it in the store was they were giving away free Wilco SBS t-shirts to the first few hundred buyers. Nice touch.

DVD Review: Wow, so this is what a sober Jeff Tweedy looks like. Still whiny, still paranoid, still completely out of touch with reality, only now he has this nervous tick that the painkillers were apparently covering up in previous interviews. The live recordings were fine, I think some of the rockers from this album will be awesome live (see below). Nels Cline makes seeing Wilco live totally worthwhile, he’s probably one of the best guitar dudes around these days and could easily be headlining his own gig.

Album Review: I dunno. As a studio album it leaves A LOT to be desired. It’s good, not great. But I think they made this one for the road. Or at least that’s how it comes across to me. The songs in general are departure from the previous two Wilco records in that it doesn’t bother with studio-created sonic soundscapes. The tracks are all straight up, and apparently mostly recorded live in the loft with very little overdubbing (if you believe the interviews seen in the aforementioned DVD). You are my face and Hate it here are both great. Impossible Germany is good except for the senseless lyrics (especially funny is Tweedy trying to explain what the lyrics mean on the DVD, he starts out saying something about a place and ends up talking about himself, or something… he’s crazy, hard to tell WTF he is talking about sometimes). Walken will be loads of fun live. So will Shake it off I think. What light is the sing-along song (not to mention Tweedy’s best attempt at Dylan). Side with the seeds is a bluesy folk song that will probably stretch into some ten minute long jam sometime shortly after the song effectively ends at 3 mins (the studio album leaves with about 50 seconds of what the jam will probably sound like live at the end of the track). And then there are the boring ballads, which are probably good in a live Tweedy solo acoustic format, but have little to no place on a Wilco album, IMO (yeah, I am looking at you Patient with me, Sky blue sky, Leave me…, and even to a lesser extent Either way and On and on and on, both of which I do sorta like but am not overwhelmingly impressed with). On the whole I’d describe SBS as Stealy Dan meets Joe Cocker, (because all album reviews are contractually obliged to try to evaluate one person’s music in reference to someone else’s music, which is a lazy form of reviewing if you ask me and why I saved it for my last comment.) There are also some very clear moments of The Band and Dylan (but certainly not Dylan with the Band), and maybe, if I am not mistaken, a few Billy Joel moments in there too (circa mid-1970s Joel), but don’t quote me on that one.

DVD Grade: B. Worth the extra 5 bucks if you are an apeshit fan that needs to have everything they have released, even this stupid book. (Yep, I own it).

Album Grade: B-. Hey, it’s my favorite band, of course I am going to grade them on a curve. Lowest they could have gotten was a C, really. And I will almost certainly listen to this album about a billion times and probably find things I love about it. But it is definitely a bit of a let down for me.

Racing for a cure

Hey ya'll, so I am joining Misha and an old college friend Laura G in DC's Race for the Cure. I encourage you all to participate. And if you cannot, I encourage you all to support my fundraising effort.

Check it out:

The Susan G. Komen for the Cure Race Series is the largest series of 5K runs/fitness walks in the world, with well over 1 million participants since 2005. The Komen Race for the Cure raises significant funds and awareness for the fight against breast cancer, celebrates breast cancer survivorship, and honors those who have lost their battle with the disease.

A minimum of twenty-five percent of the net income from each domestic Affiliate Race supports the Komen for the Cure Award and Research Grant Programs, which fund groundbreaking breast cancer research, meritorious awards and educational and scientific conferences around the world. Up to seventy-five percent of the net income from each domestic Affiliate Race stays in the local community to fund breast health education and breast cancer screening and treatment projects.

What does that mean for our area? It means a minimum of $1 million of the funds raised through the Race will remain in the Washington, D.C., community – including metro-area counties in Virginia and Maryland – to fund outreach programs and initiatives that address the specific unmet breast health needs of the area. Washington, D.C., has the highest breast cancer mortality rate in the United States.

For additional information on Komen National Race for the Cure, click here.

And here's my fundraising page again, in case you missed it above. As of posting time at 11am this morning, I am at a measley $75 out of my goal of $250. Help me out!

Way to go Ike!!

Wow, my buddy Ike works for The New Republic, and a while back wrote this really interesting article on why TNT's Halftime Show with Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith and moderated by Ernie Johnson (token white guy) is the best sports show on television. I would tell you to go read that article but you have to be a TNR subscriber. Lame.

So go read this new one instead. It is a free-ranging interview with Charles Barkley on politics, race, class, and much much more. It is FASCINATING, at least to me. He is such a different dude than the one you see on TV hawking T-Mobile with D-Wade, or anchoring that show on TNT. Seeing this new perspective, I have a whole new respect for Barkley. Way to go Ike for getting the interview and getting him to talk about all this! Here's hoping he does run for Gov of AL someday. And as an independent too. (You'll see what he says about that in Ik'es interview with him... nice forshadowing, eh?)

Here are some excerpts. On the 2008 presidential election:

This is going to be a very interesting election because we are going to find out who is sexist and who is racist. Because I don't think a woman can win, because I think America is sexist. I am not sure Barack can win, because I do think we have a racial divide in this country.

On gay marriage:

In terms of more cultural issues, gay marriage you are totally OK with?
Yeah, I am. I am not going to judge other people. Only God can do that.

On class:

America is divided by economics strictly. You know, people always talk about race, and we have racial problems in this country. Of course we do. But the real issue is the rich against the poor. We've got to get poor white people and poor black people and Mexicans to realize they are all in the same boat.

And there is a lot more. He comments on Imus, the Duke case, rap music, and more. Really great read, so great in fact it is receiving this week's Domestique Suggested Reading honor. Like I said, way to go Ike!

Nat'l Arboretum & Azaleas

Above: Columns that once adorned the eastern part of the capital building (or something).
Below: Some pics of the azalea gardens at the National Arboretum in a beautiful part of NE DC.

2007 Farm Bill

The Farm Bill is up for reauthorization this year, and there is much buzz in the food community. My main man Michale Pollan recently hosted a teach-in at Berkeley on the matter. (Yes, I am still perfectly happy going to u-dub and have no regrets that I did not get into Berkeley... at least that is what I will keep telling myself.)

You can watch the whole thing here, and I plan to after work. I'll report on anything interesting. (That's just the kind of dedicated nerd I am. If there were an equivalent D&D scale for to gauge my own level of nerdiness, I'd probably be somewhere between Grand Master Wizard Dragon Slayer Dude and Lieutenant Wizard Dragon Slayer.)

ANYWAYS, Over at The Ethicurean, they've begun a discussion of Pollan's teach-in, which included a discussion with George Lakoff, issue-framer extrordinaire. I disagree with their assertion that he is merely the Left's version of Frank Luntz, but it is a debatable point I suppose.

In related news, I also saw there was another outbreak of E. Coli, this time associated with ground beef sold in Byerly's and Lund's stores in the western metro area of the Twin Cities. To my friends out there who may shop at one of those stores, please throw away all meat you may have in your fridge from them. It is possible it is confined to ground beef, but I wouldn't chance it.

Tying the Farm Bill (or food policy anyways) back to food borne disease, we see that today in the House of Representatives Agriculture Committee (chaired by MN re Collin Peterson) will take up the issue of whether all food inspection should be handed over to the FDA. As it stands now, the FDA inspects everything not coming from an animal, while USDA takes the meat, poultry, dairy, and eggs side of our menus. The fractured structure of oversight, and the lame and incompetent Bush Administration, has lead to an environment where its basically a crapshoot whether or not that 7-layer burrito is going to maybe kill you or that lakeside BBQ will lead to trip to the emergency room. The odds are still on our, the consumer's side, but the scales are tipping.

My delusional hope is that the next Farm Bill will address food borne disease by placing requirements on food production, namely on large factory farms. As with the peanut butter in GA, the spinach in CA, the meat in MN, the lettuce in Taco Bell, (fill in your favorite food related illness outbreak here... mad cow anyone?), it is the nature of and specific processes involved in factory farming ("industrial agriculture") that leads to the persistance of these cases. Sure, more oversight would help. But not nearly as much as cutting funding from the Farm Bill to CAFOs with dangerous practices (CAFOs are feedlots, or, big beef "farms" where cattle stand shoulder to shoulder and knee deep in pens of their own manure, see more from the good folks at Free Range Graphics in their short peice called The Meatrix). Or including funding for hazardous waste (read manure) cleanup so that runoff doesnt affect downstream crops (as was the case in CA). The real problem is not the lack of oversight, its the way that the current Farm Bill pays for these shitty practices that are leading to a slew of health problems for us all.

Someone's got a case of the mondays...

...And it's me. I had a great but tiring weekend with the 'rents, and today I feel like I had no weekend at all.

It was fun, we made a nice pan of stuff shells from this awesome Italian deli Vace in Cleveland Park. Saturday we had lunch at Logan Tavern, then went to the Navy Memorial (LAME) and then to the 68th annual FlowerMart. We capped it off with dinner at Clyde's in Gallery Place and then a brief tour of the monuments at night. Sunday we went to the Dupont Farmers Market, then to the National Arboretum, and finally a BBQ and picnic down at Hains Point. No, actually, there was more. THEN we went home for a round of G&Ts (the parents L-O-V-E Saphire & Tonic, and who can blame 'em) and then we went for dessert (milkshakes) at American City Diner. Non-stop fun! And like I said, I am tired today.

Good sports weekend though. Clemens unretires. AGAIN. (My theory is he needs to wait for his scientists to develop ways he can cheat the 'roids test every year, which is why he has this habit of playing half-seasons lately and which also explains how a 44 year old can still pitch in the 90s). Mayweather beats De La Hoya in a split decision. UNITED WITHS THE PREMIERSHIP! A horse named Street Sense won the KY Derby. And much much more.

I leave you with the 133rd running of the Kentucky Derby, enjoy.