My incredible March concert tour continues tonight with one of my favorite bands, Wilco. I was first introduced to Wilco when a friend of mine that I used to trade Phish and Dave Matthews Band bootlegs with in high school put part of a Wilco show on as filler (he told me I had to hear this song "Misunderstood") at the end of one of the tapes -- yep, tapes! Maxell XL-IIs -- we'd trade back and forth. I liked the song and got Being There, which had just come out, shortly afterwards. That summer I didn't have much to do, being 15 and all, so I spent a lot of time playing video games and listening to the album. I think I've scored more goals playing NHL '96 on Genesis while listening to "Monday" than any other song.
I purchased Summerteeth when it came out, but didn't spend as much time with it until later. At the moment it wasn't where I was at musically. Then Yankee Hotel Foxtrot came along and cemented Wilco as one of my all-time favorites. I listened to YHF constantly in college and think it is among the best records that has been released in my lifetime. That the entire soap opera was captured, at the time unwittingly, on I Am Trying to Break Your Heart: A Film About Wilco By Sam Jones only adds to the incredible circumstances that surround the record.
After YHF, Wilco became one of the bands from which I had to hear everything: live, b-sides, demos, anything. (Currently, the completist group is Wilco, the White Stripes, Ben Harper, Gomez and -- recently -- the National.)
Luckily, Wilco lends itself to the completist's spirit by creating a ton of unreleased material. The band's most recent release, Kicking Television: Live In Chicago, has two "bonus" cuts available from various Internet ordering incarnations. Its even better that both tracks are older songs since KTV is skewed towards their more recent (albeit pretty incredible) material. You heard about my ties to "Monday" above; "How to Fight Loneliness" has the distinction of being the first Wilco song I could play (loose usage of that word) on guitar. Plus it is the highlight performance on the outtakes disc from IATTBYH.
Wilco || How to Fight Loneliness (Kicking Television bonus track)
Wilco || Monday (Kicking Television bonus track)
(Songs are hosted on rapidshare.de and will be live until they have been inactive for 30 days. mp3s posted are for purposes of furthering obsessions. Please support the bands in question whenever and however possible! If you are the owner of this material and would like it to be removed from this site, let me know and I will happily comply.)
(Photo from wilcoworld.net)
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