Chimpomatic

Wilco - What's Your 20?

Wilco have clocked up an impressive 20 years since their first gig in 1994, as The Black Shampoo. For their 20th anniversary, they are relased a retrospective best-of, plus a 4 disc set of rarities. Out in the UK on Dec 1st.

Epic timeline below.

WILCO

• May 1, 1994 - Uncle Tupelo performs its last show as a band at Mississippi Nights in St. Louis, MO.

• May 1994 - After Uncle Tupelo's split, Jeff Tweedy, Max Johnston, Ken Coomer and John Stirratt carry on as Wilco. Factoid #1: Before arriving at Wilco as the band's name, they considered calling themselves "National Dust."

• August 1994 - The sessions for what would become Wilco's debut album, A.M. begin with Brian Paulson as producer for Reprise Records. (Paulson handled similar duties for Uncle Tupelo's final album, Anodyne.) The Bottle Rockets' Brian Henneman, formerly a guitar tech for Uncle Tupelo, plays lead guitar on the album (and clinking bottles on "Casino Queen"). Jay Bennett joins the band after recording finishes.

• September 13, 1994 - The first released Wilco recording, a collaboration with Syd Straw on the Ernest Tubb song "The T.B. is Whipping Me," debuts on the benefit album Red, Hot + Country.

• November 17, 1994 - Performing as "Black Shampoo," Wilco make its live debut at Cicero's in St. Louis, MO.

• March 28, 1995 - Wilco releases A.M., touring extensively behind it.

• October 29, 1996 - The double-disc Being There is released. Bob Egan joins the band
during recording, while Max Johnston leaves afterwards.

• November 1997 - The band spends a week at Willie Nelson's Texas studio Pedenales
working on demos for songs that would eventually appear on Summerteeth.

• December 1997 - The band take occupancy of The Loft, the Chicago space that they
record and practice in to this day.

• January 1998 - Mermaid Avenue recording sessions begin in Dublin with
singer/songwriter Billy Bragg after a trial run in Chicago the month before. The album
brings to life previously unrecorded lyrics by Woody Guthrie.

• June 23, 1998 - Mermaid Avenue is released and eventually nominated for a GRAMMY
in the category of Best Contemporary Folk album. Bob Egan leaves the band and Leroy
Bach joins.

• March 9, 1999 - Summerteeth is released, taking another jump ahead of expectations.
More songs are recorded for eventual inclusion on Mermaid Avenue, Vol. 2.

• January 9, 2000 – The band’s last show at Lounge Ax, the late, great Chicago music
venue co-owned by Tweedy's wife Sue Miller Tweedy and Julia Adams.

• May 30, 2000 - Mermaid Avenue, Vol. 2 debuts, featuring new Guthrie songs from Wilco
as well as others by the band and Bragg that didn't make the first record.

• January 2001 - Coomer leaves the band not long before cameras begin rolling on Sam Jones' documentary about Yankee Hotel Foxtrot's recording. Glenn Kotche, who had begun working with Tweedy on side projects and live shows, joins.

• June/July 2001 - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is turned in to Reprise Records and initially met with dismay and silence. Management begins a delicate back and forth with the label to extricate the band from its recording contract. The band eventually leaves Reprise with the album, no strings attached, to shop around elsewhere.

• July 4, 2001 – Wilco headlines WXPN’s Fourth of July concert in Chicago's Grant Park; unbeknownst to anyone at the time, this will be Jay Bennett’s last show with the band.

• August 16, 2001 - Jay Bennett leaves Wilco.

• September 10, 2001 - Scott McCaughey visits Chicago and enlists Wilco to back him up
on the latest album by his project The Minus 5. The album, titled Down With Wilco, is
released on Yep Roc Records on February 25, 2003.

• September 18, 2001 - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot begins streaming for free on Wilcoworld.net,
a practice the band also employs on future recordings. Tour plans are made featuring Tweedy, Stirratt, Kotche and Bach, re-configuring the band’s live performance in the wake of Bennett's departure.

• April 23, 2002 - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot arrives in stores via Nonesuch Records. The album goes on to be certified Gold (sales in excess of 500,000) by the RIAA and remains to this day the band’s best-selling album.

• July 26, 2002 – Sam Jones' documentary on the recording of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, entitled I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, opens in select theaters. Also that year, Mikael Jorgensen begins working with the band, first in the capacity of sound mixer, later adding keyboardist to his duties.

• November 2003 - Work begins in New York City on A Ghost Is Born with producer Jim O'Rourke.

• January 28, 2004 - Leroy Bach's departure is announced.

• March 4, 2004 - Pat Sansone and Nels Cline join the band.

• April 2004 – Tweedy enters rehab to treat an addition to painkillers; A Ghost is Born
release is delayed.

• May 19, 2004 - The first live performance with the new lineup (which is now Tweedy,
Stirratt, Kotche, Jorgensen, Cline & Sansone) debuts at Otto's in Dekalb, IL. The lineup
remains current.

• June 15, 2004 - Greg Kot's bio on the band, Learning How To Die, hits bookstores.

• June 21, 2004 - A Ghost is Born is released. Factoid #2: Alternate title considered: Wilco
Happens.

• November 2, 2004 - The band releases The Wilco Book, capturing Wilco in pictorial, literary and musical form.

• December 31, 2004 – Wilco headlines Madison Square Garden, sharing a bill with Sleater-Kinney and The Flaming Lips. They close the show, in their pajamas, with a post- midnight covers-set including “Don’t Fear The Reaper.”

• February 13, 2005 – A Ghost is Born wins Best Alternative Music Album at the 47th Annual GRAMMY Awards.

• November 15, 2005 - Kicking Television: Live in Chicago, the band's first live album, is released, featuring tracks recorded over the course of four shows at Chicago’s Vic Theater.

• May 15, 2007 - The first studio album to feature Cline and Sansone, Sky Blue Sky, is released. It debuts at #4 on the Billboard charts and is nominated for a Best Rock Album GRAMMY.

• September 12, 2007 - Wilco performs first ticketed show at the Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago’s Millennium Park. The show is a benefit and raises more than $100,000 for the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless.

• February 15 – 20, 2008 - The band plays every song from every one of their albums over a five-night residency at the Riviera in Chicago.

• March 1, 2008 – Wilco performs “Walken’” and “Hate It Here” on Saturday Night Live. Ellen Page hosts.

• April 28, 2009 - Wilco: Live - Ashes of American Flags, a concert film from directors Christoph Green and Brendan Canty following the band from Tulsa, OK to Washington D.C. on their 2008 tour, is released on DVD.

• May 2009 - Former Wilco member Jay Bennett passes away at his home in Illinois. A statement from the band remembers Bennett as a "truly unique and gifted human being."

• June 30, 2009 - The band gets meta with the release of Wilco (The Album) and its lead single "Wilco (The Song)." Like Sky Blue Sky, Wilco (The Album) debuts at #4 on the Billboard charts. Wilco receives a GRAMMY nomination for Best Americana Album.

• July 2009 – Jeff Tweedy appears on the cover of SPIN magazine.

• January 29, 2010 – Wilco performs Buffalo Springfield’s “Broken Arrow” at MusiCares
2010 Person of the Year concert honoring Neil Young. SPIN calls the performance
“brilliant,” and one that “revealed a band in complete control of its capabilities.”

• August 13 – 15, 2010 - Wilco kicks off the inaugural Solid Sound Festival at the
Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. The festival features band members' side
projects, as well as other artist-friends like Mavis Staples.

• January 2011 - The band announces the creation of its own label, dBpm Records after
their contract with Nonesuch ends. The label's first release is the Wilco single "I Might"

with a B-side cover of Nick Lowe's "I Love My Label," first released at Solid Sound
Festival. Factoid #3: dBpm had been kicked around as a possible album title for years.
• September 27, 2011 - The Whole Love, the band's debut album for its label dBpm
Records, hits the Billboard charts at #5 and receives a Grammy nomination for Best Rock
Album.

• November 23, 2011 – Rolling Stone names Nels Cline one of the 100 Greatest Guitarists
of all time.

• April 21, 2012 - Timed for Record Store Day and to commemorate Woody Guthrie's
100th birthday, Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions, a vinyl box set (which includes the first two volumes, a third collecting unreleased songs, as well as a DVD of the documentary, Man In the Sand) is released. Mermaid Avenue, Vol. 3 is also released digitally.

• July 8, 2012 - Wilco plays largest headlining show (to date), performing to 15k+ fans at Chicagoland's Kane County Cougars 5/3 Bank Ballpark. The show coincides with the breaking of a Midwest heat wave that saw Chicagoans sweltering through multiple days of record-breaking temperatures exceeding 100-degrees.

• June 21, 2013 – Wilco plays an all-request covers set during the opening night of the 2013 Solid Sound Festival. Songs performed include Television’s “Marquee Moon,” Abba’s “Waterloo” and Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky.” Tommy Stintson joins for a cover of The Replacements “Color Me Impressed.”

• June 26, 2013 – Wilco joins Bob Dylan’s AmericanaramA tour. The band welcomes several guests to the stage throughout the tour including Government Mule’s Warren Haynes, Mott the Hoople’s Ian Hunter and The Band’s Garth Hudson.

• November 17, 2014 – Exactly twenty years to the day since Wilco’s first performance (as Black Shampoo) Nonesuch Records releases two Wilco collections: The first, Alpha Mike Foxtrot, a 4-CD, 4-LP/Digital box set amassing rare studio and live recordings from the band's archives, and the second, What's Your 20?, is a 2-CD/Digital compilation of essential tracks culled from the band's previously released studio recordings.

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28th Nov 2014 - Add Comment - Tweet

Trailer Park: X-Men Days of Future Past

The X-men get into flares and kipper ties for next summer's time-travelling mash-up. The always epic Thin Red Line score gives the trailer some gravitas.

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29th Oct 2013 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Douglas Trumbull: UFOTOG

Short looking at FX legend Douglas Trumbull's plans to get some HD UFO footage. Good idea. More details of a feature-length drama he's planning (about a man who wants to film some UFOs) over at THR - shooting in 4K 3D at 120 frames per second. He's also developing "a sci-fi epic that takes place about 200 years in the future”. We're in.

UFOTOG, an acronym for UFO photography, is “based on a longer screenplay that I have” that tells the story of a man’s attempt to photograph an alien spacecraft. “He’s very smart, a serial entrepreneur, like Elon Musk. So he has the wherewithal to get a really good camera and build a system on a mountaintop.” The photographer is played by actor Ryan Winkles.

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19th Jun 2013 - Add Comment - Tweet

Trailer Park: A Band Called Death

Interesting looking doc on the cult band described as being "punk before punk".

"Before Bad Brains, the Sex Pistols or even the Ramones, there was Death. Formed in the early ’70s by three teenage brothers from Detroit, Death is credited as being the first black punk band, and the Hackney brothers, David, Bobby, and Dannis, are now considered pioneers in their field. But it wasn’t until recently — when a dusty 1974 demo tape made its way out of Bobby’s attic nearly 30 years after Death’s heyday — that anyone outside a small group of punk enthusiasts had even heard of them. Equal parts electrifying rockumentary and epic family chronicle, the story of Death is one of brotherly love and fierce, divinely inspired expression."

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24th May 2013 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Promo Promo: Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Epic, #NSFW video starring @LilyCole for the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs track Sacrilege.

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27th Mar 2013 - Add Comment - Tweet

Skate Or Die: Raindrops

Boards, jumpsuits, Red Epic slow mo... 

Directed by: LAMAR+NIK
Song: Monster Rally & Rumtum "Raindrops" (via @mashkulture)

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16th Jan 2013 - Add Comment - Tweet

12 For 2012

In alphabetical order, here's 12 things I enjoyed in 2012...

Argo
Ben Affleck turns in another great actor/director turn as a CIA agent heading to Iran to rescue hostages during the 1979 revolution with the flimsiest of bad cover stories: a fake Hollywood studio looking to shoot a Star Wars ripoff. Great beards, trenchcoats, 70s soundtrack - and it's all (pretty much) true. 

Breaking Bad S5
Magnetic, bitches! Can't wait for the second half. S4 was possibly tighter, but watching Walt's turn to the baaaad side was pretty compelling. 

Frank Ocean - Channel Orange
Fresh take on modern R&B, adding Sly Stone psych jams to the digital mix.

Game Of Thrones S2
Adding more families, more magic, more dastardly plots and more blood/guts/sexposition to an ever-expanding world.

Girls S1
Cue a stream of "new Sex And The City" / "they're so shocking" / "why is their NY so white?" articles - all interesting points, but it's easy to get sucked up in the phenomenon and lose sight of just how well written this is. Makes up for HBO canning How To Make It In America. Kind of.

Fables
Bill Willingham's ongoing Vertigo series is like Game Of Thrones for fairytales. A great graphic novel drama/thriller/comedy/soap opera.

The Killing III
Focused finale for Forbrydelsen, with Sarah Lund finding love in a hopeless place (another dark room in Denmark where the lights don't work but it's OK because she's got her torch. And Borch).

Lincoln
Total Oscar-bait, will be v surprised if anything manages to beat this when they're dishing them out. Spielberg back to his epic best, showing the mechanics of US government during the Civil War as Lincoln (Daniel Day Lewis) charms, cajoles and tricks his way to the abolition of slavery.

Tame Impala - Lonerism
Aussie psychedelia with bags of personality and tunes.

Toy - Toy
Two tracks pushing beyond the 7 min mark, tight Krautrock beats and Chameleons-style riffing - a promising, solid debut in a post-Horrors space that had multiple repeats at Chimp Towers.

The Walking Dead S3
Zombie action ramped up, more plots, more characters, less time to think "hey, what about..?"

Also CONSUMED & ENJOYED
Modern Family S4, Boardwalk Empire S3, Homeland S2, The Fear, Fresh Meat, Flying Lotus - Until The Quiet Comes, The US Office, Nurse Jackie S4 (another standout performance from Bobby Cannavale - almost as crazy as Gyp Rossetti), Skyfall.

THE STUPIDO DAMN YOU WHY WHY pile
Prometheus, The Dark Knight Rises

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17th Dec 2012 - Add Comment - Tweet

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RIP: Tom Sims

Skate and snowboard pioneer Tom Sims has died, leaving behind a pretty epic extreme sports legacy ...incluidng his stunt riding for James Bond movie View To A Kill.

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13th Sep 2012 - Add Comment - Tweet

Promo Promo: Band Of Horses - Knock Knock

Good beards, good rock, filmed in EPIC 4:3 aspect ratio. @BandOfHorses ride back into town w a new album later this month (Sep 18). Slow Cruel Hands Of Time is streaming at Stereogum, there's an acoustic version complete with mountains at NME,  they played the iTunes festival on the weekend - still available here and the whole thing is streaming on their own website here. Beard rock, the maximum digital edition.

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11th Sep 2012 - Add Comment - Tweet

Ian Vine: held/always/immer/gehalten

epic, glacial guitars on this new album from composer ian vine - multiple formats inc limited edition vinyl and CD, MP3 320, FLAC

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10th Sep 2012 - Add Comment - Tweet

Trailer Park: Cloud Atlas / Life Of Pi

Ready for a new round of films based on mega-blockbuster books? Here's Cloud Atlas from the Wachowskis and Life Of Pi from Ang Lee. Cloud Atlas has an epic cast - Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugo Weaving, Jim Sturgess, Susan Sarandon, Hugh Grant, Ben Whishaw, Keith David, Jim Broadbent, James D'Arcy, Doona Bae; Pi's got a tiger

UPDATE: here's the full Quicktime HD Cloud Atlas trailer

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26th Jul 2012 - Add Comment - Tweet

Skate Or Die: The Epic & The Beasts

Directed by Sebastian Linda with a Red Epic

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25th Jul 2012 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Promo Promo: Frying Dutchman - humanERROR

A passionate anti-nuclear punk-meets-westcoast epic rant from Japanese band Frying Dutchman (via @YukaCHonda)

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29th Jun 2012 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Trailer Park: Prometheus (again)

Looks epic. Makes you realise no one has done good sci-fi with decent actors and a script for a while... Only downside so far is Luther's dodgy Texan accent.

Totally different vibe international trailer here. Another IMAX trailer here. Viral clue here. Ridley & Lindelof Q&A here.

Via AICN, who note the similarity to the original Alien trailer.

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18th Mar 2012 - Add Comment - Tweet

Trailer Park: Year Zero ...with added Black Mountain

Trailer up for the epic surf movie 'Year Zero' from Globe. The movie itself looks pretty tasty, shot around the world on 16mm film ....but the real reason to get excited is the Black Mountain soundtrack.

The album features a few old classics (including 'Tyrants' - featuring my all time favourite drum licks) and a handful of unreleased tracks such as 'Phosphorescent Waves', 'Embrace Euphoria', 'In Sequence' and 'Mary Lou' - which you can download over at Jagjaguwar and listen to below.

The album is out April 2nd in the UK, April 3rd elswhere.

Via Stereogum.

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23rd Feb 2012 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Promo Promo: Wooderson is back in business

Dazed and Confused legend Wooderson is back in business, for this promo for the Butch Walker and the Black Widow's track - Synthesizers. Quite the coup.

He's looking a little out of shape since his epic slow-motion entrance to Hurricane, but it's good to have him back. I get older ....he stays the same age.

Via AICN

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24th Jan 2012 - Add Comment - Tweet

Trailer Park: Prometheus Trailer Trailer

It's probably that same trailer that was leaked in flakey-cam a few days back, but according to this trailer trailer, iTunes will have the official verison of Ridley Scott's Prometheus trailer on Thursday. The trailer trailer has some epic looking shots in, and my say I'm looking forward to this one.

Some other iinteresting stuff: Wrath of The Titans, Act of Valor and Jack the Giant Killer.

Talking of trailer trailers, it looks like their might be a trailer for The Hobbit materialising tomorrow night (Via AICN).

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19th Dec 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet