INTRODUCING… WILCO COVERED
WELCOME to this month’s free 17-track CD, featuring brand-new covers of Wilco tunes. The band has always emphasised collaboration and cooperation, so they requested tracks from friends, associates, collaborators, even some of their kids’ friends. A few of these artists have played in the Tweedy band, others have toured with Wilco, and almost all of them have played the biannual Solid Sound festival in Massachusetts. “One of the things I’ve learned in the past eight or nine years,” says Jeff Tweedy, “is what to do with a certain amount of celebrity. I’ve never been comfortable using it to get a table at a restaurant, but I did figure out that you can reach out to other artists, make friends, and tell them that you love what they’re doing.”
1 CATE LE BON “COMPANY IN MY BACK”
Tackling a favourite tune from 2004’s A Ghost Is Born, Le Bon stiffens up the metronomic rhythm and adds slightly askew funk elements to one of Wilco’s catchiest choruses.
TWEEDY: I’ve been a big fan of Cate for a long time and just recently connected with her when she played Solid Sound. She was coming through Chicago and ended up staying here at the Loft and recording this song. Their session started at seven in the morning!
PARQUET COURTS 2 “I GOT DRUGS (AT THE END OF THE CENTURY)”
The indie band took sharp scissors to several Wilco songs – the two in the title as well as “Bull Black Nova” and “Heavy Metal Drummer” – and pasted
together this strange, rambling, shout-along jam.
SEAN YEATON: It was like the premise of a game show. Use Wilco’s flabbergasting collection of musical instruments to reimagine a Wilco song at the Wilco Loft in five hours. We had such a hard time deciding which song to pick that we picked two, “Handshake Drugs” and “I Got You (At The End Of The Century),” and that’s not counting samples from two or three other Wilco songs that Austin and I scrounged around for to build the initial foundation that we worked off of.
COURTNEY BARNETT 3 “DAWNED ON ME”
In the hands of the singer-songwriter, one of Wilco’s most ebullient pop songs becomes a spare, sharply intimate folk song.
TWEEDY: I met Courtney years ago when the Tweedy band was touring Sukierae in Australia. Spencer and I are in one of her videos, and she came up onstage and played “Queen Bitch” with us right after Bowie died. I think it’s the first time she’s recorded herself playing piano and singing. It’s a beautiful record.
WHITNEY 4 “FAR FAR AWAY”
The duo of Max Kakacek and Julien Ehrlich deliver a lo-fi country-folk ramble, reimagining Chicago as a lonely desert town in the middle of nowhere.
TWEEDY: They went to the same high school here in Chicago that Spencer and Sammy went to, just a few years earlier. So we knew them for a few years and then Wilco took them on the road. It’s pretty bold to build a whole vibe on a falsetto voice. I’ve never heard Julian sing full voice on anything.
5 KURT VILE “PASSENGER SIDE”
Guitarist Kurt Vile’s eloquent picking is sharply at odds with his buzzed drawl, suggesting the two characters in this song from Wilco’s 1995 debut, AM, are maybe a little more than drunk.
TWEEDY: Kurt’s such a gregarious guy, really friendly. We’ve played some shows with him, and he’s recorded some soundtrack stuff here at the Loft and did some recording with Courtney Barnett here.
LOW 6 “WAR ON WAR”
Low have been around as long as Wilco. They render this upbeat Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
standout newly ominous.
TWEEDY: I’ve been a fan of theirs for a while, and they played my wife’s club [Lounge Ax in Chicago], but I didn’t meet them until Nels joined Wilco. I was flattered when they asked me to produce a record, because I’m such a huge fan of what they do. They make Low music. I don’t know what other precedent there is for it.
OHMME 7 “KICKING TELEVISION”
The trio deconstruct A Ghost Is Born B-side (and the title track from Wilco’s 2005 live album) and stitch it back together with barbed-wire guitars and Poly Styrene vocals.
TWEEDY: Macie Stewart and Sima Cunningham play in the Tweedy band sometimes. We’ve known them since they were little kids. This song sounds like Gang Of Four – this unique, female, jagged sort of post-punk thing. They sound like they would have been on Rough Trade and toured with The Slits.
MOUNTAIN MAN 8 “YOU AND I”
The close vocal harmonies of this trio – featuring Molly Erin Sarle, Alexandra Sausermonnig, and Amelia Randall Meath – recast this cut from Wilco (The Album) into an Appalachian folk song. SAUCER MONNIG: This song is such a beautiful encapsulation of the experience of intimacy. While we can never overcome the inherent isolation of life, part of our purpose
in life is to connect, listen, understand, and try again and again. This song really resonates with us, and it was a joy to explore arranging it as a conversation between our three voices.
RYLEY WALKER 9 “LOVE IS EVERYWHERE (BEWARE)”
Instead of the heraldic guitar fanfare that marks the Ode To Joy original, Walker adds some dissonance and distortion to his affectionate interpretation, perhaps evoking the panic attack that originally inspired the tune.
WALKER: I know the deep Wilco cuts like any other head. Grew up on them. Wanted to really take a leap and try this new tune because it’s a message I’m carrying right now. Hell of a tune.
10 JEN CLOHER “IMPOSSIBLE GERMANY”
The singersongwriter revs up this Sky Blue Sky tune, adding some iridescent synths and creating a general ’80s vibe that reminds Tweedy of bands like Martha & The Muffins.
CLOHER: The first time I heard this song, I was awestruck by the two-guitar intro. It’s a feeling I’m always looking for in music – those rare moments of perfection when you’re lifted out of your day-to-day existence. We weren’t trying to re-create Nels Cline’s legendary solo, but I hope our cut gives the listener another window into the song.
11 JAMES ELKINGTON “BLACK MOON”
British-born Elkington is a veteran sideman, having played with the Horse’s Ha, Jon Langford and Tweedy. His take on this Whole Love tune shows off his precise fingerpicking style.
TWEEDY: Jim plays with me in the Tweedy band and he’s gone out on a lot of solo tours with me. We’ve travelled together a lot, and he’s one of my best mates, as he would say. This is Deep Cut City. He went for an obscure Wilco song.
12 SHARON VAN ETTEN “RADIO CURE”
Years after they met at a Big Star tribute in Barcelona, Van Etten chose a personal favourite and transforms it into a slowmoving gospel number, lonely yet open-hearted.
VAN ETTEN: “Radio Cure” was the song I heard that moved me during a time when I really needed to hear it. I was living in Tennessee, in an unhealthy relationship, missing my family and my hometown. It’s the soundtrack of me returning home and finding myself again. It still makes the tear up when I hear it today.
13 LIAM KAZAR “SUNLOATHE”
Chicago-based singer-songwriter Liam Kazar untangles the band’s knotty arrangement from The Whole Love and turns it into a roomy
country-rock anthem, complete with soaring guitars and hearton-sleeve vocals.
TWEEDY: Liam plays with the Tweedy band, and he used to be in this great band called Kids These Days. Now he’s making solo music and playing with Steve Gunn. “Sunloathe” is a really deep cut. And it’s one of the few songs in our catalogue that we’ve never played live. It’s fucking hard. You try it.
KACY & CLAYTON 14 “HOW TO FIGHT LONELINESS”
Kacy Anderson and Clayton Linthicum lend a Laurel Canyon vibe to this Summerteeth standout, making its anxieties sound cinematic in the process.
TWEEDY: I reached out to them a few years ago because I really liked their stuff. They’ve opened some shows for us, and I’ve produced two records with them. You can’t tell they’re not singing one of their own songs here. It really sounds like it could be on their album.
15 PUSS N BOOTS “JESUS ETC”
Norah Jones co-founded this country trio in 2008 with Sasha Dobson and Catherine Popper. Their twangy cover of this Yankee Hotel Foxtrot track originally appeared on their 2014 debut, No Fools No Fun. TWEEDY: I met Norah at a Bridge School benefit with Neil Young many years ago. She was at the Loft working on a record last year, too. She’s been doing this song in her sets with Puss N Boots for a while now. She doesn’t really make jazz or country records. She just makes Norah Jones records.
THE HANDSOME 16 FAMILY “CAPITOL CITY”
Jeff Tweedy has enjoyed a long relationship with The Handsome Family, and Rennie Sparks – whom he describes as “Wednesday Addams and David Sedaris in one person” – has even contributed lyrics to a few of his songs.
BRETT SPARKS: There are so many great songs in the Wilco catalogue, but “Capitol City” spoke to us. It has that Tin Pan Alley/early-countrymeets-“when I’m 64”/“Mr Kite” vibe. I like the way the arrangement builds from sparse to orchestral. I took that idea and ran with it.
17 TWIN PEAKS “SPIDERS (KIDSMOKE)”
At 11 minutes, this is the longest track in Wilco’s vast catalogue, and the Chicago indie-rockers play it like they’re mapping out their hometown’s rich post-rock history.
JACK DOLAN: We were very happy to be asked to contribute, especially when Wilco agreed to let us do the longest song in their catalogue. We wanted to cover a song we felt we could emulate without creating an exact copy. We were drawn mostly to the freedom and space the song allowed us to put our own spin on it.