Speaking of bonus material around this time ... The Minus 5 album Down with Wilco? While not a Wilco album per se, Wilco was all over it, and I perceived it almost the same as I would a Wilco release. "Family Gardner" was the track that stuck in my head with Jeff singing lead - can't recall if there were others? The other key tracks I do recall (like "The Days of Wine and Booze" and "That's Not the Way That It's Done" did have Scott McCaughey on lead vocals ... but felt like Wilco to me!
Thanks for this. A bit heartbreaking to read so many years later. Reminds me a bit of the massaging around Jason Isbell’s departure from the Drive-By Truckers. Thankfully in Isbell’s case he has been able to get clean and build a solid career. Knowing where Tweedy has gone over the years, I think he was growing into a songwriter. That started in Uncle Tupelo. Then the beginning of Wilco must have been so much pressure to just start and manage a band. He explored various ideas and collaborations (Stirratt contributing songs, working with Jay, working with Billy Bragg). One of the major shifts I see with Yankee is that many of the Jay cowrites were left behind (some did stay!) and the later songs were solely written by Jeff. I’d imagine he was just building his confidence as a songwriter with ambitions beyond traditional pop/rock songs and he was finding collaborators who empowered that. I think that explains both Jay’s comments about losing the soul of the band with Ken and John’s comments about the new collaborative spirit.
They were recording a ton of material in between YHF and AGIB that still hasn't seen the light of day.
Jeff Tweedy's remarks on "Camera" from the Alpha Mike Foxtrot liner notes: "Camera spelled with a C. A Yankee Hotel Foxtrot demo. Different lyrics. I honestly don't remember how a lot of this all happened, but it's fairly obviously influenced by The Jesus And Mary Chain."
Bill Bentley, former publicist at Warner Bros./Reprise, from the AMF liner notes: A new century was starting. So many of us felt a stirring beginning was possible. Old wrongs could be righted, and a fresh start was sitting there for everyone to grab. Even Wilco. This would be their century. For Warner Bros./Reprise Records, the sound of the old company moving into the future was happening, but when Wilco turned in their fourth album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, there didn't seem that many label veterans there to hear it. The ranks at the top had been thinned considerably, and the building at 3300 Warner Blvd. in Burbank, California, had a hollow thud in the halls. That all changed the spring of 2001 when word started bouncing around the walls that a new chairman was riding to the rescue. The only problem was that rumors flew that Wilco was going to be dropped before he arrived. At one heartbreaking point, the head of A&R had decreed there "would be no more ugly bands on the label," and Wilco would have to go. Straight up. He had picked another band to throw his power behind, and as soon as their singer got back from the place he'd been sent to lose weight, the floodgates would open for their promotion. Meanwhile, Wilco's new album languished in a twilight zone of inertia, no one even bothering to set a release date. The president of Reprise--someone who'd been a Wilco devotee of the highest order--had left the building, and even the head of legal affairs had turned in his keys. Walking around the departments then, there was no one even left to beg to keep Wilco. The summer of 2001 was a very lonely time in the Warner offices, not far from beautiful downtown Burbank. Still, knowing a thing or two about survival, I concocted an ingenious plan to get an advance copy of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot to the incoming chairman a few weeks before his arrival. Without a doubt he would hear the overwhelming creativity and strength of what Wilco had birthed, and in the process even see me as an indispensable asset to the company ranks. Fat chance. For Wilco, leaving the label in the fall of 2001 was absolutely the best thing that happened for them. They quickly built their own future, and when they released Yankee Hotel Foxtrot on Nonesuch Records in 2002, it wasn't lost on many that their new label was part of the Warner Music Group. I even thought about spinning a press story that the band being dropped by Warner Bros. was a big inside job to give them the underdog status that ensured their soon-to-be-success. That would have taken away from the towering achievement of the band, though, so those thoughts were rightly forgotten. And when that album debuted at number 13 on the Billboard Top 200 album sales charts, my boss--yes, the new chairman--made of point of letting me know in a company meeting. I should have known by the disdainful look he gave me that eventually he'd show me the door. But I was so proud of Wilco and what they had accomplished with their music that it actually made all the heartbreak of losing them flow away like yesterday's problems. The way of music is to take us into the future, inspiring each new day and offering promise of what someday can be. Wilco has done that, as well as any band ever, and for that we all should rejoice in their joyful noise, no matter when and where we hear it. Roger that.
I agree. This is the version that needed to be released. I’m not crazy about the EP demo, but the original Spector-like demo is beautiful.
Frank Riley, founder of High Road Touring, and Wilco's booking agent, from the AMF liner notes: Right after all that ******** with David what's-his-name, the A&R guy at Warners, and the subsequent drop by the label went down, I had a tour routed, booked, and about to go on sale. It was booked in support of what we thought was the upcoming release of the band's new album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. And then September 11 happened, which of course stunned all of us and stopped everything in its tracks. However, a few days later, Tony Margherita called up and let me know that if I did not sort out a way to keep this tour in line and happening, that there might not be a band any longer. All of the work we had all done up to that point, for all those years, might just go away. He also let me know that, "And by the way, New York was the most important market," as those two shows that were booked at Town Hall were the highest paying gigs on the tour. The band was, at that point, flat broke. I was not going to let the band go away without making every effort I could. So I called up every promoter and begged, borrowed, threatened, and demanded that these dates confirm and that everything stay intact, despite the tragedy of the preceding weeks and even though there was no forthcoming Wilco album. And somehow, we did it. The tour happened, and the dates were mostly successful. Some of them, like those Town Hall shows in New York, provided, I guess, some kind of collective emotional relief. Everyone was sad, pissed, and scared, in more ways than one, but to me, those shows, that tour, was the beginning of the renaissance of Wilco--or actually, the true beginning of the band's success.
Does anyone remember ever hearing a live version of "Kamera" with the lyrics, "tell 'em I'm lost on the dance floor," or did I make that up?
Lots of tragedy around Yankee, but I have to agree with this. Tweedy was moving the band, his career, and his personal health in a positive direction. It would take a few more years to get there, but this was the right way to go.
Tale as old as time. How many bands or artists of this stature, around the same time, had built loyal audiences, were dropped from a major label, and struck out on their own or with a smaller indie label? Aimee Mann? Spoon even named two songs after their terrible A&R man.
That's a great read. Thanks for sharing. I think that I agree with Bennett that Coomer was the heart of Wilco, kind of its emotional core. That's a very strange thing to think, but great bands have a chemistry that defies logic. To me, when Bennett and Coomer left, the band that I knew as Wilco (and loved) ceased to be. For me, it was never simply Jeff Tweedy with some sidemen. It was an actual band and a lot of the magic was the tension created from very strong willed personalities with developed musical tastes butting heads and, in so doing, creating something greater than the sum of its parts.
I finished re-reading Jeff’s book last night. He started things off by referring to “two Jays” and he brings things full circle, recollecting, “the sweeter memories of being in a band with Jay Farrar and what a thrill it was discovering so much music together and through each other, and how it changed our lives.” And then says that writing the book “brought back all the long hours in the studio with Jay Bennett, pushing crazy ideas on one another. Like the time he tried to convince me that the expensive recording studio we were renting wouldn’t mind if we dropped a twenty-pound weight on their $50,000 piano as long as we covered the lid with a packing blanket, and how that is, in fact, the last sound you hear on Being There.”
Next we have the second "alternate" song featured on the More Like the Moon EP, though this one actually preceded the version that would appear on a full album. Handshake Drugs Any fans who listened to the EP prior to the release of A Ghost is Born got a little sneak preview here in this first version of 'Handshake Drugs.' Unlike Kamera/Camera, the two versions of 'Handshake Drugs' are not hugely different from one another. The bones of the song are already there. The differences are in the subtleties of the arrangement. Who is playing the ringing guitar all over this version? Is it Jeff? It would have to be, as he was the only guitarist in the band at this point, right? I like the sound of it (kind of fluttering and birdlike) but it is a slight distraction from the power of the lyrics and melody. They went for a quieter guitar sound on the final version (until the end), with it entering later in the song. 'Handshake Drugs' is a pretty stark piece of storytelling from Jeff and I like how the album version was really led by the bass, drums and piano. I can't listen to it now without thinking about all the stories he told in his book about his addiction. That kid who worked in the pharmacy and called himself a huge Wilco fan should really be ashamed of himself for being Jeff's dealer and enabler. This is a pretty good first attempt at 'Handshake Drugs' but I prefer the version that made A Ghost is Born. But I'm a Ghost crazy person fangirl, so buckle up for me to gush about that album. It's the album that got me into Wilco so...
This was part of the YHF cd purchase package that included outtakes from YHF (A Magazine Called Sunset, for instance) so I don’t know that it has to be Jeff. It might still be Jay? Someone here will know!
Handshake is 100% Jeff. Not Jay’s style at all, and not Leroy either who also played some leads in the 4-piece era. Jeff started building this style on things like I’m the Man Who Loves You and now you hear him getting better at it. I don’t want to say much about this song until we get to Ghost except for... I love every second of this song in any version I’ve ever heard. I don’t think I heard this version until after I had Ghost. If I remember correctly I stumbled on the enhanced content of Ghost and then thought I should try that out on my other Wilco CDs. That led to the Moon EP! This version shows the song to be fully developed, just needed a more polished version. Quite different from the demo process of Ghost. We are really seeing Jeff’s confidence build. Fun fact - the first line is “I was chewing gum...”. If you watch live footage from this era, Jeff is always chewing gum. We are about to go deeper into a story of addiction and this song points the way.
Much prefer this version of "Handshake Drugs" - lean and slinky. Surely, the most Velvet Underground influenced track they recorded. I, too, wonder how much of Jay was included on More Like the Moon tracks. Only tracks I'm certain he must be on are "Camera" and "Magazine." Strange to think that handshake drugs weren't a major problem for Jeff, and he had more pressing issues presented by heading down to the local CVS with a prescription!
Until a day or two ago I hadn’t even realized that Ghost was an enhanced cd! Am looking at it now and finally noticed ‘enhanced’ written in small letters on the cd face itself. And then the last page of the booklet has a notation, too. I guess I’m 16 years too late.
Yep, no Jay, definitely Jeff… This EP seems to be equally divided in three : 2 songs with what we could call the "Jay Bennett band" (Magazine/Kamera), two songs with the Ghost Is Born line-up (Handshake and More Like the Moon) and two "solo" Tweedy tunes (Woodgrain/Bob Dylan's Beard). This wonderful “first version” of Handshake Drugs does sound like a demo or a studio rehearsal. It kind of sounds tentative now, because the A Ghost is Born take – and its eventual development as one of the great showstoppers in Wilco’s repertoire – is so fantastic. But when I got my double YHF “Australian tour edition” CD at the time from Amazon (or was it Yesasia?) , that song was an instant favorite. Tweedy once again reinvents his sound without any Jays around but with more than a pinch of Loose Fur’s flair. The circular melody is fabulous, Jeff’s lead guitar is a first (well, second, after I'm the Man Who Loves You) taste of things to come, and the building tension, though not nearly as perfect as in the LP take, is already there. What’s missing are some of the little piano fills and the almighty Stirratt bass riff that anchors and drives along the song as we now know it. So this take is like hearing the AGIB band learning how to play together. Stirratt and Kotche especially have not yet found their footings yet as the great rhythm section they’d soon become after months of touring together. Handshake Drugs has the best groove of any Wilco song, but the groove is not fully accomplished in this version. Nevertheless, when I heard of the tour EP’s existence, I completely lost it. It seemed so incredibly unfair not to be allowed to buy it RIGHT NOW. Fortunately, the double disc edition came rather quickly after that. I have erased the shipping rate from my memory, because I’d rather not reminisce too much about such unreasonable behavior…
Yes! That's the way he sang it all through 2002, as he gazed out at the audience in the GA theatres. I fondly remember that.
I just listened again and shamefully withdraw suggesting even the possibility that this may have been anyone other than Jeff on the guitar. It’s clearly Jeff. (As all of you have known!) With Camera and then this song, I was thrilled. I didn’t have any problems enjoying this grouping of songs.
If you heard it before Ghost came out, this version of Handshake Drugs would have been a fascinating track. In retrospect it's an intesting curiosity. It stays fairly close to the Ghost version, but it's more understated with less variety. It's worth hearing but not something I'll come back to many times.
So, are Handshake Drugs and More Like The Moon recordings from after YHF but yet before AGIB? And, are Woodgrain and Bob Dylan’s Beard both session outtakes from YHF, or are they also from post-YHF? Enquiring minds want to know....
All four are post-YHF. Bob Dylan’s 49th Beard was a staple of Tweedy’s solo shows pre-dating YHF, though this recording is post-YHF.
As found on Wilcoworld.net : Tracks 2,3,5 & 6 written and produced by Wilco (Words Ampersand Music, BMI) Recorded at Soma E.M.S., Chicago, in 2002 by Mikael Jorgensen. Track 1 written by Jeff Tweedy with Jay Bennett and produced and recorded by Wilco in 2001; sonically altered by Wilco and M. Jorgensen in 2002. Track 4 written by Jeff Tweedy and recorded by Wilco in 2001. Mastered by Steve Rooke at Abbey Road, London (always a big surprise for me to be reminded that Magazine Called Sunset is a solo Tweedy composition and not a Bennett co-write like Cars Can't Escape, as the two songs go hand in hand in my mind as the two best YHF rejects)
