I could be mistaken about this, but the sense I've gotten from the Kot book, movie, etc. is that there weren't necessarily a single "final" set of mixes at all before O'Rourke was brought in—at least not for all the songs on the album. It seems like there was a series of rough mixes made along the way as the band worked on the songs, and those presumably got busier and busier over time as they (especially Bennett) added more overdubs to the tracks, but the band's inability to agree on what the "final" mixes should sound like (and thus wasting $1000 a day in the studio arguing about them) is why the mixing was turned over to O'Rourke in the first place.
Just noticed the LP sides are named… for instance Side I and J on the Here Comes Everybody LP are labeled “Train” and “Kettle.” Nice detail.
Paid over $230 from Amazon. Arrived today Now it’s $147 so ordered angsin and will return higher priced one.
Almost 10:00 and started listening to disc 3 of the vinyl or side E. This is amazing Poor Places track. Almost honky tonk piano and a more upbeat groove than the final product. Dead silent pressings so far. I love the packaging. The different covers of each vinyl would make great artwork to be displayed on the wall. Even my 14 year old son stated how much he likes the artwork and packaging of this set.
Ugh. I hate rain on such a nice day with this release but my LP5 is warped and has some nasty non-fill in almost each song. Very odd since LP’s 1-4 are flawless. For what I paid, I think I need to send it back. Damn it.
Thanks man. That’s a bummer but now I’m glad I bought the super deluxe CD today on the hunch that the downloads would only be CD quality. It’s really a drag that you can’t get the whole box in high resolution, wonder why they made that decision
I’ve had this happen to me before with Amazon and I believe they have grace period where they will automatically issue a partial refund for the difference. I just ordered on Amazon and emailed Nonesuch requesting they cancel the order. But they move slow over there and probably won’t get to my email before it ships out. I had to email them about an address change on this order and it took weeks before I got a response.
Here’s my preliminary rundown of overlap and gaps compared to previous demos: American Aquarium is Instrumental #2 (Corduroy Cutoff Girl) Anniversary is Nothing Up My Sleeve Kamera (American Aquarium) is the Kamera demo Love Will (Let You Down) is Never Let You Down/Won’t Let You Down Not for the Season (Here Comes Everybody) is the Not for the Season demo The first version of Poor Places on American Aquarium is the Poor Places demo Reservations (Here Comes Everybody) is the Reservations demo Shaking’ Sugar is Alone Venus Stopped the Train (Here Comes Everybody) is Venus Stop the Train War on War (Unified Theory of Everything) is the War on War demo EDIT: on second listen, nope Leaked demos not on this set: Instrumental 2 Take 2 Ashes of American Flags Cars Can’t Escape (already released as a b-side) The Good part (already released as a b-side) Heavy Metal Drummer I Am Trying to Break Your Heart I’m the Man Who Loves You Kamera (Alternate) (already released as a b-side) Let Me Come Hime (already released as a b-side) Let Me Come Home (instrumental) Magazine Called Sunset (already released as a b-side) Magazine Called Sunset (Alternate) Not for the Season (Alternate) Pot Kettle Black (Alternate) Alone (Alternate) War on War Poor Places Engineer demo So, compared to material leaked 20 years ago: Five have already been released as b-sides Nine more now have an official release Twelve remain unreleased
Listening to the CD set... while not exactly "crushed", it does sound like it has a fairly low dynamic range.
Great stuff. I’m stunned how much is on the Super Deluxe that we’ve never heard before. Has to be one of the top 5 best reissues of all time.
I think we’re largely in agreement @Gabe Walters except: I think the Not for the Season demo is on Here Comes Everybody Instrumental 2 is called American Aquarium on the disc of the same name I missed the second Poor Places demo which is not on the box set I think I was wrong about War on War - the leaked demo is not on the set, but there are similar versions
For those that have expressed curiosity about the size, hopefully this provides a good point of reference:
It's clear that the three discs are NOT in straight chronological order (although the generally are). It's unfortunate that there's no real credits in the box itself, but with the Jeff/Jim/Glenn interview, you can get a number of facts that you can make some deductions about the chronology: The American Aquarium versions of "War On War", "I'm The Man Who Loves You" and "Kamera" were all 2000 recordings with Ken, that Jeff was not satisfied with. Ken's actual contributions to the album bookends the album itself, being featured in the beginnings of "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart" and "Reservations". So the final album versions of those two were started in 2000. "American Aquarium" (Corduroy Cutoff Girl) was a 2000 recording with Ken. Glenn then says he overdubbed his contributions to "Radio Cure" while the song was already slimmed down to an acoustic guitar. So that early version was scrapped for an acoustic-based version before Ken was replaced with Glenn. "Heavy Metal Drummer" was initially a demo with programmed drums. Ken apparently hated the song, so it was tabled until after he was fired, when Glen added drum overdubs onto the original demo Glenn said he heard Wilco play a more bombastic version of "Kamera" around Thanksgiving '00. The version on Here Comes Everybody sounds the closest to those live versions, so I'm assuming that one was recorded with Ken in 2000. Glenn couldn't remember if he or Jay played drums on "Cars Can't Escape", so clearly that dates from 2001, after Ken. The Stravinski mix of of "Ashes of American Flags" is a rough mix that pre-dates Jim O'Rourke's mix, as he manipulated the sample with modular synths so it would clear the copyright. Jim also made final mixes of "The Good Part" and "A Magazine Called Sunset". They are presumably the released versions. Ken didn't care for "Jesus Etc", so it was just simply shelved until the end, never recorded with him. Along with "Jesus Etc", the album version of "I'm The Man Who Loves You" were the last songs to be tracked.
Nice sleuthing. Even the liner notes from the original album (wasn’t it something like “Wilco is/was”) suggested that they simply lost track of who did what on every track. A few years back I read a comment from Jeff somewhere, too, that Yankee sessions were buried in outdated hard drives and other formats (someone else here mentioned ADAT). It does seem, too, that songs were dropped, reworked, then often reverted and worked on again. So as much as the OCD side of me wants a nice chronology, I’m guessing Tweedy simply put together three different lenses on the material for us to enjoy (plus an appendix of assorted leftovers). Trying to tear it apart into a clean timeline with detailed credits was likely impossible.
Any Australians here? I ordered the CD version SDE via the AU Wilco Store back in April and prior to receiving the advice that the release had been delayed to 30/9, the method of delivering pre-release tracks has been through SendOwl. It's been a day now and there's been no notification from the web store as to what's happening re: mp3s. Anyone in the same boat? Advice?
Thanks...very helpful for those of us who are still eagerly awaiting the delivery of our own copies. I'm inclined to think that Ken Coomer hating "Heavy Metal Drummer" and *especially* "Jesus etc." is a firing offense all by itself! I'm fascinated by the chronology questions too and of course would have loved the notes to include a detailed sessionography. But this seems like one album where the usual concepts of "alternate take," "alternate mix," "demo version," etc. all run together hopelessly anyway and would probably be impossible to completely sort out. You have demos evolving into final album tracks, various waves of instrumental parts layered on top of existing lead vocal takes that reappear across multiple versions (and vice versa), and clearly a lot of other intermediate versions of some of this stuff that are still in the vault or only out on bootleg. It does add to the mystique, though...
I’m in that exact boat.Not that concerned about the downloads but I want my CD’s.I sent them an email late yesterday asking when it will be shipping.No reply yet. I will PM you if they get back to me.
Unified Theory disc is wild. There's so much going on in the mixes. Fits the description of the the album pre-O'Rourke. This has got to be Jay's kitchen sink mix.
I mentioned in the thread way back that Nonesuch updated their ordering system and the pre-orders were removed from the new system. I found out about this myself when I emailed them a month ago when I was tempted to switch to Amazon to inquire about my order when I went to cancel it and it wasn't there. They replied that the order was still active but no longer listed online. Knowing now that Amazon ACTUALLY took the effort to make the delivery without any damage makes me feel slightly hoodwinked by not canceling the Nonesuch order because quite frankly my last few box sets from Amazon arrived damaged and I assumed that Nonesuch taking care to ship the box set intact was enough swing to keep the order going. BUT WHY DON'T I HAVE THE PHYSICAL SET YET FROM NONESUCH WHEN AMAZON ORDERS ARE ALREADY DELIVERED
For those who have the 11LP set, do we get poly-lined inner sleeves? And for all the vinyl buyers: How's the album itself sound compared to the original Sundazed cut? Gracias!
Listening to the version that is on Spotify right now. It sound really noisy. Love it. I think I might go for the 8cd version. I like the thought of owning three other version of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. It is a great album (minus 'Reservations') and it is so diverse. These 'other versions' might really be something else.
