Wilco at McDonald Theatre, Eugene, Oregon, Sept. 4, 2003. Source: SBD>Sony SBM-1 (48 kHz)>Sony TCD-D8 Taped by Sean D. Transfer: Foster D5>Zoltrix Nightingale Pro 6 Disc 1 01. Kingpin 02. I'm the Man Who Loves You 03. Poor Places 04. Reservations 05. I Am Trying to Break Your Heart 06. War on War 07. Should've Been in Love 08. Box Full of Letters 09. At Least That's What You Said 10. Jesus, etc. 11. Spiders (kidsmoke) 12. One by One Disc 2 01. California Stars* 02. Handshake Drugs* 03. Misunderstood 04. Far, Far Away 05. (Encore Break) Less Than You Think 06. Cars Can't Escape 07. How to Fight Loneliness 08. Not for the Season 09. (Encore Break) I'm Always in Love 10. Casino Queen 11. Outtasite (Outta Mind) 12. Kicking Television 13. I'm a Wheel *with Janet Weiss of Sleater-Kinney
I'm considering picking up the remastered vinyl. Is it a good pressing or is there another one that you all would recommend instead?
That should say Fostex D5. Damn you, autocorrect. In other words, a taper patched directly into the soundboard a 20 bit/48 kHz analog-to-digital converter and DAT (digital audio tape) recorder, took it home to a DAT deck and transferred it via toslink to his computer's sound card, then dithered it to 16/44.1 so end users could burn it to CD-Rs. It sounds quite good. Though, of course, it has that "dry soundboard" sound and lack of crowd noise that some object to. I never looked to see if tapers mixed it with an audience source to create a "matrix" version, as people do to give live recordings some ambiance and room sound.
Personally, just like the Being There and Summerteeth boxes, I prefer the earlier pressings. Many seem to differ but I think the originals sound more dimensional and overall more natural. Your system may vary of course!
Yeah, I agree. The original Sundazed pressing was very good and I loved it for years. I sold it after getting the 2008 reissue. At some point I ended up with the 2011 repress, which is still my go-to.
I did a shoot out last night with the deluxe Being There and my earlier pressing and I was actually kind of shocked how different they sounded. The original just knocked me back against the wall and has that beefy rock and roll slam while the reissue just sounded tamer. Maybe a bit crisper and clearer but at the expense of the natural sound that album has.
I was disappointed that the new vinyl version of the main album fades out "Pot Kettle Black" instead of having the cold ending that was on the Sundazed pressing. Otherwise, no complaints at all about the 11-LP set. It's a treasure. Hopefully A Ghost Is Born will get a set of similar scope.
More discussion on the album-by-album thread: Venus Stopped the Train War on War American Aquarium Here Comes Everybody The Unified Theory of Everything Lonely in the Deep End Transmissions
Hi friends, I have nothing to add other than I was able to cop a sealed kicking television box for a ridiculous price and the sound quality is amazing. I’ve always had the CD so am super familiar with the set and overall recording quality, but vinyl wise this is easily up there in best of quality live recordings.
That Eugene show was also maybe the first time I heard One By One, not getting the Mermaid Avenue stuff until just a few years ago. And an amazing version of that song as well. Just an all around great show.
Absolutely, the McDonald Theatre show deserves a legit release. In fact, when I first heard about the YHF boxset, I figured that if they were to include a live show, it would be this one. It’s usually my go to when I want a live dose of YHF.
I guess this is probably the best show I've ever seen that was well recorded* and has a very high reputation amongst fans. Jeff's older brother spent a year here in college, and according to Jeff's solo onstage banter spent more time selling weed than going to classes. (I think later he mentioned it his autobiography). Whether with Wilco or solo he seems especially chatty here and sometimes his brother is mentioned. The venue was an old movie house built in the 1920s and had been converted to a concert hall not too much before they played, so perhaps the setting played a role, though who knows. Three years late he played at the McDonald again solo (some of which appears on the Sunken Treasure DVD) and unbelievably as with the Wilco show he played "Cars Can't Escape" again. *I was at the latest Dave's Picks by the Grateful Dead, but as there are several hundred of Dead recordings it doesn't even rate all that high for 1990. Anyway, it's good that Eugene is famous for something other than being a Grateful Dead stop and the Cherry Poppin' Daddies.
That whole tour leg was great, wrapping up with two excellent shows with Bill Callahan (under his [smog] moniker) and Carla Bozulich doing her cover of Willie Nelson's Red Headed Stranger, featuring one Nels Cline.
Listening to side I now, and hearing what I feel to be three or four small sections of non-fill in Radio Cure. Hard to be sure, as it's possible it might be noise intentionally inserted into the track, although I doubt it because it's pretty much Jeff and his acoustic. Anyone else experience this, or is it indeed non-fill?
I noticed the vinyl set is now around 175 Euro in a few European Amazon stores. I wonder if it’ll be reduced further. Is this a limited edition ?
I had non-fill on my first copy during "Cars Cant Escape" but my replacement was perfect. With a 10LP set, the odds of getting some non-fill and warped records is high I suppose.
If you ever do re-do this comp into two others, can you please share it here? [I had previously questioned getting the SDE CD box vs the download deluxe set and the 2 CD set, but lo and behold, I came across a discounted SDE box over Thanksgiving, so I did get it. ] And I have also since found both sets of demos out in the wild too.
Please ignore this question! I’ve just compared the 2002 CD to a very nice rip of the 2008 vinyl. Strangely the CDs dynamic range numbers aren’t too bad (8-10), but it’s really not pleasant to listen to. The vinyl rip, however, sounds fantastic. I’m guessing the 2022 will sound pretty similar.
That’s a bit like comparing apples to oranges. What I can tell you is my older vinyl pressing sounds more natural and dimensional to me compared to the 2022 vinyl. The new vinyl master just sounds a bit strange when you compare them and I haven’t quite put my finger on why.
Here you go: Wilco: Album by Album I actually went back and reviewed all 362 pages of the album by album thread and tried to clean up the index from top to bottom so that it calls out every track and side project we discussed (for example, the new demos included in the Being There deluxe set; or the (sadly) passing mention we gave to the second Golden Smog record). In the process I also found we missed discussion of the vinyl only live set with the Summerteeth deluxe set. Plus there have been two new Tweedy/Wilco tracks in the last few months too. There’s been some truly great (and civil) discussion covering this impressively large catalogue. Hopefully the index provides a helpful starting point for anyone looking to deep dive into the Tweedyverse. Thanks to everyone who has contributed to the conversation.
Thanks for the update. Does anybody know if Handshake Drugs on the Radio Woodstock: 30th Anniversary Album is unique to that release?
Quick question, anyone ever look at what overlaps all of: The YHF Demos The YHF Engineer Demos disc two of the movie: I Am Trying to Break Your Heart: A Film About Wilco - Wikipedia the new SDE ??
