“Heavy Metal Drummer”—Wilco

If you had to pick just one album to define the 21st century so far, what would it be? I'm Cole Kushner from Disect. And I'm Charles Holmes from The Midnight Boys and on Tuesday, July 29th, Colin Iron watching season 4 of Last Song Standing, but this year we're mixing things up. Instead of searching for an artist's greatest song, we're asking an even bigger question. What is the greatest album of the 21st century so far? Listen to Last Song Standing on the Disect Podcast Feed or the Disect YouTube channel starting Tuesday, July 29th. Everything I know about being an Iraq band, I learned when I was three years old and I watched Kermit, Gonzo and Fuzzy check into the happiness hotel during the great Muppet Paper. I do not have a conscious memory of watching the 1981 feature film The Great Muppet Paper the year it came out on account of the fact that I turned three years old in 1981, but hopefully my parents weren't massacistic enough to take toddler me to a movie theater. Yet, furthermore, I have genuinely no idea how long it took before a movie released in theaters in 1981 was available to watch at home. What did it take five years? Nor if you want the truth of my 100% sure how you'd even watch a movie at home. Back then, were VCRs even invented yet? The past keeps getting farther away and thus more mysterious and unknowable. Have you noticed this? I don't care for it. How am I supposed to do my job? All I can tell you is that when I was three years old, the Muppets were extremely my shit. So hopefully I would not have phrased it that way at the time. And obviously, obviously, the funniest moment in The Great Muppet Paper is when Kermit the Frog goes, we're just going to have to go down there and catch those thieves red handed and somebody goes, what color are their hands now? But the happiness hotel song is great also, right? Incredible performance, incredible comic timing from the old man running the happiness hotel. Truly. Kermit, Gonzo and Fasi are the stars, obviously, but true superstars know how to always surround themselves with modest excellence. But so however old I am when I first watched this scene and however it's being shown to me, am I watching The Great Muppet Paper in 1981 at home via an old timing movie projector pointed at a giant bed sheet tacked to the wall in our living room? I'm sure VCRs technically existed in 1981, but didn't they cost like $10,000 back then? However I'm watching this, I'm very young. And there's no question that I'm encountering one of the very first rock bands I've ever encountered in my very young life. And arguably one of the best bands in rock and roll history, it's all downhill from here. I speak of course of Muppet's house band Dr. Teeth and electric mayhem speaking of it being all downhill from here. Hey, you know what in arguably is the single greatest band name in rock and roll history? Dr. Teeth and electric mayhem. Yo, holy crap that is perfect. That is evocative. Dr. Teeth sings lead vocals and plays the keys and has a red fancy hat and a gold tooth. Anyway, Dr. Teeth and electric mayhem are lodging at the happiness hotel indefinitely. It's like the Chelsea hotel for bands with no genitals. That was gross. I'm sorry. Okay, so that was bassist Sergeant Floyd Pepper answering Kermit the Frogs question there. Floyd's got the giant orange nose and the even brighter orange mustache. You'd know him if you saw him. Sergeant Floyd Pepper, if that's a clever reference to something, I don't get it. That's over my head. A truly great rock band needs a sardonic but ultimately pretty chill bass player. Dr. Teeth and electric mayhem taught me that. And they also taught me that a truly great rock band also needs a spaced out but super optimistic lead guitarist, which is where Janice comes in. Oh, yeah, but like okay, you know, or aging you like he says I mean like things are really gonna break. Is it if you get a new glasses? That was Janice, right, with the lips and the eyelashes and whatnot. You definitely know Janice if you saw her. Janice plays guitar left handed. That's interesting. Is that interesting? Oh, look, it's the drummer. What's wrong with the drummer? He looks a little crazy. Oh, he's just upset about missing the rim red except the national gallery. Grand R. Every truly great rock band has an animal. That's what Dr. Teeth and electric mayhem taught me. Really truly great rock band has an animal and hopefully he's the drummer animal yelling red wire off screen is really doing it for me right now. I got to say the muppets are still extremely my shit to this day. If that were not already apparent to you very young me watching this movie for the first time has learned so much about rock bands about rock band dynamics in the last 60 seconds alone truly great rock bands have pessimists and optimists introverts and super extraverts. Renoir enthusiasts and guys who can't tell Renoir from Rembrandt. We also got Rolf. Rolf the piano playing dog taking some lead vocals on this happiness hotel song. Rolf was for sure my absolute favorite muppet when I was three. Why Rolf? He's a dog that plays piano. Don't overthink it. What makes a truly great rock band truly great is all these disparate chaotic personalities. All that emotional and philosophical variance all that dissonance that friction but regardless of their individual vibes. Clearly everyone in a rock band loves being an rock band all the time. That's what the great muppet caper taught me. The life of a rock band is unrelenting exuberance and delight. You just hang out forever at the happiness hotel. You burst into joyous song whenever anyone checks in. Dig the ecstatic fervor with which Dr. T. Thin Electric may have all blissfully throw down right here. They are jamming. They are shredding. I hear all that radness and I just picture the Bonnaroo Festival lineup poster with Dr. Teeth and Electric mayhem in giant headliner type. One more character of note here and that's Sam the Eagle. You know Sam the Eagle he might be my favorite muppet now. I'm sure that speaks well of me and my current role in society. The funniest moment in the feature film a muppet Christmas Carol which is set in London. Obviously is when Sam the Eagle plays the schoolmaster and he goes business. It is the American way and Gonzo whispers in his ear and then Sam goes it is the British way. We got a sneak Sam the Eagle into the happiness hotel song somehow. We'll think of something. Yeah big finish now. Someone gets together for the last high note so Gonzo can take a picture. You are all weirdos. That was Sam the Eagle. After the happiness hotel song is over Sam the Eagle sticks his head out the door and he goes you are all weirdos and he shuts the door again phenomenal and that's what being an rock band is really like. Forget all that other stuff and all those other people that's what rock bands that's what rock stars really are. That's what rock start him really is true rock start him is Sam the Eagle true rock start him is isolation and exasperation true rock start him is awkwardly. We're outchally skulking around the perimeter of everyone else's good time in emerging periodically just to go I'm sorry I'm doing this again I love doing this you are all weirdos and then you bounce rock bands rock start him that's the gig when I was a sullen alt rocking 90s teenager several non-muppet rock stars emerged to reinforce this point. Hi we're Eddie head and we're in Japan and I'd like to say thank you very much to the readers who voted us and our best album of 1997. It's fun. It's okay. True rock start him is a radio head front man Tom York melting down on camera whilst trying to record one of those remote location award show acceptance speeches that are like yes hello thank you for this but we don't care enough about this to actually be there but he's too grouchy and awkward to get through it. The other dudes in radio head are arrayed behind him they're all sitting around hunched over unsmiling and supremely uncomfortable this looks like a hostage video someone should be holding up a newspaper with today's date and yet I love the other sullen radio head dudes scrambling to cheer Tom up it's fine Tom it's good as the crowd at the award show laughs at him. This is a clip from the 1998 radio head documentary meeting people is easy directed by Grant Guy and watching this as a 20 year old knucklehead no movie was more important to me personally in terms of illustrating what being an rock band was really like meeting people is easy and this is spinal tap comprised the entirety of my post teenage conception of rock start them. Hey let's drag the fellas and radio heads somewhere else and let some random dude from radio heads record company say a few words. As I speak we already passed double gold album we're flying to platinum status and the 12 deserve and again we just enjoy working your music. I first watched this movie meeting people is easy in 1998 in college in an off campus apartment on a vcr on a DVD play where those invented yet what is happening to the past I first watched the radio head documentary in college with my college alternative rock band we all worshiped radio head we self identified as a pseudo intellectual space rock trio in honor of radio head basically not the trio part the rest of it and that's the part of the movie that's the line that really cracked up everyone in my band the fellas and radio head are all standing there awkwardly grouchyly holding gold record plaques or whatever surrounded by evil dorky record label people and the one extra dorky record label guys going we just enjoy working your music what a terminally dorky stiff corporate clueless solace dystopian way to put it we just enjoy working your music what a doofus we're an empty suit what a lame stain you are all weirdos bizarrely I did not learn much about being in a rock band from actually being in a rock band I did not find that experience to be terribly illuminating you know what being in a rock band was like for me actually we sat around drinking dr pepper and playing gold and I for the Nintendo 64 and listening to the sunny day real estate song guitar and video games that's what our band did that was our thing we played gold and I and drank dr pepper grenade launchers in the facility I played as grace Jones our frontman was way better than me and it made me mad just absolutely staggering quantities of dr pepper consumed by me in this band I played and all my bass lines were way too frantic and noteee our frontman had read effects pedals and what not and his songs were great and they were generally like I am nervous about girls and technology and I'm back there on bass going and I am just now getting around to wondering if my deranged dr pepper intake impacted my bass playing somewhat 20 gallons of dr pepper per day and a chorus pedal. Not a great combination. Also, this band, my college radiohead indebted pseudo intellectual space rock trio, our name, our band name, was artificial intelligence. AI for sure. This is 1998. I'm serious. And it only occurred to me very recently. It only occurred to me in the last month or so how funny that is. Now I'd shut up Rob. What's another movie? True Rock star to Ms. Brian Jones town massacre frontman Anton Newcombe getting any verbal and also very physical on stage confrontation with multiple bandmates in the 2004 documentary dig dig exclamation points. You want to hear the fight? Look, this is not Ali Frazier in terms of technical excellence, but it's definitely a fight. Cut immediately to Brian Jones town massacre frontman Anton Newcombe sitting outside the venue and taking stock of the situation. Okay, man. Yeah, I'm okay. You got hurt? Is that blood on you? Yeah. From where? And look, every single part of that is extremely funny. Where's that blood from? From people's faces, that's incredible. But man, you fucking broke my sitar, mother fucker is really, really doing it for me. Right now my personality, the lifelong evolution of my personality is pretty much a straight line from you are all weirdos to you fucking broke my sitar, mother fucker. Also during the onstage fight itself, where there's basically a pile of dudes from Brian Jones town massacre rolling around on the floor, you can see a roadie in the background scrambling to pick up the sitar. It's an incredible movie. So dig is the documentary about the friendship slash blood feud between the bands, the Brian Jones town massacre and the Dandy Warhol's. And there's the infamous scene where the Dandy Warhol's show up unannounced as the Brian Jones town massacre's decrepit party house or whatever. And so the Dandy Warhol's who are way more commercially successful do a gorilla gritty magazine photo shoot in the wreckage of the actual living quarters of the Brian Jones town massacre who are ostensibly way more gritty and volatile and credible and real. And it's one of the more hilariously blatant and literal instances of like rock band image theft of swagger jacking if you will in rock and roll history. And hopefully I at least partially grasped the implications of that at the time in terms of rostar mythologizing, but I'm guessing my primary takeaway at the time was you fucking broke my sitar motherfucker. Oh well you want another movie? I got another movie for you. I need you to listen carefully here. I need you to listen carefully for the exact moment when Kirk Hammett smacks himself in the forehead. And what are you trying to do? I'm not trying to do fucking shit. You're just sitting here being a complete dick. You're you're really helping matters. You're really good at that. Did you hear it? You heard it right? Metallica colon some kind of monster directed by Bruce Sinovsky and Joe Burlinger released in 2004 and raining to this day as the single greatest rock and roll documentary of all time. I will never get tired of saying that. And I will never get tired of playing you that part where James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich are sassing each other about weird drumbeats and guitar riffs that sound stock, etc. And then Lars calls James a dick and Kirk just quietly smacks himself in the forehead. I will never get tired of telling you that I saw this movie in a crowded theater in Berkeley, California. And that Kirk Hammett forehead slap was like a gun shot. Just bedlam in the theater. People rolling in the aisles and joyously throwing shit at the screen. It was the Minecraft movie chicken jockey of its day. Metallica in therapy, whining at each other while still making the st. Anger album with the metal folding chair, drum sound, best movie ever made. Do you remember the guy on the internet who did the st. Anger parody song? I will never get tired of playing you this either. Hit the deck. Oh my god. Double bass. You are a weirdo. I have played that clip on this show somewhere between three and 50 times. I think the only clip I've played more often is the campfire farting scene from blazing saddles. Metallica on screen, feebly arguing with one another about anything ever, that is pure cinema to me. That is true rock stardom to me. And somehow the same goes for this. And I would, okay, okay, let me try to explain myself. I didn't know this was taken a lot longer than doing one mute. I know, but can I explain myself please? I didn't know until now that you wanted it to start with a little kit. Dung, gung, gung, gung, gung, gung, gung, big kit. Okay, here we have the Chicago rock band Wilcoe, the great American rock band Wilcoe. The critically beloved deified, truly singularly mythical rock band Wilcoe, getting mired in an endless and baffling and cringe-inducing studio arguments in the midst of the 2002 documentary, I am trying to break your heart. This argument is incomprehensible, first of all, this argument lacks the crystal clear parameters of you fucking broke my sitar, motherfucker. This argument apparently involves muting specific studio tracks, drum tracks, to fine tune the opening seconds of a Wilcoe song called Heavy Metal drummer. But even our two combatants here, Jay Bennett, he's the guy trying to explain himself and going, gung, gung, gung, gung, gung, gung, and Jeff Tweety, he's the guy trying to stop Jay from trying to explain himself. These guys don't even agree about what they're disagreeing about. Well, we can do it both ways. I don't give a shit. You just, you misunderstood what I was saying. I assumed, apparently wrong, that it was noise until Heavy Metal drummer started. But now I understand that it's orchestra until a subset of Heavy Metal drummer starts, then two measures later, Heavy Metal drummer really starts. Right? Sure. Holy moly, that sure from Jeff Tweety at the end there has a gunshot quality. Jeff Tweety is the singer and songwriter and founder and mythical deified benevolent dictator of Wilcoe. Jay Bennett is the studio whiz, the wily multi instrumentalist, the wild car. Jay Bennett is the animal of Wilcoe. Pretty much. Renoir also, and maybe you already realized this. I'm certainly not the first person to point this out, but Jay Bennett has alarmingly specific Philip Seymour Hoffman energy. It's not just his deep and stately voice. It's not just his regal imposing walking statue of himself physical appearance, sometimes with dreadlocks. It's not just his semi-jovial volatility. It's all of that. And just the palpable fear that Jay Bennett might start screaming obscenities at Adam Sandler at any moment. Jay Bennett is a complicated and an ultimately tragic figure in rock history. But what makes him so great and so mythic in his own right is the rock star awkwardness and exasperation radiating off him alongside the awkwardness and exasperation radiating off his bandmates as they attempt to interact with him. Jay will no longer be a member of Wilcoe by the end of this movie and really by the middle of this movie, which is apparent to everyone but him as this incomprehensible argument drags on. I don't know what the problem is. I don't. I just want you to understand me like understand why I was thinking. It's so important. I don't have to understand you all the time. I'm like it's okay. Meanwhile, I don't have to understand you all the time is an excellent way to summarize the vibe, the ethos, the myth of Jeff Tweety and Wilcoe as a whole. Though Wilcoe as a whole basically is Jeff Tweety. Wilcoe as a whole is Jeff Tweety surrounded by modest excellence. The movie I am trying to break your heart directed by Sam Jones and released in 2002. This documentary chronicles the hilariously calamitous and nearly ruinous creation of Wilcoe's mythic beloved deified critically rapsidized and aggressively canonized 2002 album Yankee Hotel Fox Tried. I first watched this movie in the early 2000s, probably on a DVD player as a mid-20 something recovering aspiring rock star and present tense aspiring rock critic. And I internalized the greatness, the legendariness, the American exceptionalism of Wilcoe. This movie is shot in black and white with a tremendous gravity with a density with an awkward emotional heaviness that is primarily conveyed by various grim faced midwestern gentlemen looking grimly at the camera and going, I don't think our record label likes the album and then yep the label hates the album and then yep, shit the label dropped us and then yep we got a new label loan by the same giant company that owns the label that dropped us and it's boring, right? As drama, as cinema. No onstage brawls in this movie. No Kirk Hammett forehead slap. No happiness hotel, all weirdos. I'll be honest and say I loved this movie. I am trying to break your heart. When I saw it in 2002 or so and above all else, I internalized the nobility of Wilcoe crushed by the gears of the hapless, heartless, major label machine, but they kept it real and they stuck to their guns and they rose from the ashes. Especially back then, Wilcoe were often described, often praised, often anointed as the American radio head. And I bet Jeff Tweety hated that because Jeff Tweety's whole thing is he appears to hate everyone's descriptions of his music, including his own. It's got a lot of the drums and holes in the songs and this is another mythical and super cringey scene from I am trying to break your heart in which Jeff Tweety backstage after a solo show at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco is surrounded by fans and label folks and hangers on and he is attempting to describe the sound of the upcoming Wilcoe album Yankee hotel, Fox Trot and he settles on it's got a lot of the drums and holes, holes in the songs and the hangers on just laugh awkwardly in response. And what so unbearably beautiful about this moment that makes you want a full body cringe until you've permanently locked yourself into the fetal position, what's so perfect is that it's got a lot of the drums and holes, holes in the songs is in fact an excellent description of the Wilcoe album Yankee hotel, Fox Trot. He nailed it. And yeah, you can see the light dying in Jeff Tweety's eyes as he keeps on nailing it. I don't know. I'm going. And then he's gone. Jeff Tweety just leaves the room in a cloud of exasperated in articulation. Elvis leaves the building and for the next 20 seconds you watch as all the fans and label folks and hangers on they all file awkwardly out of the room after him until the room's empty. It's the best 20 seconds in the movie. I'll be honest and say I did not love. I am trying to break your heart rewatching it now as not amid 20 something. The painful earnestness, the inadvertent pompousness, the inevitable myth making, the inertness of all this unfilmable label drama. There's a semi-famous and really beautifully shot scene with the four dudes in Wilcoe. There were five dudes in Wilcoe when this movie started, but Jay Bennett's gone by now. The four dudes in Wilcoe just trudge around foggy, grainy, desolate feeling black and white Chicago. And I remember that part so clearly. I remember all the Wilcoe dudes being consumed by the frigid Chicago mist. Everyone's wearing all black with mop top black hair. It's a Beatles coded image, but it's photo negative. Beatles. It's the Beatles minus Beatlemania. It's the Beatles minus any enthusiasm. What so ever. Wilcoe are trudging away from the camera, trudging away from the rock star myth accruing around them. And I'm watching this all again now. And at first I think this movie is trying way too hard, but that's not it. That's now what's urking me now. I am watching this movie now and recoiling now because now I am remembering how hard I worked back then to confer mythical rock star greatness onto all of this. This is my problem. And this is the one respect for me personally, in which Wilcoe functions as the American radiohead. As a younger man, I worked so hard trying to confer reluctant, exasperated rock star genius energy onto both these bands that I could no longer hear either band clearly. And I'm pissed off now at me then. Shit, the past is now so mysterious and unknowable and far away that I'm once again questioning all my core principles. Is painful awkwardness the true essence of rock stardom is true genius, the sole province of mumbling great difficult men who are putting open spaces between what's supposed to be the music part. Do I even miss the innocence I've known? For an star. My name is Rob Harvilla. This is the 28th episode of 60 Songs that explain the 90s, Co and the 2000s. And this week we are discussing Heavy Metal Drummer by Wilcoe from their 2002 album Yankee Hotel Fox Trot back to our roots. These intros are long and there are ad breaks, which theoretically means that I get paid. Heavy Metal Drummer. Seriously, is Heavy Metal Drummer the right Wilcoe song? Is finding the right Wilcoe song the right way for us to approach Wilcoe? Do you have any idea how many records, how much music, how much prehistory I got to barrel through to get back to this point and a remotely expeditious matter? Floor it. Here we have a song called Whiskey Bottle, but you knew that already. Didn't you? Even if you've never heard this song in your life, you knew within two seconds subconsciously that this song is called Whiskey Bottle. It's just got that vibe. Yes, it's unmistakable. Whiskey Bottle is for sure my favorite song on no depression. The debut album from Uncle Tupelo, a young bold rock and roll trio from Belleville, Illinois. Belleville is a sleepy suburban town in southwestern Illinois. You can drive to St. Louis, Missouri and half an hour or you can drive to Chicago in four and a half hours. On guitar and lead vocals most of the time for now, here we have Jay Farar, who is already synthesizing mild grouchiness and awkwardness into startling a rock star excellence. Sing the title of the song Jay. Love this song. A long way from happiness and a three hour away town. Whiskey Bottle over Jesus. Not forever just for now. These kids are going places. Uncle Tupelo's classic lineup. We got De facto frontman for now. Jay Farar. We got drummer Mike Hydorn. And we got this guy. We're at everybody is equally poor. We got Jeff Tweety, usually on bass and occasionally on lead vocals and maybe even some acoustic guitar. Here's a song Jeff wrote called Screen Door. But you knew that too. Even if you didn't know it. Didn't ya? Yeah. That's Jay Farar on fiddle there. Also apparently that's cool. I feel cool just saying the word fiddle if you want the truth. Uncle Tupelo's got rock and roll energy and country and or folk music energy and perhaps even an grouchy little smidge of punk rock energy. But it's the country part that gets the most attention from actual and aspiring rock critics such as myself. In part because no depression, the song is a Carter family song and it sounds like a Carter family song. Even if this version is sung by some young dudes from suburban Illinois and it comes out the same year as you can't touch this. And soon thereafter, somebody starts a popular AOL discussion room called No Depression. America Online Discussion Forms feel older to me now, like chronologically than the Carter family. You can't touch this sounds older to me right now than like keep on the sunny side. My perception of the past is fracturing and I don't like it. And a little while after the chat room, starting in 1995, there is a whole ass quarterly magazine called No Depression. And these venues are dedicated to the celebration of something called Alt Country, alternative country. Alt hyphen country. Country music for people who don't listen to country music as it is defined here in the 90s by the Nashville machine and corporate country radio and stadium filling hands free Mike Eusen Goliath's like Garth Brooks. Now I majored, I graduated from college in the year 2000 with a degree in magazine journalism. And so you're not going to catch me speaking against anybody. Past presenter future who starts a magazine to talk about music they love. That's rad as hell. No Depression magazine is still publishing in 2025 and it's great. But suffice it to say that Uncle Tupelo did not foresee these developments. The fellas and Uncle Tupelo did not regard themselves as trailblazing, sweet generis, new genre inventors. And this is a little weird for Mike Hydorn and Jay Farah and Jeff Tweety that their debut album No Depression named for a song the Carter family first cut during literally the Great Depression. Uncle Tupelo's debut album is now synonymous with an Alt Country movement. The band did not invent and do not even necessarily endorse. In Jeff Tweety's 2018 memoir entitled Let's Go parentheses so we can get back. Jeff recalls the moment when he first met Jay Farah in high school English class and Jeff says quote, I'm sure anybody watching was probably thinking those two are going to start a band that plays a punk country hybrid that a smattering of critics and punk country hybrid loyalists will blow way out of proportion. End quote that is sarcasm. The other problem this creates that fans of the No Depression movement will naturally expect Uncle Tupelo to adhere to the Alt Country heavy principles of the No Depression movement. And I'm here to tell you that telling either Jay Farah or Jeff Tweety what to do is a very bad idea. And it's even worse when they try to tell each other what to do. I still got a ton of records left. Shit. Here's how I personally would describe Uncle Tupelo. Do you know the book our band could be your life. Seen from the American Indian Underground 1981 1991. The book came out in 2001 written by the rock journalist Michael Azarad, one of the great rock books of our young century. It profiles 13 of the most beloved bands in late 20th century rock history. Uncle Tupelo sound like they're trying to sound like every band from our band could be your life simultaneously dinosaur junior for the gnarly guitars, Husker do for the gnarly band dynamics, black flag for the gnarly confrontation, mission of Burma for the gnarly sculpted noise, etc. Why do I keep saying gnarly? And who else? Who else? It'll come to me. The Replacements. That's who else. This song is called Gunn. It is written in song by Jeff Tweety. And it kicks off the second Uncle Tupelo album released in 1991 and called Still Feel Gone. I love this song Gunn very much because it reminds me of the Replacements. The Shambhalic gnarly bar room troubadour fuck up kings of Minneapolis. Jeff Tweety's got another song in this record called De Boon, a tribute to the dearly departed frontman for Econopunk band The Minute Men. Also lovingly profiled in our band could be your life. See Uncle Tupelo we're dealing with voracious listeners here. voraciously I'm nivorous listeners and record collectors and songwriters and genre disregarders and bold cultural synthesizers. They got opinions. They got personal issues. They got options and they got no interest in who I think they sound like. Here's the chorus of Gunn. Jeff Tweety is about to sing the words just don't tell me which way I ought to run or what good I could do anyone. I'm sure that's just coincidence. Jeff Tweety sings the hell out of the word way right there. Does he not? Same deal here with the word was. Okay so now it's 1992 and if you're not aware Nirvana has blown up Grunge has blown up alternative rock has blown up and every knucklehead with an electric guitar is about to get so famous. So guess what? This song written in song by Jeff Tweety is called Black Eye. The third Uncle Tupelo record has the Supercatchy title March 16-20 1992 because that's when it was recorded. It's entirely at least overwhelmingly acoustic. It's produced by Peter Buck from R&M but does not leverage his newfound alternative rock stardom at all. Half the songs are traditional folk songs and J4R sings very earnestly about coal miners. Furthermore J4R talking to the St. Louis post of Spatch in 1992 he says quote this should insulate us from that industry bullshit. People looking for the next Nirvana. I don't think anybody is the next Nirvana. Certainly not us. People always talk about the next Beatles, the next Elvis. You can't predict that stuff. The next Nirvana isn't going to be Nirvana. They're going to be who they are. Those next people never make it. And quote Uncle Tupelo ain't going to make it either. They will in fact put out one more record and then J4R is going to break the band up. Here's a Jeff Tweety song called We've Been Had. At least Jeff and J got to sing that one together. That's nice. The fourth and final Uncle Tupelo record is released in 1993 and is called Anna Dine and that's all folks. J4R announced that he's not having fun anymore and he doesn't want to work with Jeff Tweety anymore and he breaks the band up. The Uncle Tupelo story broadly is the story of the steadily increasing and eventually unbearable tension between J4R and Jeff Tweety. The personal and musical tension between them. And across the four Uncle Tupelo records, Jeff Tweety starts out as the guy who sings a couple songs, then he sings a few more, then eventually he's singing fully half the songs and that's that. There's way more to the Uncle Tupelo break up than that known and unknown because of course there is, but nonetheless as Philip C. Moore Hoffman once told Adam Sandler, that's that. And here's a terribly sad sentence for you written by the great veteran Chicago journalist Greg C.T describing the immediate aftermath of the last Uncle Tupelo show. Quote, Tweety drove to his parents house on 40th Street in Belville, sat down on the footstool in his living room and sobbed. And quote, that terribly sad sentence appears in Greg C.T's extremely great 2004 book Learning How to Die Which is of course primarily the story of Jeff Tweety's next band, which is called Wilco. And the first thing Wilco does is fail kind of this song is called Box Full of Letters. It is widely presumed to be about J.Farrah but who knows and it appears on the first Wilco album which is released in 1995 and is called AM. It's scruffy and folksy and mildly pugnacious and pretty charismatic. Sure, but one specific thing this first Wilco record fails to do, it fails to generate a modest alternative rock radio hit. Meanwhile, inexplicably J.Farrah does that. Drown in one turn and where you're causing it. Drown doesn't make a difference now you're causing it. J.Farrah's new band is called Sun Volt. This song is called Drown. I doubt it's about Jeff Tweety at all but who knows. And it appears on Sun Volt's debut album which is called Trace and is also released in 1995. They played this song Drown on the radio sometimes. And as a consequence, this is the first song by either of these dudes that I personally ever heard in my life. Them's the breaks. By then, alternative rock radio is a pretty big deal to me and also to society. By contrast, the first Wilco records got some jams but it's going to get dwarfed in terms of every other Wilco records ambition and drama and weirdness real quick. You know it's the best and worst thing I can say about AM. The best song on this record is sung by the bass player. This song is called It's Just That Simple. Shout out Wilco bassist and for just this one song, lead vocalist John Starrott, the sole remaining founding member of Wilco other than Jeff Tweety himself. Wilco are still going strong 30 years and like 13 studio albums later and only John's stuck around. On behalf of frustrated bass players who desire more attention and songwriting opportunities on the lavish praise especially from girls, I must say that John Starrott is an inspiration to us all. But now AM is neither an outrageous success nor a particularly good indicator of where Wilco's headed. There is certainly nothing here to suggest that the first track on the second Wilco record is going to be one of my personal favorite songs of the last 30 years. The second Wilco album released in 1996 is called Being There. It is in fact a double album, which is hilarious actually. It's a double CD. It's 19 songs in 87 minutes long and this project generally does not acknowledge that the first Wilco album basically failed. This song is called Misunderstood and I love it very, very, very, very, very much. The live version of Misunderstood is much better. But the being here version is nonetheless instructive. The crystalline beauty of the piano here versus the disconcerting watery wobbly effect on Jeff Tweety's voice, that dissonance, the immediate gentle and yet flagrant weirdness here. Wild shit is starting to happen with this band, all of a sudden. And shit is only going to get wilder even more suddenly from here. Yeah, whatever this song is great, but this song is like 500 times better live. I've seen Wilco live like a half dozen times and if they don't play Misunderstood, I get angry. And the longer the show goes on and the closer it gets to the end, the more stressed out I get about the prospect that they might not play Misunderstood. I start radiating bad juju. You don't understand. I'm going to be the angriest person you've ever seen in your life. If I don't get to hear Jeff Tweety sing the word nothing like 50 times. I like to thank you all. I love you. Thank you all for nothing. I love you. I switched to a live version of Misunderstood from the 2005 live album, Kicking Television. That's a double album too. So part of the enormous appeal here is that Jeff Tweety could be addressing the lines. I'd like to thank you all for nothing at all. I'd like to thank you all for nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, etc. To any number of adversaries, exes, former bandmates, naysayers, critics, interviewers, hangers on, and label dorks. Is that blood on him? Yeah. From where? From people's faces. The theory multiplies exponentially with each nothing, with each passing year that will co-endurers inexplicably is one of our great American rock bands. I bought a book of Jeff Tweety's poetry. In 2004, he published a book of poetry called Adult Head. I bought a used copy. And first of all, there is a visible unmistakable beer can stain on the cover. It might be Dr. Pepper, but it isn't, right? It's beer. And I interpret this sincerely as a great compliment. The Jeff Tweety. Second of all, there was a ticket stub to a Wilco show in the book in my copy. Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at Massie Hall in Toronto. I'm guessing this person bought the book of the merch table at this show in immediately without thinking about it. I looked up the set list for Wilco show at Massie Hall in Toronto on Wednesday, October 14, 2009 to see if Wilco played misunderstood that night. And they didn't and immediately without thinking about it. I looked up the set list for Wilco show at Massie Hall in Toronto on Wednesday, October 14, 2009 to see if Wilco played misunderstood that night and they didn't and immediately without thinking about it, I got very angry on that person's behalf. There are other songs besides misunderstood on being there. The second Wilco album released in 1996. There are 18 other songs in fact, but are there though really in 1998, Wilco and the tremendously respected and sendy area British folks singer Billy Brad collaborate on an album called Mermaid Avenue. Three albums, three volumes actually eventually consisting of songs built around unheard lyrics from the galactically respected and sendy area American folks singer Woody Guthrie. As Sam, the ego would say it is the American way. And right here I could play you California stars off that first mermaid avenue record, which is easily the breeziest and simplest and most accessible and pop oriented song Jeff Tweety has ever sung or and hear me out or I could assume that you know what California stars sounds like. And it's a better use of my time to tell you that the very first time I heard Billy Bragg's voice. It was on an early 90s alternative rock radio, which was very important to me and to society. And it was a Billy Bragg song called sexuality and this was the first line. And I decided then and there as a 14 year old or whatever that this was such a great opening line for a song that I was going to quit while I was ahead and never listen to the rest of the song. And in fact, never listen to another Billy Bragg song ever out of respect for I've had relations with girls from any nations. If you've made it even this far today with me then you know me well enough to know that I mean that as a compliment. And also I'm not joking about any of this. And that's not the way it worked out. I R L with me and Billy Bragg. But that's the way it's going to work out here. The third Wilco Album comes out in 1999 and it's called Summer Teeth and it's my favorite of theirs by far. This song is called Shot in the Arm and it's the incredible adrenaline spike of this hook. The infectiousness, the gargantuan momentum of this hook coupled with the rising tide of discordant studio noise threatening to engulf it. Per that great Greg Kotbuk learning how to die. Summer Teeth is the album where Jeff Tweety and Jay Bennett basically locked themselves in the studio and went ham on the effects and weirdness and chaos and disintegration. I'm paraphrasing. In that book Wilco founding drummer Ken Kumer who will not be Wilco's drummer for very much longer. Ken Kumer somewhat bitterly describes Summer Teeth by saying, quote, there wasn't really a band. Just two guys losing their minds in the studio. End quote, the massive conclusive hand claps right here. No. That song is called Nothing's Ever Gonna Stand In My Way. Parentheses again. All one word. No spaces with the apostrophe and nothings. And it looks weird and wrong but also cool and badass and that's Summer Teeth. To me. Exactly half of my brain thinks this song could be a huge hit on the radio and exactly the other half of my brain thinks of course it couldn't. Come on and that's Summer Teeth to me. Summer Teeth is the album where reprise records literally did the cliched evil dumb music industry. I don't hear a single thing and they made Wilco try to write a big radio friendly hit single and Wilco did it or tried to do it. And that song is called Can't Stand It. And it includes the line No Loves as Random as God's Love. And I love that line. And yet Can't Stand It is like my eighth favorite song on this album. Every little thing's gonna stand to your heart. That song's called ELT and that's a better pop hook than the pop hook. The record company forced them to try to write. I can't think of a record that it tracks and repels a mass audience with the symmetrical precision of Summer Teeth. This record illustrates why Jeff Tweedie will never ever write simple, anthemic, uncluttered hit songs. But society, or at least the music industry, will never quite stop believing that he totally can and just refuses to. That song is called I'm Always in Love. And so like does the darting mosquito synthesizer line there? Does that make the song more or less accessible? More or less radio friendly? More or less pop? Is it both? If it's both, is it actually neither? I do think that if you worked for Wilco's record label, if it was straight up your job to make this band as popular as possible, you might actually drive yourself crazy or drive Jeff Tweedie crazy or both for real this time. The fourth Wilco album comes out in 2002 and is called Yankee Hotel Fox Trot. This song is called I Am Trying to Break Your Heart. Think about this as the opening line to your beleaguered new album. The album that got you dropped from one label and then signed to another label owned by the same giant corporation. The album somebody made a whole documentary about. The album they write books about. The album that tops the 2002 edition of the Village Voices year end Paz and Job Critics poll. The album that for a relatively small but reliably vocal subset of the general listening public. The album that comes to be synonymous with unflinching artistic integrity, with scruffy human genius prevailing over unfeeling corporate model with bullshit with American exceptionalism. Jeff Tweedie sings, I am an American and Sam the Eagle goes yes. And then Jeff Tweedie ends the line with the words aquarium drinker and Sam the Eagle goes there's a great online music magazine called Aquarium Drunkard inspired by that line. Meanwhile, how does one assassin down the avenue exactly but you know you get it you can picture it. I am trying to break your heart is just a verse after verse and it gets noisier and noisier. We got Glenn Katchi on drums now who's back there playing hubcaps and floor tiles and running electric fans across piano strings. He sounds like the Keith Moon of the junk drawer. He's like an animal with animal loved Salvador instead of Renoir and meanwhile Jeff Tweedie's half asleep and somehow making more and less sense with each line. If he's making both more and less sense does that mean it's actually neither. What was he thinking? What is he thinking? So like you know those prove you're not a robot internet capture situations where it's a grid of boxes and it goes click on all the traffic lights and I go you fuckers and I click on all the traffic lights and all the bosses just refresh and I have to click on more traffic lights. That's what I do with the Wilcoe album Yankee Hotel Fox Trot but with graspable lyrical sentiments. I prove my humanity. I prove what sets me apart from the machines by picking out the lines that convey concrete meaning to me. Distance has no way of making love understandable. You have to learn how to die if you want to want to be alive. I would like to salute the ashes of American flags. I'm the man who loves you. There's bourbon on the breath of the singer you love so much. Our love is all of God's money. I've got reservations about so many things but not about you and I get my little dopamine hit from identifying the great meaningful line but it all never quite adds up the way I am conditioned to expect pop songs to add up and all the boxes just refresh with new traffic lights to click on and I never get where I'm going but I forget where I was even trying to go and who cares because isn't this place more interesting and more fulfilling where I recognize all the individual squares but there's no greater purpose. There's no pressing need to bundle them up into a coherent hole. Heavy metal drummer. Seriously? I struggle sometimes with Yankee hotel Fox trot as a whole. There's too much accumulated myth, too much outside narrative, too much imposed greater purpose that clashes with how ephemeral and tumultuous this record sounds to me. It's a great story. The whole drop by one label picked up by another label but it's kind of the same label story. There's something so quaint, something so bittersweetly antiquated about the idea that giant corporations used to give enough of a shit about rock and roll bands to even attempt to go them into writing popier songs that were more easily exploited. I put this record on now and I know every song, every word, every note, every discordant bell and whistle but the myth crowds out the joy for me. Sometimes there's too much data. It's not that Yankee hotel Fox trot is overrated but it feels overexposed and overexplained. So let's start over. Let's pick one song, heavy metal drummer. Seriously, and let's pick one word and that word is sincerely. I sincerely miss those heavy metal bands. Jeff Tweety felt compelled to clarify that he meant it sincerely. It's not that he's worried we'd think he was joking. It's not that he's an outrageously ironic songwriter. I don't find Jeff Tweety to be ironic at all, actually. Now that I think about it, but this sincerely really lands for me. That's the traffic light Jeff clicks on where the computer finally relents and believes that he's human. A double kick drum by the river in the summer. Sam the Eagle approves. So does Lars Ulrich for that matter double bass. The crystalline beauty of the piano here. Once again, but that's such a rock critic phrase. Crystal and beauty. I'm not even pronouncing that right probably the less we talk about this record the better or the less I talk about this record the better. There's a great moment near the end of the Greg Scott Wilcoe book where some grouchy record executive says that if Jeff Tweety ever thought he'd written an actual pop song, he'd sabotage it on purpose. And Jeff actually kind of gets mad and he says, quote, sabotage in the minds of some people we've worked with at record companies is us going the full hundred yards to make something that is exciting to us. To me, that's the fulfillment of the promise of a song. Sabotage to me would be to make a song something other than what I believe in for the sake of commercial success. That's sabotage. That's contrary. What we've done has never been contrary. I've never been a contrarian. I've never made stuff to fuck with people. I've made stuff because I wanted to fuck with myself. And quote, that too is an excellent working definition of true rock stardom. But so is playing kiss covers. Beautiful and stoned. Why couldn't heavy metal drummer have been Wilcoe's big crossover radio hit? All those bonkers clattering drum tracks. That's why that's part of why. And it's tempting to say, I want to live in a world where this is a huge radio hit, but I don't want that actually. I don't want a world where the mainstream capitulates to Wilcoe anymore than I want a world where Wilcoe capitulates to the mainstream. I can't quite make Yankee hotel fast trot make sense to me, but it's myth as loud and obstructive as the myth might be makes sense to me. It is a record that announces proudly. You are all weirdos. And it is the unmistakable handiwork of the weirdest weirdos of them all. We are thrilled to be joined by Dylan Tupper Rupert, writer, producer and superstar podcaster. You know her from Bandsplain. You know her as the writer and host of the fantastic lost note season groupies, women of the sunset strip from the piltapunk. And you know her from her new podcast called Music Person. Dylan, it's wonderful to talk to you. Rob, so damn good to see your face. Likewise, Dylan, am I correct in stating that you first got into Wilcoe through urban outfitters? Is that correct? Wow. Congratulations on that first of all, how does that happen? It was 2005. I so I think it was like a also I don't know when this is going to come out so this might not be like a timely reference, but very uncanny that there was this major tsunami warning yesterday because this I found Wilcoe through a tsunami relief compilation that urban outfitters put together. And it was like a bunch of just very like 2005 coded indie rock groups. And it was like rarities and live tracks and stuff. And it was a live track of Jesus, etc. among a lot of other. I just looked it up. I'm never heard of it. So I had to look it up myself. I was you found it. Yeah, it's a lot of heavy hitters on here. It's a good. It's good. It like started off with them. It was like the first track was a death cab cover of the Cure's love song, which sure was probably what pulled me in because at the age of 12, which was what I was in 2005. Okay. It was for me, it was the Cure and death cab. Sure. That's a great 12 year old in 2005 combination. The Cure and exactly. Exactly. Exactly. It was the season of the show, the OC and things were clicking. So that's how I found Wilcoe. And I just I you know, you sent like a very thoughtful flurry of prep questions about how to think about Wilcoe and Yankeeho Tauvaakstra. And I was thinking about all of them. And I was like, those are questions for a sentient adult who experienced this album. But I was 12 and I was not thinking. It's a different. Very different mentality, very different experience of music and internalizing it. And even as someone that was like really, really, really into indie rock, I really did not care about the rock press all that much. Or like it just was this sort of abstraction to me. I certainly was not reading pitchfork. I don't think I really found out about what pitchfork was for a few years after that. So a lot of the what I think when people of our sensibility think of Yankeeho Tauvaakstra, they think a lot about the writing done about that record as well. And the documentary none of that was in my consciousness until many years later. Okay. So what draws you to a Wilcoe song on a random compilation? Does it sound like a lot of music you already loved? Does it sound like a new thing that you consequently get into? You know, once you get past listening to Deathcap covering the cure like 50 times, once you put that on repeat and just let that burn out. Like what draws you to a live Wilcoe song on that compilation? My parents getting divorced. That'll do it, man. I'm saying there's no greater trigger to a Wilcoe Jagg than that right there. I'm sorry that happened to you, but you made the best of it clearly. Truly did, truly did. You know, I think like something about Wilcoe that I don't think I understood at the time because this was sort of my like, I guess, like alternative indie music awakening in general. Yeah. Something about Wilcoe that yeah, I didn't understand at the time, but now looking back, I can sort of see the threads is sort of growing up with a lot of like Americana singer songwriter music on in the background and sort of like all to country textures sort of in the in the background of my house on a Sunday morning or in the backseat of my dad's car through the car stereo. Those sounds were already pretty familiar, though I didn't love the genre and it loved the aesthetic of it. It was very like there were a lot of music festivals in Seattle that were like free, like folk life and like bummer she wasn't free, but it was like the time of like no depression and sort of that like Rocky Mountain Colorado code at all country. Does that make any sense? Yeah, no, I didn't totally make sense. You did not like that. I wouldn't imagine a 12-year-old is not really supposed to. You have to be a pretty old soul at 12 years old. These are my people. Yeah, those are not your people. Incredibly annoying at 12 if that was your person, like even more annoying than the default Indy Rock 12-year-old listener. But yeah, I think there was something like familiar about those sounds and this speaking of being annoying in 12, there's just no way around this, but I think at that moment too having grown up in the Catholic church and like I was going to Catholic school and that was like summer going into eighth grade and I was trying to figure out, you know, I never really felt like rebellious against it. I thought it was like, it was a Jesuit school. It was very like intellectual Catholicism and like this beautiful old church, you know, that I grew up in really left an impression on me. I think I was trying to figure out like what I cared about when it came to Jesus. And like hearing a song that was like speaking to me through the music that I was starting to find my own personality in or identity in and then like have it just reference in a very, very abstract, unliteral artistic way, this like concept of Jesus, etc. I think was just clicking with whatever was happening in my brain, you know, in the junior high years of being like a esoteric child. No, totally. It's just yeah, a 12-year-old person going to a religious school listening to a song that starts, Jesus don't cry, you can rely on me, honey. Like that's got to mess with your head a little bit in a good way. Exactly. I was like, what does that mean? I don't know exactly. Yes, yes. I'm almost jealous of you that you got to enjoy Wilco in this record specifically without, as you said, all the writing, all the lore, all the mythology, you know, the critics polls, you know, the documentary, you know, all the books, like all that stuff is great, but all that stuff, I think about all that stuff when I listen to Yankee Hotel Fox and I wish that I didn't. I wish that I could just listen to it as a piece of music without all this noise around it. Now that you are aware of all the noise, like are you still able to return to your 12-year-old, you know, less burdened by knowledge self when you listen to this. Interesting. Yeah, certainly more burdened psychically, but actually less burden. Yeah, you know, I feel like I have such a broader context of like what Wilco is in culture now, obviously, that's like a 33-year-old music writer and stuff, but I guess like I just literally, I push this recording half an hour because I was like, I need to go for a run and just like listen to Yankee Hotel Fox trot in my headphones and go run along the water in Seattle because I'm method-podcasting once again. That's really method-podcasting. I really respect that. I have never at your dad's condo. Yeah, that's the real. In my hometown. Yeah, and I was just listening to the album and my headphones and I was kind of asking myself the same question and what I kept thinking about was like my impressions of the music at the time was really, it was musical. And my impressions of the music were musical and impressionistic. But I know what you mean, though. You're not thinking about all the other shit. You're not thinking about what Jeff Tweety is trying to do or not trying to do. You're just listening to it as a piece of music. That's what I struggle to do now. So I, is it hard to run to that record? Like some like I cannot like heavy metal drummer, I can picture, but like there's some slow jams on that sucker. Does that mess with just your tempo as a runner? As not a runner myself, I have no idea how this was. I lock the fucking, I lock the fucking. I'm like looking at the water. Like I mean between the music, it pays wise I'm winning. Okay, yeah, that's right. Yeah, I would hope you would be, I don't think you could possibly run slower than many of the songs. Yeah, okay. No, I think it's like it's such a surreal and abstract album. And I think listening to that, I can't untether it from like the experiences of me being like an only child, a very latchkey kid, someone who spent a lot of time alone, someone who like wandered around the city alone, especially sort of like along its water lines, you know, and feeling music in a way that was, yeah, abstract for the first time. And like opening me up to more musical and like sonic complexity or something, like I think it primed me for noise and it primed me for totally pushing what my comfort level was with music because a lot of the foundation of it, kind of like I was saying was those like Americana alt country sounds that did feel very familiar. But I did, you know, I loved that album. That was absolutely my top five favorite albums when I was like 13, 14. And then every year growing up, I went to this festival at the Gorge called Sasquatch. It was like this thing where whatever a bunch of us want his kids. And I was like the only surprise surprise, like teenager who was like, I really want to see Wilcold guys. And I was like, I'm so alone right now. And I like that. I think it took me three or four years to sort of clock the whole dad rock thing. And that just made me like a speeding fucking truck. As it is, yeah, I was in 16, but I know what you mean. The Gorge is beautiful, right? Like I have to think that affects the way you take in any music, but maybe Wilco, especially like that's the grandeur, the splendor of nature, I think has to add to the whole mythology and the dad rock mythology of Wilcold. Absolutely. Absolutely. You hear that shit in an open air amphitheater. And suddenly you have two children spiritually. There you go. Exactly. Exactly. I was going to ask like you've lived in Seattle. You lived in LA, you know, these mythical American musical cities. And I wonder what Wilco taught you about Chicago, how they made you picture Chicago. Like our Wilco is important to Chicago. Hypothetically, as like Pearl Jam is the Seattle or Fleetwood Mac is to LA. I'm sure the answer is yes. I don't think it impacted my understanding or lack there of of Chicago as a young person, except that it just made me like really fucking annoying on my the architecture boat tour I did for my cousins wedding. Oh, right. You were pointing out that yeah, the yeah, we're all just hung over a shit and I had a bloody Mary and I was like everybody. And there's my, yeah, my very like sorority sister cousin who's a very dear friend of mine was like shut the fuck up. I don't want to drink your bloody Mary and stop talking about Wilco. That's that seems yeah, she's like I already have one dad. Yeah. I you've mentioned a few times and like an obnoxious question I've been asking people lately is like is all country a real thing? You know, because the noise around Wilco, the noise around Uncle Tupelo obviously from the beginning, you know, no depression starts as a magazine as a movement, you know, based on the idea that this is like country music, but like different, more authentic, you know, grittier country music. Like do you buy into that at all or is it always been for you like kind of a cornea or rock critic thing? I mean, I think it's an actual like quite literally it's an actual market and an actual like it's a buying market, you know, and it's also like a genre and aesthetic that's totally valid, especially in contrast to like I think it's maybe tempting to want a sort of like split hairs in the way that people split hairs about like is Indy Rock, even Indy Rock anymore because most of it independent labels are 49% stake, etc, etc. But I think because country music remains pretty um, rigid and siloed on an industry level and a sonic level with a few major exceptions of the last five years being like Zach Bryan and Tyler Childers who are absolutely mainstream country, but I think because like the um, the distance between artists like that who are different, but within mainstream country is still so far away from Wilco, for example, like it just makes sense to me that there is an alt country label tied to that. I want to say that Wilco's alt country necessarily, but I do think that a lot of things that are happening in music today kind of have their fingerprints on them, um, in alt countries like one of those directions. No, I really like that way of thinking about it that even rock and roll at its most like mainstream and major label, like there's there's no Nashville equivalent, you know, country is you know a monolith mainstream, you know, radio friendly country is a monolith closed system. That's I really like that way of thinking about it that makes a lot of sense to me. I wanted to ask what you thought of Jeff Tweety like lyrically like Yankee hotel FoxTry, you know, there's songs that start like Jesus don't cry, you know, there's songs that start I sincerely miss those heavy metal bands and then there's the song that starts I am an American aquarium drinker, right? Like there's this weird mixture of very sincere, very straightforward and then very almost surreal, you know, did you prefer him in one mode or the other or is what's great about Jeff Tweety that he kind of lives in both places simultaneously? Yeah, I would say lives in both places simultaneously is the quality that leds itself to the like enduringness of Wilco, at least like in my personal life. Yeah, like there's not I think this is pretty common, but like there are some albums that were so that are great albums, but are and we're so important to me again when I was like 12, 13, 14 that are very difficult to listen to today, you know, like and not for lack of quality or something, but they were just so of that time and of my time in my life and my teenage brain and everything I can't get the film of like adolescent soft of my perception of it. And like Wilco, even though they that was just as much an important band to me as no shade, but like deathcap, you know, like at the time. And like to some extent, at least at least myth, like the obvious Pacific Northwest kids, but ones but like Wilco is more there's something there's something about like Jeff Tweedie's songwriting and sort of like knack for abstraction and complexity that I mean it is sophisticated music. It's not made for the type of kid pointing at myself that latched onto it. So I think it has a longer like shelf life in my consciousness, but yeah, I think it's because and frankly like there we discovered this one when when Yossi of Bansplain and I put together the Wilco episode a few years ago, there were lyrics that I just hung my hat and like my whole heart on that I simply miss her. I was like for years, but those are the best. I was like distance does have a way of making love more understandable. And Yossi was like it's it's that it has no way. And I was like it's the opposite actually. I probably did that to you now that you think of it. Yeah, but that's fucking cares. Who fucking cares is right. I was I was going to ask you know just because we met through Bansplain, you know, I Wilco has 13 records right. A lot of them are double albums, you know, like how much time have you spent, you know, with the full catalog and there are there more recent Wilco records that resonate for you the way, you know, Yankee Hotel Fostrad did at first. Not really. That's fine. I think that's true of most. You know what I mean, I'm like that's yeah, I feel like I've taken like some casual tours through the most recent catalog and I like it I certainly owe it more time and I think actually they have stayed a remarkable band. But my urgent sense of discovery, you know, has been no, it's yeah, it's you can't be 12 again and here a Wilco record. I think it's that simple. And so yeah, you did sort of you'd sort of mentioned then a couple of times the dad rock thing, you know, Sky Blue Sky in 2007. I think that's the record where Pitch 4 called them dad rock and now we have this entire discourse about like now that you are closer to dad age than you were then like what is what does dad rock mean to you now? Interesting. Do you enjoy it? I don't even realize that was like the etymology of dad rock was a Wilco Pitch 4 review or that's like the comment. I'm going to go ahead and guess that's overstating it. That is I don't it is probably not the first recorded instance of the phrase dad rock. But I do think that's that introduced Wilco more firmly into that conversation. It was a big deal. Let's just say that and leave it at that. Interesting. I mean, because like I always like my parents are older boomers. So this is certainly not their nostalgic music the way that it is like my best friend Olivia's dad is like in a 60s who is about 15 years younger than my parents. And she's like you and my dad have the exact same music taste which is fun. But you know, I think like the compliment probably that just seems like a real like line in the sand baton passing moment 2007 of like what dad rock is now because I would always think that dad rock was more like classic rock like Jackson Brown coated. Yeah. But yeah, what do I think of it? Like shit that sounds good while you're driving a bunch of loved ones in a large SUV. That's awesome. That's exactly my type of music. I also think there's something that you know, I've yet to read her book although I've heard its phenomenal Nico Stratus' book. But has Nico been on the show? I feel like a couple of times now. Yes. So yes. So she quite literally wrote the book the dad rock that made me a woman. But you know, there's kind of a thing where it's like you know divorce parents blah blah blah blah blah blah like go be your own dad. You know. So I think that's kind of where my head was at with all. I don't know what I think about it. Be your own dad. No, that's perfect. Be your own dad and music to drive your loved ones around in an SUV is as perfect a description of dad rock as I've ever heard. Yeah. Be your own dad to your chosen family of children or whatever. So you're you to your adopted spiritual children. Exactly. Absolutely. Dylan, this has been wonderful. Let's do it again sometime. Please. Thank you so much for talking. Thanks, Rob. Thanks very much to our guest this week. Dylan Tupper Rupert. Thanks as always for our producers Justin Sales, Olivia Creary and Christopher Sutton. And thanks very much to you for listening. And now let's all go listen to Heavy Metal drummer. Bye, Wilcoe. See you next week.