On their latest album, American Primitive, the Old 97’s have sandwiched songs about assessing their life choices and serial monogamy with reminders that the world is a doomed and hopeless place and that if you’ve found even a modicum of joy, then that day is a triumph. On the first track, “Falling Down,” they try to frighten you into gratitude via a caustic surf-rock apocalypse built with tremolo electric and strummed acoustic guitars, as frontman Rhett Miller sings, “You’ve got to dance like the world is falling down around you — because it is.
- 4/3/2024
- by Kory Grow
- Rollingstone.com
Jeff Tweedy never meant to be a memoirist. “I was kind of recruited to write a book based on some agent’s idea that I might be able to write something worth reading,” he says, recalling a conversation five or more years ago. “I said, ‘Sure, I guess.’ It felt accidental.” That somewhat inauspicious beginning led to Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back), the acclaimed memoir that Tweedy published in 2018. A couple of years later, he wrote a second bestseller, How to Write One Song, encouraging readers to tap into their own creativity.
- 9/13/2023
- by Simon Vozick-Levinson
- Rollingstone.com
Jeff Tweedy has released a cover of Roky Erickson’s “For You (I’d Do Anything),” from the upcoming compilation, May the Circle Remain Unbroken: A Tribute to Roky Erickson, set to arrive July 17th via Light in the Attic (a special vinyl version will be released as a Record Store Day exclusive).
Tweedy offers a wholly unique take on “For You (I’d Do Anything),” doing away with the tender country pluck of Erickson’s original, and instead using a mix of synths and pianos to craft a sweet and meditative soundscape.
Tweedy offers a wholly unique take on “For You (I’d Do Anything),” doing away with the tender country pluck of Erickson’s original, and instead using a mix of synths and pianos to craft a sweet and meditative soundscape.
- 6/30/2021
- by Jon Blistein
- Rollingstone.com
Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy will publish his new book, How to Write One Song, October 13th via Dutton.
The book, per a statement, will find Tweedy delving into the nature of his creative process. He’ll share stories and anecdotes about his own work, while also, according to the statement, providing practical tips for budding songwriters on “overcoming self-defeating dialogue, building a creative habit, language techniques to get out of a writing comfort zone, easy recording methods, and so much more.”
The goal of How to Write One Song is...
The book, per a statement, will find Tweedy delving into the nature of his creative process. He’ll share stories and anecdotes about his own work, while also, according to the statement, providing practical tips for budding songwriters on “overcoming self-defeating dialogue, building a creative habit, language techniques to get out of a writing comfort zone, easy recording methods, and so much more.”
The goal of How to Write One Song is...
- 8/11/2020
- by Jon Blistein
- Rollingstone.com
“All my friends are at the party/But I’ve got other plans,” Ella O’Connor Williams, the indie singer-songwriter who records as Squirrel Flower, tells us on “Streetlight Blues.” If those plans involved heading home to write this song, it was alone-time well-spent. Williams grew up in Boston and went to college in Grinnell, Iowa, and she’s about to release her debut LP, I Was Born Swimming, which will be a boon for fans of self-delving artists like Lucy Dacus, Big Thief’s Adrianne Lenker, and Mitski.
Williams titled a 2015 Ep,...
Williams titled a 2015 Ep,...
- 1/17/2020
- by Jon Dolan
- Rollingstone.com
The Flying Burrito Brothers’ 1969 debut never made it higher than 164 on the Billboard 200. But the album’s country-rock sound cast a shadow almost from day one, influencing artists ranging from the Rolling Stones to Tom Petty, Beck, Uncle Tupelo and entire generations of future Americana luminaries. The Burrito Brothers weren’t the first artists to hybridize country and rock. Buck Owens and His Buckaroos, for one, got there first, on songs like “Act Naturally.” But The Gilded Palace of Sin was druggier, sexier and more youthful — as much about the...
- 2/6/2019
- by Matt Wake
- Rollingstone.com
This year’s best music books offers a mix of fascinating memoir, adventurous criticism and rich historical investigation.
Astral Weeks: A Secret History of 1968, Ryan H. Walsh
Van Morrison’s 1968 LP Astral Weeks was a landmark fusion of jazz, folk, rock and meditative soul. But its creation is as mysterious as the cantankerous genius who made it. Journalist Walsh dives into the Boston rock scene of the time, where Morrison made the LP after fleeing New York, due to problems with a mobbed-up record business; there are cameos from Timothy Leary,...
Astral Weeks: A Secret History of 1968, Ryan H. Walsh
Van Morrison’s 1968 LP Astral Weeks was a landmark fusion of jazz, folk, rock and meditative soul. But its creation is as mysterious as the cantankerous genius who made it. Journalist Walsh dives into the Boston rock scene of the time, where Morrison made the LP after fleeing New York, due to problems with a mobbed-up record business; there are cameos from Timothy Leary,...
- 12/17/2018
- by Jon Dolan, Kory Grow, Rob Sheffield, Andy Greene and Will Hermes
- Rollingstone.com
This year’s best music books offers a mix of fascinating memoir, adventurous criticism and rich historical investigation.
Astral Weeks: A Secret History of 1968, Ryan H. Walsh
Van Morrison’s 1968 LP Astral Weeks was a landmark fusion of jazz, folk, rock and meditative soul. But its creation is as mysterious as the cantankerous genius who made it. Journalist Walsh dives into the Boston rock scene of the time, where Morrison made the LP after fleeing New York, due to problems with a mobbed-up record business; there are cameos from Timothy Leary,...
Astral Weeks: A Secret History of 1968, Ryan H. Walsh
Van Morrison’s 1968 LP Astral Weeks was a landmark fusion of jazz, folk, rock and meditative soul. But its creation is as mysterious as the cantankerous genius who made it. Journalist Walsh dives into the Boston rock scene of the time, where Morrison made the LP after fleeing New York, due to problems with a mobbed-up record business; there are cameos from Timothy Leary,...
- 12/17/2018
- by Jon Dolan, Will Hermes, Rob Sheffield, Kory Grow and Andy Greene
- Rollingstone.com
Jeff Tweedy thought Wilco’s 2004 album, A Ghost Is Born, would be his last. At the time, his addiction to Vicodin and his lifelong anxiety issues had spiraled so far out of control that on tour he routinely fell asleep in his bathtub without being sure he’d wake up. He wrote songs like the gorgeous elegy “Hummingbird” for his young sons, “who could turn to it when they were older … to have some deeper connection to the dad they’d lost.” When the band recorded “Spiders (Kidsmoke),” he was...
- 11/30/2018
- by Patrick Doyle
- Rollingstone.com
In his new memoir, Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back), due out November 13th, Jeff Tweedy writes with humor and honesty about his life in music, from his childhood in Belleville, Illinois, to his early success with Uncle Tupelo to his two decades (and counting) as Wilco’s lead singer and songwriter. This story is excerpted from the chapter titled “Toby in a Glass Jar,” in which Tweedy discusses the opiates addiction that led to his 2004 rehab stint, and the making of Wilco’s A Ghost is Born.
- 11/8/2018
- by Jeff Tweedy
- Rollingstone.com
When Americana pioneers Uncle Tupelo released their major-label debut, Anodyne on October 5th, 1993, it should have been the beginning of something big.
In a way, it was. Led by Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy from tiny Belleville, Illinois, the alt-country movement’s promising breakout band was packing clubs in major cities across America and Europe, not just the college towns where they spent years building their fan base.
They were following up their left-turn acoustic record, March 16-20, 1992, recorded with R.E.M.’s Peter Buck, with their best record...
In a way, it was. Led by Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy from tiny Belleville, Illinois, the alt-country movement’s promising breakout band was packing clubs in major cities across America and Europe, not just the college towns where they spent years building their fan base.
They were following up their left-turn acoustic record, March 16-20, 1992, recorded with R.E.M.’s Peter Buck, with their best record...
- 10/5/2018
- by Jim Beaugez
- Rollingstone.com
For hardworking bands like the Bottle Rockets, getting to the next gig often means fighting through one of life’s universal miseries: traffic. The group laments a strangled stretch of interstate on their new song, “Highway 70 Blues,” which makes its premiere on Rolling Stone Country today. The tune is the second to surface from the Midwestern roots rockers’ upcoming album Bit Logic, which will be released on October 12th.
Throughout “Highway 70 Blues,” band frontman Brian Henneman sings with wry humor about the stress of staring at a sea of brake lights,...
Throughout “Highway 70 Blues,” band frontman Brian Henneman sings with wry humor about the stress of staring at a sea of brake lights,...
- 9/10/2018
- by Jedd Ferris
- Rollingstone.com
Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy will chronicle his early life and creative evolution in his upcoming book Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back): A Memoir of Recording and Discording With Wilco, Etc., out November 13th via Penguin. (The title is out November 22nd via Faber & Faber in the U.K.)
Throughout the book, the singer-songwriter “takes fans into his songwriting process, from early days with Uncle Tupelo to writing Summerteeth, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, A Ghost Is Born, and beyond,” according to a press release. The description continues,...
Throughout the book, the singer-songwriter “takes fans into his songwriting process, from early days with Uncle Tupelo to writing Summerteeth, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, A Ghost Is Born, and beyond,” according to a press release. The description continues,...
- 8/13/2018
- by Ryan Reed
- Rollingstone.com
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