Wilco
More Like the Moon EP
[Wilcoworld.net; 2003]
Rating: 7.0
Okay, show of hands: how many of you people have listened to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot recently? Yeah, that's about what I expected, 'cause you know, I haven't pulled it out much lately myself. That kind of bothers me. YHF did, after all, cling battered and bruised to the top spot on my list for the Palindromic Year, and one would expect it would have a better shelf-life, even though it's been wink-wink-available for nigh on two years.
Now, before you start sharpening your Outlook, know that this is not an official Pitchfork backlash war cry, but a mere personal assessment. I was, you should know, the staff's staunchest defender of YHF's canonization, enduring countless hipster rants about its dad-rock/easy-listening nature and the impressionability of the nation's boomer crits. For a period of about nine months, anyone so unlucky as to be around me after three or four beers got to hear my pulpit speech about the horizon-widening effect that Jeff Tweedy & Co.'s masterwork could have on the general populace.
Maybe it's because of this intense love affair that I don't reach for YHF so much anymore, in favor of albums that slipped through my fingers while I proselytized about the genius last two minutes of "Reservations". Surely, then, this miniature collectible e-EP-- originally released as a deal-sweetener for YHF-buyers down under, and now streaming and/or downloadable (if you're an honorable sort) from the Wilco website-- would rekindle some of the romance? Packaging two of the better YHF outtakes with four more recent songs, More Like the Moon is timed like a snack to tide us over while the band gallivants around the U.S. with Sonic Youth and R.E.M. instead of RECORDING A NEW ALBUM DAMMIT WHY WON'T YOU FINISH ITTTTTT!
But for those of us pulling for Tweedy to keep the laptop plugged in, More Like the Moon will stream a bit hollow due to its focus on that old humdrum, outdated tool, the guitar. Two tracks-- the unfamiliar "Woodgrain" and solo-show mainstay "Bob Dylan's 49th Beard"-- are little more than street-corner-strumming Tweedy, "Kamera" resurfaces in grungier form as "Camera", and the title track and "Handshake Drugs" feature extended soloing twixt the verses.
Your enjoyment of those last two tracks will probably determine your final score, as they stretch out over more than half of the EP's twenty minutes and change. "Handshake Drugs" comes off the better of the pair, employing a reclined groove and muffled "Only a Northern Song" noise breaks. "More Like the Moon", on the other hand, is an extremely straightforward purty ballad, with extended near-Flamenco picking lending the track a Chi-Chi's-style ambience. Yeah, it's somewhat moving and hardly faultable, but the bar is set too high now for Wilco to coast like they do here, restricting drummer Glenn Kotche to a first-day-of-drum-school beat and key-man Leroy Bach to gentle organ fills.
The only other misfire of the six tracks is "Camera", a bassy, fuzzed-out version that tramples over the delightfully subtle progression from folk-rock to laser guns in the original. But an arena-size "A Magazine Called Sunset" comes out better than expected, given the several lackluster Springsteen-esque demo versions floating about-- even if it sounds more like a Summerteeth outtake than a Yankee cut (count 1, 2, 3 keyboards in the first thirty seconds and know that Jay Bennett is in the hizzouse). The two folky tracks squeak by on lyrical grins, with Tweedy going meta on "Woodgrain" (break out your touchdown bandaids for the self-ref "Sometimes I rhyme/ Sometimes I don't") and making a defense mechanism out of Dylan's facial hair on "Beard".
If you find the whole effort a tad bit underwhelming, there may be good reasons why; to connect the dots with the stopgap from the other 10.0 hate-mail-inducer of last year, Trail of Dead's The Secret of Elena's Tomb EP seems like a dressing room for the band to try on possible future directions, while More Like the Moon sounds like Wilco cleaning out their fridge, even though it's only 33% leftovers. It's not that the sextet of material here plants any seeds of doubt about the band's future trajectory-- road-tested tracks like "Spiders (Kidsmoke)" indicate there's plenty o' future to be excited about-- it's just that this release is less a tease for what lies ahead than an audit of last year's receipts.
But you can easily forgive More Like the Moon for being a bit of a dry-hump, due to its free and easy distribution on Wilco's website. This gracious move is a reminder of what might have been the real epi-musical "Meaning of YHF": the digital-utopia-hinting fact that it was streamed on the band's own site and easy to find on file-sharing bazaars, yet still became Wilco's biggest unit-shifter by a mile, very likely due to (really, could it have been?!?) its Internet leakage.
All the same, my drunken YHF ramblings stay retired, replaced by an even more ludicrous sermon about how The Rapture are going to reinvent indie music based around the mere two songs I've heard from their upcoming full-length. Don't get me wrong, I still stand convinced that Yankee Hotel Foxtrot opened up a lot of aunts' and uncles' ears to new sounds, and assuming Loose Fur didn't shut all of them back up, it's a spell that's still working. Still, More Like the Moon is far too safe a play to keep that momentum rolling between full-lengths, and fails to rise above the fan-club gift bonus it is.
-Rob Mitchum, April 28, 2003
Wilco
More Like the Moon EP
Wilcoworld.net
2003
B-
History forgets the EP. Oh, yeah, there are a couple of exceptions. Les Savy Fav’s EMOR: Rome Written Upside Down EP, The Nerves’ self-titled EP--but besides those, what bands do you know whose best-known release is an EP? And yeah, a lot of fans will claim Pavement’s Watery, Domestic and Wire’s Read and Burn 01 & 02 as watershed moments for those bands, but what other EPs are there that are considered truly indispensable classics of the indie (or any other) genre? There aren’t many. Instead, they are generally used for fan appeasement—a handful of new songs to tide the fans over until the new full-length. Maybe one or two gems included, but basically just a sketch pad for ideas to come to fruition on future LPs or Thanksgiving leftovers that would sound stale if left around too much longer.
Wilco’s More Like the Moon EP is a prime example of this. In a gambit used similarly by the creators of the two other most acclaimed releases of 2002--And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead and The Flaming Lips—Wilco have chosen to temporarily follow up their masterpiece Yankee Hotel Foxtrot with a brief, six-song closet-cleaner. However, Wilco have taken the “for the fans” concept of the EP a step further, making it available only on the band’s website, and coded as to be accessible only to those who bought Foxtrot. Some might sneer at this, pointing out that the EP (which was originally intended to be out for general release sometime in February) has been floating around the internet for nearly half a year now. However, Wilco have done their hardcore fans the invaluable service of releasing them from the obligation of buying the EP, which they undoubtedly would, regardless of it’s quality, had it been given wide release—and that is a service not to be ignored.
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was a brilliant album. Take it as an important breakthrough of the indie world into World Cafe culture that will influence droves of bands to come, or take it as a tight collection of truly splendid pop songs with some ace production (I take it as both), it’s just a great album. More Like the Moon, however, is not brilliant. It is not even great. None of the songs are either as catchy or as experimental as any of those on Foxtrot. However, Wilco has released themselves from any obligations to make it great, or brilliant, or YHF worthy or indicative of anything at all. Don’t like the EP? Well, fuck you, it’s free. If you don’t want it, go ahead and sit around until we’re good and ready to deliver the next full length. Good call, boys.
Musically, More Like the Moon is like YHF never even happened. Wilco appear stuck somewhere between Being There and Summerteeth here, closer to their alt-country roots then they have been for years. None of the production flourishes or advancements in songwriting on Foxtrot are noticeable here in the slightest. “Woodgrain” and “Bob Dylan’s 49th Beard” don’t even feature anyone except Tweedy, strumming away, accompanied by some of his stupidest lyrics since A.M.—come on, wince with me to “I’m not a poet/and I know it.” Isn’t that Dylan title sort of clever, though?
On the other hand, there are some perfectly lovely songs here. “Handshake Drugs” and “A Magazine Called Sunset” are sweet, lush ballads that probably could’ve found a place on Summerteeth, even if the songwriting isn’t quite as sharp. The title track that closes the EP is nothing more than a very relaxed, pleasant stroll of a song, with keyboards that sound like slide guitars and a picked acoustic solo. Even the aforementioned “Bob Dylan’s 49th Beard” has quite a nice melody. The only song here that is really worth more than a cursory look, however, is “Camera,” a surprisingly rocking makeover of the gentle ditty that appeared on YHF. Grungy guitars play sloppily over a Mo Tucker beat, the band sounding looser than anything they’ve done since the drunken “Dreamer in My Dreams” on Being There. It’s a great contrast to the pleasant, unoffensive pop of the rest of the EP.
Naturally, there are complaints to be had with this EP. The material, while consistently good, is never that good. And there’s a set of 20-some YHF-era demos, alternate versions, and outtakes readily available on various file sharing services (not to mention some stunning live reworkings that appeared in the recent Wilco documentary I Am Trying to Break Your Heart) that Wilco fans are bound to be snapping at the heels of the band for excluding. And admittedly, a good deal of that material is better than what appears here—songs like “Venus Stop The Train” or “Not for the Season” and stunning alternate versions of “Poor Places” and, from the film, “Kamera,” could’ve easily been included. However, it’s hard to complain about such petty grievances when it’s no skin off our backs.
“For the cost of a blank disc, a sheet of paper, a little ink and a little bandwidth, we give you the new Wilco record.” So reads the message on the band’s website, and it’s a point that’s remarkably hard to argue with. Like many such EP’s, this isn’t worth €8.27 ($11), but it’s most certainly worth the half-hour or so (and approximately €0.86 ($1.14) in expenses) it takes to download it. Wilco realizes that. And they should be applauded for, unlike most bands, acting on that realization.
Reviewed by: Andrew Unterberger
Reviewed on: 2003-09-01
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