Wilco Rock Wrigley Field!

Proving that Wilco has reached heights I never thought possible, Tweedy and the crew sang the 7'th inning stretch at Sunday's Cubs game. Jeff Tweedy not only was interviewed after the song, he also had the honer of throwing out the first pitch before the game. Being from Chicago and loving Wilco I was thrilled and mystified at the same time by this news. WGN even cranked a bit of the non-album track "Let's Not Get Carried Away" at the end.

Watch my world's collide below....Go Cubs!!

Wilco Lollapalooza Webcast!

With the entire band sporting killer modern "Nudie" suits, Wilco rocked Lollapalooza last night featuring a wonderfully varied setlist. Thanks to the magic of the AT&T Lollapalooza webcast and You Tube, I bring you the entire show here in great quality. The highlights were many, but make sure to watch the new song called "One Wing". If the song is an indication of what the new album will bring, I could not be happier.

Enjoy the videos!

Wilco-Lollapalooza:Chicago IL. August 2, 2008
SETLIST
01 "Misunderstood"


02 "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart"


03 "You Are My Face"


04 "Impossible Germany"


05 "It's Just That Simple"


06 "Stage Banter"
07 "Handshake Drugs"


08 "Pot Kettle Black"


09 "One Wing" (Non-Webcast Quality)


10 "Spiders (Kidsmoke)"


11 "A Shot In The Arm"


12 "Jesus, Etc."


13 "Hate It Here"


14 "Can't Stand It"


15 "Walken"


16 "Monday"


17 "Outtasite (Outta Mind)"

Happy Birthday Jerry!

Today would have been Jerry Garcia's 66th birthday and I think we all know he would have celebrated by playing music of some sort on stage. I am celebrating by listing to this killer Grateful Dead show from his 31st birthday which took place on August 1, 1973 in New Jersey.

The highlights are many, but in particular listen to the gorgeous "Bird Song" and the totally epic "Dark Star-> El Paso-> Eyes Of The World-> Morning Dew". Make sure to hide the cat during the particularly trippy "Dark Star". Enjoy!

Grateful Dead:Roosevelt Stadium, 1973-08-01

Bob Dylan - Bootleg Series, Volume 8 Info

Oh happy day! First I get to listen to soundboard of a recent Tom Waits show (see below), and now the details for the new Dylan: Bootleg Series release come out.

The collection is called "Tell Tale Signs" and features live and unreleased tracks from 1986-2006. The set drops on October 7 and my countdown clock is already ticking! The unreleased Time Out of Mind material has me drooling.

Also, make sure to check out this digital version of the Dylan singles book that comes with the Deluxe Edition. I just love the Internet sometimes!

Track Listing:

Disc One
1. Mississippi 6:04 (Unreleased, Time Out of Mind)
2. Most of the Time 3:46 (Alternate version, Oh Mercy)
3. Dignity 2:09 (Piano demo, Oh Mercy)
4. Someday Baby 5:56 (Alternate version, Modern Times)
5. Red River Shore 7:36 (Unreleased, Time Out of Mind)
6. Tell Ol' Bill 5:31 (Alternate version, North Country soundtrack)
7. Born in Time 4:10 (Unreleased, Oh Mercy)
8. Can't Wait 5:45 (Alternate version, Time Out of Mind)
9. Everything is Broken 3:27 (Alternate version, Oh Mercy)
10. Dreamin' of You 6:23 (Unreleased, Time Out Of Mind)
11. Huck's Tune 4:09 (From Lucky You soundtrack)
12. Marchin' to the City 6:36 (Unreleased, Time Out of Mind)
13. High Water (For Charley Patton) 6:40 (Live, August 23, 2003,Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada)

Disc Two
1. Mississippi 6:24 (Unreleased version #2, Time Out of Mind)
2. 32-20 Blues 4:22 (Unreleased, World Gone Wrong)
3. Series of Dreams 6:27 (Unreleased, Oh Mercy)
4. God Knows 3:12 (Unreleased, Oh Mercy)
5. Can't Escape from You 5:22 (Unreleased, December 2005)
6. Dignity 5:25 (Unreleased, Oh Mercy)
7. Ring Them Bells 4:59 (Live at The Supper Club, November 17, 1993,New York, NY
8. Cocaine Blues 5:30 (Live, August 24, 1997, Vienna, VA)
9. Ain't Talkin' 6:13 (Alternate version, Modern Times)
10. The Girl on the Greenbriar Shore 2:51 (Live, June 30, 1992,Dunkerque, France)
11. Lonesome Day Blues 7:37 (Live, February 1, 2002, Sunrise, FL)
12. Miss the Mississippi 3:20 (Unreleased, 1992)
13. The Lonesome River 3:04 (With Ralph Stanley, from the album Clinch Mountain Country)
14. 'Cross the Green Mountain 8:15 (From Gods and Generals Soundtrack)

Glitter and Doom Stream!

The ever awesome NPR.Org has just posted a live recording of Tom Waits's recent Glitter and Doom tour. Coupled with the fact that Waits rarely tours and the poor recordings of many recent bootlegs, this is fantastic news.

Recorded at The Fox Theater in Atlanta, GA, the show is almost 2 1/2 hours of Tom Waits goodness so open those computer recording programs and enjoy!

Set List
"Lucinda / Ain't Going Down to the Well"
"Down in the Hole"
"Falling Down"
"Chocolate Jesus"
"All the World Is Green"
"Cemetery Polka"
"Cause of It All"
"Till the Money Runs Out"
"Such a Scream"
"November"
"Hold On"
"Black Market Baby"
"9th and Hennepin"
"Lie to Me"
"Lucky Day"
"On the Nickel"
"Lost in the Harbor"
"Innocent When You Dream"
"Hoist That Rag"
"Make It Rain"
"Dirt in the Ground"
"Get Behind the Mule"
"Hang Down Your Head"
"Jesus Gonna Be Here"
"Singapore"
ENCORE
"Eyeball Kid"
"Anywhere I Lay My Head"

Click here to go to the show.

Happy Weekend!

After a particularly long and grueling week at work, I am thrilled for the weekend. Hopefully this clip of The Hold Steady's recent rocking on the David Letterman show will make your weekend even better. If you do not yet own their recent CD "Stay Positive", you are missing the album of the year. Enjoy!

My Plan for Iraq by Barack Obama

"As I’ve said many times, we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in."

Since the majority of this blog is filled with the trivialities of rock and roll, I thought I would post a little political content. Specifically, Barack Obama's New York Time editorial from July 14 regarding Iraq. I talk to many people that seem to like Barack Obama, but want to know where he stands on issues. While this editorial is very short on details as to HOW he is going to accomplish any of this, at least it provides his intended strategy.

I am posting this below without the permission of anyone....

My Plan for Iraq
By Barack Obama
Published: July 14, 2008

CHICAGO — The call by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki for a timetable for the removal of American troops from Iraq presents an enormous opportunity. We should seize this moment to begin the phased redeployment of combat troops that I have long advocated, and that is needed for long-term success in Iraq and the security interests of the United States.

The differences on Iraq in this campaign are deep. Unlike Senator John McCain, I opposed the war in Iraq before it began, and would end it as president. I believed it was a grave mistake to allow ourselves to be distracted from the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban by invading a country that posed no imminent threat and had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. Since then, more than 4,000 Americans have died and we have spent nearly $1 trillion. Our military is overstretched. Nearly every threat we face — from Afghanistan to Al Qaeda to Iran — has grown.

In the 18 months since President Bush announced the surge, our troops have performed heroically in bringing down the level of violence. New tactics have protected the Iraqi population, and the Sunni tribes have rejected Al Qaeda — greatly weakening its effectiveness.

But the same factors that led me to oppose the surge still hold true. The strain on our military has grown, the situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated and we’ve spent nearly $200 billion more in Iraq than we had budgeted. Iraq’s leaders have failed to invest tens of billions of dollars in oil revenues in rebuilding their own country, and they have not reached the political accommodation that was the stated purpose of the surge.

The good news is that Iraq’s leaders want to take responsibility for their country by negotiating a timetable for the removal of American troops. Meanwhile, Lt. Gen. James Dubik, the American officer in charge of training Iraq’s security forces, estimates that the Iraqi Army and police will be ready to assume responsibility for security in 2009.

Only by redeploying our troops can we press the Iraqis to reach comprehensive political accommodation and achieve a successful transition to Iraqis’ taking responsibility for the security and stability of their country. Instead of seizing the moment and encouraging Iraqis to step up, the Bush administration and Senator McCain are refusing to embrace this transition — despite their previous commitments to respect the will of Iraq’s sovereign government. They call any timetable for the removal of American troops “surrender,” even though we would be turning Iraq over to a sovereign Iraqi government.

But this is not a strategy for success — it is a strategy for staying that runs contrary to the will of the Iraqi people, the American people and the security interests of the United States. That is why, on my first day in office, I would give the military a new mission: ending this war.

As I’ve said many times, we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 — two years from now, and more than seven years after the war began. After this redeployment, a residual force in Iraq would perform limited missions: going after any remnants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, protecting American service members and, so long as the Iraqis make political progress, training Iraqi security forces. That would not be a precipitous withdrawal.

In carrying out this strategy, we would inevitably need to make tactical adjustments. As I have often said, I would consult with commanders on the ground and the Iraqi government to ensure that our troops were redeployed safely, and our interests protected. We would move them from secure areas first and volatile areas later. We would pursue a diplomatic offensive with every nation in the region on behalf of Iraq’s stability, and commit $2 billion to a new international effort to support Iraq’s refugees.

Ending the war is essential to meeting our broader strategic goals, starting in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the Taliban is resurgent and Al Qaeda has a safe haven. Iraq is not the central front in the war on terrorism, and it never has been. As Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently pointed out, we won’t have sufficient resources to finish the job in Afghanistan until we reduce our commitment to Iraq.

As president, I would pursue a new strategy, and begin by providing at least two additional combat brigades to support our effort in Afghanistan. We need more troops, more helicopters, better intelligence-gathering and more nonmilitary assistance to accomplish the mission there. I would not hold our military, our resources and our foreign policy hostage to a misguided desire to maintain permanent bases in Iraq.

In this campaign, there are honest differences over Iraq, and we should discuss them with the thoroughness they deserve. Unlike Senator McCain, I would make it absolutely clear that we seek no presence in Iraq similar to our permanent bases in South Korea, and would redeploy our troops out of Iraq and focus on the broader security challenges that we face. But for far too long, those responsible for the greatest strategic blunder in the recent history of American foreign policy have ignored useful debate in favor of making false charges about flip-flops and surrender.

It’s not going to work this time. It’s time to end this war.

Barack Obama, a United States senator from Illinois, is the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.