Back in 2011, Wilco announced that they were parting ways with their record label, deciding to release under their own label. I originally sited a post by Sarah Szczerbiak post on Culturemob.com, but have since found the news well covered by Billboard. The story had caught my attention because Wilco is a major influence in my band Redwood, largely because founding member Kit Bragg is a huge fan. I was a late comer to the Wilco train, having heard them for the first time in ’07. It was actually quite the first listening. Although only from a CD (Sky Blue Sky), I was in Paris for the very first time, staying at a friend’s apartment located in the Chance Elysee district. Said friend was on honeymoon, so my wife and I had the place all to ourselves. Left with a plentiful supply of French red wine, I found a copy of Sky Blue Sky in our friend’s collection and was taken aback by the very first track. I immediately felt a Lennon influence. It had been a long time since a first listen made such a long lasting impression on me. I realize that this long lasting impression had a lot to do with the setting, but that’s always the case with good wine and good music.
The latest Wilco news since this big change is that Tweedy and his son Spencer did an Austin City Limits show that turned out to be a retrospective performance.