Wilco’s 12th Studio Album News & The Return Of Golden Smog

A few crucial happenings for Wilco fans to gnaw on these days involve the current recording of the Chicago-based band’s 12th studio album, and the reunion of the alternative country-rock supergroup (that’s how they’re most often described by rock scribes online I’ve found), Golden Smog.

We’ll begin with the yet-to-be-titled album, which Wilco front man, Jeff Tweedy, has shared some session snippets of on his paid newsletter, Starship Casual, published on Substack. The material, which comes from two weeks of sessions in the middle of March, “might not make it on the next record,” as Tweedy wrote of one sketch of a song. “But I love the way it sounds and wanted to share. OxO”

The photo at the top of this post (taken by Chicago freelance photographer Jamie Davis) from the March sessions at the Wilco loft shows Tweedy, John Stirratt, and Pan Sansone working on some tunage. It’s one of a number of other fine pics capturing Wilco’s work-in-progress by Davis (Instagram: jaymiey) featured in Tweedy’s prolific newsletter, as well as other exclusive content, all of which makes Starship Casual well worth the subscription price. Subscribe here.

This weekend, April 2 and 3, Golden Smog, will reunite for two shows at First Avenue in Minneapolis. This will be the first public show by the band in 11 years, and the first with Tweedy since 2008. The great return of Golden Smog was originally set for 2020, for First Avenue’s 50th Anniversary celebration, but the pandemic caused the event to be postponed.

For those not in the know, the side-project galore of Golden Smog is made up of Tweedy, Soul Asylum’s Dan Murphy, former Big Star member Jody Stephens, who like Tweedy, was absent from the last few reunions; and the Jayhawks’ Gary Louris, Marc Perlman, and Kraig Johnson (also of Run Westy Run).

Golden Smog, who date back to the late ‘80s, and have a self-titled debut covers EP, and four fine albums in their discography - On Golden Smog (1992), Down by the Old Mainstream (1995), Weird Tales (1998), Another Fine Day (2006), and Blood on the Slacks (2007) - will have their Sunday night performance broadcast on Nugs.net (9:45 PM ET | LIVE HD VIDEO).

Whether you’re going in person to see them at First Avenue one or both nights, or watching, and listening to them live on Nugs on Sunday, I hope you enjoy the mighty return of Golden Smog. I have a pretty certain feeling that I, listening from my home base, will – a lot.

More later…

What’s Up With Wilco: March 2022

Seeing as it’s now mid-March, and I haven’t posted in a bit, it’s a good time to bring us up-to-date with all the happening Wilco whatnot. 

Since my last post, the big news is still Wilco’s upcoming celebration of the 20th Anniversary of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, beginning with a five show run at Union Palace in NYC from April 15-17, and then three shows at Auditorium Theatre in Chicago from April 22nd to the 24th.

The first few Union Palace shows (4/15, 4/16) are sold out, but tickets are still available for the remaining dates. Go to Wilco’s official website, wilcoworld.net, for more information.

I had also previously reported the rumor that a 20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition of YHF is being prepped for release later this year, but there’s been no news on that front that I can find. 

But on the murmurings of Wilco being at work on a new album, Jeff Tweedy wrote in his Casual Starship Newsletter that he and his bandmates were “chipping away at some new music,” and shared a work-in-progress snippet entitled “Eye Glue (Amazing Grace),” which he said “is fairly representative of roughly a third of the material” that they’ve sorted through. Listen to the excerpt here.

 

Next week, it will be the two-year anniversary of The Tweedy Show, the live Instagram program that came about because of the pandemic lockdown in March 2020. For over 212 episodes, the Tweedy family has well served their fans (or clients as they’ve been called) with hundreds of performances of Wilco songs, Tweedy originals, and an encyclopedic range of iconic rock covers, interspersed with zany verbal shenanigans between Jeff, Susie, Spencer, and Sammy, as well as cameos from famous friends, and other family.

Many, not all, of The Tweedy Show episodes are available on YouTube, so there’s lots there to keep fans busy. But don’t go looking for the famous first episode that caught Jeff in the bathtub taking a bubble bath, because apparently that’s one that’s missing. The one that inspired this promo art by Jumble® cartoonist/Wilco fan Jeff Knurek, that is:

Finally, those who like to Netflix and chill may have heard Wilco pop up in a recent episode of Space Force. The silly workplace satire, which stars Steve Carrell as the head of a new military division devoted to conquering the heavens, featured the band contributing a demo for the Space Force Anthem.

We get to hear a bit of Wilco’s entry in a boardroom scene in episode six, “The Doctor’s Appointment” (February 18, 2022), of the newly released second season. Space Force social media director, F. Tony Scarapiducci (Ben Schwartz) informs his coworkers that he’s found the winner in the “Space Force Anthem” sweepstakes: “Indie rock darlings, Wilco.”

The familiar acoustic sound of Jeff Tweedy and company then fills the conference room, with the lead singer softly singing, “If you’re looking for a beautiful space, with a place for everything you love - closets and pantries and cabinets and shelves…”

 

Upon hearing this, Carrell’s character, General Mark R. Naird, asks “Why are they singing about cabinets and shelves?” F. Tony explains that, “Wilco thought that Space Force was a group of people that come to your house, and offer storage solutions, make everything cleaner, and I did not correct them.”

 

More later...