Wilco Makes The Cover Of Uncut & A Tale Of Correspondence

The September issue of the great British magazine, Uncut, has Wilco on its cover for the first time, and I’m elated to have gotten my copy. It contains a sweet 13-page spread that covers both the 20th anniversary of the band’s breakthrough masterpiece, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, and their new brilliant release, Cruel Country, and a cool disc entitled Crosseyed Strangers, which boasts “an alternate” version of YHF, made out of live tracks, and alternate takes. The only issue I have with this, ahem, issue, is that the cover (pictured above), features a picture of Jeff Tweedy extracted from a photo shoot for Saturday Night Live in 2007 – that’s right, 15 years ago.

So I guess Uncut thought an older, grayer Tweedy wouldn’t sell as many magazines, but did they have to cropout the rest of Wilco? I always hated when a picture of one member of a band is supposed to symbolize the whole like it’s The Best of The Doors or something, but whatever. The important thing is that Wilco made the cover of one of my favorite magazines, which is something that I actually wrote them about in 2019:

Thing is, they cut out my letter’s mention of my book, Wilcopedia, which had just been published and I was hoping to get reviewed by Uncut. I was hoping to get a plug in the pages of the magazine, and I was disappointed that it was omitted – maybe because Uncut had their own guide to the band that they were working on at the time (it came out the next summer):

Sigh. Well, at least Mojo reviewed Wilcopedia.

 

This isn’t the first time I had correspondence with Uncut. 20 years ago, I wrote them about putting the Replacements, another band I love on the cover. In 2002, my second favorite album was Mono which was by Paul Westerberg underthe name Grandpaboy. Apparently I was under the delusion that this album was a secret Replacements reunion album as that was the rumor in early '02 and the tracks certainly had that sound and spirit, but it was later revealed that Westerberg played all the instruments himself. Before I knew that, I wrote them this letter which they printed in May 2002:

Oh well, still a great album, and the Mats (the Replacements nickname, for those not in the know) still deserved a cover – something that they still haven’t gotten! C’mon Uncut, how about an Ultimate Music Guide on the Mats? That’d be super.

 

Anyway, so far I haven’t been able to get Wilcopedia in the pages of Uncut so far, but maybe with the expanded second Edition has a chance? Maybe an updated version of their Ultimate Music Guide can have a books section with a mention? Maybe I can at least get Uncut to follow me on Twitter, and get a shout-out there? 

 

Double sigh. Like something I said in my letter from two decades ago above, I guess I'll just keep dreaming.

More later...