Wilco Wednesday Song Spotlight: “New Madrid”

Today, the Spotlight shines on a song that's not technically a Wilco song as it was originally an Uncle Tupelo track, but when that band broke up, its author, Jeff Tweedy took it with him and has played it with Wilco and his other offshoots enough to render its origins kaput.

This entry was inspired by the news, posted by Kyle Thompson on Facebook, that today is the 209th Anniversary of  the great New Madrid earthquake.

“New Madrid” (Jeff Tweedy)

Jeff Tweedy: vocals, guitar
Jay Farrar: guitar
John Stirratt: bass
Max Johnston: banjo
Ken Coomer: drums

One of Jeff Tweedy’s best pre-Wilco compositions, “New Madrid” was one of four songs from Uncle Tupelo’s Anodyne that the singer-songwriter continued to play after his former band’s breakup.

For John Tryneski of Spectrum Culture, the song is “a bouncy banjo-driven number that pokes fun at Iben Browning’s quackish predictions of a natural disaster in that Missouri town.” This refers to the Texas businessman and author who predicted that a major earthquake would hit the New Madrid Seismic Zone around December 2–3, 1990, and that the US Government would collapse in 1992.

 Of course, this didn’t happen, and as Jay Farrar would note in an interview in 1993, “Ironically, the town has really grown in population since then. People went there and decided it was a good place to live, and there’s been this huge influx of people.’ Jason Nickey, in a review of Uncle Tupelo’s 2003 compilation 89/93: An Anthology, wrote that, along with “Black Eye,” “New Madrid” “hints at the mysterious and complex lyrical turns [Tweedy] would explore later with Wilco.”

Wilco performed “New Madrid” at their first gig in November 1994, while Tweedy’s first solo acoustic show in late December that year also featured the song. Wilco continued to play the song a lot throughout the mid-to-late 90s, with close to fifty documented performances in 1997 alone; its presence dwindled in the 2000s, but it’s been played on every Wilco tour except their 2010 run.

More recently, in the years since the band’s twentieth anniversary tour, it’s been performed in a stripped-down ‘hootenanny’-style in a smattering of show encores. Meanwhile, Tweedy has performed the song more than a hundred times at solo shows or with his Tweedy side-project.

“New Madrid” was the only Tweedy original that was played during Wilco’s all-request/all-covers show at their Solid Sound Festival at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) in North Adams, Massachusetts, on June 21, 2013. After that performance, Tweedy said that whomever it was in the audience that had requested the song should raise their hand. He then thanked the member of the crowd who did so, remarking, “Out of all of the songs in the world, that’s awesome...a wise, wise choice.”

This is an edited excerpt from Wilcopedia by Daniel Cook Johnson, published by Jawbone Press (www.jawbonepress.com). Order your copy here.

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Wednesday Wilco Song Spotlight: “Pecan Pie”

As it’s almost Thanksgiving, this week’s Spotlight shines on a song that celebrates one of the holiday’s most classic desserts:

“Pecan Pie” (Jeff Tweedy)

After performing this song at the Vic Theatre in Chicago for the Annual Benefit for Education on April 6, 2007, Jeff Tweedy remarked that it was “Definitely the best song I’ve ever written.”

Tweedy has made that claim often since the song’s release on Golden Smog’s Down by the Old Mainstream, but as he jokes around so much, it’s difficult to know whether or not he’s kidding. Don’t get me wrong - I find “Pecan Pie” to be a pure charmer, a sprightly, finger-picked song about a guy craving this traditional Southern dessert, and his love.

Tweedy premiered “Pecan Pie” during his first tour as a member of Golden Smog in 1994, and Wilco first played the song at their second ever show at 7th Street Entry in Minneapolis in late November 1994, and they performed it throughout their ‘94-‘95 tour. They returned to it in ‘97, ‘99, and ‘00, but after that it has left the band’s orbit (their last performance of it was at one of the Lounge Ax’s last shows). It now resides in the realm of Tweedy’s solo gigs, and shows with his self-named side project.

The song has been a fan favorite, oft requested at Tweedy’s Education Benefits and he has repeated his claim as to it being the best song he’s ever written a few times in recent years, but not everyone agrees with him.  Allmusic.com’s Stephen Thomas Erlewine, in an otherwise rave review of Golden Smog’s Down by the Old Mainstream, wrote that it it’s a “bit too cute to be effective.”

Tim Grierson offered his critique in his 2012 band bio Wilco: Sunken Treasure that Tweedy’s “‘Pecan Pie’ has some of the same folk charm as some of A.M. but, like so much of his material at the time, felt lightweight to the point of being almost jokey.”

It’s possible that the whimsical jokiness of “Pecan Pie” is what Tweedy likes so much about it. The song’s appearance at his solo shows is usually surrounded by humor – sure a lot of the tunes are likewise kidded about, but Tweedy’s song about yearning for some honeypie seems to get special attention.

Performed as a request at the Annual Benefit for Education at the Vic Theatre in Chicago, on March 30, 2012, Tweedy said, “Whoever requested this song also gave me a key lime pie, which, if you listen to the lyrics, I don’t like them. Not to be an ingrate or anything, the whole song is about how I hate key lime pies. But I know it’s hard to get a pecan pie in a pinch.”

After the performance, Tweedy said, “Thank you for your help, and I do like key lime pies, that was a bunch of…I was totally kidding.” A few years later, at the Ryman Auditorium Nashville, Tennessee June 24th, 2014, he introduced “Pecan Pie” as “the only song that my wife knows the name of.”

Tweedy has played the song several times over the run of his family’s Instragram show, The Tweedy Show. Here’s the first time from Episode 7 (3/6/20):

In its nearly 50 solo performances by Tweedy, “Pecan Pie” has long been a fan favorite, but its status as the finest song that the man has ever written is arguably debatable.

What I’m going to guess is that the song is a jokey ditty, that Tweedy likes to joke
about being his best. Whatever the case, it sure makes me want a piece of my own.

Endnote: For some reason, this song doesn’t appear in my book, Wilcopedia. It should have because although it’s a Golden Smog song it was performed over 20 times by Wilco during their early tours which means it certainly falls under the band’s banner. Perhaps future editions can right this wrong.

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Wednesday Wilco Song Spotlight: “Summer Teeth”

As the Deluxe Edition of Wilco’s third studio album, Summerteeth, releases this week, the Spotlight shines on one of that record’s most infectious tunes:

“Summer Teeth” (Jeff Tweedy, Jay Bennett)

Jeff Tweedy: vocals, acoustic guitar
Jay Bennett: electric guitar, lap steel, piano, keyboards, bells, backing vocals
John Stirratt: bass, backing vocals
Ken Coomer: drums

“I’ve got summer teeth - some are, some aren’t”

This title track of sorts is a McCartney-esque piece of pure pop pleasure featuring 60s-style oohs and ahhs by Bennett and Stirratt. After some nature sound effects, including a babbling brook and bird noises, the song’s rich guitar flourishes cascade into a mix of Bennett and Tweedy on electric and acoustic guitars, jingle-jangling into the song’s easygoing rhythm. Key line: “It’s just a dream he keeps having but it doesn’t seem to mean anything.”

Matthew Greenwald of allmusic.com heard another strong influence in the track. “After all of the Velvet Underground–influenced songs on the Summerteeth album, the title song is definitely a direct homage, being more than reminiscent of ‘Who Loves The Sun,’” he wrote. “The sunny atmosphere and feel are a combination of influences that range from pop cliché and quotes as well as original pop vision. Utterly charming and positive.”

This makes sense in the knowledge that Wilco would go on to cover “Who Loves The Sun” at their all-covers concert at Solid Sound Festival in 2013, and on one further occasion that year.

Tweedy performs a solo acoustic version of “Summer Teeth” at Calvin Theatre in Northampton, MA in 2005:

Over half of the tracks on Summerteeth have been played live a hundred or more times, but ‘Summer Teeth’ the song has only had around seventy-five airings. Tweedy has played solo acoustic renditions of it a further fifty times, from his live debut of the song at the Lounge Ax in Chicago on the eve of the album’s release in 1999 to a performance at Solid Sound in 2015.

This is an edited excerpt from Wilcopedia by Daniel Cook Johnson, published by Jawbone Press (www.jawbonepress.com). Order your copy here.

You can order the lavish Summerteeth: Deluxe Edition boxset at wilcoworld.net.

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Wednesday Wilco Song Spotlight: “You Never Know”

This week’s Song Spotlight shines on the first single from the band’s seventh studio release, Wilco (The Album):

“You Never Know” (Jeff Tweedy)

In the fourth episode of the popular 60s-set AMC TV series Mad Men, first broadcast on August 9, 2007, Roger Sterling - a senior partner at the fictitious ad firm Sterling Cooper, perfectly played by John Slattery - ponders, ‘Maybe every generation thinks the next one is the end of it all.’ *

In Wilco’s bright, poppy “You Never Know,” Jeff Tweedy offers a similar sentiment. “Come on children / You’re acting like children / Every generation thinks it’s the end of the world.”

This song was considered by many to be a tribute to the post-Beatles solo work of George Harrison, with Justin Gerber of Consequence Of Sound likening the “I don’t care anymore” refrain to the hallelujahs of “My Sweet Lord.”

It briefly reached the #1 spot on the Billboard Adult Album Alternative chart in the summer of 2009, and was released as a seven-inch single, backed with the non-album B-side “Unlikely Japan.”

A nearly identical version of the song appears on the charity album The Sun Came Out by the Neil Finn project 7 Worlds Collide. The two-CD set, which also features contributions by Johnny Marr, Ed O’Brien, Sebastian Steinberg, Phil Selway, Lisa Germano, Don McGlashan, Bic Runga, Glenn Richards, KT Tunstall, and fellow Finn brothers Tim and Liam, was a benefit for Oxfam, a charitable organization focused on ending global poverty.

With Neil Finn, best known as the front man of the Australian pop rock band Crowded House, providing additional fuzz guitar, Wilco recorded the 7 Worlds Collide version of ‘You Never Know’ in December 2008 at Roundhead Studios in Auckland, New Zealand. It was released on August 31, 2009, two months after Wilco (The Album).

* This bit overlaps with a Wilcopedia (The Blog) post from last year entitled Mad Men & Wilco: That's Right, There Are Connections (10/10/19).

This is an edited excerpt from Wilcopedia by Daniel Cook Johnson, published by Jawbone Press (www.jawbonepress.com). Order your copy here.

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This Week in Wilco: Jeff Tweedy’s new album, book & video plus an Uncle Tupelo live RSD release

If Wilco fans’ wallets aren’t going to be depleted enough by the upcoming release of the major multi-disc Summerteeth: Deluxe Edition, they surely will be with all the other Wilco-related items on the near horizon. 

First up, Wilco founder/front man Jeff Tweedy’s second book, How to Write One Song, comes out next week on Tuseday, October 13. The follow-up to his 2018 memoir, Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back): A Memoir of Recording and Discording with Wilco, Etc., the book’s release will be accompanied by a virtual book mini-tour with Norah Jones & Nick Offerman on Oct. 13, and 14. Info and ticket information is available on Wilco’s official website. 

Tweedy’s third solo album, Love is the King, drops digitally via dBpm on October 23. The vinyl and CD versions won’t be available until January 15, so digital will just have to do for a bit for the ones who desire a physical copy (I’m talking about me). 

Earlier this week, Tweedy shared a video for “Gwendolyn,” one of the tracks from Love is the King. Described accurately on their website as “a little wacky and a whole lot of fun,” involves a close-up of a Tweedy wearing a blue surgical mask looking directly into the camera with a white background.

Once he removes his mask, the bottom halves of a series of somewhat familiar faces lips synchs the song whole Tweedy stares straight ahead. The guest celebrity half faces include Jon Hamm, Elvis Costello, Jeff Garlin, Nick Offerman, Seth Meyers, Robyn Hitchcock, John Hodgman, Norah Jones, Scott McCaughey, and Tweedy’s sons, Sammy and Spencer. Watch it below: 

On November 13, The Autumn Defense, the band that’s so much more than a side project by Wilco members John Stirratt and Pat Sansone, celebrates the 10th Anniversary of their fourth album, Once Around.

The digital re-release includes the original album, along with a bonus track, and a bunch of live tracks from gigs at Amoeba Music Hollywood, and Eddie’s Attic in Decatur, Georgia around in 2010. Having seen a few excellent Autumn Defense shows on that tour, I am highly looking forward to hearing this previously unreleased live material. 

Wilco lead guitarist Nels Cline, who has appeared on more albums than there are days of the year, is releasing Share the Wealth on Blue Note Records on November 13. The record, credited to Cline’s long running outfit, The Nels Cline Singers, will be available on streaming, CD, and vinyl (yay!). 

Last but certainly not least, Tweedy’s former band, Uncle Tupelo, is going to get the vinyl live double album treatment on Record Store Day, Black Friday, November 27. The recording, entitled Live at Lounge Ax - March 24, 1994, is taken from Uncle Tupelo’s performance which was broadcast live on WXRT. As a bootleg, the show has been circulated for years among fans, but I doubt that’ll stop them from obtaining this upgrade.

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Edward Burch: The Wilcopedia Interview Part 3

This is the third and final part of my conversation with Edward Burch, a St. Louis-based musician who works at the Animal Protective Association of Missouri. In the first entry, we talked about Burch’s collaboration with his friend Jay Bennett, a member of Wilco from 1994-2001, on their superb 2002 album, The Palace at 4am (Part 1), which will make its vinyl debut tomorrow, on Record Store Day (September 26).

In the second entry, we talked about Bennett and Burch’s tour for the album in 2002-2003, and also touched on Bennett’s solo work that followed The Palace at 4am, and the years leading up to his death in 2009.

Here, we talk about the Gorman Bechard’s upcoming documentary about Bennett, our shared love of The Replacements, a few of the Wilco songs that Bennett co-wrote, and I tell a story about meeting Bennett after one of their shows in 2002.

Daniel Johnson: “Now, the documentary about Bennett, WHERE ARE YOU, JAY BENNETT? – have you seen a cut of it?”

Edward Burch: “Yes, in fact Gorman (Bechard), the Director, is sending me the color-corrected copy probably in the next couple of days. I’ve seen what is the locked picture print, and it’s coming together very well.”

DJ: “So you like what you’ve seen?”

EB: “The film is doing its best to tell as broad of a portrait of what Jay was about. Not just that the fact that he was a member of Wilco, but looking at his life before, looking at his life after, and I think it’s going to be a really great film. I’m grateful to have contributed what I could to that process.

Neither Jeff Tweedy nor John Stirratt, current Wilco members who actually worked with Jay, agreed to do interviews for the film. So Gorman is using snippets of Jeff’s audio from reading his book. So Jeff’s presence in the film is from either those audio clips, or both Jeff and Stirratt end up appearing from previous interview footage from other sources. But Ken Coomer (Wilco drummer 1994-2001) did agree to talk for the film, as did Max Johnston, Daniel Hurbst who was the road manger, and Jonathan Parker, who was the road tech guy/stage manager. So a lot of previous Wilco-related people appear in the film. But Jeff and John only appear from previous sources. We reached out to them many times.

I sent Jeff a note saying ‘We’re not going to ask you any hard-pressing, controversial kind of things, we just want you to speak of what was it like working with Jay when things were going well. Just let him talk about that. You don’t have to talk about the dissent into drug abuse, or even the decision to let him go. You can pick and chose what you want to talk about. And he wasn’t even really interested in that, which is unfortunate. Because I was around when their creative partnership is at its peak, and they really got along, and they enjoyed each other, and as we know from the records we have from that period they collaborated on some really great music.”

DJ: “I like Gorman Bechard’s films, but had mixed feelings about The Replacements documentary (COLOR ME OBSESSED), but maybe that was more of a personal thing as they are my favorite band. His approach of not actually having any Replacements stuff in it, I don’t know if that went over as well as the concept.”

EB: “Well, I will tell you – the reason we approached Gorman to do the film was precisely because of the Replacements documentary. I’m with you though – the first time I saw the film, I was just kind of like ‘meh’ and not quite getting it. The second time I watched it, I was like ‘oh, now it all makes sense.’  The conceit of the film is here’s a band that does not give a fuck about publicity, or any of the machinations of the music industry, or all of that kind of stuff. So to have a documentary where there’s no footage of the band, there’s no music of the band, all it is is people who have been around at different times in the band’s career just telling their stories.”

DJ: “I definitely need to watch it again.”

EB: “There was something about the Replacements that the way that you came to them. You came to them because somebody that you knew, said ‘oh, have you heard this record? Oh, have you seen them play live?’ It was a band that found its audience because the people who had first seen them or heard them found something within it and they were like ‘this is amazing and I’ve have to share this with other people.’ So, for me, the documentary is all these people sharing and reminiscing about how that particular process came together to help them find their audience. I’m not a fan of idol worship, but certainly when I was in my mid-late 20s, when The Replacements were doing their thing, I was like ‘I fuckin’ love these guys!’

Certainly, part of that was listening to their records. But part of it was friends who would go with me to shows, or the friend who initially turned me on to their records. So the documentary is taking a very non-standard approach, and letting the people who love the band tell you why they love the band. Here, I’ll throw this out to you, and you’ll probably agree: if Bob Stinson never recorded anything except for the guitar playing he does on ‘Nowhere is My Home’ he would still be one of the greatest rock guitarists that the world has ever produced.”

DJ: “I wanted to ask you about ‘My Darling.’ It’s credited to Bennett and Tweedy, but Bennett said he had the song a long time before that, and there was a deal where Magnet Magazine had this review of Summerteeth which said that despite that the album was bright, and sun-shiny sounding, there was a lot of darkness there. They pinpointed the line in ‘My Darling’ that was ‘we were a family,’ and Bennett wrote them saying ‘that’s not dark,’ that it was a positive song about looking back, so it makes me wonder – does Tweedy actually have any song-writing credit in ‘My Darling?’ It seems like it was fully formed before it got to Summerteeth.”

EB: “Here’s what I can tell you. Jay wrote the song. It is his song. I think he, as a courtesy gesture, gave Jeff supplemental writing credit because there are some slight differences musically, or even a couple of lyrical substitutions, or whatever that happened in the Wilco version. I think he did it as a gesture. I would say also that the version that appears on The Palace at 4am – our version credits it as me and Jay, but it’s really mainly Jay. My only contribution to the song was to say, ‘let’s do this descending line like the Big Star song – ‘Lord, I’ve been trying’ – whatever that song is. ‘Try Again.’ That was my writing contribution to the song, which is obviously very minimal. It’s 100% a Jay song. I got a gratuitous writing credit on Palace; Jeff got a gratuitous writing credit on Summerteeth.”

DJ: “It’s interesting to me because Wilco did the song every night on the Summerteeth tour, and they even played it on some TV show, but when Bennett left the band, it’s like he took the song with him. Wilco didn’t do it for years, until a run of shows in Chicago at Riviera Theater in 2006 where the deal was they were playing every song they ever done so, of course, they had to do that song too. Tweedy – I found the bootleg of the show – didn’t give any credit, he just said to the audience – ‘do you want to hear a lullaby?’ Since then, they’ve done it maybe once or twice, but it’s kind of an outlier in the Wilco catalogue.”

EB: “Same goes for ‘Pieholden Suite.’ In the whole of their career, they’ve only done it seven or eight times.” I certainly hope that nothing I’ve talked about this evening is in any way bad-mouthing Jeff. I think he’s a very talented person, and like any human being, he has his own issues. I might wish that he could’ve found within him the strength to deal with Jay especially in the post-Wilco world at a more empathetic level, and it didn’t happen that way. I know that Wilco have done good and interesting work post-Jay, I personally never chose to follow it. That was my own thing.”

DJ: “When you look at a list of the songs that Bennett and Tweedy co-wrote together – that is pretty amazing. Those are the songs most Wilco fans most hold dear. Even if they like later stuff, those are the core of Wilco love. The fact that the last song they ever wrote together was ‘Jesus Etc.’…that’s pretty freaking amazing.”

EB: “Oh, and by the way, just so you know, the lyric ‘Turning your orbit around’ – that is a Jay Bennett lyric.”

DJ: “Oh, I love stuff like that. That’ll probably make the next edition of Wilcopedia! So I have a story – When I saw you and Bennett play at Go! Studios in Carrboro in 2002, I met Bennett and talked with him briefly, and you weren’t around. You guys had been onstage so long that most people had left, and it seemed like you were doing more stand-up comedy than even you were doing songs that night.”

EB: “That happened sometimes.”

DJ: “I loved it though, but then afterward I was about to leave, and my friend said ‘you said you wanted to get the CD, you haven’t bought the CD, why don’t you go and buy it and get it signed? Jay Bennett is right over there.’ So I was like ‘okay, you’re right.’ So I go up there, and I feel like an asshole doing this, but I said ‘hey, I love that band you used to be in.’ And Jay’s eyes glazed over and I said ‘you know, Titanic Love Affair!’ And he laughed. But what’s funnier is that he signed the CD, ‘Thanks for tolerating us!’

EB: (laughs) “What would have been better is if you had a copy of Steve Pride and His Bloodkin*, and said ‘Oh, and I love this band too!”

* Bennett performs on Pride on Pride (1999)

The new vinyl re-issue of Jay Bennett and Edward Burch's 2002 release The Palace at 4am (Part 1) goes on sale on the September 26 Record Store Day Drop at participating independent music retailers. 

Edward Burch: The Wilcopedia Interview Part 2

                     

This is the second part of my conversation with Edward Burch, a St. Louis-based musician who works at the Animal Protective Association of Missouri. In the first entry, we talked about Burch’s collaboration with his friend Jay Bennett, a member of Wilco from 1994-2001, on their superb 2002 album, The Palace at 4am (Part 1), which will make its vinyl debut on Record Store Day (September 26).

Here, we talk about Bennett and Burch’s tour for the album in 2002-2003, and also touch on Bennett’s solo work that followed The Palace at 4am, and the years leading up to his death in 2009.

Daniel Johnson: “Now, the tour for The Palace at 4am started out with just you and Jay, but at some point, you actually gained a band.”

Edward Burch: “Yes, so we had Will Johnson from Centro-Matic on drums – Will is a phenomenal drummer – and Scott Danbom, also from Centro-Matic, and he was playing keyboards and occasionally violin. I love those guys - they’re amazing. Then on bass, on one leg, we had John Horton from The Bottle Rockets, and I think it was shortly after he joined The Bottle Rockets so Jay and I were not familiar with his guitar playing. Bob Andrews, who was managing us was also managing The Bottle Rockets. He shows up and he’s completely great and wonderful on the bass.

On one particular day, John just picked up a guitar, starts playing, noodling around, and Jay and I just turn to him like “holy shit!” We didn’t know you could do that! We were this close to switching Jay to bass on tour and letting John play the electric guitar. We also had a friend from Champaign, Derek, also a great bass player. So the full band versions were always pretty fun. We got to play a little louder, get a little more rocking, than we could do when it just Jay and I as a duo.”

DJ: “I have a bootleg from that tour that’s credited to Overserved.”

EB: “Yes, Bennett/Burch Overserved.”

DJ: “During those shows, you guys broke out some interesting covers. Warren Zevon’s ‘Gorilla, You’re a Desperado,’ and Elvis Costello’s ‘Green Shirt.’”

EB: “The bootleg that is probably most circulated of Bennett/Burch Overserved was the final leg of the band tour which was at the Hideout in Chicago. On that one, we also did the Badfinger Song ‘The Name of the Game,’ which I adore; and we also did a very hard-rocking version of the song by Bread, ‘Everything I Own.’ When we were live we were usually very loose in every sense of the word, but there were definitely some moments that were extremely magical. There were also some moments that completely fell apart, and there were some moments that as Will Johnson once later described it in remembering Jay after his passing, some nights it was like walking on a tightrope and you don’t have a net, and somehow you manage to hold it together and you never fall.”

DJ: “That tour seemed like such a necessary thing for Jay, having been in a band that was playing arenas, playing really structured shows with a crew, and then it’s just you guys playing these shows, and I bet it was a blast for him to get away from that structure, that machinery.”

EB: “We had tons of fun, and, on those tours, we were our own loading crew, and all that kind of stuff. Jay was a seasoned touring veteran, but for me, it was the first time I ever went out on a full on national tour. My musical experience prior to that was playing shows in Champaign, St. Louis, Chicago, and just like the general Midwest sort of stuff.”

DJ: “So how did it come about? Jay leaves Wilco – does he give you a call and goes like ‘hey – I want to keep this momentum going, I’ve got a bunch of cool songs, I want to keep playing out live’ - I mean, how did that go?”

EB: “Jay and I had been recording material, some of it had actually started from before he joined Wilco, and we were constantly recording stuff when he would be home on a break from being on tour, and we just sort of kept working on stuff of our own. So we had various songs in various stages of completion. So when Jay got the word that he was dismissed from Wilco, my then girlfriend, who I will refer to now as my then future ex-wife, were staying in a little rental apartment for the summer in Champaign, and then getting a different place to lease for the following year. So it was about 3:30 or so in the morning, and the phone rings, and I get a call and it’s Jay. I’m talking with him, and he’s in a slightly emotional state about being dismissed from this band, but says ‘hey, we’ve have a lot of material and we can go into the studio, start finishing things up, and put out a record, and tour on it – do you want to do that?’

And of course, 3:30 in the morning and I don’t have my sensibilities together, but even at that moment I was like ‘yes – of course.’ Because I’ve always loved working with him.”

DJ: “Did you contribute to any of the albums Jay made after Palace?”

EB: ‘Well, there are tracks that popped up on a few of his records, post Palace, that were left over recordings from those initial sessions. And then I did work with him on the record that he made that came out on Ryko (The Magnificent Defeat) with some instrumentation, backing vocals and minor song-writing contributions and things like that.

So when the touring ended for Palace, there had been a moment where I had had enough of in this case mainly cocaine, the constant drug use that was happening. It was your basic standard rock ‘n roll cliché kind of bullshit. And granted, even though I was fed up, I was also at times a willing participant. Finally, I was like hit this wall, alright, this shit has to stop. This is fucked up.

So that tour is done, we go out in February of 2003. So it’s Jay and I, Steve and Diane from Dolly Varden. There was one show in particular that was a total meltdown that was in Pittsburgh. When that tour was done, and Jay’s divorce is in progress, he moves all of his studio gear out of the house in Arlington Heights into a studio loft in Chicago. His drug use at that point even gets worse. And, of course, we’re all worried about him. We all love him and care about him. There was literally an intervention scheduled.”

DJ: “My impression was that he really became a recluse. Is that correct?”

EB: “I think that there is some truth to that. I think that in part it had to do with him not coming to terms with his pill abuse situation. And so we dragged him to rehab, and he stayed there for a few days willingly – ultimately he was convinced to sign himself in as opposed to him being unwillingly signed in. After that happened, I didn’t hear from Jay for – I mean, I tried to contact him many times – I didn’t hear from him for a year and a half. My guess was that he was pissed that I chose to be among the folks to drag him to rehab – anybody who deals with substance abuse, addiction, things like that, they’re never gonna change what they have going on until they decide for themselves. Okay, now is the moment to make a change. Once he did, I heard back from him.

When I got the call that Jay had died, I was shocked.  I was living outside of Austin, Texas, I ran to Lowe’s to get something and I didn’t bring my phone with me. In those days I didn’t give a fuck about having my phone with me. I get home and my wife’s like ‘you had two calls on your phone while you were gone.’ One was David Vandervelde and the other was Jonathan from Private Studios. I’m just thinking, the only reason any of these two people would be calling is something regarding Jay. Before I called anyone back, my heart sank, because I felt that I knew at that moment what the news was going to be. Of course, when I called – yes, that was the news. I miss him to this day. Because, primarily, he was a dear friend. We enjoyed doing our music together.

One of the things I often say is if I had gotten that call three years earlier – I wouldn’t have been surprised. Because he ultimately got his shit together and was feeling good overall, except for the hip pain, and he unwisely chose to get a fentanyl patch to deal with the hip pain, and it’s pretty common knowledge that he got the hip patch clandestinely – he didn’t get it through a doctor because no doctor would give a fentanyl patch to a patient who wasn’t terminal because those patches can fail, and that’s exactly what it did with him. But at the time he wasn’t using drugs, he was occasionally having a glass of wine, was in great shape except that he had this excruciating pain. And it was the same thing that happened with Prince.

I remember in all the publicity around Prince’s death, Paul Stanley, of all people, making the comment because he also dealt with excruciating hip pain, from all his prancing around the stage with Kiss, and saying ‘everyone dogging on Prince because he chose to take these drugs to deal with that pain, has never really experienced how excruciating that pain can be.”

Coming soon: Part 3 of the Wilcopedia interview with Edward Burch