I Did Not Know That! Weird, Wilco Schtuff

Jeff Tweedy just saw what you were thinking...and he liked it.

If you type in “Wilco” on your favorite search engine, you’re going to find a lot of information: Tour dates, information on their new album The Whole Love, information on Solid Sound Fest, downloads and….wait. You can find all of that right here! What you can’t find, however, are the weird, interesting Wilco-themed things around the internet that only a dude with unlimited time on his hands could find. Well, now you’re in luck! I killed that guy, assumed his identity and stole his links. Here is a bunch of (as Dana Carvey as Johnny Carson would put it) Weird Wild Schtuff  from around the internet, related to Wilco. Some are strange, some are confusing, some will shake you to the very core of your being. Others will make you say “meh.” Anyway, without further rambling, here is some Weird Wilco Schtuff.

First up is something some of you may have already seen, and others of you may have already tried:

I can't decide if this is ominous or homage-y

Yep. That’s exactly what it looks like: Wilco beer. Though Lagunitas, the brewing company, claims that  Tweedy, Cline and the gang wasn’t  the inspiration for Wilco Tango Foxtrot, I think I speak for all Wilco fans when I say (the sarcasm flowing heavily), “Yeah, OK.”

Reviews for the ale have been surprisingly positive (B+ from Beer Advocate, the only magazine I’d trust to review my hops and barley), especially from a few Wilco News Twitter followers:

“Very, very good. Had a few pints on tap and the bottle as well”  -@TheManOfSeal

“It’s very good! I picked up a bottle this past weekend.”  -@alexhansonman

So if “Wilco Tango Foxtrot Ale” is not a reference to Wilco or their now-classic Yankee Hotel Foxtrot album, what would be? “Beering There”? “Wilco (the ale)”? “What Light (beer)?”

If anyone has any further horrible Wilco beer puns, send them to @WilcoNews on Twitter, and hashtag it #Wilcobeernames. Or you can leave a comment. Either way (see what I did there?).

Speaking of food, drink and puns, here’s the Sky Blue Sky Sandwich Company out of Toronto, Canada:

Naming sandwiches after Wilco songs; that's not so much weird as it is awesome.

The Sky Blue Sky Sandwich Company (openly referencing Sky Blue Sky; say what you will about Canadians – at least they’re honest) aptly names each if its food items after Wilco songs. I know what you’re thinking. “Does this mean that if I order the Less Than You Think I’ll have to listen to ten minutes of guitar feedback?” I would assume not, though I’ve never eaten at the place. You can, however, experience Outtasite (Outta Mind) and She’s A Jar in a way that you (probably) never have: with a pickle.

"How To Fight Loneliness" consists of contains slices of chicken, apple and bacon all on "toasty naan-like bread."

Has this piqued your curiosity? It’s definitely piqued mine-though I am a sucker for rock n’ roll-themed food.  You can check their menu out here for the latest on Wilco-titled sandwiches from One Wing to Hoodoo Voodoo. As if you needed another reason to envy Canada. I will say this though. I haven’t been able to stop thinking of other Wilco sandwich names. I know you didn’t ask to hear them, but here they are:

Muzzle of Bees

Honeycomb cereal, bananas and salami all on cold Honey Wheat bread with honey mustard

Sunken Treasure

“It’s like eating a pirate!” Fried starfish, seaweed and pastrami on a pan-fried pair of boxer shorts with honey mustard

Candy Floss

Candy. Floss. Honey mustard.

That name again is Mr. Plow. Er-ah- Sky Blue Sky.

Naming Wilco sandwiches. Is that a career I could corner jump in on? I could do that all day. Though in the interest of your sanity and mine, I won’t. We’ve got to press on to other weird business. I mean that literally; this next guy’s name is Jake Weird:

Tweedy. Gyllenhall. Do I smell a cage match?

Jake has a thing for comparing Jeff Tweedy to actors, apparently. In one post he put up a bunch of pictures comparing the Wilco frontman to Jake Gyllenhall (pictured right), and in a more recent post, compared Tweedy to Emile Hirsch.

I’m not going to speak for everyone when I say this, but I don’t think I’m alone in saying, “Ah. You lost me.” For those of Tweed-Hirsch-llynhall heads who agree with Mr. Weird, check out his site here.

Mr. Tweedy’s all about the diet slush drinks.

Say the first name that pops into your head when you read the following combination of words: “Diet Coke” “Slurpee” “Folk Fest.” If you said “Nelson Mandela,” you’d be wrong. The name that you should have thought of was Jeff Tweedy.

An excerpt from SwerveCalgary.com tells the gripping (kinda) tale of one Folk Fest Volunteer’s at-first disappointing meeting with Wilco’s frontman, while revealing a ‘s strange, possibly short-fused side of Tweedy that many of us would not think exists.

Linden, can you go get Jeff Tweedy?’ ” The request marked Linden Ritchie’s first gig as a ground-transportation volunteer, a coveted position the musician/waste-management consultant says he begged for. “I’m like Forrest Gump,” says Ritchie. “I’ve met some pretty incredible people in my life, and I like that this role is where the common person meets with fame.” So, did his heart skip a beat when Wilco’s front man climbed into his van? “No. I’d never heard of him and anyway, he wasn’t friendly. He sat in the back and focused on his Blackberry for the entire 10-minute ride from his hotel to the Island.” When Ritchie turned on the radio, he says Tweedy glared at him and barked ‘Turn that down!’ “I wasn’t too impressed.”

Weird, right? It gets a bit weirder. Check here for the full story.

Uh-oh. Did you hear that? That sound means it’s time for the lightning round!

• This article from Jew Eat Yet? (which gets my full and undying respect if only for the name) from Danny Miller, brother-in-law of Jeff Tweedy, is a very sweet recount of Tweedy’s 40th birthday in 2007.
• This is a sweet video of Glenn Kotche composing Drum-kit quartets:

• This is a story on Marina City in Chicago, the towers on the cover of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. The AV Club also did a great piece on the “Wilco towers,” as they are now more commonly known.
• This is a chat room for fans of Wilco. You know, like in case you time travel back to 1997 and are 12 years old.

• This isn’t Wilco (the band) at all! Definitely signed up for the wrong mailing list. On the plus side, I’ve now got enough pop rivets to sink a battleship.

• This is a glow-in-the-dark Wilco yo-yo! Yes, you read that correctly.

Finally, to end this week in weird, strange and interesting Wilco News, here are some rejected covers for Wilco’s last full-length album, Wilco (the album). I tried to pick and choose the best and least disturbing ones, but if you’d like to see them all (at your own risk) check out The Hidden Track.

Via Glide Magazine’s The Hidden Track:

Man, that was a lot of stuff! Weirded out enough? If not, check out some odd yet awesome covers of songs by and of Wilco.

And if you haven’t pre-ordered The Whole Love yet, what’samadda you?

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Weekly Poll: Which Wilco Album Do You Think is The Most Underrated?

Wilco fans could argue about which album is their favorite all day and all night long. Many do, in fact.

Scene: Wilco fans argue during downtime at Solid Sound Fest: 

90′s rock purist: “Anybody with a brain in their skull knows that Wilco peaked with Being There; I’m not into their whole ‘experimental,’ Yankee Hotel Foxtrot phase.”

Modern rock purist with a historian complex: “Is this even a question? Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was not just a revolutionary album, it was the revolutionary album of the new millennium. ‘Totes have it on vinyl; the original, mind you. And also, there’s no such thing as a ‘historian complex.’”

Wilco “deep cuts” purist:“How has no one mentioned A Ghost is Born yet? Okay, give Spiders (Kidsmoke) a chance; you’ll ‘get it’ after 3 listens!”

90′s Alt-Country Purist: “Y’all hipsters are clueless. I liked Wilco when they were just an offshoot of Uncle Tupelo; A.M. all the way!”

Guy that really likes Summerteeth: “Dude. Summerteeth.”

Whatever type of Wilco fan you are, now is the time to voice your opinion in this week’s poll:

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