Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. That right there, that's
a Cold War era number station. Spy transmissions
from the Soviet era. And somehow a Chicago alt
-country band sampled it. Got sued for it, settled
out of court, and used it anyway to create one
of the greatest albums of the 2000s. Welcome
to Shecky's Jam Bands. Today we're talking about
Wilco, a band that proved you can get fired buy
your record label for making a masterpiece, then
make the same label buy it back from you at a
profit. If that's not the most beautiful, chaotic
middle finger to the music industry, I don't
know what is. Quick question. What do you do
when your creative partner, the guy you've been
making music with since high school, allegedly
strokes your girlfriend's hair at a party? If
you're J for R, you wait about a decade, let
the resentment simmer, then blow up one of the
most influential alt -country bands of the 90s.
Meet Uncle Topillo. Jeff Tweedy and Jay Farrar
started making music together as teenagers in
Belleville, Illinois, a working -class town near
St. Louis. They were a band called The Primitives
with drummer Mike Heidorn. When the band's lead
singer left for college, the three of them regrouped
and became Uncle Tupelo in 1987. Uncle Tupelo
essentially invented alt country. They took punk
rock energy, bands like the Minute Men and Black
Flag and smashed it together with traditional
country and folk. Their 1990 debut album No Depression
became so influential that it spawned an entire
magazine with the same name. People love them.
Critics love them. and they were on the verge
of breaking big. Then, Farrar quit. January 1994,
Farrar calls the band's manager and says, I'm
done. I'm not having fun anymore. I don't want
to work with Tweety. Tweety hears the second
hand, not from Farrar directly, from the manager.
Imagine that. Your childhood friend, your musical
partner for over a decade doesn't even have the
guts to tell you he's breaking up the band. Tweety
was understandably furious. They had just one
last tour, which was reportedly awkward as hell,
and then it was over. Farrar immediately started
assembling Son Volt Tweety, not one to waste
time wallowing, grabbed the rest of Uncle Talipo,
bassist John Sterot, drummer Ken Kummer, multi
-instrumentalists, Max Johnston, and said, we're
starting a new band. They considered keeping
the Uncle Tolupo name, but ultimately they went
with something new. Wilco. So where does Wilco
come from? It's military and aviation radio jargon.
Short for will comply. Like you get an order
over the radio, you respond Roger Wilco, okay.
Jeff Tweedy has said it's fairly ironic for a
rock band to name themselves. And honestly, it
is ironic, because Wilco has spent their entire
career not complying. Not complying to alt -country
expectations, not complying with label demands,
not complying with anyone's idea of what they
should sound like. Their first album, A .M.,
came out in 1995. It was solid, straightforward,
alt -country, in the Uncle Tuleepo mold. Songs
like Box Full of Letters, and Casino Queen showed
Tweety's knack for hooks and storytelling. But
critically, it was fine, not groundbreaking.
Meanwhile, Jay Farrar's son, Volt, dropped Trace
in 1995, and credits went wild. It outsold AM.
It made year -end lists. Farrar had won round
one. But here's the thing about Tweety. He's
patient. He's willing to evolve. By 1996, Being
there, a sprawling double album, Wilco was already
morphing. They added keyboards, noise, texture.
They weren't just an old country band anymore.
They were becoming something weirder, more experimental,
more interesting. And then came Yankee Hotel
Foxtrot. Let me paint you a picture. In 2001,
Wilco has been working on their fourth album
for months. The record sessions were brutal.
Jeff Tweedy and multi -instrumentalist Jay Bennett,
who's basically been Tweedy's right hand since
being there. They are fighting constantly. Both
are struggling with addiction. Both want creative
control. Tweedy brings in an experimental producer,
Jim O 'Rourke, who helped finish the album. He
also fires the drummer Ken Coomer and replaces
him with Glenn Kutch from his side project Loose
Fur. Jay Bennett fired after the album is done.
Meanwhile, a documentary crew led by Sam Jones
is filming all of this for a film called, I am
trying to break your heart. The cameras catch
everything, the arguments, the addiction struggles,
the creative breakthroughs and heartbreak. Finally,
the album is done. Tweety thinks it's the best
thing they've ever made. Wilco hands in their
label, reprise records, a Warner Brothers subsidiary.
Reprise listens and they hate it. Where's the
single? They ask. This will kill Wilco's career.
They reject the album. They drop Wilco from the
label. Now here's where it gets beautiful. Wilco's
manager negotiates a buyout. Wilco gets to keep
the master tapes for free. Reprise just gives
them away. So what does Wilco do? They stream
the entire album for free on their website. September
18th. 2001, one week after 9 -11. The internet
goes wild. Fans love it. Critics start writing
rave reviews. Suddenly every label wants to sign
Wilco. And guess who swoops in? None such records,
also owned by Warner Brothers. Warner paid for
the same album twice. They recorded it on Warner's
dime, got dropped, and then sold it back to another
Warner subsidiary. As Wilco's manager put it,
the coup of all time. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was
released in April 2002. It hit number 13 on the
billboard 200. Wilco's highest chart position
ever. It became their best -selling album. Rolling
Stone later ranked it among the greatest albums
of all time. The album, Reprise, said it would
kill Wilco's career, actually saved Wilco's career.
All right. Let's talk songs, because if you're
new to Wilco, you might be thinking, this all
sounds dramatic, but what do I actually listen
to? Here's my take. One song to start with. meets
Sonic Youth. It's hypnotic. It's weird. It's
got lyrics about spiders filling out tax returns,
which honestly is peak tweety absurdism. Live,
this song is a monster. The band locks into a
groove and just rides it. Glenn Koch's drumming
is relentless. Nels Klein layers guitar textures
until you can feel you're floating. It's meditative.
It's chaotic. It's everything. If Via Chicago
is Wilco's emotional gut punch, Spider's Kid
Smoke is their invitation to get lost in sound.
Both are essential. Both are their top track
lists. Both will make you a believer. Now, let
me hit you with some Wilco facts that'll make
your brain itch in the best way. The album title,
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, comes from a real Cold
War -era shortwave numbers station. Tweedy heard
it on a compilation called The Connaught Project.
The recordings of that were believed to be a
spy transmission. Robotic Voice repeats Yankee
Hotel Foxtrot over and over. Wilco sampled it
for the song Poor Places. The label that owned
the recording, EarDal, sued them for copyright
infringement. They settled out of court. The
sample stayed. Fact number two. The cover of
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot features Chicago's Marina
City Towers, two cylindrical buildings. When
the album was supposed to come out on September
11, 2001, people later read all kinds of eerie
symbolism into the twin towers of the cover.
Tweedy has said it wasn't intentional, but the
timing was unsettling. Fact number three, Wilco's
lineup has changed more than your favorite restaurant's
menu. The only members who've been there since
day one are Jeff Tweedy and bassist John Styrat.
Everyone else replaced at some point, but since
2004, the current six piece lineup, Tweedy, Styrat,
Koch, Klein, and keyboardist Michael Jorgensen,
and multi -instrumentalist Pat Sanson, has been
remarkably stable. Longest live incarnation in
Wilco's history. Fact four, for his 34th birthday,
Jeff Tweedy got private guitar lessons from Richard
Lloyd of television. Tweedy was obsessed with
television's guitar work and wanted to incorporate
it into Wilco's sound. Mission accomplished.
Fact five, Wilco's first live album, Kicking
Television, was recorded in Chicago's Vic Theater
in 2005. It's a two -disc... set that captures
the band at the peak of their powers. Post Yankee
Hotel Foxtrot, post drama, just a group of insanely
talented musicians playing their hearts out.
Here's what I love about Wilco. They didn't play
it safe. They could have stayed an alt country
band, keep making albums that sounded like AM,
toured forever, been comfortable, but they didn't.
They took risks. They pissed off their label.
They fired band members. They changed their sound
with every album. And in doing so, they became
one of the most important American bands of the
past 30 years. Jeff Tweedy once said, I was trying
to put it in perspective for myself. How can
there be all these good things that I love about
America alongside all the things that I am ashamed
of? That tension between love and shame, beauty
and ugliness, order and chaos runs through everything
Wilco does. It's why Yankee Hotel Foxtrot sounds
both intimate and colossal. It's why their song
can be gorgeous melodies wrapped in feedback.
It's why they named themselves after a phrase
that means obedience, then spent decades refusing
to obey. Wilco will not comply and thank goodness
for that. That's it for today's episode of Shecky's
Jam Bands. If you take away one thing from this,
let it be, never let anyone tell you your art
isn't good enough. Reprise Records said Yankee
Hotel Foxtrot would kill Wilco's career. It became
their masterpiece. Go listen to Via Chicago,
Get Lost in Spiders, Kid Smoke, and remember,
sometimes the best revenge is making your critics
buy your album twice. Until next time, keep jamming
and never ever comply.