"There's only a few of us left to man the controls."

December 15, 2011 11:11 AM

W i l c o (MLYT +Colbertnation) frontman Jeff Tweedy does the Chicago weather report(:30, OPENS W/ AD).

Wilco / Jeff Tweedy, previously

When Celebrities Crash Weather Reports: A Retrospective

Senator Barack Obama introduces Wilco at Farm Aid (2005)

posted by obscurator (20 comments total)

Well, that worked out a lot better than when Mark E Smith read the football results.
posted by koeselitz at 11:14 AM on December 15, 2011 [3 favorites]

I love the implied existential threat to our very existence..."seems optimistic"...
posted by Xoebe at 11:19 AM on December 15, 2011 [2 favorites]

Lovely. At every Tweedy public appearance I have seen, on video or in person, he seems to have the frontman banter down pat: "That's why I'm here".

Fronting one of the very best rock and roll bands performing today, breathing era-defining life into a stolid genre, exposing a whole new generation to the power of dissonance, being a reliable spokesperson for the digital movement, all that's one thing. But I have always envied him for his banter.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 11:29 AM on December 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

My favorite Tweedy banter moment is on a Golden Smog bootleg I have, where he spends a while in between songs calling out a dude in the audience wearing a Son Volt shirt.
posted by COBRA! at 11:31 AM on December 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

My favorite Tweedy-being-funny moment is him covering the Black Eyed Peas.
posted by naju at 11:32 AM on December 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

I love the "you can read". It makes it all that much funnier because that's essentially what he's doing wrong. You can almost taste the talking heads thinking "Just read the numbers *twitch*". Tweedy sees it quite differently.

If you haven't watched "I'm Trying to Break Your Heart", do. It's great. I love real people.
posted by humboldt32 at 11:33 AM on December 15, 2011 [2 favorites]

Last time I saw Wilco, Tweedy said: "That song makes me wonder why people always talk about Wilco losing their edge. We've always been pussies." Annoyingly the concert review in the local paper censured his remark as "sissies"
posted by octothorpe at 11:38 AM on December 15, 2011

David Lynch is making music and Jeff Tweedy is doing weather reports? Up is down!
posted by shakespeherian at 11:45 AM on December 15, 2011

Jeff Tweedy showed me the inside of the Wilco tour bus. He said something like "you guys are the first people we have met who are more interested in the bus than the band" then he gave me a cardboard box full of drink mixers Aerosmith had left on the bus. That is my Wilco Story.
posted by Ad hominem at 11:46 AM on December 15, 2011 [8 favorites]

Back in 1995, I never thought I would miss that freaky dreadlocked guy on the Gibson SG, but here I am.
posted by entropicamericana at 11:50 AM on December 15, 2011

Up is down!
David Lynch is also doing weather reports.
posted by obscurator at 11:54 AM on December 15, 2011

That was worth it just to see the link to the Triumph the Insult Comic Dog doing the weather for Hawaii.
posted by Leezie at 11:57 AM on December 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

Wilco, one of the few shows lately that I have attended in a state of semi-sobriety and I'm a better person for it. I could just stand there for hours listening.
posted by jsavimbi at 12:00 PM on December 15, 2011

David Lynch is also doing weather reports.

that's why i said it
posted by shakespeherian at 12:08 PM on December 15, 2011

After watching Tweedy, and Mr. Smith's reading of the football scores (wince-packed link from first comment), I can't help but grant "upstanding" societal figures, i.e. weatherpeople and sportscasters a bit of leeway when referring to musicians as disrespectful, socialist longhairs. Smith characterizes the football show host as a murderer or strangler due to his hairstyle, and Tweedy assures that literacy makes one overqualified for a career in meteorology.

Yes it's fun -hence the post, and the various ego dents will certainly buff out, but as an upstanding, socialist shorthair / musician, I'm just sayin'
posted by obscurator at 12:11 PM on December 15, 2011

David Lynch is also doing weather reports.

Was. I think he stopped doing this some time ago. It was very cool while it lasted, however.
posted by aught at 12:35 PM on December 15, 2011

obscurator: “Smith characterizes the football show host as a murderer or strangler due to his hairstyle... ”

The amount this matters is somewhere between little and not at all, but nota bene: Mr Smith refers not to "murderers and stranglers" but to "murderers in Strangeways," Strangeways being the poetically-named prison in Manchester to which the title of this album by another Manchester band refers. I have no idea, but it may well be that they give murderers that particular haircut in Strangeways. Either way, I don't think it makes the interview less excruciating.
posted by koeselitz at 12:37 PM on December 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

But I have always envied him for his banter.

That might not have been easy at times
posted by timsteil at 12:50 PM on December 15, 2011

If you haven't heard The Whole Love yet, you should really give it a listen. I highly suspect everyone who is posting in a Wilco related post probably has heard it, but it must be said.

Also, this is hilarious.
posted by Joey Michaels at 1:41 PM on December 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

¿Quién es más macho? Tomé Hanks, o Jeff Tweedy?
posted by not_on_display at 2:03 PM on December 15, 2011