Wilco rocks the stacks!

Good stuff this past weekend with Wilco. The boys closed Saturday night's Tall Stacks festival with a decent performance. It wasn't their best, but it wasn't their set, their crowd, their stage. They played a well-received set that clocked in at about seven-fourths of an hour. (G'on, do the math. Impress me.) For a complete set list, head over the the Wilco forums.

Got me to thinking, though...if I'm willing to devote an entire post to the glory of the Beastie Boys on YouTube, shouldn't I do the same for my favorite band in the world?

Sadly, though, Wilco doesn't have nearly the YouTube presence that the Beasties do. Apparently the fact that Wilco has only ever recorded one official video seems to be a bit of a hamper to things.

Let's begin with their only official video - for the song "Outtasite". That was off of their second album, Being There - their first absolutely great album. Sadly, the whole video thing didn't seem to work for the band as they haven't released another one since then.

After Being There, came Summerteeth. It was on this album that the band chucked the label of alt-country entirely. There isn't a single thing on Summerteeth that could be mistaken for the old Uncle Tupelo sound at all. Influences for this one have been more likened to The Band, The Beach Boys, and the psychadelic power pop of the early seventies.

Not a lot of video from Summerteeth is out there, but a bit of concert footage are available: "Can't Stand It". Sadly no more that I can find on YouTube.

Their next album: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is a different story entirely. The band allowed themselves to be filmed for a documentary of the making and release of the album, leading to the DVD I am Trying to Break Your Heart. Because of this - and the story of the band's label rejecting the album which was subsequently bought back by a different label under the same company - Wilco found themselves as more than just critical darlings. They were a band on the verge, and their increased YouTube presence from this time shows that.

We get performances of "I am Trying to Break Your Heart", "Ashes of American Flags", "Radio Cure" and "Heavy Metal Drummer" from the DVD.

It took a couple of years for us to get a follow-up in the form of A Ghost is Born. Still no official videos, but a few YouTube performances: "Hell is Chrome", "Hummingbird", and "Wishful Thinking"

There's been a solid, if unspectacular live album - Kicking Television since that, and a few new songs - including "Walken" since then, but no new full studio albums after Ghost

Luckily, along the way, there have been a few side projects Golden Smog, Loose Fur, the Minus 5, The Autumn Defense, a soundtrack, and a couple of discs with Billy Bragg - check "Airline to Heaven" from the latter.

And Jeff Tweedy - the leader and real identity of Wilco - has done some solo work, concerts, special performances, and even an upcoming DVD: "Theologians", "Sunken Treasure", and two previews from the DVD in "Sunken Treasure" and a song I don't know.

If you'd like to know a little more about where the band came from, you'd need to check out Uncle Tupelo ("Still Be Around"'s unofficial video) or Sun Volt (on Austin City Limits and doing "Chickamauga".

There are a bunch more videos of Wilco on YouTube, but they're mostly of the thirty-seconds-taken-with-a-shakey-cell-phone-camera variety and not really worth watching at all.