Day After Day #193: The Plan

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4). 

The Plan (1999)

Sometimes you're just late to the party when it comes to bands. Built to Spill had an incredible three-album run in the 1990s with There's Nothing Wrong with Love (1994), Perfect from Now On (1997) and Keep It Like a Secret (1999), but I somehow missed all of it at the time. It was until 2000, when the band released their album Live that I got into them. 

I was working at Webnoize and we had just moved into office space in Central Square in Cambridge. We had this funky Sun Solaris computer system that allowed us to have a shared digital music library we could all access, and somebody had put the Built to Spill live album on it. Their 20-minute cover of Neil Young's "Cortez the Killer" was what initially grabbed me, but then I listened to the rest of the album and realized this band was incredible, and that led me to dig into the back catalog. 

Led by singer-guitarist Doug Martsch, the band has had an intentionally revolving lineup over the decades, which Martsch felt would keep things fresh. Built to Spill definitely has echoes of Young, especially in Martsch's high-pitched voice, his love for extended guitar soloing and the band's tendency to jam in concert (see "Cortez the Killer"). But the band also has its quirky indie edges that set it apart from Neil and Crazy Horse, which you can hear in bands that came later like Modest Mouse and Death Cab for Cutie.

Keep It Like a Secret is an incredible album, and on it Martsch had decided to write more concise songs instead of the epics that populated Perfect from Now On. The opening track, "The Plan," is a great example of this, with Martsch, bassist Brett Nelson and drummer Scott Plouf packing as much awesomeness as possible into 3:29.

"The plan keeps coming up again/And the plan means nothing stays the same/But the plan won't accomplish anything/If it's not implemented/Like it's always been/And it makes me think of everyone/The cause of this is evident/But the remedy cannot be found/'Cause it's so well hidden."

Lyrically, the song is extremely economical, partly because the guitar solo is so great (the version on Live is even better).

"This history lesson/Doesn't make any sense/In any less than/10,000-year increments/Common sense/Common sense/Common sense/Common sense/Common sense."

The album was critically praised and debuted at #120 on the Billboard 200 chart. Built to Spill followed it up with 2001's Ancient Melodies of the Future, which I didn't like as much the previous few albums but was still enjoyable. I saw them for the first time at the Paradise on September 18; it was the first public event I attended post-9/11. They only played two songs from Keep It Like a Secret and only one from their recent release, but they played six covers, including Cheap Trick's "Dream Police," the Smiths' "This Night Has Opened My Eyes," George Harrison's "What is Life" and an epic version of "Freebird." It was a strange night just because of all the weird vibes that were happening in those weeks after the attacks, but it was nice to have a great band take our minds off that stuff for a few hours.

I had front-row tickets to see them with Dinosaur Jr. and the Meat Puppets in 2008 at the Orpheum, but had to give them up because we were going out of town that weekend. Still bummed I missed that show.

BTS (they're the true owners of that acronym to me, not the South Korean boy band) kept releasing albums and touring tirelessly throughout the 2000s, although the lineups continued to shift with Martsch being the only constant. The band was on Warner Bros. until 2017, a 22-year stretch that was pretty impressive considering they didn't sell a ton of albums. They signed to Sub Pop in 2021 and released When the Wind Forgets Your Name in 2022, which was a pretty decent album.

Kudos to Martsch for consistently making interesting music over the years. I hope to see them again someday.

Day After Day #185: Heavy Metal Drummer

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

Heavy Metal Drummer (2001)

September 2001 was a weird time for the band Wilco. To be fair, it was a weird time for everybody. But setting aside world-changing acts of terrorism, Wilco was dealing a lot of stuff musically. The previous album from Jeff Tweedy and co., 1999's Summerteeth, found the band moving away from the alt-country sound of its first two releases and was critically acclaimed but commercially disappointing. There were pressures from the band's label, Reprise Records, to sell more albums.

Tweedy and multi-instrumentalist Jay Bennett, the other main creative force in the band, were at constant disagreement over the band's sound. Tweedy wasn't happy with the drum sound on the fourth album and drummer Ken Coomer was let go and replaced by Glenn Kotche. Jim O'Rourke was brought in by Tweedy to remix "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart," which caused more problems with Bennett, who wanted to mix all the songs. Bennett was fired from the band after the album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, was finished in 2001. All of this was documented by director Sam Jones and released in the 2002 documentary I Am Trying to Break Your Heart: A Film About Wilco.

Also in 2001, Time Warner (owner of Warner Bros. Records, which owned Reprise) merged with America Online, which created more pressure to cut costs. Reprise eventually rejected Yankee Hotel Foxtrot in June 2001 after deeming it too uncommercial. Wilco negotiated a buy-out from the label, which reportedly included the master tapes of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. 

While they were still searching for a new label, Wilco streamed the entire album for free on their website on Sept. 18, 2001, creating a huge buzz for the new songs. In November, the band signed with Nonesuch Records (also a subsidiary of Warner Bros.), which released the album to retailers in April 2002. The album finds the band in experimental mode, exploring different avenues including dissonant art rock, electronic bleeps and bloops and moody ruminations. And then there's "Heavy Metal Drummer," which is a poppy, upbeat strummer about loving heavy metal as a kid.

"Oh, I sincerely miss those heavy metal bands/I used to go see on the landing in the summer/She fell in love with the drummer/She fell in love with the drummer/She fell in love/Shiny, shiny pants and bleached blond hair/A double kick drum by the river in the summer/She fell in love with the drummer/Another then another/She fell in love/I miss the innocence I've known/Playing KISS covers, beautiful and stoned."

Musically, the song is as far from metal as you can get, all bopping synths and bouncing bass. It's also pretty far from the rest of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, especially the song before it, "Ashes of American Flags." 

It's a light moment on a heavy album that a lot of folks felt was relevant to the mood of the country at the time, even though it was recorded well before the 9/11 attacks. Songs like "Ashes" and "War on War" and even the iconic cover image of the Marina City towers in Chicago was compared to the World Trade Center towers.

Once it was finally released, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot went to #13 on the Billboard 200 chart, Wilco's highest-charting album. In the 22 years since, the band has become an indie rock staple, releasing nine studio albums, exploring different sounds including avant garde art rock, traditional country and folk. Wilco also formed their own label, dBpm Records, in 2010 and runs the annual Solid Sound Festival at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. 

Jay Bennett, who had been releasing solo albums and working with other artists including Sheryl Crow and Billy Joe Shaver, died in his sleep in May 2009. His death was ruled accidental as the result of a Fentanyl overdose.

Wilco has become known as one of the main purveyors of "Dad rock," but the band is so much more than that.

Ye Olde Hit Parade: Fell In Love With a Girl

Editor's note: Ye Olde Hit Parade takes a look back at my favorite songs year by year (starting in 1978, when I really started paying attention to music).

2001: The White Stripes - Fell In Love With a Girl

When you think about newsworthy events in 2001, there's really only one thing that stands out: the merger of AOL and Time Warner.

I keed, I keed, it's 9/11, of course. But plenty of other stuff happened before that. Napster shut down. Apple introduced the iPod. The XBox and the Segway were released. Dale Earnhardt and Aaliyah died.

The dotcom economy tanked, as expected. At Webnoize, we saw it coming and as the year wore on, things got bleaker. We watched dotcoms run out of money and go out of business and by the end of the summer, it was obvious the ship was sinking. So I started looking for a new job. I had a little extra urgency because Deb and I found out we were going to have a baby the following spring.

Of course, September 11 really dealt the finishing blow to the company. Our conference in November still happened (although most of us didn't go), but given a lot of the companies that went the previous two years didn't exist or had no money to fly there. I went on some interviews, but nothing really clicked. Finally, I ended up getting a job back at my old company in Marblehead, so I gave my two weeks' notice. At the end of the first week in mid-November, we were all laid off. I had a unplanned week off, and then was back in Marblehead.

This year, a lot of '90s acts were continuing into the new decade on a strong note: Radiohead, Sloan, Guided By Voices, Frank Black, Built to Spill, but there were good new efforts from Stephen Malkmus, Destroyer, Ted Leo and the Strokes. Concerts attended included: Radiohead, Gord Downie, The Tragically Hip, Built to Spill, PJ Harvey and Buddy Guy.



The White Stripes were the breakout band for me in '01. I had been hearing tracks from their new album White Blood Cells on WMBR, but it was seeing the band at the Middle East with a bunch of my Webnoize buddies that clinched it. The guitar-drums garage rock attack was particularly effective in the live setting, but the album kicked ass, especially "Fell In Love With a Girl." Jack White's guitar especially provided a jolt of energy. It didn't really catch on nationally until it was released as a single in April 2002, but I loved it from the moment I heard it. And it was great to see the band when they were still playing small venues, which definitely was not the case when they returned on their next tour.

And speaking of changes, we were bracing for the biggest one so far in our lives coming the next spring.

Honorable mentions: The White Stripes - "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground"; Frank Black and the Catholics - "Robert Onion"; Stephen Malkmus - "Black Book"; Rocket From the Crypt - "Heart of a Rat"; Gorillaz - "Clint Eastwood"; Guided By Voices - "Glad Guys"; Guided By Voices - "Chasing Heather Crazy"; Destroyer - "The Sublimation Hour"; Radiohead - "Knives Out"; Radiohead - "Pyramid Song"; Sloan - "If It Feels Good, Do It"; Sloan - "The Other Man"; Ted Leo & the Pharmacists - "Biomusicology"; Ted Leo & the Pharmacists - "Timorous Me"; Built to Spill - "Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss"; The Strokes - "Last Nite"; The Strokes - "Is This It"; Ben Folds - "Annie Waits"; Ben Folds - "Rockin' the Suburbs"; Tenacious D - "Tribute"; Fu Manchu - "Mongoose"; Jay Z - "Izzo (HOVA)";