{Art by D. Crane, The Young Fresh Fellows play July 23rd at the Tractor}

I was too young/too uncool to listen to the Young Fresh Fellows, but I got way into the Minus Five after seeing them play with the Posies at the Mural Amphitheater, when I was in high school. “The Lonesome Death of Buck McCoy” was my first Minus Five CD purchase, from Tower Records by the Space Needle. Since then I have been a constant fan. Their style of mixing playful lyrics with real emotion behind them, has influenced me to write songs. To that I say….thank you Mr. McCaughey. I moved to Chicago in 2002, to teach middle school on the south side of the city as part of Teach for America. It was a rough go, but “Down With Wilco” was one of the few things (pizza, Wrigley Field, and Thai food….oh did I mention burritos?) got me through. I am on my third copy of that album, now on reissue LP.

D. Crane: Down With Wilco is a special record for me. I remember where I was when I heard “The Days of Wine and Booze” for the first time. I still buy it/recommend it to my friends. It is up there with the White album on my favorite albums of all time list. Do you have any special albums like that? Albums that you give to friends? Albums that you think are severely underrated/are as good as Beatles albums?

Scott McCaughey: Yes, I have albums like that. Whenever I'm asked, I go blank though. I try to turn people on to the Bill Fay CD of his first two albums, which coincidentally, Jeff Tweedy turned me onto the night before we went into the studio to start Down With Wilco. I also pass on copies of the first two McGuinness Flint albums -- I stockpile them (at next to nothing, as no one wants them) and then pass them on to those I think might be susceptible to their charms. (John Wesley Harding took the bait and fell hard.) Nazz Nazz by the Nazz; Armchair Boogie by Michael Hurley; Wish You Were Here by Badfinger. Everyone knows Straight Up but WYWH is also a masterpiece! In The Air by the Handsome Family.  It's tricky because you have to find stuff that people haven't heard.  And in the end, no matter how great, nothing's as good as the Beatles.  But all three Big Star albums come close.

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The Minus 5 are releasing Killingsworth at the same time leader Scott McCaughey is putting out Young Fresh Fellows' I Think This Is, both on Yep Roc. McCaughey's OG band was the YFF, one of the most high profile "college rock" bands of the 80s, their sinuous chicane garnering acclaim from Rolling Stone to scores of local zines at the time. That band included, among others, Kurt Bloch (later Fastbacks), whose guitar is the inspiration for a lot of playing that has come out of this region since then.

But there have been few songwriters Seattle-spawned as misery-guzzling and diarizing as McCaughey, whose drunk village savant rants and rave-ups against relationships, religion, the rent, and himself are close to the hearts of his purlieus peers. Upon moving to Portland, he began amassing collaborators there who have helped his newer band put out some out much of his best music ever, such as The Gun Album from a couple of years back, pulling in Wilco's Jeff Tweedy as well. This album has on board for much of it John Moen of the Decemberists (and "a Maroon and a Dharma Bum and a Jick"), and the vocals of Colin Meloy, but also REM's Peter Buck as usual. Special note should be made of Little Sue and the Shee Bee Gees who do a lot of backing vocals and dueting ("I Would Rather Sacrifice You" in particular for that) here in the way that female accompaniment has made later period Leonard Cohen albums less caustic on the ears.

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at The Tractor

This show was eight thousand kinds of awesome. Such are the perils of life in Seattle.

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at The Tractor

A benefit for the re-launch of NoDepression.com last Saturday blew the roof right off the Tractor.

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