You Gotta Be Effin Kidding Me! - Beck + Wilco + Skip Spence = Awesome

Yes, as part of Beck's Record Club feature on his new website -- hang with friends, record a song-for-song cover of a classic album -- Beck will be releasing his rendition of Skip Spence's absolute classic, Oar. Oh yeah, and as the headline indicates, he recorded it with freakin' Wilco.

As I told my co-MMM scribe, Rudi, earlier today, my head is ready to explode just trying auralize (take that Merriam-Webster's) Jeff Tweedy in harmony with Beck, with the boys just tearing things up. It's a perfect unison of two daring artists on such a loose, psychedelic masterpiece ... ahh, this can't come soon enough.

All due respect to Spence's other esteemed outfits -- Moby Grape (briefly) and Jefferson Airplane (even briefer) -- but I play and enjoy Oar more than either of those hallowed groups' prized albums.

This isn't the first time Beck's taken on Spence -- he covered "Halo of Gold" on a Spence tribute album, a song he'll take another shot at on his full go-round of Oar.

Please - if you're listening Beck -- find a way to release this thing physically, or at least offer a pay option for a hi-res download. I love what we've heard so far of Record Club's Velvet Underground & Nico, but Beck and Wilco's Oar is something I've got a feeling I (and many other like me) will want to own.

Ahhhh this is just too cool. Be still my heart.

Jay Bennett, ex-Wilco member, cause of death: overdose

I can't say this one is at all surprising - it's probably what most people assumed the second they heard the former Wilco member had died. Billboard has the AP brief up if you want the details. No matter where you fall in the "which incarnation of Wilco was better" debate, Bennett was one hell of a talent and contributed to Wilco's best studio work.

Such a shame. I have to admit I was sort of taken back by how much this one really got to me. Maybe it was just because all those Bennett-era Wilco recordings were the first ones I latched on to. Not to knock the new stuff, which I do enjoy, but those are still my favorites -- Being There, Summerteeth, YHF and both Mermaid Avenues. "California Stars" dropped into my life (via a 1999 live recording) when I was a sophomore in high school, which is about as impressionable time as any for a teengager ... and I digress.

Bottom line, no matter how much credit Bennett is owed for those albums (I'm not touching that one with a 10 foot pole ... not yet, anyway), those are the Wilco songs I'll play and sing along with for the rest of my life.

Below is a video of Wilco doing what I believe is the only song Bennett received full song credits for, "My Darling". If you're unfamiliar with the material they did for that Session at West 54th, click around YouTube and check it out - it's all pretty excellent.