I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: PARQUET COURTS-“I Got Drugs (at the End of the Century)” (from WILCOvered, UNCUT Magazine November 2019).

The November 2019 issue of UNCUT magazine had a cover story about Wilco.  It included a 17 track CD of bands covering Wilco (called WILcovered or WILCOvered).  I really enjoyed this collection and knew most of the artists on it already, so I’m going through the songs one at a time.

This track is about as far from the Wilco sound as I can imagine.  Plus, this is a mash up of two Wilco songs, “Handshake Drugs” and “I Got You (at the End of the Century).”  The song opens with Austin singing the lyrics to “Handshake Drugs” while the rest of the band chants the backing vocals of “I Got You” at the end of each verse.

Musically it’s very un-Wiclo as well.  There’s a drum sound which sounds like a sample of a person making a drum sound.  There’s a chiming repeating guitar sound and a big rumbling bass. And of course the vocal delivery is about as far from Jeff Tweedy as you can get.

Austin sings the first two verses while the responding chants move further down the lyrics of “I Got You,” now chanting something else.

There’s  simple weird synth solo in the middle.  Then the end half of the song is loud and dancey with a lot of chanting, “It’s the end of the century” and an unhinged guitar solo.

This song sounds like neither of the two songs it’s taken from, making this a fascinating and ultimately very cool cover.

[READ: February 2, 2020] Rust: Volume 3

Volume three is the penultimate volume of the series.  I can’t believe how short this series is.  It seems like so little has actually happened and yet so much has gone on.

The story continues where volume 2 left off–in fact the first thing we see is the robot that Jet has destroyed.  But it is not destroyed, it easily rights itself and takes off after Jet.

Jet returns to the train to get Oz, but the robot is right behind them.  Jet uses a clever maneuver to avoid the robot who crashes into the train while it is on a huge bridge.  The train starts to goes over, bringing Oz (and presumably the conductor(!!) with it.  Jet is able to rescue Oz at the last second (no word on anyone else).  Nevertheless, Oz refuses to give Jet the oil cell, even though Oz is clearly dying.   Finally Jet has to punch Oz to save himself.  Jet flies Oz back to his family.

But Oswald is still not happy about Jet and he reveals what he knows to Roman and Jesse.  They drive off leaving Jet n a field.  And that’s where the man with the beard finds him.

He says this is the longest that Jet has stayed in one place. Jet reveals that he thinks the family needs him and he want to stay.  But the man says that is he stays he will bring the entire military to their doorstep.

Jesse and her sister stay for dinner, its a pleasant dinner (even if Jet is still in the barn) with much laughter.  Roman apologized to Jet for yelling, but said that Jet couldn’t stay there much longer.  He doesn’t know Jet’s story but he does know that Jet has a family who misses him.

After dinner Roman and Jesse sit on the porch with hot cocoa.  Jesse talks about how much she loves things around here and how much she’ll miss it when she leaves.  Roman says she should think about staying–they could run the two farms together.

Jesse looks at him tenderly and says she doesn’t want to marry the only man shes ever known.  Lepp’s depiction of this tender scene is wonderful.

The little girls bring Jet his diner and both say they really want him to stay.  When he says that he can’t they get very sad but he tells them that he is sick and needs to go back home.  That seems to satisfy them,.

In the next scene Roman is teaching Oz how to shoot–he proves to be very good at it.

Meanwhile, the man with the beard is looking for water.  He goes to the Mr. Aicot’s farm and snoops around a bit .  Aicot is not too keen on a stranger walking around his property, but when the man recognizes him a as a solider, they have a bit in common and talk.  They both reveal that their sons were lost on the war.

Back on the farm we see that another one of the machines has been fixed up.  It is collecting eggs.  Then it tries to catch a chicken and everyone laughs because the chickens are so fast.  But when it finally caches one, it destroyed the chicken (thankfully not graphically).

Roman cant figure out how he programmed it wrong.  But then Mr Aicot says its not his fault.  The machines that he used all seemed to go off their new programming and revert to their old ways eventually.  The one that he rebuilt had started acting funny around Jesse.  It would grab at her and follow her around. Then one day he was too concerned about it and, since it had done the work he wanted it to, Mr Aicot ran it over with the tractor.  Jesse had no idea about Mr Aicot’s concerns and thought i twas an accident.

As the book ends we see that Jet is running out of power.  He tries to drink some oil to get himself strong but it doesn’t work.  The man with the beard appears from the shadows and says he told Jet that these oil cells wouldn’t work for him.  He says Jet has been very courageous but the most courageous thing he can do is accept what he really is.

Jet pleads for more time, but he has none left.

The next scene shows an army of robots marching towards the Taylor farm.

I can’t wait to see how this series ends!