Bizarre Love Triangle (New Order cover)

Chit-Chat Check-In #165 • Transcript

Just a quick hello. Pretty busy trying to befriend some crows at the moment. I really want to make friends with these particular crows so that they’ll bring me things when I feed them. I’ve read that you can do that and they’ll remember your face for a long, long time. And, gosh, that sounds like one of the coolest things that could ever happen.

I’m refining my approach in terms of the kind of nuts they like. They definitely don’t want salted nuts. Might try some fruit. We’re just not quite making eye-to-eye connection yet. The squirrels are a problem because they swoop in pretty quick if you leave any nuts out, as one would likely be able to predict.

Anyway, here’s a New Order song I love. I don’t know why, it just popped into my head. I like to try to learn how to play songs that are pretty far away from the acoustic guitar in their original recorded version. But it’s such a simple, beautiful folk song, really. A lot of New Order’s songs are kind of like that. “Love Vigilantes” was done by Oysterband, for example.

I also wanted to say hello to all the Rush fans now here in/on the Starship. The post about “Tom Sawyer” got a little bit more attention than most posts, so, I appreciate you coming around. I don’t know if I made it clear that I didn’t just decide that Rush is good. I’ve been feeling that way for quite some time, but I was just reminded how great they are by a chance to see them live and get to hang out a bit.

There will be a video coming soon. But, spoiler alert: I really do feel like I need to make a public apology to a young gentleman who was in the audience at the Solid Sound Festival. I was playing my Moon guitar, and I described it as a waxing gibbous, and a young kid corrected me and told me it was a waxing crescent. And I fought back. I said, “No, I’m pretty sure that’s what it is.” And I’ve always kind of told myself that’s what it is because it’s dark and it’s not the light side of the moon, but he’s absolutely right. The shape of it is a crescent, no doubt about it. And I’m wrong. I’m 100% wrong. That is a waxing crescent guitar.

I will say, that’s nowhere near as funny sounding as when you put on a guitar that’s shaped like that and you go, “What, you’ve never seen a waxing gibbous before?” I think part of it was an unwillingness to let go of that joke. And I think that’s probably my only valid excuse other than obstinacy and overthinking. But I apologize.

I think I should apologize to astronomers, geometry people, people just into shapes, people that just know things, who were too kind to correct me. You know who you are. I just want to get out in front of this before it becomes a bigger scandal. Because as Mavis would say, it’s scandalous.

Carry on. OxO—Jeffy

2025 / July 27: Jeff plays a 13-song set at the Newport Folk Festival in Newport, RI with Sammy, Spencer, and Liam Kazar plus special guests Lucius and Mavis Staples. Earlier in the day, Jeff also sits in with Lucius during their set to cover Wilco’s “Jesus, Etc.”

2022/ July 30: Jeff shares an early demo of the song “Many Worlds,” later released on Cruel Country.

2000 / July 31: Wilco’s set at the Fillmore in San Francisco opens with a run of nine Mermaid Avenue songs in a row. Later, during the first encore, they play three Uncle Tupelo songs, also in a row. Howe Gelb and Christy McWilson open.