Everything is coming up Wilco lately.

There’s nothing quite like a 2 1/2-hour set — stuffed with a catalog-spanning 26 tracks (check the pie chart!) — to gently remind you of the greatness that exists in my Wilco collection. Since Saturday’s show at Gammage Auditorium, I’ve gone on a little Wilco bender, from watching the band’s NPR Tiny Desk Concert in October to falling in love with Summerteeth all over again. (Their newest rendition of “Via Chicago,” which morphs from hushed acoustic stillness to a chaotic blur of drumming/noise behind it, was startling and spectacular.)

On Wednesday, the band released its first video since 1999 — an animated take for “Dawned On Me,” starring Popeye and friends. Naturally, frontman Jeff Tweedy has his sights set on Olive Oyl. It’s a fun, if not totally senseless, collaboration, and you can poke around www.wilcospinach.com for more.

Setlist for Wilco at Gammage Auditorium, Jan. 21, 2012:
One Sunday Morning
Art of Almost
I Might
I Am Trying to Break Your Heart
One Wing
Bull Black Nova
(Was I) In Your Dreams
Black Moon
Impossible Germany
I’ll Fight
Hotel Arizona
Jesus, Etc.
Born Alone
Capitol City
Handshake Drugs
I’m Always In Love
Dawned on Me
Hummingbird
Shot in the Arm

ENCORE:

Via Chicago
Whole Love
Box Full of Letters
California Stars
Heavy Metal Drummer
Walken
I’m The Man Who Loves You

It was a collaboration that was likely bound to happen, but if bringing Philly’s Zilla Rocca and Los Angeles’ Open Mike Eagle together for a show I put on last February in Phoenix helped hasten the process, then I’m proud to have played some (very) small part in the birth of this jam.

“Full Spectrum 2″ is, as its name suggests, a sequel to the original that appears on Zilla Rocca’s Nights and Weekends EP. Zilla and Has-Lo are back for leftovers, and they’ve brought Open Mike Eagle, shortening the gap between coasts with a return engagement from producer Dr. Quandary.

Stream via SoundCloud below:

Peep the video for the original “Full Spectrum,” shot Super 8 – giving it an appropriately vibrant look – in Asbury Park, N.J.:

I’m still taking inventory on 2011, though I’m not committed to posting a year-end favorite albums list – something I also didn’t do last year, and at this point, does anybody really care?

I think it’s fair to say that Portugal. The Man’s In The Mountain In The Cloud would land in my mythical Top 10, an album that I came to late in the year (despite its mid-summer release) and dominated my listening habits in the final months of ‘11. In no time at all, as if by osmosis, I would hear my wife humming Portugal tunes out of nowhere.

In truth, I had listened to In the Mountain not long after it was released. But like so many albums, I first spun it while I was working and it was doomed to fade into the background lest it fracture my focus. Then the band played the song “So American” on Conan in September, and it wasn’t long before I hopped back on the wagon.

I loved the 2007 album Church Mouth, so it wasn’t a stretch to think I’d like this one. Turns out, I really liked it. “So American” ended up on the year-end mix CD I make – a post on that process soon, I think – and it’s one of the songs that’s generated a lot of positive feedback from friends.

I’d never stopped to think about the Elton John-like influence on this song (and most of the album) until my wife said something (she’s really the one who should be blogging here). And it’s a comment that’s been repeated a couple times by friends.

So in the better-late-than-never department, here’s the video (released in October) for “So American,” with the guys in the band flaunting their pale bods (to be fair, they are from Alaska) bro-ing down at the beach and a campfire.

Coincidentally enough, after typing out this post on Sunday night, the band announced dates Monday morning for the Jagermeister Music Tour, including an April 6 stop at Crescent Ballroom. A limited number of tickets, with waived fees in some cases, can be purchased through the band here.

And here they are performing an acoustic version of the song:

It might be helpful if, before I go to a show, I do a little homework on the opening band. Then I’d probably know if said band was any good. I’d also probably know if it was led by someone that’s in another fairly popular band. But then, sometimes it’s nice to be surprised. And that was the case with PAPA, which opened for Handsome Furs on Wednesday night at Crescent Ballroom.

Led by Girls drummer Darren Weiss (who also sings – a feat of coordination not often seen), PAPA had me at the first song of its set, “Collector,” which I frantically tracked down the next day. It’s part of a five-song EP, A Good Woman is Hard to Find, that was released in October on Hit City U.S.A./Psychedelic Judaism. Seriously, I want to amend the year-end mix CD I make for friends to include “Collector,” a pop earworm that winds up and really lets loose around the 2:40 mark, with Weiss working up from a whisper before hollering, “I just want to be quiet now!” It was a great moment live, and a wise choice as an opening song.

Stream the EP below and pick it up on limited-relase vinyl at Hit City U.S.A.

Here’s the video for “I Am the Lion King”:

The third installment of 110 percent, a series in which I talk to musicians about sports, features Serengeti (born David Cohn), a Chicago-bred MC whose 2011 album, Family & Friends, was met with well-deserved critical praise (read a great LA Weekly feature).

Like life in Chicago, sports references are an integral part of Serengeti’s raps (check the song “Ozzie Guillen” for an example).

You grew up in Chicago. Are you a South Sider?
I grew up on the South Side. But I lived on the North Side since I was, like, 17, so I’ve been in both places.

Are your allegiances to the White Sox?
I grew up watching the Cubs because we didn’t have cable and the Cubs were on WGN, so I really fell in love with those ‘87 Cubs – Hawk Dawson, Sandberg, that whole era. I’m a really big Cubs fan. But I was never one of those people that liked the Cubs, so you have to hate the Sox. It’s silly. Why not pull for both teams? Is it that much of a pain to do that? It seems like a waste of energy.

Will the Cubs ever win a World Series in our lifetime?
Yeah, I mean, we got like 50 years left in our life. Odds are that it is gonna happen. Everybody wins. They have to win. They have to. They got Theo (Epstein, president of baseball operations), the boy genius. He’s gonna turn it around. It has to happen.

But I guess if it doesn’t happen, that would be really cool. Like, one team hasn’t one a world series in 400 years. It would be, like, 600 years and counting … (laughs)

I was gonna try to count the number of sports references in your songs, but that seemed like an impossible task. Do you feel like your fans get most of them? Or do you even care?
I don’t really care. To me, it makes it one of those things where you listen to it and one day you’re watching a TV show or something and, “Oh, they talked about (Alonzo) Spellman or about Mike Singletary calming down Spellman.” They might just catch that and be like, “Oh, man, that was real.” I like it to be subtle like that. It’s funny to me.

You’ve lived in Los Angeles for the past year or so. Do you feel like sports define a city like Chicago more so than L.A.?
I don’t really know that much about L.A. sports culture. It seems like people really love the Dodgers. But I don’t know much about L.A. sports, aside from watching sports on TV. … I don’t know the whole culture. But Chicago is extreme sports. It’s so cold, and it’s like when spring comes and baseball is here – what a feeling. All this hope and everything is changing.

What’s your greatest moment as a Chicago sports fan?
When Jordan hit that shot over Bryon Russell to win the championship in ‘98. That was a great thing.

Did Jordan push off?
Yeah, he did. But it wasn’t called, so he didn’t.

Man, I still have my original pair of Air Jordans
I had the Jordan 5s back when I was in junior high or something like that. My sister got ‘em for me. It was the greatest gift ever and I was so proud of them. I never had all the shoes like all the kids had. Some kids had every shoe whenever it came out.

But for some reason, I didn’t wear the Jordans to school that day. And my cousin was staying at our house – I don’t know why because it was a school day. And my damn cousin took my damn Jordans. They were size 9. He didn’t even fit the shoes. To this day I still harbor this resentment. You went in my closet and packed ‘em up in your bag?

It was crushing. Shit’s gone … fucking Jordans. My life could have gone differently for a period of a month. I’d be the dude with the new Jordans. It was special. I really missed out. I could have had some confidence and that confidence could have led to something else – a whole chain reaction. But my cousin foiled me. It was a good lesson learned.

Never not wear your Jordans.
(Laughs) That’s right. That’s gonna be a Kenny Dennis rap.

I moved from Chicago to Arizona when I was 8, so I witnessed the Jordan dynasty from afar. What was it like in Chicago during the Jordan years?
It was so great, them winning … it was almost boring. “The Bulls are gonna win again.” Why even watch? They were so dominant. For me, I didn’t really appreciate them until the second three-peat (1996-98). The 72-win season (in 1995-96) was incredible. I wish they would have went 73-9, but they lost the final game to Seattle or something like that. … It was incredible.

What about the most disappointing moment as a Chicago sports fan?
That 2003 Cubs season. They were so close. Then they just sorta choked. That was pretty brutal. I remember watching that, thinking ‘They’re about to really do this.’ To watch that thing collapse, that was pretty rough.

And last season with the Bulls losing to bastardly Heat. That was a tough, tough thing to see. These damn Heat. I really don’t like those guys. They made me pull for the Lakers. I didn’t really like Lakers, but I thought that the only team that could beat them is the Lakers.

What do you think about the Bulls this year?
They started out a little shaky and it was like, ‘Was last year lightning in a bottle?’ They turned on the defense. They looked a little slow initially. Carlos Boozer lost all that weight, but didn’t seem like he got any better. He looks very thin now, but didn’t serve him very well.

Who’s your favorite Chicago athlete of all-time?
Hawk. Something about Hawk Dawson and his curl. I loved it, man. I love the Hawk, man.

I’m trying to think of a Bears player … sort of. I was really into the Lions because I loved Barry Sanders. I’d always root for those damn Lions teams. They would have one terrible season and then get the soft schedule and be, like, 12-4 and you just know they’re not gonna beat the Redskins or someone like that in the playoffs. It was a smokescreen … you just know they’re not gonna win. But I really loved Barry Sanders, man.

You gotta respect him and how he went out on top.
It wasn’t all about football. But all-time it’s the Hawk. Those games on WGN, it was great. It really drew me into baseball. I, too, played baseball all my life. But just those games, man. Being in my room by myself late at night, those 9:30 p.m. games … that was just beautiful, man. I was up so late watching the Cubs games. I never liked to go to games. I’m not into that. I’d much rather watch stuff at home.

You’re a video-game guy, right?
Just the Black Ops. The Call of Duty game.

So you’re not into the sports games?
I can’t really do all that stuff. I don’t enjoy playing the Madden too much. It doesn’t float my boat. They had this Madden tournament on ESPN, like a documentary sorta deal. Man, these guys are really serious. They know all the defenses.

My favorite sports is boxing. And I can’t even get into those games because it’s hard.

You’re a boxing guy?
Oh, man. I love boxing and combat sports – the MMA stuff. It’s my guilty pleasure.

So you’re not buying into the whole “boxing is dying” line of thinking?
Those guys are fools. Boxing is not dying. When a boxing match happens, it captivates the nation in a way that MMA never will because MMA lacks the elegance and history that boxing has. There’s just way too many variables.

I love boxing, but I do like MMA. What they do in MMA is when a fight is supposed to happen, it happens. There’s not all these mega-purses involved.

I don’t mean to change subjects abruptly, but I heard you on the Knocksteady podcast and you had some thoughts on how to save the WNBA, like lowering the height on the rims?
That was just a fleeting thought. Men’s basketball was really boring and it wasn’t viewed that much until people started dunking. The average height of a male ballplayer is like 6-7 and women is like 5-11. It would make more watchable if a point guard could dribble down, feed the ball in the low post and power forward does a pump fake and goes for a two-handed dunk. Or some little guard gets a fast break and gets a nice dunk. There could be a women’s slam-dunk contest. I don’t know if that’s sexist. College women fans say it’s like art to watch that style of basketball. But in women’s golf, tees are moved up. The basketball in women’s hoops is already smaller, too. It would make it a more vibrant sport. But I don’t know anything about the WNBA. I’m just pullin’ shit outta my ass.

It was about four months ago that we heard “Boomerang,” the first bit of material from the forthcoming Miniature Tigers album Mia Pharaoh.

Now there’s a release date (March 6 on Modern Art), an album cover (above), a tracklisting (below) and another new tune (”Female Doctor”) as the New York-by-way-of-Phoenix band follows up on 2010’s Fortress.

Spin premiered “Female Doctor,” along with its (possibly NSFW?) cleave-teasing video that was spliced together from clips of Eastern European reality TV. As for the song itself, “Female Doctor” makes a grab for glam-pop, with its infectious synth lines and danceable beat.

Stream the song and watch the video at Spin.

Mia Pharaoh tracklisting:
1. Sex On The Regular
2. Female Doctor
3. Cleopatra
4. Afternoons With David Hockney
5. Easy As All That
6. Flower Door
7. Boomerang
8. Ugly Needs
9. Angel Bath
10. Husbands and Wives

As usual every January, I’ve barely wrapped my head around the previous year while new songs and albums are emerging for what will likely make for another promising 12 months of music.

The first song to grab my attention for the new year comes from the Yuma, Ariz.-born Shawn Foree (aka Digital Leather), whose forthcoming full-length, Modern Problems, will be released Feb. 14 on FDH Records. The album is Foree’s first since the death of his good friend Jay Reatard last January and, in his own words, “is a narrative of the grieving process.”

“Lyrically, this is personal stuff. I’m letting it all hang out – the beautiful as well as the hideous. I was conscientious about the lyrics, but not to the point of tedium.”

The first leak, “Young Doctors in Love,” immediately pulls you into Foree’s fuzzed-out synths and emotional state of mind. He says he created an alter-ego, writing the album from the vantage point of a character who lost a loved one, and “Young Doctors” expresses that from the opening lines: “Just for one more night, let’s relive the past / You and I both know it’s disappearing fast.” (Later, he sings, “Hey, I think we’re alone now,” a coy nod to a recognizable refrain.)

Modern Problems, the follow-up to 2009’s Warm Brother (Fat Possum), is available for pre-order at FDH.

• Digital Leather | Young Doctors in Love

This post also reminds me that I’ve never written anything about Digital Leather’s 2009 cover of MGMT’s “Time to Pretend,” a brooding, lo-fi rendition that (I dare say) I prefer to the original. You can still grab it at Stereogum.

Not to overly fetishize the notion of vinyl, but if any album belongs on wax — with all its clicks and pops and dusty imperfections — it has to be Morphine’s sophomore breakthrough, Cure for Pain. Other than a rare, 20-year-old Brazilian pressing (copies of which fetch $200-plus on eBay), the 1993 album has previously never been pressed to vinyl in the U.S.

But Light in the Attic — the Seattle-based label that specializes in reissues — has stepped up to fill the void, releasing a remastered, 180-gram version on its Modern Classics Recordings imprint. The reissue includes new liner notes and interviews with surviving band members.

It was, tragically, in July 1999 that frontman Mark Sandman collapsed on stage in Italy and died of a heart attack at the age of 46. (I had a ticket to see Morphine and Soul Coughing on Aug. 1 of the same year in Austin.) Between this reissue and the documentary, Cure for Pain: The Mark Sandman Story (read a Q&A with the filmmakers here), the off-beat Boston trio could reach a new/wider audience, and deservedly so.

Without the use of and need for an electric guitar, Morphine branded its form of “low rock” around Sandman’s homemade two-string slide bass, accompanied by Dana Colley on sax (long before Destroyer, Bon Iver and the like found it cool) and Billy Conway on drums. Almost twenty years later, Cure for Pain sounds as moody and original as it did when I was 16 years old — but now, in my mid-30s, Sandman’s lyrics feel a little more real.

I can’t wait to get my hands on this reissue and my eyes on the documentary. Check out the trailer for it below:

I’ve long pestered my brother about his band doing an INXS cover – preferably something off Welcome to Wherever You Are (such a good album) and preferably the song “Not Enough Time.”

Maybe that’ll happen in the future, but in the meantime The Twilight Sad is offering a dark, lo-fi version of the INXS song “Never Tear Us Apart,” from the equally excellent 1987 album Kick. It’s available as a free Christmas gift – inspired by its appearance on the soundtrack to Donnie Darko, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary – though the typically bleak and simmering emotions from these angry Scots will undoubtedly dampen your holiday spirits.

Head to the band’s site to send an e-card to that special mope in your life.

As promised, I sat down Monday night for an interview with Jeremy Yocum, co-founder (along with Joel Leibow) of Wooden Blue Records, a short-lived but well-respected punk label based out of Tempe in the early 1990s that put out the very first recordings of Jimmy Eat World (among others).

I’ve known Jeremy and Joel since around the late ’90s but never had the occasion to sit and chat about their time with the label. It was an insightful 40 minutes that helped fill a glaring hole in my local music knowledge, though I’m sure we only scratched the surface. Nevertheless, he talks about the early days of JEW, operating a record label as a college freshman and why paying taxes is important.

So tell me how the show came together and how it came to be a benefit for Phoenix Children’s Hospital?
I became friends with Eddie Hennessy, who is Edie Haskel from Haskel, on Facebook just recently. And we started talking … He was talking about wanting to get together to do a show just for a one-off. So we hem-hawed back and forth about well, “Let’s do a Wooden Blue reunion type of deal.”

And then we started talking to Jim (Adkins, of Jimmy Eat World). And I didn’t know the logistics of Jimmy Eat World, you know — how does this work now? We had talked about a benefit of some sort. We didn’t really know who, but kids are good. But there’s no direct connection.

I’ve known you for years and have never talked to you about any of this. How did the label come to be? You and Joel were already friends?
Oh, yeah. Joel and I were friends since junior high school. It must have been right after we graduated high school (Mesa Mountain View). So, like, summer of ‘93. Joel was interested in putting out a Jimmy Eat World record. I had met Aquanaut Drinks Coffee and was interested in putting out that. So we sort of joined forces blindly, neither one of us having a clue what we were doing … still. And those were our first two releases — the Jimmy Eat World 7-inch and Aquanaut 7-inch.

So you’re a freshman in college?
Yep. Like 18, just out of high school. Not knowing a god damn thing.

And you had known Jim?
Jim and I were in a second/third combination class together. And our moms were our den leaders for cub scouts. We grew up together. We lived one street over from one another. So Jim and I had been friends forever.

So they’re like a band about town … playing in someone’s garage or playing parties?
They played some parties. They played at some Name Brand Exchange or something. Just total high school stuff … nothing huge by any means. And back then, too, I’m thinking about it — is it for the better or worse that we did it when we did? If we were to do it now, it’s so much easier now, to an extent, with the Internet and Myspace a few years ago and that kind of stuff. Back then it was all snail mail and Maximum RocknRoll and cheesy zines where we mail a 7-inch in and hope to god for a review and hope to god that it would be positive (laughs).

The differences then and now … there’s blogs now and it’s instantaneous
Yeah, back then it was hurry up and wait. We had the P.O. box. I lived down here, but then I went to Flag. Joel still lived in Mesa, but we wanted a Tempe address so we got a P.O. box on Mill Avenue.

You wanted a Tempe address because it looked better than a Mesa address?
Yeah, yeah. But I think we were also just jaded because we wanted to get out of Mesa.

OK, so you’re doing this, you put out the Jimmy Eat World 7-inch … how much money are you into this at that point. Are you beyond your means as an 18-year-old?
No. Only because when I was in junior in high school I got burned, so I had insurance money. Joel was sort of the initial brains, I was the funds. And Joel had some connections musically, too. He was booking shows. He was really into the punk scene and I was just a fan. He was way more involved on that level.

What kind of shows was he booking?
Punk shows — at warehouses. There were no all-ages venues. So it’s like, “Oh, here’s Eagle Transportation warehouse.“ That’s around for six months and now Argo, that’s around for another four. It was a cool little scene. It brought the Valley together for sure. There were a lot of West side people. All of Haskel went to Central High. A friend, Matt Martinez that did booking with Joel, lived at 40th Avenue and Thomas. There were people all over the place.

Do you feel like you were in on ground floor of something cool? Did you have any idea that it could …
No. We were just doing it for fun. Sure, did we hope for success? I guess. But we wouldn’t know how to handle it. The Arizona Department of Revenue is what took us down. That’s why we stopped.

How so?
We weren’t paying taxes. … We told them we were selling everything wholesale because we were selling stuff to Stinkweeds and to Eastside. Come to find out, well, even if you’re selling wholesale you have to send in sales tax forms that say “zero” every month and we hadn’t been doing any of that stuff because we were just doing it DIY, whatever. We were just kids … we weren’t making any money, so what difference does it make? I would guess, in retrospect, had we been filing taxes we probably would have made money from the government.

So when did that happen, when you guys shuttered?
It was either ‘95 or ‘96. It was a very short-lived deal — two or three years.

So tell me about the Jimmy Eat world 7-inch, which is four songs. You press how many?
I think we pressed 1,000. It could have been 500 and then 500. That would probably make more sense because we had no idea if it was gonna sell or what.

And did it initially?
Yeah, it took off pretty well. We’re thinking, “Well, if this is all you have to do this is easy.” I remember getting the Maximum RocknRoll review and being like, “Yes, this is it.”

Did you keep a lot of that stuff — the reviews, flyers, etc.?
I didn’t. But I reaccumulated a lot of that when I did that Wooden Blue Myspace page. Funny thing is Jim must not have held on to a lot of that stuff, too, because I have very little Jimmy Eat World stuff. I have a lot of Temper Tantrum stuff.

Do you have a lot of the music?
I have it all. I don’t know if I have all of the hard copies, but I have it all digitally.

Have you ever thought about re-releasing anything?
I thought about re-releasing some of the Jimmy Eat World stuff only because I think that’s the only stuff that — not that it doesn’t matter to me — but would matter to mainstream. But that’s kind of a touchy subject.

Plus, then again, I don’t know legality of it. Rick (Burch, bassist) is not in that Jimmy Eat World. Mitch Porter is. Not that Mitch would have a problem with it. But then say we make money on it, how do we cut him into it and then it becomes about contracts where it was never anything like that.

In some cases, does it seem better to let these things exist where they did?
Yeah, I think so. And I think, too, now with the Internet and the piracy of music, anyone that truly wants it … it’s not the audiophile that wants the actual item. They just want the songs. It’s not diluted by being digital by any means because the recording kind of blew to begin with.

I had heard you might be selling some of the music at the show?
We’re gonna sell the compilation because the compilation came out under what we called Oak Family Shuttle Records because Wooden Blue got shut down. So we had Oak Family Shuttle presents Wooden Blue presents Back From the Dead Motherfucker. That was released after everything was dead. So by time it was finally released, everything was dead and we didn’t really release it properly. So we still sat on a bunch of them.

How many do you have?
I have no idea. Five-hundred were pressed. I bet only 300 were sold. Whether or not we still have the 200 — Jim might have some, Joel has some, I had some. Some of them have probably been stored poorly and are warped.

So the comp is mostly what you’ll sell?
The comp and T-shirts for the show (with the logo made for the show). And that’s what’s really funny, too. We’re having a backdrop of that made, too. Having shirts … it looks pretty flashy and slick, which totally what Wooden Blue records was not.

And here’s a funny story. For a long time I was just sitting on those comps, so I put some on eBay. I sold one to this girl. And then she immediately sends me a complaint when she gets it. She says, “Obviously, this is not the real thing because the cover is just a white sleeve with a sticker on it of the cover and the credits on the back.” So I wrote her back, “Actually, you’re wrong because I pressed it and that’s exactly what it was because we didn’t know what we were doing and we didn’t have access to a screenprint.”

Does doing all this … do you get nostalgic about it? Does it make you wanna do it again?
No. I mean, I’m nostalgic about it. It was fun, it was neat. There was definitely a place for it. It was awesome. It was a fun bunch of kids. Nobody cared about … you know, if they were gonna go on tour, well, they’re gonna tour in a van and sleep on a floor and they were stoked about it. It was just a fun time. Because nobody knew better.

Now we know where Jimmy Eat World is, but could you have ever have thought they would be where they are now?
No. No. I remember … it was my sophomore year in college, so Jim’s freshman year. We lived together in this apartment. And I got a phone call from this guy, and he’s like, “Hey, is Jim around?” I said, “No, he’s in class” or whatever. “Can I take a message?” “Yeah, this is Craig Aaronson from Capitol Records.” I was like, holy shit. “No, he’s not around but they’re playing a show at the Nile a week from Friday or whatever.” I left it at that. I must have given Jim … well, I don’t know if I gave Jim the message or not. I don’t remember (laughs).

Anyway, I remember sitting at the merch booth at that show selling Wooden Blue shit. And this guy walks up and says, “Hey, are you Jeremy? I’m Craig Aaronson.” Holy crap. I think that was kind of the start of it. And he had heard of them because Capitol had interest in Christie Front Drive. And then Christie Front Drive had no interest in Capitol but said, “Hey, we did a split with this band Jimmy Eat World. You might wanna check them out.”

That’s like the golden days of record labels. It’s crazy to think a guy would come from L.A. to the Nile.
Yeah, to some bullshit show. I have no idea what show. It probably was not a Jimmy Eat World show. They were probably opening for somebody.

Obviously, everyone is pretty aware of Jimmy Eat World. Is there a band you worked with that you wish more people would have heard?
Aquanaut Drinks Coffee. Hands down. When we initially started, Joel wanted to do the Jimmy Eat World thing and I was like, “Aquanaut. I gotta do the Aquanaut.” Because I was a huge Dead Milkmen fan. Still am. Not that they’re like Dead Milkmen, but they’re quirky and off the beaten path like they were. Obscure but fun sort of band. They were great.

Do you know if Jimmy Eat World will play anything off that first CD at the show?
From what I can gather they’re playing in that time frame-ish. There’s talk of maybe a song from that disc. But I didn’t push it too much because I wanna be surprised like everyone else. But I’m definitely hoping. And I know that Charlie (Levy, of Stateside Presents/Crescent Ballroom) kind of said to them and I had said to Zach (Lind, Jimmy Eat World drummer), “Don’t play the hits.” If you want to, fine. But this is your chance to play whatever the fuck you want. Because this is not a Jimmy Eat World show in the sense that everyone is there to hear “The Middle.” These are old-school fans, so play what you wanna play.

You’ve really seen the local music scene evolve … for the better, do you think?
For the better in the sense that there’s a lot more of it, a lot more venues. A lot more true venues. At the same time, I’m so out of touch. I have no idea — I hate to sound old — what the kids are playing now. The last new band locally that was young that I heard was Asleep in the Sea and Peachcake.

And Asleep in the Sea is no more.
They were awesome. They were like a reincarnation of Aquanaut Drinks Coffee.

So that was a band you could see being on Wooden Blue?
Well, on my Wooden Blue. On Joel’s maybe not (laughs).

Did you guys have different ideas of what the label should be?
I think our different ideas … we just had different musical tastes where we both appreciated the other bands. The prime example was the Jimmy Eat World/Aquanaut thing. He liked Aquanaut and I thought Jimmy Eat World was great, but it was jut our own deals. Back then, I feel like there weren’t that many bands. It was kind of like all the bands we knew and became friends with, we put out their records. Whether or not we thought it would sell or not … forget a business plan, we were just putting our friends’ records.

The bottom line was it was friends putting out friends’ records and not having a clue and just because it was fun and cool and it gave everybody something. I feel like very few people pressed stuff on their own. So what they have pressed is what we did.

Does it seem like forever ago?
It does and it doesn’t. Yeah, it seems like long time ago. But a lot of it is fresh in my mind, too. It was just awesome … it was definitely fun and cool. And I think it did have a definite place at its time. I don’t wanna sound pompous or anything like that, but I feel like people wanted to be on Wooden Blue — the local punk rock bands.

Do you feel like you helped shape some sort of scene?
Yeah, I’d like to think so. I think the scene would have happened with or without Wooden Blue. I think Wooden Blue just helped bring everybody together — a united front. And that was what was really cool. We had East Valley kids, West Valley kids, Central kids. We had people from all over Valley.