Sky Blue Sky has taught me an important lesson: Knee-jerk reactions are just that, my own included.

I was pretty quick to jump on the Wilco bashing when I heard the first few leaked tracks. Then I bought a vinyl copy (180-gram, free CD included!), and it’s about the only album I’ve listened to consistently the past few weeks.

Looking back, I did the same with Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, thinking it was a little too weird for me. And now we’re turning our backs on Jeff Tweedy for being a little too … well, normal. If nothing else, Sky Blue Sky deserved a more patient listen, more time.

Granted, some of the lyrics are goofy (“I trust no emotion/I believe in locomotion” and just about all of Hate it Here) and Glenn Kotche is terribly underutilized as a percussionist (listen to I Am Trying to Break Your Heart to hear the difference). Yet there’s a striking sense of clarity on the record. At first, I was worried Nels Cline’s lovemaking to his guitar would weigh down the record. But I’ve even grown to appreciate a little extended solo. (The solo on Impossible Germany “is tits,” was how a friend put it.)

If Yankee Hotel was a complicated listen for its weird tendencies, then Sky Blue Sky is just as compelling for its cleaned-up edges. I like Jeff Tweedy’s versatility. I like that probably a lot of people expected another record in the vein of Yankee Hotel and A Ghost is Born. And that Sky Blue Sky’s almost disarming normalcy causes such unease. So Tweedy’s so-called passive approach must be at fault here and not our constricted expectations.

Really, listen to it again.

• Wilco | You Are My Face

This has provided me no shortage of amusement for the past 24 hours. I love Craigslist.

• Divine Styler | Make it Plain

While I’m in Chicago this weekend for a bachelor party (woot!), my fellow Phoenicians have a plethora of shows from which to choose.

TONIGHT:
The Album Leaf with Lymbyc Systym and Back Ted N-Ted at the Brickhouse in Phoenix.

• The Album Leaf | Always For You
• Lymbyc Systym | Truth Skull

SUNDAY:
Voxtrot with Au Revoir Simone and Futurekind at Anderson’s Fifth Estate in Scottsdale.

• Voxtrot | Kid Gloves
• Au Revoir Simone | A Violent Yet Flammable World

MONDAY:
Blue Scholars and Common Market at the Hidden House in Phoenix or Sparta at the Clubhouse in Tempe.

• Blue Scholars | Inkwell (Crashed Cop Car Remix) (peep the familiar sample)
• Sparta | Taking Back Control

I’d listened to Albert Hammond’s Yours to Keep just a few times via Rhapsody, and, even though I really like it, I kept my expectations for his live show in check. Needless to say, he was outstanding, skinny/white jeans notwithstanding. (Also, the vest-with-T-shirt look is so in right now.)

Maybe there’s nothing to it, but should we read anything into the Strokes taking the year off and Hammond’s burgeoning solo career being so well-received? He insists that isn’t the case.

More on Hammond to come, including a possible entry into the I Used to Love H.E.R. series.

• Albert Hammond Jr. | Cartoon Music for Superheroes

This might very well be the first (and last?) post here ever on TV on the Radio. See, my boy Royce is crazy about ’em, and I’ve tried to get into ’em and it just hasn’t stuck the way I (or he) had hoped. Whenever I offer the dismissive shrug followed by “eh,” I get the evil eye.

So, this one is for Royce, who could use your donations as he grows something sort of resembling a mustache for a good cause.

TV on the Radio played the fantastic Amoeba Records in Hollywood on Sept. 22, 2006. A four-song EP has been released, and I snagged it after racking up some Stinkweeds credit for a minor cleansing of unwanted CDs.

Buy the EP at (where else?) Amoeba.

• TV on the Radio | Wolf Like Me (live at Amoeba)

View some video and interview footage, courtesy of Amoeba.