We let Alex Poehlman, the winner of our Lick Everybody contest, select this week’s free download (which we’ll be giving away on Mondays for the rest of the year). He chose “Fear of Chicago,” a tune from the last album that’s about how we almost ran over George Wendt, the dude who played Norm on Cheers, many years ago, one very icy day in Chicago.
Another fun fact about this song: Wilco has a number called “Via Chicago,” which I mis-heard Jeff Tweedy announce live one night before it came out on a record. “What a great title,” I thought to myself. Later that year, I bought the next Wilco album and was dismayed to see that he hadn’t said, “Fear of Chicago,” but “Via Chicago,” which is nowhere near as interesting. So we wrote this song to correct the mistake.
You can have this song for zero dollars, just by sharing it on Facebook. Alex Poehlman shared previous free downloads, and now he appears in a Wonderlick song. Well, he appears in a Wonderlick lyric, that will be turned into a song the very next time we head into the studio.
Hey Jay, when are we heading into the studio again? I have a lyric that’s even better than “Fear of Chicago.” It’s called “Super Friends,” and it’s about this guy named Alex.
Find out how to share the tune and get your free download after the jump.
Congratulations to Alex Poehlman, who won January’s prize in our Lick Everybody contest.
Alex shared January’s free song widgets on Facebook and MySpace, and also emailed them to over three dozen folks.
So, he will appear in one of the next Lick tunes we record. Anyone have a rhyme for Poehlman? Does “out of control fan” work?
Some info about Alex: he’s an award winning promotions writer, producer, and editor at the local ABC news station in Grand Rapids (WZZM 13). He’s married and has a 2 1/2 year old son Maximilian, named after the red robot from the film The Black Hole. In his spare time he works on an animated sketch comedy show titled This Is Futile.
Many thanks to Alex. Please have some more kids, though, as we need more fans like you. That goes for everyone reading this: please spawn.
Our Lick Everybody campaign is now in its eighth week. And to encourage folks to share these free downloads with as many people as they’d like, the download now gets delivered to you after you share the song on Facebook.
This week’s tune is “Never Let You Go,” from Wonderlick’s self-titled debut. Dig Tim’s high vocal, and Jay’s gigantic guitars on the chorus, and the nifty house bit in the bridge. This is one of Tim’s favorite Wonderlick songs.
It can be yours, free: just follow the steps below. We have a winner for January’s sharing contest, by the way: we’ll be announcing his name and explaining just what he won in the coming days.
This week’s free download is “Everybody Loves Jenny (Except Jenny)” from our second LP, Topless at the Arco Arena.
It’s about the heroine of Topless, an office worker who yanks off her shirt at an AC/DC concert. It also represents Wonderlick in its “Let’s write a super catchy three minute pop song” mode. When we get that way, we can’t help ourselves.
Jenny was named that, by the way, because the Clash’s “Janie Jones” sounded like it was about her. But that’s a story for another week’s free download.
We said we’d give away a free download every week in 2010, and we are honoring our resolution. This week, it’s a cut called “Your Majesty” from our second LP, Topless at the Arco Arena.
This one indulges one of our favorite studio games: going ape-shit at the end. I can’t even remember what all is in there, but I know there’s a flugelhorn, and that’s Daphne Carr bowing the cello, and I’m pretty sure both Jay and I are playing a bunch of different guitars.
Moments like that lead to a recurring conversation between us and Johannes, our engineer and co-producer, that always goes like this:
This is the last free download for January, which means it’s your last chance to win immortalization in a Wonderlick song by sharing it far and wide.
We figured we’d end the month by posting a new tune. This is the latest version of “Cold Patch,” featuring some purty harmonies by Robin Hathaway.
It’s also got a lovely violin part by Jean Cook, who described her bit after the fact as “emotional.” When I smiled at the term she said, “Well, a producer told me years ago never to say ‘cheesy.’”
Hopefully you know the Lick Everybody drill by now, but if you need more details about the promotion, just click here. Whomever spreads these free tunes around the most by clicking the word “share” above and exposing the rest of the world to the glory of Wonderlick gets sung about on our next record.
We’ll tally all the figures and announce January’s winner no later than 2/15.
These free downloads are all part of our Lick Everybody campaign, so click the word SHARE in the player above and send it on to as many people as you’d like. Whoever shares Wonderlick tunes with the most people this month will be sung about on the next Lick album.
Last week we explained that emailing it to, say, ten friends, counts as ten shares, and someone who hadn’t participated in weeks 1 and 2 suddenly shot into the lead. You may wish to learn from that person’s example.
These free downloads are all part of our Lick Everybody campaign, so click the word SHARE in the player above and send it on to as many people as you’d like. Whoever shares Wonderlick tunes with the most people this month will be sung about on the next Lick album. So, if your name is really hard to rhyme, maybe don’t share so much.
Here’s a hint if you want to win: tweeting the player or posting it to your Facebook profile are both good, but each of those just counts as one share. Whereas emailing it to, say, ten friends, counts as ten shares.
We’re just saying. And hey, who wouldn’t want to be sent a free song comparing love to a plane crash?
As promised, we’re giving away a different song each week, and giving prizes to whomever shares them with the most people. This week’s tune is “You First.”
It’s all part of our “Lick Everybody” campaign. More details on it here. The short version is that we would like you to spread the little player below around:
It’s easy: just click the word “Share” above to post it on Facebook or MySpace, or to email it or Twitter it. This month’s prize: Wonderlick will write you into one of the songs we’re recording for album number three, which is tentatively titled Super, and revolves around superheroes. You can even choose if you want to be a good guy or a bad guy.
Interesting tidbit about this week’s song: the first couple lines are 100% true. The first day I met my wife Donna, I good-naturedly gave her the finger. Equally endearing, though not in the song, the first time she said she loved me, she didn’t say it to me, but to a bum who’d wandered into the 500 Club, where we were playing pool. He asked her if I was her boyfriend as I was lining up a shot. She said yes. He asked if she loved me. She said yes.
I missed my shot.
We had a drunken argument about it on the way home. “I can’t believe you told a bum you loved me before you told me,” I said. She pointed out that I’d said it to her the night before, then promptly passed out, which I didn’t recall, but which sounds like me at the time.
We’re going to try an experiment this year we’re calling Lick Everybody. Here’s how it’s gonna work:
Wonderlick will give away one free song every week in 2010
Fans will help us spread these songs far and wide, emailing them to friends, posting them on Facebook pages and personal blogs, tweeting and so on
There will be different prizes each month for whomever shares that month’s free songs with the most people
To get things started right, January’s prize will be a pretty big one: whoever does the most sharing from now through 1/31 will get immortalized in a Wonderlick song. And we don’t mean some cheesy acoustic toss-off that finds a couple quick rhymes for your name. No, you will appear as a character in the narrative of a song the band is writing and recording for our next record. We can’t promise the song will wind up on the final record, but that’s the plan.
Each week’s giveaway will be available as a free download for seven days. Sometimes they’ll be brand new tunes, other times they’ll be culled from the catalog. If you’re a fan, you may have most of these already, but that’s kind of the point of Lick Everybody: we need more people like you. And we figure you’re better positioned than any label to help us find them.
The first song of the first week of the campaign is the first song off our first record (which was also one of the first things we ever recorded as Wonderlick): Donner Lake. Since it’s about loving someone so much you’d gladly let them eat you, it feels like an appropriate way to begin to Lick Everybody.
Sharing is easy. Just click the word “Share” in the player above, and you can post it to your Facebook page, email it to friends, Twitter it, whatever. The widget will ask for your email address, and will track how many times (but not with whom) you share it. Whoever has the highest share count as of midnight on 2/1 wins.
Of course, you’re welcome to find other ways to share — if you do something with one of the weekly downloads that won’t be tracked via the widget, just send links/screenshots/explanations to admin@wonderlick.com, and we will figure out some non-arbitrary way to increase your count appropriately.
Congratulations to Alex Poehlman, who won January’s prize in our 
