Musicians are considered prolific if they crank out an album every year. Tweedy, leader of the rock group Wilco, made three.

Early in the year, Wilco was recruited to collaborate with British folkie Billy Bragg on new music for lyrics in the Woody Guthrie archive. Their album, Mermaid Avenue, was critically lauded and topped the college charts throughout the summer.

Tweedy also finished the third Wilco record, due out sometime next year.

But when the Sun contacted the singer-songwriter at his Chicago home last week, we were to discuss yet another project -- his "other" band, Golden Smog, and its superb new CD, Weird Tales.

"There wasn't a plan to make three albums at the same time," Tweedy says.

"It's been purely coincidental."

Waiting to make a Golden Smog album, he points out, "is like waiting for the stars to be aligned. There are so many different schedules involved. Everybody just had some time and that started the ball rolling."

The band members, you see, all have fulltime gigs: Tweedy in Wilco, Dan Murphy in Soul Asylum, Gary Louris and Marc Perlman in The Jayhawks and Kraig Johnson in Run Westy Run. For Weird Tales, Big Star's Jody Stephens sits in on drums.

The album -- like the band's only other full-length CD, 1995's Down By The Old Mainstream -- distills the best elements of The Byrds, The Faces, Gram Parsons and The Rolling Stones, as well as their own groups.

The result: A joyous, old-fashioned rock record with soul-stirring harmonies and tunes that sound like lost classics.

Golden Smog albums "always come at a pretty good time," says Tweedy, who writes and/or co-writes five of Weird Tales' 15 songs.

"But if we did it more often, it wouldn't be as much of a holiday. I don't think making Wilco records is that pressure-packed, really, but I'm responsible for a lot more.

"With Golden Smog ... it's nice to sit back and play bass, sing a few backup vocals, play some harmonica and play lead guitar."

Unlike other all-star musical aggregations, such as The Traveling Wilburys, Golden Smog actually sounds like a band as opposed to a loose conglomerate of individuals.

"Maybe it has something to do with us liking each other's music a lot and having a lot of the same records in our album collections.... An influence isn't going to crop up that none of us hasn't heard," Tweedy says.

What's next? Because of the nature of the band, Tweedy can't guarantee there will be another Golden Smog album "although I think most likely there will be."

Several music publications have reported a second batch of songs from the Mermaid Avenue sessions will be released early next year. Which is news to Tweedy.

"Nobody has said anything to us," he says.

"My personal take on it is it would be silly right now.... I'm really proud of (Mermaid Avenue) but I think (a second volume) would diminish it. I wouldn't want to just put out stuff that didn't make it. Although I think there's a lot of good (unreleased) material, I'd like to augment it with some new stuff."

And as for the next Wilco record, Tweedy says it's a marked departure from the group's acclaimed sophomore CD, Being There.

"There's not any country or folk influence on it.... It's a lot more orchestrated as a pop record. We just knew it wasn't in our hearts to keep doing what we've been doing."