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Wilco is not a rock ‘n roll band - Wilco is rock ’n roll. Aside from the fact that none of their members have died (that’s true, right?), they’ve pretty much covered the archetypal gamut: personal crises, line-up changes and drama (thanks, Jay). But that sounds like a Spinal Tap review, and would belie the fact that Wilco’s music is also ecumenical of the rock ‘n roll sound, or at least its roots.
That also goes for the new album Wilco (The Album), which sounds more ‘Wilco’ than anything Tweedy and Co. have done yet. And it’s their best album, no fooling. It may lack the steel guitars of AM, but it’s country roots are deep. It doesn’t rock anywhere as hard as, say, ‘I’m a Wheel’, but its strength is in its richness, not tempo or volume. Still, the ‘Wherewolves of London’-ish opener ‘Wilco (The Song)’ is a self-aware love letter to the fans with the chunk-chunk that will make it a pillar of upcoming live shows. Of course, always the impressionist, Tweedy’s uncomplicated, but surprising insights have seldom been better served than they are on ‘One Wing’. And ‘I Don’t Care’ sounds like an outtake from All Things Must Pass without ripping it off, much to the degree that Scorsese making reference to The Great Train Robbery hardly makes him guilty of plagiarism. Suffice it to say, George Harrison is still lying perfectly still in his grave.
But all this is just me babbling about the very cogent fact that this album is a classic. It’s that kind of record: you’ll hear it and want to grab the first Wilco fan you can find and talk about it over a beer or six. Circumlocutory or not, let it suffice to say, without further evidence, that you should buy this album when it formally comes up for sale, or if not buy it then just send Jeff Tweedy lots of money and nice things in the mail.
See, this is Tweedy in total control of his writing and singing gifts, and the band as masters of their respective fields. Of course, they know that they’re the best rock ‘n roll band right now, but they don’t waste time rubbing it is. Mostly. The Feist-Tweedy duet ‘You And I’ makes a too-cute joke about a couple’s words being m-mis-misconstrued, but it’s okay - it’s kinda funny. Of course, the album name and opening song title could only come from the Best Band in the Land, so okay if they want to lampoon themselves for being fuckin’ rock stars and idols. And they have the chops to avoid didacticism and self-parody… best be wearing your best shitkickers if you’re going to kick some shit, after all.
But this could go on for days… someone buy me a drink and let’s talk about the disc, save some paper here.
Preface: this is the first in, hopefully, a series of commentaries about music that has little or no bearing on current popular culture, and is mostly personal and inaccessibly sentimental. Nevertheless, indie is exhausting me now, and it could be either the onset of a milestone birthday (if you care to know which one, look up what age Bob Dylan once warned his acolytes above which a person cannot be trusted) or musical over-exposure, but it’s time to return to something atavistic that I can always rely on for good results.
These are ugly times, or at least it feels like it. Probably no worse at the root than days of yore, but occasionally there is an event that makes you long for what you thought was a kinder era. My moment of forced nostalgia came last Friday as I was riding home from work and saw a little old lady gingerly crossing the street at Dearborn and Walton - not fatally slow, but certainly not in leaps and bounds. Still, she was making good time and, as is the law in Chicago, had the right-of-way, which did not stop an adipose SUV driver from hurling towards the intersection with intent to proceed through at speed, until he slammed on the breaks to avoid hitting Nanna.
I could make out her mild but weathered voice admonishing him for not yielding to her as she stood frozen on the double yellow line. I don’t figure that she called his mother a whore, or insulted his heritage, but he fast became infuriated. With slack, unshaven jowls swaying to and fro like warm testicles, he turned to her, his skinny buddy riding shotgun looking on as he said, “Shut up, fuck you!” in that TV mobster tone where ‘fuck’ becomes ‘fwahck’. So not only is Grandma nearly bowled over by Lips Manlis and his crony, but is told to be fruitful and multiply herself. I begin to long for the past.
And the past manifests itself in curious ways. Scenes of ugliness like this make for the question, “Was there a better time in the world than this cruel modern epoch?” Whether or not it was externally better is too vast to quantify, but it seems so because hearing albums like Neil Diamond’s The Jazz Singer was once enough to feel right in the world. Read more »
It’s an election year, so there are ostensibly two camps vying for your attention: 1) those that want you to vote for someone, and 2) those that just plain want you to vote. But the truth may not be that simple. Is there any mistaking what they’re really saying when the National Association of Evangelicals implores you to register? Well, no, because they’ll tell you outright that a vote for Obama is a vote for the Dark Lord, but that’s beside the point.
Anyway, there’s really no question of Wilco and Fleet Foxes political affiliations when they choose Bob Dylan’s ‘I Shall Be Released’ to urge fans to vote. They may be clandestinely pushing Obama here, and that’s fine… after all, if musicians were solidly behind the GOP like back in the day, they’d have gone w/ ‘Don’t Fear the Reaper’. Nevertheless, Wilco and Fleet Foxes played together in Oregon, covered one of the Bard’s choicest songs and have made it available for free download under the condition that you give your name, email address and a pledge to vote in the 2008 election.
Great song, regardless of who you choose to support, though not much can really improve on the Last Waltz. And hey, there are a couple of third party voters, or right-wing outcasts that are counted amongst the Jeff Tweedy faithful (like me, but I’m not telling you whether I’m the former or latter). Whatever your affiliations, Superstarcastic, in solidarity w/ Wilco and Fleet Foxes, urges you to vote, and while you’re at it enjoy some free tunes.
Lollapalooza ‘08, as of print time, is just four hours old, and you are not there because…
1) Ticket prices were too high due to insufficient corporate sponsorship
Sure gas prices are a bitch this summer, but tickets… whew! How can we be expected to pony up $200 for three days of music unless AT&T, Budweiser, and friends lend a bigger hand and put their names in more nooks and crannies? Write your Congressman and as him to vote for more endorsements to help make tickets more affordable. Outright selfish.
2) Everyone there is just like you.
The experience will remind you that everyone else will also blog out it for weeks to come, likes the same bands as you, and has at least three songs they’ve recorded on GarageBand sitting in their computer at home just waiting to be uploaded to myspace.
3) You’re too old for this.
You won’t admit it, but even during the first three years that you did go to Lollapalooza, you wished you were at home with a margarita that didn’t cost a week’s pay, air conditioning and predictability. You went so you didn’t have to avoid eye contact w/ friends who would come back the next day and say, “Oh, I saw [this band], and [that band], and [this other band] rocked…”. But don’t worry - they secretly wanted to stay home all along, just like you.
4) You’re too young for this.
This isn’t a Phish show, so don’t expect to walk into Grant Park and magically get high, or find some dude hocking pot brownies and rough crispies. That’s what you go to shows for anyway, so stay at home and don’t burn through the political capital you have w/ your parents… you’ll need it when they find your poorly hidden stash.
5) You don’t know any of the bands there.
Wait, that was Pitchfork… you mean…
5) It’s not indie enough.
You’ve seen Wilco before, so who cares? No one over 21 really likes the Raconteurs anyway. It’s just too mainstream.
So that’s why you’re at home wondering what you and your friends are going to do tonight. Maybe a Lollapalooza after-party! But that’s kind of lame seeing as how you didn’t go to the party in the first place. Fuck you.
Sure the warbling voice is frustrating, but are Bright Eyes and Conor Oberst irredeemable beyond the bleating vocals? Frankly, I couldn’t get past Oberst’s contrived sincerity in time to listen closely to the music or the words he was yodeling as Bright Eyes, so Conor Oberst’s solo album was my first real study of his work. I was ready for some hating, but then…
The first track played through and it’s really good. ‘Cape Canaveral’ wouldn’t stand up under academic poetic analysis for hanging on the same rhyme scheme for four stanzas, but it’s a mature and evocative love letter to thinkers that Oberst admires for being out of reach and also deep in the psyche. I’m absolutely hooked on this number. Bastard.
And just like the better moments of Bright Eyes cause me to say, “Maybe I’m missing something because [this one track] is kinda sweet,” the opening solo number suggested that the worst is over. But there is an entire album that follows…
In this era there is a different criteria by which we judge rock, and tracks 2-12 remind me what a bunch of pussies are the curs who have claimed the throne of rock ‘n roll. Conor Oberst, unlike the oft-compared Bob Dylan, is not of a lineage of men who fought with their battle axes the way to the top; who snarled their way to glory; who fucked to immortality. The new crew, of whom Oberst is a ringleader, can’t be bothered to put up their dukes, lest they spill some wine on their pants while posing as rockers. And unlike our forefathers and foremothers of Rock who demanded (and got) sex and drugs, these insouciants are begging to get laid. In that way, I guess rock ‘n roll is still about getting chicks, at least…
Back to Conor’s music…
Oberst hints at but fails to land the bulls-eye of Bon Iver’s facile moments of quiet underscore. So he takes a rocker’s stance, right? He doesn’t exactly do that either. Some advice to disregard: If you’re going to rock then rock, or just relax and quit the half-assery! He even sings it straight until track 6 ‘I Don’t Want to Die (In the Hospital)’ when someone handed him a working jackhammer during the vocal takes. Vibratory urgency aside, it all feels stiff where ‘Canaveral’ is slick. From loud to soft to adult contemporary, the album (sans excellent track 1) goes from track to track w/o a single emotional groundswell or a ballzy moment that doesn’t fall as flat a that one racist joke you once told when the black guy from accounting came up silently behind you during the punch line.
Forget relaxing to Conor Oberst, but I’m more ready for bed than ready to rock. The fans will love this shit because most are men who also beg for sex, or women that fall for it. Despite (or because of) my bandmates’ attempts to get me to dig this guy, I fail to see the imperfections as the sycophants do, that is, as genius. To my credit, I might add.
Merge Records
August 5, 2008
Everyone w/ a laptop and a facebook account (which is everyone) is a DIY musician now, naturally replacing their Christian name with a handle apropos for a full band, right? What else is new? How do these souls get attention from the masses? (Tough question since they themselves are the masses, by and large). Sound quality is no longer an issue - being audible is enough for myspace and 128 kbps - and besides, any wannabe can, on a pittance, get decent enough equipment to make the days of 4-tracks as distant as piano rolls. And if solid storytelling were enough to capture the public’s attention then Michael Bay would be out of a job (and what a wonderful world that would be), so unfortunately, good sound and good material might not be enough in today’s world. Which could be a problem for Lost On Purpose.
Will Holland of (is, that is) Lost On Purpose has an album’s worth of iTunes downloads that falls under the name Not If But When, which, if you’re tired of self-aggrandizing one-man-bands, is worth a listen. It could even simplify your life and quell your troubled mind with instrumentation and wry observations that don’t waste time.
Take the track ‘guts’, for example - it lasts just over a minute but makes me laugh with the line, “I wish that you broke up with me so I could write 20 songs, but stop in the middle and get drunk.” NIBW has more than a few of those moments that you will unconsciously regurgitate as advice to a sad friend, or a punchline at a party that will make you think, Did I make that up? Wow, I’m cleverer than I thought…
Being wry and casual is nothing new, but works in a pinch. Pretensions, on the other hand, don’t win over many friends, and track 6 ‘ksu interlude’, in which a news ticker plays over a nice melody says very little except, “I can use a laptop real good.” Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘Silent Night’ is a disquieting juxtaposition of lullaby and dirge, but here it’s just a throwaway. Still, the rest are sharp little vignettes full of fill-in-the-blanks imagery, mortality with a funny face, moments within a sprawling one-act (‘The 70’s’ is a particularly choice cut - I recommend it).
It’s not a bad thing to resist giving everything you have for a single project, and Not If But When is more a sample of the goods than the full delivery. The songs aren’t a Floydian journey to far-away psychic shores, but lines like, “You remind me why I left Ohio,” bring listener and singer close together. It helps too if you’ve ever been to Amherst, OH - you’ll understand where native son Holland gets this angle, but anyone can find a reason to want to leave their place of origin. NIBW has plenty of moments like this - sample some Will Holland when you’re done w/ GarageBand junkies that pummel w/ proof of how different they are.
It’s hard to resist writing a tome about this album, but the 11 tracks on Noah And The Whale’s Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down do a lot without Big Noise or circumlocution, so I’ll at least try to return the favor…
The swinging and crippling melodies of the titletrack and ‘Shape of My Heart’ belie the torment within… is someone conflicted internally with themselves and externally with the presence - or absence - of love? Tension is everywhere on this album, and both absence and fulfillment are equally represented, and beautifully at that. But whatever the lump sum of praises vs. rejections of God, spirit and love, the music nets a victory for joy. If our narrator is torn between an existential celebration of the Self and an undeniable attraction to the Almighty, the music says, “whatever it is, it’s going to be all right,” and it’s easy to believe. It’s a tribute to life (”life is fleeting, and I love you, and love surrounds you like an ether,”) and death (”let’s leave [the baby] to the wolves so they turn it to food; its flesh keeps it alive, oh and death helps life survive, and life can be kind in its own way”), love and hate, despair and hope.
But wait… there’s levity here too. All of this happens without heavy-handedness, and the melodies would be just as emotive if they were singing the recipe for vegan pancakes (just trying to imagine the blandest food conceivable). It’s sometimes difficult to believe Bob Marley when he sings, “Every little thing gonna be all right,” especially during the months of January through March. But NATW convincingly frame heartbreak and death - the death of a newborn at the hands of lycanthropes, nonetheless - to be a thing of benevolence and comfort. It’s like the Altman movie Prairie Home Companion… sucks that you have to die, but at least it’s Virginia Madsen that takes you to the Next World.
Unfortunately, the frustratingly catchy ‘Five Years Time’ is going to turn a lot of people, and out of context it should… no matter how much you end up hating (or loving) the song, you’ll accidentally whistle along and its cloying melody will be stuck in your cerebral cortex for good. It’s too bad they chose this song for the single - there are plenty of superior songs on the album (10 of them, to be exact) that are guaranteed not to piss you off nearly as much as this one. For the kids, I guess…
Remember last week when I blatantly promoted Camera’s show at the Empty Bottle? No? Well, screw you because the show rocked and, and if you’d heeded certain advice you’d be agreeing w/ me right now before scrambling to mark their next show on your calendar (that is, August 23 at the Bottom Lounge on Lake St.). Meanwhile, you can download their worthy EP Fire & Science, wait until the LP comes out next year, or just read on and see what Joe, David & Ryan think about things. 5 things, to be exact:
1. when historians listen to your most recent CD 1000 years from now, what will they say?
“Bzz nrt blnkt blnkt” That’s robot for satisfactory.
2. if you could play a show with any band/musician living or dead, who would you pick and why?
Roxy Music so I wouldn’t have to pay for a ticket to see them, and um, they are awesome.
3. what is the strangest band-related dream (one of) you have had?
I had a dream that I was asked to play guitar for the Verve and the guitar itself kept falling out of tune while I was on stage. How embarrassing!
4. what do your fans look like?
Attractive youngsters and our parents.
5. what bullshit do you run into at most every show that makes you think “man, this bullshit again?””
Door cost at a show: $10. We bring in: 100 people. We get paid: $60.
bonus question: does the band have a favorite drink of choice?
Joe likes Vitamin Water, David likes uncaffeinated tea, and Ryan drinks synthetic
Chicago! Camera plays tomorrow night, and don’t miss this band, I mean it. The songs on myspace all stand tall, but don’t exactly belie the ground that this trio can cover. Nevertheless, this high-octane amalgam of My Bloody Valentine, The Cure, Stellastarr* and Jens Lekman (and a few others… I wonder if their long list of influences are necessarily artists that have saliently impacted them, or if some are on there for effect… nevertheless, their extensive appreciation for numerous styles shows in their own tunes) plays at the Empty Bottle tomorrow night at 9PM for a reasonable $7 cover - this is neither a show nor a band to be disregarded.
Seriously, listen to these tunes and tell me that you won’t think twice about attending the show. And for the record, I’m not on the band’s payroll and am not soliciting for them under contractual or even fraternal obligations… this band is plain good, and deserves all proper respect.
