Prick Tunes: Wilco "Art of Almost"

In what has to be their most sonically interesting an unique song (at least when in comparison to the rest of the Wilco catalog) since "Spiders (Kidsmoke)," Jeff Tweedy & Co. have kicked off The Whole Love with a song that I couldn't be more excited about seeing live. Judging by this clip from wherever the hell they played at CBS--I guess it could have been The Ed Sullivan Theater, but David Letterman is nowhere to be found--my excitement is justified.

You definitely want to wait around for the last two and half minutes of the song. If you've heard "Art of Almost," you know why. Three words (one a hyphenate): Nels. Cline. Freak-out.

Prick Tunes: Bill Fay "Scream in the Ears"

It has been nagging at me for a while, but I've wanted to try to figure out a way to work a little more music into the blog. This seemed like the most logical way to go. Not every post will be this long. Sometimes it may just be a video with a sentence or two, but I will try to get these up every day, Monday through Friday at noon. 

From his first single in 1967, the "Some Good Advice" B-side "Scream in the Ears" is a shining example of the potential the once-obscure British singer-songwriter Bill Fay had. While poppier than much of the material that comprised his first two LPs, Bill Fay and Time of the Last Persecution, it's a damn fine song and indicative of his lyrical dexterity.

Unfortunately, those albums sold poorly, and his label, Deram Records, dropped him as a result. 

For 39 years nothing was heard from Bill Fay, while fans were left to wonder what happened to this wild-looking man. Despite understandable assumptions that he was dead based on the fact that this album cover was the most prevalent photo of the mysterious man, he resurfaced in 2010 with a new album, Still Some Light on Coptic Cat. If memory serves me correctly, he had been working a normal job completely unaware of his standing among a rather influential group of musicians including Jim O'Rourke, Six Organs of Admittance, and Jeff Tweedy, who has stated that Time of the Last Persecution was influential to the path Wilco has taken in the past decade. 

This is a cursory look at Bill Fay. For much better insight into the man and the music, there is a great two-part interview over at WFMU and a fine review of Time of the Last Persecution at Pop Matters.

In the meantime, here's that B-side for you to feast on. If you get the chance and haven't heard it yet, I cannot recommend Time of the Last Persecution highly enough.

Reading Rainbow: Wilco: Learning How To Die by Greg Kot

Obviously one is probably going to be a Wilco fan if he or she is going to dive into this book.  As one who could be qualified as such, the book is pretty damn pleasing. 

For those of you whom the author's name does not ring a bell, Greg Kot is the co-host of music talk show, Sound Opinions, and the music critic at the Chicago Tribune.  If you are familiar with his work, then you would not be shocked to find that Wilco: Learning How To Die is a thoughtful look at Wilco as one of the bands that sprang forth from the ashes of Uncle Tupelo to become one of the most critically acclaimed rock bands of this past decade.

Learning How To Die essentially begins with Jeff Tweedy's childhood quickly getting into his work with Jay Farrar, first in The Primatives which eventually became Uncle Tupelo.  It is interesting to see the portrait painted of the unsure young Jeff Tweedy, and the elucidation of the dynamic between Tweedy and Farrar helps to frame the earlier Wilco releases, especially A.M.

From there, Kot works through the demise of Uncle Tupelo and through the early years of Wilco, showing Tweedy in many shades, not all of them flattering.  Flattering or not, though, Tweedy the Figure is a compelling one, and this makes for an interesting character study of sorts.  

Now most Wilco fans have seen the Sam Jones documentary I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, and as such already have a pretty strong working knowledge as to what went into the recording of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, one could reasonably make the leap and assume that the last 50 or 60 pages of the book would be re-covering familiar ground.  Fortunately, Learning How To Die actually brings a little clarity to what had been a somewhat surprising and glossed over departure of a key figure in Wilco's rise, Jay Bennett.  In the film, Bennett is suddenly at odds with Jeff Tweedy in the mixing stages, and then he's out of the band.  Kot's painstaking work shows that Bennett had kind of been losing it in the studio, and that much of what Jim O'Rourke has been accused of doing by Wilco alt-country purists was actually off base.  Bennett had been layering track upon track upon track of material in the studio, and O'Rourke helped Tweedy strip down Yankee Hotel Foxtrot to its bare essentials.  The rest of the band's relief at Bennett's dismissal is also driven home. 

Wilco: Learning How To Die is a very quick read, and one that any serious Wilco fan should read, as Kot works in more than his fair share of music criticism, which is obviously his bread and butter.  His countless hours of interviewing and seemingly boundless access to the band make for an absurdly candid look at the band, warts and all.

(Weird video with a ludicrous intro/segue to follow)

Musicalia: Wilco - Cedar Park Center, Cedar Park (Austinish), TX - 10/8/09

A week ago, Wilco rolled through the Greater Austin Area and became the second act to play the new Cedar Park Center (it was built to house the Dallas Stars minor league affiliate).

For someone who lives in Austin and does his damnedest to never go past the Regal Cinema in Arbor Hills, the location was already a bit of an inconvenience, as it's about 15 miles (purely a guess there) past that theater. For those of you unfamiliar with Cedar Park, it is pretty much Bum Fuck, Nowhere.

So pulling in to the parking lot, it was great to find out that not only did I get to drive to Cedar Park to see Wilco, but I also got to pay $10 to park in an area where there was absolutely nowhere else to park within a reasonable walk because there is absolutely nothing else nearby.

Then we got inside, and it was a very unlikely place for a Wilco concert, what with the Pizza Hut concession stand and the other weird amenities that one would assume are at a quasi-suburban minor league hockey arena.

Finding our seats, it was soon obvious that despite paying for floor seats, we were further away from the stage than just about every normal seat in the house.

At this point, it would seem as though I was one unhappy camper. There was certainly a lot of hassle to see Wilco, but they do occupy a pretty lofty place amongst my personal list of favorite bands, and I have gone to greater lengths to see Wilco/Jeff Tweedy solo, so these setbacks would not have qualified as deal-breakers.

Liam Finn got on stage with his 'band', and my initial reaction was that I felt bad for him. From where we were sitting, it was hard to decipher if the seemingly subdued crowd was even awake for his set. Maybe risking life and limb driving out to the boonies had left everyone shell-shocked. Whatever the case may have been, Liam Finn did his best to get the crowd involved during his loop-laden set. Unfortunately for him, in this setting that didn't seem like it was enough.

After an intermission, on came Wilco, and from the start they were bringing it. Unfortunately the venue was so cold--in both temperature and vibe--that it was hard to tell how the audience was responding. That made it a little difficult to get really into the show.

As for the set, the regular pre-encore set was almost entirely YHF-to-present, which I get, but it started to worry me because I like to get a good balance in my Wilco shows. It was cool to see the new tracks live, but all things being said, I was much more excited to see the Sky Blue Sky songs live on that tour than I was for this tour for Wilco (The Album). Of the new songs, "Bull Black Nova", "One Wing", and "Wilco (The Song)" played particularly well. The first transcendent moment probably happened during Nels' insane solo in "Impossible Germany". It was jaw-dropping.

Insofar as Tweedy's between song banter was concerned, he comically urged people to tweet about how much better Austin was as a music town than Minneapolis. He also repeatedly lamented (without being entirely ungrateful) the fact that they weren't playing two shows in Austin (read: playing Stubb's, which for all its shortcomings is sooooooooo much better than the Cedar Park Center). Perhaps most importantly, he re-gifted an autographed Nolan Ryan baseball to "Patrick" in the crowd for his birthday. When giving the ball away, he posited that everyone in attendance must be Nolan Ryan fans, being in Texas and all, and then acted out the famous Robin Ventura beat down. That may have been my favorite moment in the show, but I'm kind of a baseball fan...

Once they started into the first encore, the older tunes were unfurled. The two encores were marked with greater highs. "Hoodoo Voodoo", which is really the only track that is completely changed from its originally recorded incarnation, is now a really great rollick featuring a great solo duel between Pat Sansone and Nels Cline. The changes to the song are very welcome, as it's probably my least favorite song on either of the Mermaid Avenue releases, but hearing it this way makes me want to hear it again. Gems "Monday" and "Outta Site (Outta Mind)" (the closer) always bring the house down and did not disappoint.

Perhaps the best part of seeing the show in the sticks was that a good quarter of the crowd headed for the doors after Wilco left for the second time, and missed the second encore. This also meant that the floor opened up a bit and the much shorter TSLF was able to see unobstructed for the last four or five songs.

Now, Wilco did everything within their power to fill that cold cavern with rock and succeeded for the most part. The place was just finished like a month ago (George Strait is the only other artist to have performed there), so it would have been impossible for them to book the show with any sort fo knowledge as to how it was going to play. Early on the talent seemed to have concerns. Those concerns were valid. I'd be shocked if Wilco ever plays there again, despite the larger capacity. After all, they can sell Stubb's out on consecutive nights, and that's a total of 3,600 tickets if memory serves me correctly. The Cedar Park Center was not especially large (I'm pretty sure it is smaller than the La Crosse Center, where the storied Catbirds played, so this would be small for an old CBA arena) and is not a place to see music.

I know I'll not be seeing any more shows there.

But I will pay good money to see Wilco again. And again. And again.

Hell, this was my seventh time not counting the time I saw Jeff Tweedy solo.

Wilco at Stubb's - Monday, May 12th

I may have said this before on this blog, but I believe that Wilco's current lineup is the best I've seen (I've now seen them six times since 1999) and that they may just be the best touring band out there. Unfortunately, this is only the second time of those six times that I've seen them play a full set headlining--having seen them open for R.E.M. on the Up Tour at Midway Stadium in 1999, and playing ACL three times. All that being said, I'd have to say this last time was the best.

If you haven't seen them with this lineup, you are completely missing out. Obviously, Glenn Kotche is an outstanding drummer, and Mikael Jorgenson and Pat Sansone are rock-solid on keys, but it's Nels Cline who takes this band to an entirely new level. I may be reaching a bit here, but I would have to say Nels Cline is the best guitarist I've ever seen. His solos on songs like "Impossible Germany" and "Side with the Seeds" are great on the album, but they're transcendent live. Every note he hits is so clean and crisp that you start to wonder if he's Jesus Christ reborn just to fucking destroy the guitar. And Jeff Tweedy (AKA Jeff Leppard) is still great. His banter is always extremely engaging, even if he tells the entire crowd that they're idiots and tells people who flew in from Ohio that they spent too much money to be so retarded at a show.

As for the songs, the aforementioned "Impossible Germany" plays great live. They busted out "Airline to Heaven", and if you weren't paying attention, you could have easily thought you were listening to the Allman Brothers Band in their prime. Their rock-epic "Spiders (Kidsmoke)" hearkens to Television, which plays well to the crowd regardless of what you think of Marquee Moon. "California Stars" and "Box Full of Letters" were great rollickers. In spite of Tweedy's admitted hesitancy to play "Kingpin", it has also stood the test of time. Most impressive after twelve years is still the coupling of "Red-Eyed and Blue" and "I Got You (At the End of the Century)"--which absolutely brings down the house--and closer "Monday" fucking kills everytime they play it.

All in all, I love seeing them pull from the entire catalog. The songs from A.M. and Being There are still great after more than ten years, and the songs on the newer records that best showcase Nels are fucking amazing to witness. If you can, see them soon and see them often.