Vox Americana: Wilco Deserves Your Undivided Attention

In case you have only a passing acquaintance with them, Wilco and its singer/songwriter Jeff Tweedy are perhaps the greatest musical artists toiling in the alt-country/power-pop fields today. I’d like to explain why they deserve your undivided attention.

Please don’t consign them to your iPod shuffle list. Kindly do not relegate them to aural background to your next happy meal or sexual fantasy. Give them a careful listening by playing an entire album, the way good music used to be heard. Your effort will be rewarded.

The songs of Wilco are ambitious artifacts of individualistic Americana, rich and passionate soundscapes, refreshing soundtracks to a money-mad society too often hostile to art that dares to criticize as well as celebrate life. They inspire me to make my own art. Pardon me if I wax evangelistic, but I am a true believer in this Chicago-based band and its gifted leader.

Tweedy and Wilco provide a wakeup call from the American cultural nightmare while also offering lullabies that help return us all to a better dreamland. They make vital joyous music, occasionally dark and existential as a good film noir. Wilco’s music is mysterious yet natural as fog.

A Sonic Shoulder to Cry On: Wilco Will Comply

Wilco was established in 1994 in St. Louis, in the wake of the messy demise of founder Jeff Tweedy’s legendary alt-country band Uncle Tupelo (1988-93), which had kick-started the roots/indie-folk No Depression movement. In the course of releasing eight albums, plus collaborating on the outstanding Woody Guthrie project Mermaid Avenue (Volumes 1 & 2), Wilco has become the most creative and interesting American band since the heyday of R.E.M., circa 1985-95.

If you’re sceptical of this claim, then I advise you to see the protean Nashville segment in the Wilco concert/tour documentary Ashes of American Flags (2009). Jeff Tweedy - as his name might suggest - is not a particularly charismatic performer. Fortunately, Wilco’s songs and their live sound require no pyrotechnics. Yet Tweedy opened up emotionally in Nashville, seizing the moment, filmed at a 2008 show at the intimate Ryman Auditorium, in his fancy white Nudi suit festooned with embroidered cardinals and red roses.

Tongue in cheek, Tweedy tells the ecstatic audience that if this turns out to be one of the greatest rock concerts of all time, it’ll have to bear an asterisk. He had been injected earlier that day with steroids, he explains. And the drugs made it possible for Tweedy to sing that night despite a damaged throat. Then the band launches into “A Shot in the Arm” (from Wilco’s 1999 masterpiece Summerteeth) and blasts a home run into the Ryman balcony.

Singer-songwriter Jeff Tweedy, who turned 43 on August 25th, is a rather crabby-looking anti-rockstar of a frontman. He normally projects a vibe that says shy loner with a hangover. In fact, he suffers from chronic migraines, as shown in a painfully revealing scene in the somber Wilco documentary I Am Trying to Break Your Heart (2003), in which Tweedy vomits in a studio toilet during the making of Wilco’s breakthrough Yankee Hotel Foxtrot album.

But Tweedy is no longer a drinker, having quit alcohol years ago and having undergone treatment for addiction to prescription drugs more recently. He does, however, still deal with anxiety attacks and occasional stage fright, especially when performing solo. His personal dramas and musical artistry are described sympathetically in Chicago Tribune rock critic Greg Kot’s excellent book Wilco: Learning How to Die (2004).

Now a 6-member unit (Jeff Tweedy - vocals/guitar; John Stirratt - bass/vocals; Glenn Kotche - drums; Nels Cline - guitar; Pat Sansone - keyboards/guitar, etc.; and Mikael Jorgensen - guitar/keyboards), Wilco may be even better at making records than at entertaining crowds. Adding touches of electronica and eerie ambient soundscapes to Tweedy’s lyrically pointed songs, Wilco transcends genres.

The unfortunate consequence of their open-minded experimental spirit, however, is that radio station programmers rarely feature Wilco on their playlists, which are mostly targeted at a narrow demographic of listeners without adventurous tastes. While Wilco does appear on television now and then (e.g. PBS’s Austin City Limits, late-night mainstream talk/music shows), they created the most media buzz when a pair of their songs were used in Volkswagen advertisements.

Most discerning critcs respect and endorse Wilco’s music. As you might have guessed, their record sales have not met their promise. Reprise, Wilco’s label at the time, even refused to release Yankee Hotel Foxtrot in 2001, simply releasing the band from their contract instead. But Wilco is the kind of band, like the Velvet Underground in the ‘60s, that has launched a thousand other disciple bands. We will be charmed and artists will be influenced by Wilco’s music for decades to come.

Wilco are in it for the long haul, having already endured several changes in the lineup over the past 16 years. The only original members are Tweedy (who sometimes performs as a solo act) and bassist John Stirratt. Former member and sometime co-songwriter Jay Bennett died last year, while his lawsuit against Wilco and Tweedy was pending.

The band’s name comes from the two-way radio transmission abbreviation meaning “will comply,” as in “roger wilco” (i.e. “I understand and will comply”). Wilco is a sublimely humane and accessible band that lives up to their claim, embedded in the lyrics of “Wilco (the song),” that they offer fans a “sonic shoulder to cry on.” Tweedy understands that life is tough, but that music makes it easier to take. At least when the songs sound as revelatory, ambiguous and sometimes confusing as life itself.

I have listened to their latest album, Wilco (The Album), at least a hundred times since I got it last summer and it still sounds fresh to me. Songs like “You and I” (duet with Feist), the defiant “I’ll Fight,” the anthemic “Sonny Feeling” and the compassionate manifesto that is the eponymous opening track all amaze me with their ability to evoke vivid images, to move me, to console my heart and please my mind.

What’s New? Tweedy as Producer/Solo Performer; Wilco Exhibit & New Label

Jeff Tweedy is scheduled to perform solo at the Farm Aid 2010 concert on October 2nd at Miller Park in Milwaukee. He just produced a forthcoming album by legendary gospel/folk singer Mavis Staples. The newly released single from that record, a soul-folk number called “You Are Not Alone” (also the album’s title) was highly praised by Rolling Stone magazine.

Wilco hosted the Solid Sound Festival, a concert in conjunction with exhibits curated by members of the band, on August 13-15 at the MassMOCA museum in North Adams, Massachusetts. The band was awarded a pair of Grammys in 2005 for the album A Ghost Is Born: one for Best Alternative Music Album and another for Best Recording Package. Wilco albums have also been nominated for Grammy awards in the rock (2008), contemporary folk (1999) and Americana (2009) music categories.

Wilco recently announced that it would soon leave its current record label (Nonesuch) and form its own label.

Memphis Twang Comes to Door County

Last evening (Aug. 9th) at Harborside Park in Ephraim I finally found the sound I've been missing since leaving Nashville in early March: genuine twang. Delivered by Eric Lewis & Tommy Burroughs from Memphis, Tennessee, along with a local drummer & electric bassist. Those fellas dug deep, playing bluegrass/Americana from the heart & soul And a big enthusiastic crowd ate it up like spicy Southern Bar-B-Q too.

I arrived just in time to catch their cover of the Flying Burrito Brothers apocalyptic paean to LA circa 1969, "Sin City": "On the 31st floor/A gold-plated door/Won't keep out the Lord's burnin' rain..." The Dwight Yoakam/k.d. lang duet ballad-style cover of "Sin City" (from the late '80s) is pretty damn good, but Tommy & Eric's harmonies did the song proud while capturing the somber tone of the FBB original.

In addition to a couple of their own originals, Lewis & Burroughs offered inspired versions of tunes by the Grateful Dead, George Gershwin, John Hartford & The Beatles ("I've Just Seen a Face"), closing with a runaway freight train take on "Orange Blossom Special," featuring that diminutive live-wire Tommy on fiddle & lead vocal. His mandolin & guitar playing are excellent, as is Eric's guitar-picking.

Best of all, I get to hear them as a duo on Aug. 11th - and so can you, for free - at A.C. Tap, just a mile down Hwy. 57 from my Pa's place. They're also playing in Fond du Lac soon, Washington Island on Sept. 3rd & at Fishstock in Door County's Camp David on Sept. 12th. Check 'em out, y'all. Lewis & Burroughs are the real deal.

Square Music Hurts the Hip

We’re Square, We’re There - Get Used to It!

by Joseph Crawford Mrazek

While observing a dozen people, from teenaged to oldaged, stiffly going through the motions of square dancing at the Sister Bay Village Hall barn dance on Saturday (July 31st), I had an epiphany: the music that moves most listeners is so hopelessly unhip. Why do audiences prefer square sentimental tunes to more interesting original songs? Is it simply a matter of bad taste being commonplace? Or is there something more elusive and complex behind this troubling phenomenon?

Although the Door County Folk Alliance musicians onstage at the quaint stone bayside venue nearly outnumbered the square dancers that evening, folk and country music used to move millions of Americans. Among the first popular radio programs heard nationwide were the WLS Barn Dance from Chicago and the Grand Ol’ Opry, broadcast by Nashville’s WSM. Both of those popular-music shows started in the 1920s; the Opry can still be heard, now worldwide via the Internet and satellite radio. The nuns at St. Edward’s Grade School in Racine even bothered to initiate us aspiring rock-n-rollers into the mysteries of allemand-left and doe-see-doe in the early 1970s.

I gained some insight into the general preference for square music at a Fish Creek restaurant on that same Saturday night. On an outdoor stage beside the firepit at Gibraltar Grill, a tall grayhaired acoustic guitarist and mediocre singer with the odd stage name “Cookee” captivated a gathering of diners and drinkers. His repertoire, comprised entirely of Top 40 hits from the 1960s and the John Denver songbook, was pretty dull stuff. Moreover, this weirdly compelling entertainer (real name: Gary Coquoz) was a visual parody of middle-class, middle-aged summer tourist - i.e. Jimmy Buffett fan - style: Hawaiian print shirt, white cargo shorts, sneakers and a yellow headband. Yet, despite his cheesy baritone and corny stage patter, Cookee charmed even a jaded amateur critic like me. How’d he pull that off?

Well, I suppose he understands intuitively how music creates a temporary community out of an assembly of distracted strangers. Cookee made the audience part of his act with teasing asides and singalong choruses. He embodied the essence of effective communication: good storytelling. He fed our craving for humor, emotion and wisdom like Jesus Christ dispensing loaves, fishes and beatitudes to the multitudes. But the grizzled mustachioed troubadour Cookee, who hails from the mountain town of Leadville, Colorado, accomplished his minor miracle without invoking an original lyric or even a single note of his own invention. Nevertheless, his tip jar attracted dollars like an evangelist’s collection basket.

Now, don’t get me wrong: I love a good cover song as much as the next guy. I was thrilled, for example, when Adam Mackintosh perfomed John Lennon’s “I’m Only Sleeping” last week at Harborside Park in Ephraim. Then again, that semi-psychedelic ode to indolence remains a hip song, despite the passage of 44 years since Lennon recorded it on The Beatle’s Revolver album. Even so, I reserve my greatest respect for musicians who write their own excellent material. Unfortunately, few songwriters approach what Hank Williams, Bob Dylan, Bob Marley and Joni Mitchell managed to accomplish in their heyday.

Retro-chic combos playing jazz and jump-blues from the Truman era - including Shout Sister Shout, a fine Michigan-based ensemble that performed at the Peg Egan PAC in Egg Harbor on Sunday (August 1st) - have their place. But rock ‘n’ roll gradually made such sounds obsolete to most contemporary ears. The resurgence of interest among young music fans in bluegrass and other old-timey sounds is more a faux-nostalgia driven fad than a trend with commercial or artistic staying power. Hip hop can also be politically and aesthetically challenging, but it has mostly degenerated into stale ghetto cliches and empty dance beats.

Sadly, nowadays the masses go for lamer stuff than the rock and soul music that I grew up with in the ‘60s. Music buyers and concertgoers flock to such vacuous pop stars as the earnestly square Taylor Swift and the artificially hip Lady Gaga, neglecting brilliant accessible artists such as Wilco and Neko Case. If the marketplace of culture reflects the times, then we seem stuck in a sterile (albeit sometimes lyrically dirty) era. It’s true that the musical analog of comfort food can be nourishing. Among my own guilty pleasures I count Abba and The Bee Gees. And I certainly would not impose fine sonic cuisine on ears unable to appreciate it.

In the USA we can all enjoy the smorgasbord of musical choices. It’s just too bad that most of us choose junk food. It makes pop-music radio so unpalatable for listeners with above-average taste. Maybe that’s why the Sony Walkman and the Apple iPod succeeded immediately: they made it possible for every person to be his or her own private DJ, hip or square.