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.