One of my biggest musical regrets is skipping out on an Uncle Tupelo show in Austin back in '91 because I had the flu. Had I known at the time that I would be out of the state every other time they came back to Texas before breaking up, I would've cheerfully infected everyone else in the place just so I could see them live. Hey, that's the kind of humanitarian I am.
As most of you know, two bands came out of the breakup of Tupelo: Jay Farrar formed Son Volt and Jeff Tweedy started Wilco. Son Volt has split up and reformed and is still around, though largely under the mainstream radar, while Wilco and Tweedy have become critical darlings. This is thanks in part to their constant experimentation as Tweedy distanced himself from his twang roots, and also to the band's very public problems with Reprise Records, who dumped them after deciding their album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was too goddamn weird.
Scott Faingold has an article on the band in this week's Houston Press discussing the dilemma faced by their fans:
The electronic noise breaks and guitar freakouts on the most recent Wilco CD, A Ghost Is Born, make the sonic excesses of Yankee Hotel seem mild in comparison, alienating as many fans as they thrill. As for peers and critics, ADD-suffering alt-country poster boy Ryan Adams goes out of his way to attack Wilco in interviews every chance he gets, and in a review of another band a few months back, the Houston Press's own John Nova Lomax felt compelled to accuse Wilco's fans of liking them out of a "misguided sense of hipster duty."
(B)Ryan Adams can eat fuck, as far as I'm concerned, but that's neither here nor there. I understand Lomax's point, if only because I was such a huge Tupelo fan and because I still think A.M., Wilco's first album, is one of the finest things I've ever heard (right up there with Strangers Almanac by Whiskeytown - Adams' old band, maddeningly enough). From that perspective, I have a hard time getting on board with their latest releases.
Not that I begrudge them their new stuff, you understand. Change isn't a bad thing, but distancing yourself from the sound that caused your fans to seek you out in the first place is a good way to alienate them. Sometimes you can get away with it (U2 is as popular as ever), other times not (KISS' ill-conceived foray into disco, for example). Besides, there are plenty of bands out there who make variations of the same album over and over again (I call them Social Distortion) and maintain the same level of success. Whatever floats your boat.
And I happen to like Social Distortion.
Things are at an exciting point for Wilco as a musical entity. One of the most controversial elements of A Ghost Is Born is the presence of lengthy, anarchic guitar solos, performed by Tweedy himself. More evocative than skilled, rambunctious and occasionally atonal, they call to mind nothing so much as an amalgam of White Light/White Heat-era Velvet Underground, My War-period Black Flag and Neil Young at his wildest, all in the service of Tweedy's highly arranged pop-rock chamber pieces, which happen to sound nothing like any of these three influences.
When the author mentions two of my least favorite albums in referring to this one, I think my decision's made for me. I haven't really enjoyed a Wilco album wire to wire since A.M., though both Being There and Summerteeth had moments of stupefying brilliance. So while I wish Wilco continued success and Tweedy continued good health, I don't think I'll be picking up Ghost anytime soon.
Whether you blindly worship or reflexively reject the whole Wilco thing, one matter is clear: This is a band facing stubbornly forward, marketing itself through all available channels yet unwilling to trim its explorations. Does this make them the most commercially successful avant-garde band ever, or just pretentious wankers daring their fans to lose patience and consign them to the dungpile of history?
Due respect to Faingold, I don't really see it as cut and dried as all that. My "rejection" of their new sound isn't knee-jerk, it's simply a result of not really enjoying it. I can respect the direction they've decided to take without thinking their new music is, y'know, all that good.
If they are just being pretentious wankers, however, they can pull up a chair with Ryan Adams.
One of the many ways I know I'm un-hip is that I primarily know Wilco through their work with Billy Bragg.
I primarily know Wilco through their work with Billy Bragg.
Nothing wrong with that. Mermaid Ave. is a fantastic album.
Isn't it maddening how Whiskeytown was so brilliant and yet Ryan Adams as a solo artist sucks so damn hard?
Kind of the same situation with the Old 97s and their breakaway lead singer Rhett Miller.
What a couple of tools.
Firstly...Ryan Adams has had some AMAZING solo stuff and Rhett Miller's solo album is fine too. Granted, I like both of the aforementioned pretty boys bands better, but a blanket statement like that is just silly.
Second...Son Volt and Farrars solo albums simply suck. they're booooring. I LOVE Trace...it's amazing. But after that I feel like Farrar is playing an intense game of "Lookit Me! I'm a low-fi Tweedy!"
As Wilco started to experiment, Farrar saw the need to noodle on his guitar as well...only when Wilco does it, it's interesting. As Tweedy's lyrics became more expressionistic and I guess "poetic," Farrar tried to keep up with stupid song names like "Feed Kill Chain" or lame, pseudo-trippy album names like "Third Shift Grotto Slack." Ooooh...neat.
I find Faingolds accusation that anyone still with Wilco from the get go does so out of a "misguided sense of hipster duty" ironic because I've always thought that of Farrar fans.
In closing....I know you're trying to bait me Pete! You know I love Wilco. In fact the three things I love in life are Beer, Wilco and Bacon...in that order. Ask my wife, even she knows. However, I would never begrudge anyone for not liking YHF or the new one. Both took me WEEKS to enjoy and I'm still not all that keen on Summerteeth.
But somewhere in the second week of being drawn back to the last 2 Wilco records, they just sunk in finally and I love them now. YHF is a masterpiece. Seriously. I also find it pretty bizaare that those songs were written and recorded before the 9/11 tragedy because alot of them fit the post 9/11 mold. not that anyone would dare write a song about 9/11...except Toby Keith. Speaking of which....I want my Toby Keith album BACK, Pete...I know you lifted it off me at Sundance. No wonder you got sick.
Firstly...Ryan Adams has had some AMAZING solo stuff
There are some great songs on Gold. But the more of his solo shit I hear, the more I'm convinced Caitlin Cary was the heart of that band. This was clinched for me when I saw her live last year.
Second...Son Volt and Farrars solo albums simply suck. they're booooring. I LOVE Trace...it's amazing. But after that I feel like Farrar is playing an intense game of "Lookit Me! I'm a low-fi Tweedy!"
May I direct you to my archives?
I want my Toby Keith album BACK, Pete...I know you lifted it off me at Sundance. No wonder you got sick.
And now you know...the terrible Truth.
Hooey! HEARTBREAKER has some outstanding songs as does LOVE IS HELL...both parts. I did like Whiskeytown better though. I also liked Ryan better back then we he was a drunken prick rather than just a big mouth prick. I once saw W-Town in a tiny club here in Northern CA. I was plastered and after the show, I ran int Ryan and made him give me a tour of his bus. The guy couldn't have been any nicer and indeed took me on the bus. Ironically, it was Caitlyn Cary who asked me to leave. Who's the jerk NOW...sheesh.
WILCO IS GOD!
I saw Whiskeytown at the Satellite Lounge here in Houston. After exchanging verbal pleasantries and fingers with the audience, Ryan Adams proceeded to lie on the floor of the stage and howl to his guitar's feedback for 20 minutes.
Caitlin Cary, on the other hand, sat at our table and shot the shit for about 15 minutes after her set.
Your mileage obviously varies, though I suspect in your case she saw an enabler and figured Adams had enough problems without your encouragement.
You were probably trying to get him to play some Toby Keith.
You're probably right. When I met him, Ryan was stone cold sober and had spent the night before puking off the side of the stage in Santa Cruz...throughout the set no less. I personally love moments like those, but I missed it. But I wasn't enabling," I was just trying to party with the guy, sheesh. Someone run an intervention on you recently or something...?
I think requesting Toby Keith is what eventually got me thrown off the tour bus. I just love America so much, like Toby. I just want everyone to love it too...and make duckets of cash due to that "love."
I'm right there with you, except the feeling you have for AM, I reserve for Son Volt's trace.
'Course, Son Volt started getting repetitive, and then Farrar did his own thing, and now I guess "they're" back together. By "they", it sounds like it's Farrar, and he fired everyone else in the band.
Being There and Summerteeth are right up there with Trace.
And, also right there with you on the rejection of the new sound. It's not for lack of trying. I've listened to YHF tens of times, but it just didn't do anything for me. Only made it through Ghost a few to see that I'm not gonna get it.