Knowing how excited the Fleet Foxes were to be touring with Wilco, I smile to watch them stand all crowded around one microphone in this video, shuffling their weight back and forth in what seems like “still flabbergasted” anticipation. Taken 8/21/08 at the Opera House in Spokane, this Dylan cover is just lovely, especially when Tweedy breaks into hearty and unabashed falsetto around the 2 minute mark.
It’s good times for new music. Wilco has recently been playing a few new songs at their shows these last two weeks. Here are recordings of two of them from Indianapolis on August 4th. Thanks to Cusa for digging these up at my behest, since I’ve been too busy with work to be a proper scout of anything lately.
One Wing (called a “WIP” at Lollapalooza by Jeff – a work in progress) is bittersweet, and heartbreakingly lovely, but builds into those jaw-dropping crescendos that they do so well. The opening minutes have that moody and wistful Fleetwood Mac-ish guitar riff. Sunny Feeling is feisty and evokes what the title describes (even though that feeling is taken away, sadly, by the chorus).
My friends who’ve caught Wilco in action lately say they look “dang good in those Nudie-meets-Sgt Pepper outfits…” Well yes, they always do. High class! I have a Tweedy & Co date next weekend at the Outside Lands Festival in golden SF. I will hope for these tunes to make an appearance, and any other new ones they care to bestow. Sounds like Nels is still as busy melting faces as ever.
Hey do you like Wilco? Of course you do. And most everyone likes covers (especially me). This is part two of a jawdropping treasure trove of lovingly-assembled covers that Wilco has performed in concert over the years.
In this batch, you get covers of everyone from Neutral Milk Hotel (!!) to Herman’s Hermits, an even better version of that lovely lovely “Be Not So Fearful” song that I posted a while back, and you also get to hear Tweedy’s improvisational singsong verse about Grateful Dead fans (“You’re scaring me very much now / I always suspected that a lot of this crowd smoked a lot of pot, and dropped a lot of acid back in the hippy days / Oh, it’s so so sad that you’re Wilco fans.”)
Hey do you like Wilco? Of course you do. And most everyone likes covers (especially me). This is a jawdropping treasure trove of lovingly-assembled covers that Wilco has performed in concert over the years.
In this batch, you get covers of everyone from Bob Dylan to the Replacements to The Stooges. Oh, and a sweet hip-hop version of She’s A Jar, bitch.
When I saw Bob Schneiderlast November in Denver there was one simple, naked song that felt like a heavy weight settling in on my chest as he performed it. Maybe it was just something in the air that night but I remember that it knocked me back on my heels; it’s rumored that hot tears may have inexplicably pricked into my eyes about two thirds of the way through this, but no one has any proof of seeing that happen so it’s hard to say, really.
I finally found an mp3 of that song a few months ago after much searching. There’s a lyric in it about candyteeth, and so that line popped into my head last night while driving home from having my face melted (again) by Wilco, listening to my Summerteeth CD. This is how my brain works.
Anyways. Last night I turned off Tweedy and Co. and sang this quietly to myself instead. It’s got signature Schneider phrasing, but reaches deep to be a song of longing, defeat, and maybe a glimmer of hope for some future contentment.
I wish I was a baby bear sleeping in the brown winter grass in April, while the sun was going down and I wish my shoes were empty and I was still in bed with you there beside me with your dreams inside your head
Oh I wish the world would do what I want it to and I wish the wind would blow me, blow me back to you
I wish your mom was ugly and your dad was ugly too cuz then they couldn’t of had a girl to be as beautiful as you and I wish I was a tightrope walker with legs made out of gold I’d hold you in my golden legs and never let you go
Oh I wish the world would do what I want it to and I wish the wind would blow me, blow me back to you
Well I wish I could see Jesus shining in the sky so that he could finally let me know that everything would be just fine I wish I knew that God’s love was all I’d ever need I’d cut my candyteeth for fun and let the good times bleed
Oh I wish the world would do what I want it to oh I wish the world would do what I want it to and I wish the world would blow me, blow me back to you
I’m back from my aforementioned 20-hour dash through Wyoming, Nebraska, and back into Colorado. It was a spur of the moment thing, leaving me at the ranch/hostel place on the remote Wyoming border with nary a toothbrush at 10pm on a Sunday night. It was exhilarating to get out and see a part of the country I’ve never seen, simply because I wanted to see where the freeway took me on a full tank of gas. While on the jaunt, I listened mostly to my two Fuel For The Open Road mixes, and the twangy overtones fit perfectly on the county highways and prairies.
Here’s what else I might have listened to if I hadn’t left my iPod on the charger at home.
Future Rock The Muslims I’d seen a flurry of short posts about The Muslims in the blog world a few weeks ago, but they truly won me over when I read this great quote from the band that Bruce cited over on Some Velvet Blog: “We don’t know what the fuck we’re doing. And that’s why it sounds like The Velvet Underground. Because it has chords and my guitar is trebly. We like the E chord. It’s simple. None of us listen to math-rock. We tried it, but it didn’t work out that well. We’re not bad, we’re just not really good.” And AMEN, ain’t that humbling. This song is young and dirty and fast — what more could you want? The Muslims play Denver’s Larimer Lounge on May 2, with lots of other shows coming up as well.
Silver Lining Rilo Kiley This song is in no way new music, but it has risen to the tip-top of my playlists in recent weeks. I somehow glossed unfairly over Rilo Kiley‘s 2007 release Under The Blacklight after reading a few lukewarm reviews, and never realized the genius of this track until recently. Lame! I know. Well, it finally hit me, all handclaps and disco beats, and I was instantly won over by the stark confessionals from Jenny Lewis and sentiments I can appreciate. If perchance you also missed it like I did, for the love of Pete, take a listen and try not to love it, all the way down to those mellifluous closing gospel chorus notes. My song of the month (a perfect video too).
Sun Giant Fleet Foxes As I crested hill after hill of winter-bleached prairie grassland early this morning as the rising sun splintered across it, I listened to a bit of My Morning Jacket. One of the things I enjoy the most about their music is the way it feels golden and expansive, all sundrenched reverb and eerie harmonies. It’s easy to see why that same vibe would draw me effortlessly into this opening album track from Seattle’s Fleet Foxes. As you delve into the rest of their songs you do hear a bit more of the classic rock influences, but gorgeous vocal tracks like this sound like a perfectly-crafted hymn (“Our Prayer” by the Beach Boys, anyone?). Their Sun Giant EPis out now on Sub Pop/Bella.
Tick of Time The Kooks I’m liking where the Kooks are going on their second album Konk, out tomorrow on Astralwerks. They’ve tuned down a bit of the herky-jerky swagger of their first album an lapsed a bit more into the acoustic harmony vibe, and they sound terrific. Konk was recorded at Ray Davies’ studio of the same name, and was produced by Tony Hoffer who has worked with The Thrills, Beck and Supergrass. This is the last track on the album and they sound like they’re having fun.
Glad It’s Over Wilco I’m confused about this “musical companion album” to the excellent TV series Heroes, which is a show that messed with my brain. When watched in large doses, Heroes gave me the kind of vivid dreams I haven’t had since Alias when I dreamt that Rambaldi was trying to send me encrypted messages through run-of-the-mill neighborhood night noises. In any case, I don’t remember hearing Wilco on Heroes. Nor Bob Dylan, MMJ, or even Nada Surf. But look! Here’s a brand new Wilco track from that collection, catchy as all get out. The selections on this soundtrack are “inspired by the characters” in the show, and are pretty bulletproof in terms of the quality tunes & artists here.
The Burn To Shine DVD series artfully combines two of my favorite things: cool old buildings and terrific bands, with a series of performances captured within the doomed walls of homes slated for destruction. The cameras roll for the band alone, and by the time we see the footage, the building no longer exists.
This series is a project of Fugazi dummer Brendan Canty and filmmaker Christoph Green (the pair also directed the Wilco Sunken Treasure DVD). Musicians representing the regional scene are selected by local “curators,” including Ben Gibbard in the Seattle film and Chris Funk of the Decemberists in Portland. The musicians set up shop in the condemned building, each performing one song, one take, on one day. Then the local fire department will receive the property and it will be destroyed by fire for training exercises.
What makes these films exceptional is the weighty sense of a fleeting, ephemeral moment that will never happen again. I’ve thought about this, but never been able to articulate the concept as finely and viscerally as the combination present in this series does.
So often I’ll see an exceptional performance in a venue, and the next time I’m there I might think of what took place on that very stage. But the moment is gone and will never happen exactly the same way again. This series crystallizes that into footage and teases it out to the forefront — the way that musical creations dissipate, and how they are fleeting by their inherent nature.
Baby, we only got today, and then the moment’s gone forever.
WILCO: Muzzle of Bees (Burn to Shine Chicago, 2002)
Read the excellent full listing of who has played for this series, and if this concept interests you, you must listen to the podcast interview with Brendan Canty about the series. Canty talks about how the concept got started during a period when Fugazi was undergoing a time of flux and dissolution, and how he wanted to capture that feeling somehow through this old building that fell into his lap. It’s a fascinating and brilliant concept, and a series deserving of further development.
Wilco just might be the most vibrant live band playing right now. Earlier this week they completed a five-show residency at hometown Chicago’s Riviera Theater during which they played every song in their released catalog. My friend cwb sent me this review of the night he attended, and it encapsulated their aesthetic so perfectly that I have to reprint it here:
“[Tweedy] was warm and pithy, sincere and ironic, all at the same time, charming and engaging throughout. I’ve never heard better vocals from him, and he just seemed in a great place the whole night. His own twinkling and shimmering pop universe of sound, with the more than occasional crashing waves of drums and power chords, or troubling lyric, reminding us we weren’t just innocent kids good vibe-ing in Brian Wilson’s sandbox, beautiful and stoned.
. . . Tweedy’s lyrics and vocals generally strike me as that little voice in my own head, or the invisible tweedy on my shoulder, whispering the secrets, mysteries, doubts, questions, and truths of the universe and local wal-mart.
So the scene at the beginning where they are drawing a face on Jeff Tweedy’s pudgy belly, using his big round bellybutton as the mouth, and making it talk and jiggle and wiggle as he bumbles it around in his hands for the camera? Yeah that kind of sums up and simultaneously nullifies all the hard work that went into 150 years of complex social science research about the biological differences between men and women. Women can do lots of things with our fat; making it talk in a documentary is not one of them.
The new Dylan biopic I’m Not There takes the interesting, surrealistic angle of illustrating Bob at different stages of his life through the rubric of six distinctively different actors (including a black man and a woman): Cate Blanchett, Heath Ledger, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Ben Whishaw, and Christian Bale. I am very curious to see how this works itself out in the film – at least it’s a fresh angle (I mean, how many Dylan movies can you make?).
In addition to this creative lens used in the film to examine the man himself, the soundtrack is a double disc jamboree of some pretty cool Dylan covers, including disc 1, track 1 with Eddie Vedder & The Million Dollar Bashers covering “All Along The Watchtower.” Fuel/Friends is pleased as punch to get an exclusive stream for you guys to take your first listen of this!
EDDIE VEDDER & THE MILLION DOLLAR BASHERS “All Along The Watchtower”
And who are said Million Dollar Bashers? It’s Wilco’s god-like guitarist Nels Cline, Lee Ranaldo and Steve Shelley (from Sonic Youth), bass player Tony Garnier, keyboardist John Medeski (from Martin, Medeski and Wood), and guitarist Smokey Hormel (onetime Beck guitarist, Smokey & Miho). I never thought I’d hear musicians from those bands all jam together. The guitar solo (assumedly from Nels?) is pretty blazing, and Vedder’s got the seething caged scream goin’ on.
Historical tie-in from last summer: there was an absolutely scorching live version of this song that full-band Pearl Jam did in San Francisco (when Sonic Youth opened), climaxing in a very rock n roll moment of Mike McCready giving his guitar the Townshend treatment and then surfing on it across the stage. PJ has played Watchtower 4 times live before, but that was my favorite. If you’d like to hear that one as well, the link over on that old post still surprisingly works.
You can also stream four other full songs from the biopic over on the soundtrack’s MySpace (the ones by Sufjan Stevens, Cat Power, Jeff Tweedy, and Jim James with Calexico). Among others, I’m also looking forward to hearing Mason Jennings’ two contributions, The Black Keys cover of Wicked Messenger, and The Hold Steady enticing me to climb out my window. The soundtrack is out October 30, and the film opens Thanksgiving weekend.
NEW CONTEST: Would you like to win one of two copies I have to giveaway of this lovely double disc? Of course you would. Leave me a comment to enter, make sure I have a way to contact you (might wanna spell out that email addy), and if you feel so inclined, please let’s talk about your favorite Dylan cover. So I can wrap this up before I head to NYC, this contest ends Wednesday at midnight.
I’M NOT THERE (FULL SOUNDTRACK LISTING) Disc 1 1. Eddie Vedder & the Million Dollar Bashers: “All Along the Watchtower” 2. Sonic Youth: “I’m Not There” 3. Jim James and Calexico: “Goin’ to Acapulco” 4. Richie Havens: “Tombstone Blues” 5. Stephen Malkmus & the Million Dollar Bashers: “Ballad of a Thin Man” 6. Cat Power: “Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again” 7. John Doe: “Pressing On” 8. Yo La Tengo: “Fourth Time Around” 9. Iron and Wine and Calexico: “Dark Eyes” 10. Karen O and the Million Dollar Bashers: “Highway 61 Revisited” 11. Roger McGuinn and Calexico: “One More Cup of Coffee” 12. Mason Jennings: “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” 13. Los Lobos: “Billy” 14. Jeff Tweedy: “Simple Twist of Fate” 15. Mark Lanegan: “The Man in the Long Black Coat” 16. Willie Nelson and Calexico: “Señor (Tales of Yankee Power)”
Disc 2 1. Mira Billotte: “As I Went Out One Morning” 2. Stephen Malkmus and Lee Ranaldo: “Can’t Leave Her Behind” 3. Sufjan Stevens: “Ring Them Bells” 4. Charlotte Gainsbourg and Calexico: “Just Like a Woman” 5. Jack Johnson: “Mama You’ve Been on My Mind” 6. Yo La Tengo: “I Wanna Be Your Lover” 7. Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova: “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” 8. The Hold Steady: “Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window” 9. Ramblin’ Jack Elliott: “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues” 10. The Black Keys: “Wicked Messenger” 11. Tom Verlaine and the Million Dollar Bashers: “Cold Irons Bound” 12. Mason Jennings: “The Times They Are a-Changin’” 13. Stephen Malkmus and the Million Dollar Bashers: “Maggie’s Farm” 14. Marcus Carl Franklin: “When the Ship Comes In” 15. Bob Forrest: “Moonshiner” 16. John Doe: “I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine” 17. Antony and the Johnsons: “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” 18. Bob Dylan: “I’m Not There”
Name: Heather Browne Location: Colorado, originally by way of California Giving context to the torrent since 2005.
"I love the relationship that anyone has with music: because there's something in us that is beyond the reach of words, something that eludes and defies our best attempts to spit it out. It's the best part of us, probably, the richest and strangest part..."
—Nick Hornby, Songbook
"Music has always been a matter of energy to me, a question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel." —Hunter S. Thompson
Mp3s are for sampling purposes, kinda like when they give you the cheese cube at Costco, knowing that you'll often go home with having bought the whole 7 lb. spiced Brie log. They are left up for a limited time. If you LIKE the music, go and support these artists, buy their schwag, go to their concerts, purchase their CDs/records and tell all your friends. Rock on.
Wilco
Name: Heather Browne
