8 posts tagged “wilco”

New Wilco album out this summer:

Wilco

Sunday at the Whole Foods on P Street, I came across something so vile that I’m still reeling 24 hours on. Wedged between the stacks of Yoga Today and Saveur was a selection of music targeted squarely at the Whole Foods customer.

This wasn’t new age music enjoyed by 50-something men with ponytails who wear linen lounge wear. It wasn’t the kind of tepid collection of world music that speaks to ex-Peace Corps volunteers. And it wasn’t the sort of Music for Aging Cougars (Antigone Rising) that Starbucks sells.

I couldn’t make out the entire collection because the line snaked down the better part of one aisle, but even from a distance, I could tell that it included Wilco’s Sky Blue Sky and the Arcade Fire’s Neon Bible. There’s something that strikes me as inherently wrong about this. It’s enough to make a girl want to set fire to the nutritional yeast, knock over the display of fish oil supplements and throw a punch at the nearest self-important D.C. so-and-so checking their Blackberry in line.

Maybe it’s just me, but I like to buy my music from purveyors of music. Not the place that sells me fucking organic free-range chicken. What bothers me most is that I can be targeted in this way. Some marketing genius looked at the data and predicted with frightening accuracy that the people who can afford to shop at Whole Foods fit into a demographic that’s going to like Arcade Fire. Let’s not kid ourselves. It’s probably true. But it proves that we are all a bunch of crashing bores.

Can we just stop this cross-marketing bullshit, right now? Why must everything be about creating an experience apart from its original intent? I don’t want an outing to buy groceries/coffee/books to be about anything other than the experience of buying groceries/coffee/books.

There is an experience I’m looking forward to this week that I hope will be totally pure, divorced of marketing gimmicks and about nothing more than watching one of the greatest bands of our time play their music. I hope Wilco rocks our collective Whole Foods-shopping, organic-eating, supplement-taking asses off Tuesday and Wednesday at the 9:30 Club. See you there.

I know everyone whose musical opinion matters is complaining about the new Wilco record, and I agree, to a point.

Yes, Tweedy's gone soft. There's a reason he said in a recent Pitchfork interview that it's the album his son likes the best. Well, duh. Of course his son likes an album about Daddy staying home, mowing the lawn and folding laundry.

Comparisons have been made to Steely Dan, but frankly, that's a disservice to Steely Dan. Steely Dan made subversively sweet tunes about interesting subjects, like heavy drug use. Sky Blue Sky trends over old musical ground and is largely about the domestic life. I don't want my rock stars singing songs about giving their kid a bath or other daily tasks of raising a family. Those are best left performed in the home as a LULLABY.

But here's what. For all I care, the next Wilco album can be about Dockers pleated pants, skid marks on tighty whities and taking the kids to soccer practice. Know why? Because they produced what is arguably the most important record of the decade: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. And they've been making achingly beautiful, important music for years. And for that, they're allowed to make the occasional, less-than-stellar record.

Here's to better days:  Listen here.

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

Wilco

Cue the sentimental fadeout. I just learned that my iPod was, in fact, stolen off my front porch in Dupont sometime in January. Apple just confirmed that it shipped the iPod back to me last month after I sent it in for repairs. I'd like to think the person who stole it went on to some higher plane of musical enlightenment, has worked his or her way through Built to Spill, exploring the back catalog of Wilco and is wondering where to pick up a copy of the Wrens' Seacaucus. I fantasize that they found amusement in my "naughty" playlist, a compilation of songs about sex and drugs I once made.

But I doubt it. The reality is that it's likely been stripped of its former glory and now sits fat and loaded with someone else's music. I've been truly depressed since I sent it in for repairs more than a month ago. I never thought I could miss a device so much. But as a wise sage once wrote, "I am a lost soul, I shoot myself with rock n' roll." Indeed. I depend on music as a mood elevator/enhancer. I am inconsolable without it.

We went through a lot, me and that iPod. It went through breakups, boyfriends and later was the DJ my wedding. I will replace it, maybe with another MP3 player, but it won't be the same. Superchunk's "package thief" is about the only song I care to hear in these dark days.

Remember the Ray Bradbury yarn about the kid who moves from Earth to Venus and gets locked up in a closet and misses the sun, which only shines every seven years for an hour? That's the way it is when you don't blog for three weeks.

I haven't been locked in a closet. I've been working long hours. And enjoying the hours not working in D.C.'s newly smoke-free bars. I'll tell you, nothing kills a desire to write in the off-hours like writing and sitting in front of a computer all day. I like my job. But advice for the kids: Don't be a journalist, media flack, publications person or any other job that requires thinking about writing for pay if you really want to write. Notice that the steady stream of writing (Soo, Dabysan) is inversely proportional to how much of their day job depends on writing. One of the best writers I know is Hot Rod, a marine biologist turned architect.

Can I dispense with the self-flagellation for not writing? Thank you.

There's not much new I've been listening to of late. I've filled in gaps (old 97s, Hold Steady, Wilco Live, etc. ) in my musical collection. A wise Yo Han broke into my iTunes to figure out what I'd want for Christmas. This, after the Blond Redhead incident of a year ago. That was a nice gesture. But they were too ... French ... even if they weren't.

I've got an iTunes gift card burning a hole in my pocket. I've thought about some hideous gaps in my collection. Why don't I own Frank Black's Teenager of the Year? These are the questions that keep a girl up nights.

I'm considering trying on the Long Winters, a band I found through my NPR habit.

Or a punch to the face... There's an unwritten rule of Emma Peel's not to post songs twice in a row by the same artist. But HotRod just reported that Jeff Tweedy punched someone at a show last night. Breaking news for HCOIRO (DC Chapter). That's High Church of Indie Rock Orthodoxy, to the uninitiated.

Listen here.

D.C. is sick, and I don't mean depraved. I mean runny noses, chapped lips, fevers and sore throats. I didn't need carefully analyzed public health data to tell me this. I know because the aisle with cold medicine, soothes and salves in the Dupont Circle CVS was packed tonight with fellow, walking-wounded cold sufferers like me. There was a run on Ricola. Cold-Eze were no where to be found. The only person not in line purchasing medicine was purchasing a home pregnancy test. And I can safely say she looked more miserable than the rest of us.

Here's a live version of Wilco's Kingpin. I always think of when I get a cold for the lyrics: I got the flu and away I flew /NYC, pediate blue/Dimetapp and spinal tap/City maps and hand claps. Listen here.

Being There

Wilco

Sometimes I get so turned off by the name of a band that I dismiss them before I listen to them. Thus was the case with Tapes (write it!) 'n Tapes. I can bring myself to jot it down on a blog, but you'll never hear me utter the band's name. It's too fucking precious. It makes me want to hold someone's head under water until the bubbles stop, and I'm not given to violence. Their name reminds me of all the bands on the indie scene right now with names like Godspeed You Black Emperor! or Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (which someone I know refers to as Clap Your Hands Say Shit, a simple, but pointed statement).

They may make good music, but why, oh why did they choose those names? The best band names are one word, sometimes preceeded by the words "The" and "New." The Clash, Wilco, The Beatles, The Pixies, the New Pornographers, Pavement. I rest my case. Notable exceptions include The Talking Heads, The Rolling Stones and Guided By Voices.

Bands names shouldn't be able to stand on their own as declarative sentences. They shouldn't include puncuation. And they shouldn't include an 'N to replace the word and. It's like having Kibbles 'N Bits as your band name. Wankers 'N Wankers is what I say.

At any rate, I was at a party over the weekend where I was castigated for not giving the band a shot. I find myself enjoying them, despite the name.