Gender: Male
Status: Single
Age: 45
Sign: Leo
City: Minneapolis/St. Paul
State: Minnesota
Country: US
Signup Date: 4/26/2007
|
|
|
|
October 19, 2009 - Monday
|
Current mood:  blessed Category: Music
'Round The Dial Magazine Volume I, Issue I (c)2009 T.G. Productions __________________________________________________________________________________ "Supporting Local, Regional, Indie, Underground, and Quality National Music Since 1998." 10-18-09 __________________________________________________________________________________ STAFF: Tom Hallett: Publisher, Editor-In-Chief, Writer Steve Birmingham: Honorary Head Associate Editor, Writer Jonny Grubb: Music Editor, Lead Writer Cait Arneson-Eystad: Associate Music Editor, Writer Jay Smiley: Lead Photographer, Writer Thomas Trelfa: Associate Photographer, Writer Art Directors: Tom Siler, Leah Rule, Todd Brandt, Frogman Halverstein. THANKS TO KATEY MURRAY FOR THE SON VOLT & EXTRA WILCO LIVE SHOTS!! Your official No-Prize Is In The Mail!! Lead Technical Advsisor, Web Support, Graphic Design, Writer- Brad Fors In-House Muse/Rock Goddess- Laura Brandenberg Computer Support: Tommy Matthews @ The Computer Shop, 705 Century Avenue North, Maplewood, Minnesota, 55119. You can reach Tommy, owner of one of The Twin Cities' last surviving "mom n' pop"-type computer shops and all-around nice guy, at (651) 982- 2734 or online at www.thecomputershopofmaplewood.com anytime you want an honest job done by a decent, down-to-earth fellow- SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL BUSINESSES BEFORE THEY'RE GONE!! ****SPECIAL TECH SUPPORT SHOUT-OUT: JESS HEITLAND, SAVING ROCK AND ROLL ONE CRAPPY PC LAP-TOP AT A TIME!! SERIOUSLY, THIS SUPER-FUN, HISTORIC LOCAL SLICE OF MUSICAL HOO-HAH WOULD NOT EXIST WITHOUT JESS!! YOU DA MAN, J.!! CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Paul D. Dickinson*, Sara Jean Hanson, Carol Lee Cunnington, Bobby O'Sheares*, Rob Rule, Jonny Grubb*, Dr. Phyl, Tom "Drummerguy" Cook, Sheldon Jackson, Andy Deckard, Billy A. Doyle, Jr., Tony Zaccardi, Wolf Vest, Amy Randall, Natalie Dale, Kelley Carlsen, Tom Siler, Laura Brandenberg, Steve Birmingham, Tom Hallett*, Todd Pope, Brad Fors*, Steve McLellan, Sandy Quartermane. *=Appears in this edition of 'Round The Dial Magazine. __________________________________________________________________________________ MISSION STATEMENT: SAME AS IT EVER WAS- "Support Your Local Scene- live music is better!!" __________________________________________________________________________________ Song Of The Week: "Faith In Something Bigger" -The Who Quote Of The Week: "Even when you write it, someone's got to play it. So if you can play it and bypass all the rest of the things, you're still doing as great as someone that has spent forty years trying to find out how to do that. I'm really pro-human beings, pro-expression of everything." -Ornette Coleman __________________________________________________________________________________ ** 'TUBE-TESTED: (Recommended Visual Treat This Ish...) "Set Backwards" - The Busiest Bankruptcy Lawyers In Minnesota, 1999, "7th Street Entry Enry-Way" at First Avenue in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Video shot by the legendary Michael "Mike Suede" Newell. Check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19mPvyhJpHY and say a silent prayer for that poor guitar Al Grande's playing in the vid- and look REAL close and see if ya don't recognize the "door-guy!" WE certainly sent happy thoughts the little instrument's way, after watching slack-jawed and goggle-eyed as the notoriously unpredictable axe-man actually PULLED A PETE TOWNSHEND and literally smashed his guitar to BITS (Al post-show, after being asked if he thought he MIGHT possibly regret that little rage-rock moment in the morning- "Huh? Oh, no...it's nothing a little wood glue won't fix. ") during a private CD preview bash by the trio at Gar-KerKi Studios (a line-up that found the electri-fried rawk trio in absolutely fine form) last weekend.
Al wrapped up the band's frenetic, ear-splitting set- which was, in all honesty, quite possibly THE BEST show BBLIM has ever laid down- a roof-rattling, sonic roustabout consisting of an amazingly eclectic, tempo-riffic collection of crowd pleasers- from long-time fan faves like Move To Canada's "Fuck, Fuck, Fuck," a healthy dose of new material, and DROP-DEAD GORGEOUS COVERS, including a devilishly tender, aching version of Chris Isaak's warm-hearth-and-a-bearskin-rug nug "Wicked Game" and, hands-down, one o' THE most soul-shattering hunka heartbreaks ever performed on a live stage by Al & Co., a knock-out version of The Motels' classic "Only The Lonely." This private pre-CD bash proved without a doubt that this "mellow down easy, dude" vibe that's slowly been strangling the local scene lately is about to get a rude and much needed wake-up call from the raunchy likes of BBLIM, The Mammy Nuns, The Tisdales, and Kruddler. KILLER Underground gig!!
EVEN BARTENDERS NEED CAT NAPS!! :)
***********************************************************
*SPECIAL PUBLISHER'S NOTE-
"I'M SOOOOOOOOOOOO TIRED..." ;)
THE LAST LONG RANT (Or, Rejoice Ye Music Snobbes, Fans Of Modern Fashion, And Detesters Of The Fine Art Of Cracker-Barrel Gum Flappin' Everywhere...Hallett Is Retiring From 'Round The Dial!! Errrrr...sort of...) (Or, if my rants have always put a kink in your little pipe, JUST SCROLL DOWN PAST ME and check out some of our great new writers and features- reading about music is about to get FUN again...) **************************************************************************************************
Hey Gang- It's super-cool to be back with ya after a couple-week hiatus!! Those of you I've seen out and about at live gigs, I TOLDJA I'd have some surprises in store- DEBBIE DONOVAN, I'm shoutin' you out here in particular, gurl!! I toldja when I ran into ya at at the Mammies/Tizzies/Krudzies/Flamers Uptown gig the other night that the reason I'd not been crowing on MySpace about a Fresh RTD or sharing with you "lucky" FB'ers my usual smart-ass commentary, confusing lyric snippets by obscure artists 99% of my FB "Friends" know even less about than I do THEM, was BECAUSE I had this Big Bag 'o surprises in store! And boy, do I EVER!!
The first, and probably the most relevant, lil' dish is that after this week, yours truly will be, after over a decade in the driver's seat of this no-bullshit, super-sleek, proud-to-get-loud, purring zero-to-sixty-motherfucker of a rock 'n' roll column, happily relegated to the passenger side!
That's right, folks- after this week 'Round The Dial will begin taking the necessary steps to morph into a bi-weekly online (for now- regular weekly coverage will begin ASAP, and our numbers-crunchers are projecting weekly PRINT copy by 2011 with a street date of Mondays- when we'll be in a better position to remind our faithful readers about all the great albums dropping on the major-label-created "Street Date Tuesdays.") on our brand-new WORLDWIDE WEB SITE!!
That site address will be sent out ASAP to everyone we interact with here on MySpace, FaceBook, Twitter, Plaxo, MSN, and several others used more frequently for business connections, all of the major and Indie labels (literally dozens and dozens!!) and long-suffering, super-patient PR Firms we work with.
As for the reasoning behind my stepping back as head writer and main reporter for 'Round The Dial- a decade-long weekly music column that originally appeared in The Pulse Of The Twin Cities newspaper- which offered a general focus on local music, events, and "happenings," about town, there were several main factors involved.
Number one- and I mean this with all due respect- ya'll are WEARING ME OUT!! I'm not just a' shittin' and gigglin' here, I've lived on both coasts and plenty of points in between, and there is no local scene as alive, as vibrant, ever-expanding, and in constant need of coverage as the one right here in the Twin Cities.
Its' gotten a bit easier since I laid off the sauce and started working full-time with my regular photographer, Jay Smiley, again, but it's gonna take a lot more than two willing but aging music-lovers to give this non-stop creative bacchanalia the attention and coverage it deserves.
Number two- Despite constant e-mail support and label/PR-backing- by "backing," I mean that, in layman's terms, major record labels and their pro PR firms don't randomly send advance copies of Son Volt's latest or the Woody Guthrie Box Set, both of which we review in this issue of 'Round The Dial Magazine, to just any bumbling web-head who asks for them- it wasn't until recently, as I began to feel overwhelmed with writing the 'Dial all by my lonesome (and it was becoming glaringly apparent that, even with 8,000-word columns, a HUGE chunk of LOCAL, regional, and even national artists simply weren't getting ANY coverage locally AT ALL!!) I noticed that the bulk of the dozens of CD's I received from major labels weren't addressed to me at the national sources (Elmore outta NYC, Paste from Georgia, TheRockRadio, All-Music Guide, Amazon, etc.) but directly to 'Round The Dial. After some discreet inquiries, I did, indeed, find that more than a few national and a whole PASSEL of signed and area artists felt slighted attention-wise here in the T.C as far as press coverage goes and are hoping established publications like 'Round The Dial will help.
There are plenty of obvious reasons for this phenomenon, but its obvious to any one reading their work that the problem does not lie SO MUCH with lousy PR (again, MUCH) or lazy local writers (both 'Cities dailies' coverage is even above-and-beyond that found in markets three times this size) so much as it does the "artistic" and technolological corner the labels have painted themselves into. And whether you're a fan of their writing styles or not, Chris at The Strib and Ross at The Pi-Press not only go out of their way to give quality-over-quantity bands and artists, especially local bands, a fair shake in the ever-shrinking corporate word-strangle they must labor in, but do it with enthusiam and an obvious love for the music.
If I'm this overwhelmed with some really GREAT and a lot of CRAPPY music here at the 'Dial, I can only imagine the horrors that await those gentlemen as they reach for their "In-Box" basket and check their phone messages every morning. I wouldn't know- I'm a freelancer. I work five feet from the couch I like to sleep on, and just as they're settling in for a long day with Staind, the Poison Reunion Tour, and that FREAK from Blaine who wants to put on an annual "Christmas Eve Victoria's Secret Fourth Of July In december At First Avenue," something-or-other with a tie-in to Blink-182, Stoli, and a guy named Mikey they SWEAR knows you, I'm putting out my last cig of the day and getting ready to dive into a Valium-laced bowl of frosted Lucky Charms ("They're Magically Delicious!") and some Cartoon Network Classic marathon (Hey! I WORKED all night, first covering two live shows, then staying up all night SOBER- man, what a weird feeling, especially when you're sober cuz ya CHOOSE to be...) while those poor guys are getting their THIRD call of the day from Mikey's buddy in Blaine!
O.K., so I'm probably exaggerating, but I have to imagine the guys at the Dailies have some days filled with crap like rain, just like we all do. Nonetheless, they both do a fine job with the tools at their disposal and nobody can take that away from 'em. 'Round The Dial isn't here to say, "You're not doing your job" to anybody. Except maybe Mikey... Seriously, though, we're here to HELP give all that music slipping through the cracks some exposure and MAYBE, just maybe, help make things a little easier on the other hard-working local writers trying like hell to give EVERYBODY a shot at once- something we've learned how hard it is to do first-hand.
Same goes for the beleaguered local A&E weeklies- true, they're catching a little heat on the subject of whether they really put ALL they can into supporting local music vs. the Fashion and flavor-of-the-moment band (THAT conversation has been DONE TO DEATH, TOO!!) Let's just get this straight once and for all, O.K.? First of all, there are and always have been some fine writers at publications like City Pages, The Reader, The Onion A/V- which is probably the best of 'em right now- The U of M paper, Howwastheshow, and four or five more- Perfect Porridge comes to mind- and even with 'Round The Dial back on the scene full-time, we're still not covering it all.
So yeah, there are now and there probably always be, people working for the weeklies who tend to focus more on the "Arts," (Which I'm guessing includes Fashion, etc.,) but considering the corporate restraints CP's Music Editor has to try and slip out of when possible to just SUPPORT ONE LOCAL BAND in today's crumbling entertainment media market (keep in mind CP is NOT a locally-owned entity- the overworked and surely frustrated staff there takes orders from some scarf-sporting snob at The Village Voice who didn't cry during the original showing of the heartbreaking 1960's dead dog classic Old Yeller -when she was 31-this sharp-beaked old shrew of a woman is certainly not going to shed a few fat n' salties whether Rich Mattson and the BAND Ol' Yeller break nationally!!) I'd have to cut that local editor a little slack.
CP has some damn good writers, and I don't think anyone's quite given up on the paper just yet, but when I'm so overwhelmingly urged by quite a few local heavy hitters- I mean, I'm under a "sworn-to-silence-under-penalty-of-death" clause by a few of my prospective financial backers to NOT name names here- you know people are REALLY getting tired of the status quo. Bottom line, both the business as well as the on-the-street concensus is that some of the local weeklies (I say "some" because there really ARE some great, down-to-earth, music-and-fan-friendly 'zines around) need to crank the "Fashion" knob down a few notches and either re-train or replace with some less-jaded, more-common-people-friendly writers.
I mean, when's the last time you seriously used the word DIDACTIC (Loose definition: "He was a teacher-like writer- that is to say, he wrote in a rather 'instructive' style that could sometimes best be described as BORING." Cantcha just say, "Damn, that guy- or girl-was fucking BORING??" All I'm saying is that unless you're contributing shit to The Utne fucking reader, you don't need to prove to your readers how smart you are, how many years you studied "journalism," (yawn) or how much you know about the 100 Years' War. What they (WE) wanna know is, quite simply, IS IT A GOOD FUCKING RECORD, and SHOULD WE BUY IT OR NOT??
YOU are the reason we're doing this. YOU and that $20 bill you have balled up tightly in your fist as you try desperately to decide WHICH local gig to hit, which new album you can live without but know in your heart of hearts that you DESERVE for the extra six hours of child care you put in last week or the whole day with friends and the beach you gave up two weeks ago so your brother could go camping up North or, dammit, just because you are Mary-Margaret DeLancey of Fernway Avenue in Blaine or Robert Allan Bostwich from Anoka and GODDAMMIT YOU LOVE THE AIRBORNE TOXIC EVENT OR MODEST MOUSE OR THE OK GO AND YOU'RE BUYING THEIR NEW ONE OR A TICKET TO A LIVE SHOW COME HELL OR HIGH WATER- YOU JUST NEED A PUBLICATION OR TWO LIKE RTD TO HELP YA NARROW IT DOWN!!
And when it comes down to it, that's really enough for us, gang. Enough to keep going, to plow through the choppy, unpredictable financial waters in today's media market with the knowledge that even if the venture is a bust-and that's highly unlikely with a 12-year history, a renowned, name-brand like 'Round The Dial, and a WHOLE NEW GENERATION OF ARTISTIC, MUSIC-LOVING human beings coming up behind us who are ready, willing and able to take our places in these rock n' roll trenches with pure intentions and an integrity that we are, frankly, SHOCKED to find still living in the stuff on the sidewalk outside the Turf Club and First Avenue, wafting on the wind near the 'Sippi on a clear and perfect breeze of Blueberry Kush, and even puking its beer-and-Jaeger-soaked guts out down the street from The Uptown at 2:54 AM. That blend of dedication to live rock and roll purity and raw physical action is what we call HUMANITY, and for a very long time it looked in this country that the generations coming up behind us were scared little spirits, crushed, spoiled, and artistically ruined by lazy, money-grubbing parents, community members, and leaders. Today's kids seem to have some o' the old CHUTZPAH back- that WE more than ME spirit that, to us, embodies INTEGRITY.
So thanks. Thanks to my family, for watching me me morph into a howling, death-defying moron of rock cliches and back over the years, for taking me back into your lives, and for supporting my decision to keep 'Round The Dial going- and amp it up-ALL of your support & faith is very important to me. Thanks to all of my readers, friends and "penemies" like- it really WAS cool getting all of know ya'll! Thanks to all who stuck with me over the years, thanks for all the ego strokes and (oh-so-necessary) ballsy, gutsy letters of disagreement or dissatisfaction. Thanks to the various publications who put up with me over the years- well, OK- working for The Pulse was probably nearly as irritating for me as I was to have as an employee, but they did give me (and your music) a home for a decade, so no hard feelings there...just WEIRD ones... Also, huge thanks to Squealer, Servo, TheRockRadio, AMG, Fount Lynch at Universal, PASTE, Elmore and SweetAss, Kim Ruehl at No Depression, Jimmy Walsh, various friends and colleagues over the years who graciously asked me to contribute to local music polls, Top Ten Lists, and "Picked To Clicks" And always, forever, and from the bottom of my heart, my three great muses- my ma, who taught me how to read while she taught me to mash up my 'taters n peas, the lovely and super-talented Ms. Laura Brandenberg, muse du'jour, and one Mr. Steve "Dewey Berger" Birmingham, who took one look at my Judas Priest button and thought, no doubt, that I'd either be one helluva lot of FUN (there's that DARN word again!) to work with or would be easy enough to have removed from the premises by the strapping young farmboy who's going to the U for Graphic Design but will eventually run for Minnesota State Senate...and damned if that kid won't win, either. Keep an eye out for ROBERT FITZGERALD and, just a side-note, if you're ever bored in Seattle (and who's not, right?) stop by THE BLUE MOON TAVERN and say hi to an expatriate Minnesotan music writer by the name of Jason Josephes, who's now booking and doing sound at a funky little rock n' roll bar out there in the Damp Zone...
So that's it- on with the show, gang. We've got a lot of ground to cover fom the past week alone here in the 'Cities, so we're gonna get it out to ya startin' RIGHT NOW!!
THE CLASSIC ROCK OF THE FUTURE: PROLOGUE...
The premise of this week's "Cover Story" or Lead Article- THE CLASSIC ROCK OF THE FUTURE (which Jonny plans on turning into a regular feature) is pretty straight-forward and self-explanatory-and its certainly not a topic that hasn't been discussed at length in the national and international press, or even in this column, as a matter of fact.
What it is, though, is the kind of adventurous, interesting, educational, culturally relevant, and JUST PLAIN FUN rock n' roll writing this town is so sorely in need of. No pretentions, no insider, scenester bullshit, just honest, curious young rock fans willing to learn from a previous generation- something I personally haven't seen since the mid-''70's, when we were in seventh or eighth grade, just starting to sip a few brews and take a puff or two offa the magic dragon BONG, when we ran into bearded, Harley-riding dudes and their "old ladies," people who would buy beer for teenagers, share their pot with us and, in my case, explain the beauty and wonder of their GIGANTIC vinyl collections.
The experience Mr. Grubb had awhile back at the "Odds N' Sods Who Appreciation Society" meeting, which is just a funny and impossibly-long name for a group of any kind, especially for one with a band THAT ONLY HAS THREE LETTERS in it!! -only served to fire up pathways through his beer-n-tunes-soaked neurons that were already there, awaiting the day the the right record would play- we're just glad we got his feature here in these "pages" for your enjoyment...
The Classic Rock Of The Future By: Jonny Grubb "I cant wait till I’m older and cover bands all play MGMT." -Mark Mallman, via twitter
I recently attended an appreciation night devoted to The Who. Records, videos, live concert footage—Anything these guys could get their hands on, they put on screen. As the only 24 year old in attendance, I have to say, I felt a little weird. I have a passing familiarity with The Who: I rented Tommy on DVD, I have the 20th Century Masters compilation, but I wouldn’t call myself a fan. But watching the devotion and attention to detail these thirtysomethings hurled at a now-anachronistic live show, I couldn’t help but wonder: who will I be revering in 20 years? What bands will my generation canonize and venerate in our living rooms over the light beer of tomorrow?
Such is the origin of The Classic Rock of the Future. An ongoing quest to divine which contemporary bands will be most likely to release and remaster and re-release the albums we love today as the 20th anniversary box sets yet to come.
But what is The Classic Rock of the Future? Is it the timeless classic songs that relate to us on a deeper level than the ephemeral songs that define the Top 40? Is it the bands who invest heavily in maintaining the sound of rock and roll as we know it? Or is it the bands poised to become successors to the classic rock of today?
Put simply: No.
For the 35-and-up crowd, think back to the classic rock of today. When The Who was really popular, did you assume that they would be "the new Beatles"? Did you imagine that songs by those cool assholes with the weird accents would stand the test of time? Or were you just happy to dance to songs that were finally your own?
So The Classic Rock of the Future is not in the business of discovering "timeless" classics unmoored by contemporaneous concerns, but rather in the kinds of bands that we will be able to credibly claim as our own. The bands that will hold our interest for decades. The bands that will seem impressive to our own musical successors. The bands that are already influencing the next generation.
With the Classic Rock of the Future, we hope to create a catalog of music for the very real crowd of music listeners who look forward to seeming grizzled and interesting. Here’s to grey hair and outmoded politics. Here’s to lousy DJs pushing amazing music. Here’s to commercials for hearing aids to the tune of Kings of Leon songs. Here’s to the Classic Rock of the Future, and growing old with our own goddamn culture.
So what is The Classic Rock Of The Future?
And don’t say Nirvana, because they’re being deified RIGHT NOW.
My first reaction is to say The Mars Volta. And I have to admit, it’s mostly because their press kit used to refer to them in passing as "the classic rock of the future." But think about it. The Mars Volta have a style I’d be willing to emulate, a musical competence I’d put next to anybody in the world, and damn if they aren’t a blast to sit and watch with a beer.
The Mars Volta
They’ve got some interesting ideas about what it takes to write a good song, too. Switching back and forth between English and Spanish—sometimes within the space of a single word—using complete sentences and then immediately afterward stringing together a series of seemingly unrelated words, and their deceptively small track count.
Everything they do seems designed to spark the kinds of conversations that can last for decades. Six years ago, Poet Saul Williams opened for The Mars Volta, and he told us he wouldn’t let us leave until we could explain the meaning behind the lyric "Exoskeletal junction at the railroad delay." Everybody laughed, but if he had been serious, I’d still be at The Quest Club. And that place doesn’t even exist anymore!
But how about a band that isn’t crazy? I posit OK Go. The band that you can hear on the radio currently that you will continue to hear on the radio until the radio becomes the Internet, at which point you will hear them there. Here’s a band that’s so unabashedly Power Pop that they’ve made it relevant for young people to talk about the term. Their single "Here It Goes Again" is on the Wikipedia page for "Power pop" under "Notable singles." Did you know that?
Plus OK Go has the kind of nonthreatening-yet-intriguing fashion that makes you want to think they’re cool even and especially when they are not. The underground success of their video for "A Million Ways" gave them legitimate "sensation" cred. As far as I know, they still do that dance on stage, proving that they’re still just a bunch of guys in suits who only happen to be massively famous for playing music.
I’m going to date myself here (and not even in the cool way, where you think I’m old and interesting), but my next candidate is Blink-182. Let me finish.
They’ve never been the most musical band in the world, even in their later work, when they started taking themselves seriously and growing their hair long and wearing Hurley T-shirts all the time, it was still your basic pop-punk rule book stuff.
But for me—and I have to assume a lot more bored, boring suburban cool kids—they were the first music I could call my own. They weren’t the first band I heard, but they were the first fun band I heard. The first band of dudes that felt like a band of dudes. Who made fart jokes and put gross noises in between their songs for you to laugh at and try to talk along to.
And when they struck it big, then it was on, because now I get to walk around my high school talking about what "bullshit" it is that they "sold out." And, when their post sell-out album turned out to be pretty good, well, then I got to walk around poking fun at all the people who had such a violent backlash to the band selling out. I even wrote a song about how selling out is almost necessary. I was fifteen, and it was terrible. But it was the kind of thing that pre-1998 Blink-182 would have laughed out of the room… and then put it on their album.
So Blink influenced how I related to music, how I shoved music in the faces of other people and my then-budding musicianship. Beat that.
The inherent problem with trying to pick a new The Who is that there simply aren’t bands with the kind of far-reaching, widely-recognized success and talent of that band.
You can’t get a hundred people in a room to agree that a single contemporary artist is good. Though as quickly as I bring that point up I can strike it right down. If you’re in the 35-and-up crowd, think back real hard. When The Who hit it big in the US, what were you listening to? Did you even like The Who? Of course you do now, but when they were just a bunch of assholes with weird haircuts and funny accents, did you dismiss their classics as a passing thing? Did you even give a shit?
In a way, this is the heart of the question. It’s not a matter of whose music is good enough to stand the test of time, but whose music is going to let us feel cooler than the next generation of music-listeners. And that’s really going to come down to how lame tomorrow’s music turns out to be and how hard we have to try to prove that ours is better.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to listen to "Cheshire Cat" from start to finish while drinking a seasonal microbrew and nodding knowingly...
__________________________________________________________________________________ SIGHTLINES: LIVE SHOW REVIEWS This Week: Wilco w/Lliam Finn @ Roy Wilkins Auditorium, 10-02-09 By: Jonny Grubb
Son Volt w/Sera Cahoone @ First Avenue, 9-27-09
By: Tom Hallett
Richard Lloyd @ Nick & Eddie's 9-25-09 By: Brad Fors WILCO (w/Liam Finn) @ Roy Wilkins Auditorium, 10-2-09 BAND MEMBERS: Jeff Tweedy, Vocals, Guitars/John Stirratt, Bass, Vocals/Nels Cline, Guitars, Vocals/Pat Sansone, Multi-instrumentalist/Mikael Jorgensen, Drums SET LIST: (Official Label List): Wilco (the song)/A Shot In The Arm/Bull Black Nova/You Are My Face/I Am Trying To Break Your Heart/One Wing/At Least That's What You Said/Handshake Drugs/Deeper Doen/Impossible Germany/It's Just That Simple/Sorry Feeling/Can't Stand It/Jesus, Etc.,/Via Chicago/Spiders (Kidsmoke)/Hummingbird/ENCORE #1: The Late Greats/You Never Know (W/Lliam Finn)/California Stars (W/Lliam Finn & Gary Louris)/Heavymetaldrummer/SECOND ENCORE: Theologians/Hate It Here/Wallen/I'm The Man Who Loves You/Monday/Hoodoo Voodoo.
A good concert is like a good album, and Wilco has a really good album. Its got highs, its got lows, but there's always a theme to guide both listener and band through what is at heart a journey.
First, the opener. An opening act is always easy to dismiss as a shadow of the headliner. Liam Finn at first seems no exception. He vaguely resembles a young Jeff Tweedy, or perhaps how Jeff Tweedy imagines he was as a younger man. But Finn, standing before an array of guitar pedals, a row of Telecasters and a set of drums, seems more like a young Wilco (the band). With a single bandmate—multi-instrumentalist Eliza Jane—Finn projects enough energy for a full band.
Finn himself alternated between playing guitar & singing and using his personal onstage studio to loop the guitar, freeing himself to hop behind the kit. If you closed your eyes or just looked away for a minute, you’d swear you were watching a five-piece band. Flowing easily from alt-folk ballads into ripping, post-rock powerhouses, each moment on stage saw Finn playing every instrument at his disposal (his vocal cords, guitar, drums, guitar-as-bass) with the same breathless intensity.
After a short break, the Price is Right theme played, which apparently meant that Wilco was about to take the stage.We won't go into the psycho-analytical meanings that may lie hidden by THAT particular choice- other than the fact that Wilco (the band) has apparently crawled one more rung up the ol' rock n' roll ladder towards venues like Target Center and away from comfy, intimate dives like the 7th Street Entry- but if you're even remotely aware of the existence and recent passing of long-time Tweedy collaborator/band-mate Jay Bennett, you've probably already come to your own conclusions. The band came out strong with "Wilco (the song)" and established early on what would become a theme: each Wilco song is essentially two songs. One an almost traditional folk/alt-rock number, another slathered with super effects-laden studio sound. Which musician played which song shifted constantly. Wilco has made a great effort to turn their studio into an instrument, and they’ve definitely made sure it travels well.
As the band played on, through new tracks and old favorites, it became more and more obvious that Wilco is much more interested in their sonic landscape than almost anything else, including the lyrics. A Wilco "solo" in a song like "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" is less about squeedlies & meedlies (though they do those, too) and more about a scenic sonic soundscape that creates a space for the intensely-written rock songs to live. Was all this studio magic necessary for a perfectly good live band? Well, that’s a funny question. It’s also a question the band seemed to ask themselves on "Jesus, Etc." Claiming it had worked in Iowa City, Tweedy invited the crowd to sing the lyrics to one of their most recognizable songs. Standing out from the crowd, though, was the complex, lush orchestration of the song itself. Even without Tweedy’s lilting voice over the strings and organ, "Jesus, Etc." remains a powerful, captivating song. As if to complicate the question, the band’s next number, "Via Chicago" played as if somebody had the "two songs" on faders (beautiful noise on one end, rich folk on the other) and fiddled with them throughout. Tweedy played and sang consistently his campfire dirge, while around him the drums and studio noise ebbed and flowed in wonderful cacophony. Later, on "Spiders (Kidsmoke)," a meandering song that became a wandering jam, Tweedy invited the audience to clap along in the most casual way: "A: It’ll look cool," he began, "...and B: it’s good for you… just pretend you’re at a Queen concert!" As the audience clapped along- a suggestion they were more than obliged to follow-the band suddenly cut out, leaving just a group of guys on a stage with an auditorium full of folks clapping in rhythm. The effect was powerful and unexpected.
So, back to the question at hand: Is any of it necessary? That’s a tough question. Without the studio effects, they would likely still be an incredibly successful alt-rock band. Without the folk influences, they would probably still be a post-rock powerhouse. But they just wouldn’t be Wilco. And for that, it’s all worth it.
Finally, there were TWO rousing encores. How many bands can you think of that could get away with walking offstage twice before a crowd would finally give up clamoring for them to come back? O.K., maybe a few, but when Wilco sauntered off of the classic-rock-memory-cluttered Roy Wilkins stage, they knew they would have been welcome to continue that hallowed rock n' roll tradition all night long if they'd chosen to do so...
-Jonny Grubb
(CONTINUED IN VOL. 2 OF THIS ISSUE...JUST TURN TO THE NEXT BLOG FOR OUR SON VOLT AND RICHARD LLOYD REVIEWS + REVIEWS OF THE LATEST FROM GRANT HART, THE AUTUMN LEAVES, TRAINWRECK RIDERS, A KILLER WOODY GUTHRIE BOX SET, AND MORE....SEE YA IN VOL. 2!!)
5:23 AM
Powered by  | | English | | Albanian | | Arabic | | Bulgarian | | Catalan | | Chinese | | Croatian | | Czech | | Danish | | Dutch | | Estonian | | Filipino | | Finnish | | French | | Galician | | German | | Greek | | Hebrew | | Hindi | | Hungarian | | Indonesian | | Italian | | Japanese | | Korean | | Latvian | | Lithuanian | | Maltese | | Norwegian | | Polish | | Portuguese | | Romanian | | Russian | | Serbian | | Slovak | | Slovenian | | Spanish | | Swedish | | Thai | | Turkish | | Ukrainian | | Vietnamese |
|
|
|