i was never super into Wilco. my friend chris exposed me to them by playing Being There and Summerteeth over and over again, and i always liked those records. but then everyone got caught up in the hype of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, which, save a few songs, i didn't think was all that strong. i also find the documentary about the making of that record to be almost unwatchable -- those fights between Tweedy and Bennett bring up a lot of tense memories for me. being in a band can be a sublime expression of love and collective art, but it's rarely easy, and that movie shows it all too clearly.
they didn't do much for a couple of years and and kind of fell off the radar. but then Wilco put out A Ghost Is Born, a record i fell in love as soon as i heard it all the way through the first time. it was like they were reborn as something else. the song that i think sealed the deal was "Handshake Drugs." it has a main riff that sounds like your typical Wilco chord progression until the last chord, which is odd and out of place. it sort of goes down and hangs there. that one change ends up driving the whole melody of the song, and it really shines it up. i was also really surprised to learn that Tweedy plays most of the guitar on that album. respect. anyway, the music hasn't left my iPod since i got a hold of it.
now of course, they've put out another record and the guitar savant Nels Cline is now in the band. we used to see Nels play every monday night at Bruno's in san francisco. we'd pay our $5 and sit there like kids at a nudie show when the guy took a solo. totally captivating, made me want to burn my guitar. and the best part, he's transformed Wilco into something totally different, heavy and slippery and noisy.
here's a document of that. the band is streaming all of the shows from this May 2008 St. Louis run on its website. you can go there if you want the quicktime stream, but this recording is a little better quality. it's a matrix constructed from a soundboard feed and two mics on stage, and it sounds gorgeous -- one of the best live shows i've come across this year, in fact. i should also stress that this show is a legal download (the band has an open taping policy) and if you want CD-quality audio, you can hop on the torrents for the whole 3-night run at etree.org.
here are my high-quality MP3s. Note: my buddy mike was the first to notice that I actually mis-labeled these files. when you download them, you'll see they say the 17th, but they are in fact from the 15th. i'm not feeling motivated enough to re-tag and re-upload them, but you should re-tag them yourself. fair pickin's.
Wilco 5-15-2008 Part 1
Wilco 5-15-2008 Part 2
photo: charles harris
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