A WEB SITE BY ROBERT LOERZEL — MAIN PAGE — ARCHIVE OF PAST ARTICLES — SEND AN E-MAIL
MARCH 5, 2005
The Vic, Chicago
Jeff Tweedy's occasional solo concerts are one reason I
feel lucky to live in Chicago. Sometimes Tweedy uses these shows to try out new
songs, which end up later on albums by Wilco (or one of his other projects).
Tonight's show was all about nostalgia, though, and I don't mean that in a
negative way. Resurrecting no less than five pre-Wilco songs out of the Uncle
Tupelo catalogue, Tweedy seemed to be reconnecting with some moments from his
past — and giving the musical equivalent of a big wet kiss to some of his most
rabid fans, the ones who scream out requests for oldies like "Gun" at his solo
concerts.
In addition to the five Uncle Tupelo songs, Tweedy played a couple by one of his
side projects, Golden Smog; two from the Loose Fur album; and one from the Minus
Five album that Wilco worked on with Scott McCaughey. He also gave a rare
performance of the non-album Wilco song "Blasting Fonda" and played a cover of
Mott the Hoople's "Henry and the H Bombs."
Few performers can command the attention of a large theater with just a voice
and an acoustic guitar, and Tweedy is one of them. Two of his Wilco bandmates,
John Stirratt and Pat Sansone, opened in the guise of their group Autumn
Defense, playing beautiful, sleepy acoustic pop, most of it from the excellent
2003 album Circles. Stirratt acted as if he were a little daunted about
playing these little songs in front of such a big audience. "It's like Schubas
on steroids," he joked, commenting on how quiet the room was.
Tweedy played several songs before saying anything to the audience, but he was
talkative later on, bantering with the crowd about all of the people holding up
cell phones. Tweedy momentarily blanked out on the lyrics of "(Was I) In Your
Dreams" and flubbed a chord or two in "Nothing'severgonnastandinmyway (Again),"
which made him seem human. He had some fun at his own expense about this. Those
lapses were forgivable, of course, as Tweedy once again showed himself to be an
accomplished acoustic guitarist. And his voice? It has become so familiar to me
and many other listeners that it's hard to say much new about it or to rate his
vocals on a particular night. It just sounds like the voice of a friend.
Tweedy joked that it seemed like he'd played 10 or 12 Uncle Tupelo songs
tonight. Noting that "Gun" was 12 years old, he shook his head and wondered
where the years had gone. After a false start in a lower key, he played the song
without a capo in the higher key he originally sang it in for Uncle Tupelo. When
he polled the crowd afterward, most hands went up for the higher version. Tweedy
lamented that it's harder to sing that way.
With Autumn Defense as the opening act, the odds seemed good for a surprise
appearance by Wilco at the end of the concert. But I'd heard no such thing
happened on the previous night (I missed that concert). And after two encores
and 90 minutes of music, it felt like the show was over. Tweedy played an
excellent version of "I'm the Man Who Loves You," capturing the jaunty vibe that
song had in incarnations pre-dating the final studio version on Yankee Hotel
Foxtrot. Tweedy waved to the crowd and walked off stage. Many people (myself
included) got ready to leave, but then some roadies appeared.
At the sight of a Persian rug, the crowd went wild. Yes, I know that's a cliche,
but it's one of the few times in the last year I'd say it was a true description
of an audience reaction... the other being the roar of applause when Wilco took
the stage at the Vic a year ago. This band certainly has some devoted fans.
Just about everyone knew what the rug meant — Glenn Kotche's drum set was coming
out. The roadies quickly set up the drums, a couple of keyboards and guitars.
Beaming like a giddy child, Kotche sat down and began playing the recognizable
beat of "Laminated Cat" (aka "Not For the Season"). Tweedy came back out and
played the Loose Fur song. Mikael Jorgensen and Pat Sansone joined in for "The
Family Gardener." Then Stirratt came out for the remainder of the mini-Wilco
concert. All that was missing was guitarist Nels Cline, and Tweedy joked about
that, having Sansone call him up on his cell phone. (He got Cline's voice mail.)
Without Cline, Wilco's sound was a little subdued and keyboard-dominated, but it
matched the mood of the evening perfectly. The performance had the loose feel of
a friendly living-room jam or rehearsal. Tweedy set down his guitar for three of
the songs: Randy Newman's "Political Science" (he even did a couple of leg kicks
on the lines, "Boom goes London, boom Par-ee!"), "Hummingbird" and "I Shall Be
Released." After the big-keyboard finish of "Hummingbird," Tweedy said, "Damn
you, Jim O'Rourke! You made us sound like Supertramp!"
Those looking for clues about the direction of the next Wilco album were left
clueless after tonight's show, but it was a great look back at what Tweedy and
his pals have accomplished so far.
Here's the set list:
Someone Else's Song
Remember the Mountain Bed
I Am Trying To Break Your Heart
Airline to Heaven
(Was I) In Your Dreams
Wait Up
Black Eye
Radio King
Chinese Apple
Bob Dylans 49th Beard
Someday Some Morning Sometime
Blasting Fonda
Someday Soon
Nothing'severgonnastandinmyway(again)
Summer Teeth
ELT
I Can't Keep From Talking
Encore 1
Gun
We've Been Had
Candyfloss
Henry & The H-Bombs
Acuff Rose
I'm The Man Who Loves You
Encore 2
Misunderstood
Encore 3
Not For The Season (with Glenn Kotche)
The Family Gardener (with Kotche, Mikael Jorgensen and Pat Sansone)
How To Fight Loneliness (with Kotche, Jorgensen, Sansone and John Stirratt for
rest of set)
John Wesley Harding
Political Science
Hummingbird
Late Greats
Encore 4
Passenger Side
California Stars
I Shall Be Released
Speaking of NPR, here are a couple of interesting stories
from Morning Edition today. The British Library puts an archive of
recordings showing regional British accents online.
NPR STORY. Go to
"English Accents and Dialects" at COLLECT BRITAIN. I might have more to say
about this after I get a chance to listen to some of the accents. Sounds
fascinating.
Also, a story on the
100TH ANNIVERSARY OF BOB WILLS' BIRTH.
MARCH 4, 2005
The Abbey Pub, Chicago
What is it with Denton, Texas, anyway? Seems like a lot of good bands hail from there, including Slobberbone (as well as Centro-Matic and Midlake). Slobberbone's calling it quits, but not before giving the fans what they want with this farewell tour. A good time was had by all (...well, as far as I could determine). Two Cow Garage also played tonight, ripping up the stage with its usual heart-on-sleeve over-the-top garage rock. And the first opening act, I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch in the House, proved to be pretty darn entertaining, too, though they didn't necessarily live up to their name, given the competition they faced onstage.
SEE
PHOTOS OF SLOBBERBONE, TWO COW GARAGE & I CAN LICK ANY SONOFABITCH IN THE
HOUSE (including some artsy shots, like the one above, taken through a bunch
of beer bottles on the edge of the stage).
MARCH 1, 2005
Double Door, Chicago
The
Futureheads were just as unrelenting in concert as they are on their CD.
I still can't help thinking of early XTC when I hear the Futurehead's
herky-jerky riffs, but they're original enough to stand apart from their obvious
influences. The interlocking guitar lines, the pounding bass and percussion are
all great, but what really sets them above most of their contemporaries is the
vocals. All four Futureheads sing, though it's a far cry from sweet harmony.
These Brits are a cheeky bunch, too, so their stage banter was pretty
entertaining. Only down side: I wish their high-intensity style weren't quite so
unrelenting. I'm not asking for a ballad, but personally, I could use a bit of
break.
The first opening act, the High Speed Scene, was pleasant enough but not exactly
thrilling power pop. (Think Split Enz with louder guitars.) The second act,
Sweden's the Shout Out Louds, were more enjoyable, with tuneful songs; a hirsute
and highly spastic bass player; a very Nordic-looking blonde on keyboards,
xylophone, harmonica and tambourine; and a yelping lead singer who looks like
Jason Schwartzbaum. I thought their resemblance to the Cure (mostly in the
vocals) was a bit too obvious, but a die-hard Cure fan who listened to the Shout
Out Louds' three-song EP assures me I'm just imagining things.
FEBRUARY 25, 2005
Schubas, Chicago
As a self-proclaimed "M. Head" (see
my CD review), I went to see this show for just one reason, M. Ward's performance, but it turned out to be a good triple bill.
Playing first:
Shelley Short, a singer-songwriter with a pretty voice playing languid
little ditties, traditional folk with a bit of old-timey songbook... but not so
much that her music ever crossed into the cloying cuteness of Betty Boop stuff.
If you need a reference point for Short's style, she's somewhere between
Gillian
Welch and
Nora O'Connor — not nearly as accomplished as either of them,
but showing a
lot of promise. She sat down and played acoustic guitar for the whole set,
backed by upright bass and drums.
After the show, I asked Shelley where she
lives. "Portland, Oregon," she said. "Wait, what am I saying? Chicago." (She
lived in Portland until about six months ago.) I picked up her CD, Oh Say
Little Dogies, Why? You can tell from the packaging (or lack thereof) that
it's a homemade effort, but it
generally sounded good to me on my first listen.
Up second was
Dr. Dog. These guys
from Philadelphia were fairly raucous onstage, though they
always kept their performance grounded in the melodies and riffs of their songs
rather than indulging in full-out jamming. They reminded me a little of My
Morning Jacket, though not quite as hairy or loud. And the Faces — but maybe
that's just because I'd been listening to the great
Five Guys Walk Into a
Bar... box set earlier in the day, and suddenly the Faces seem like a
touchstone for a lot of bands.
Anyway, Dr. Dog played songs rooted in the late
'60s and early '70s, with good harmonies, impressive little instrumental breaks
and some quality jumping and head-bobbing. I also picked up their CD,
Easybeat from
National Parking Records (a bargain at the merch-table price of $5). First
impression: Not as loud or wild as the live show, with some interesting sounds
and songs... Needs more time for evaluation. (See
Dr. Dog on the SXSW site.)
Onto the main act...
I was not shocked that this show sold out, though I was a bit surprised at how
quickly tickets disappeared. Who are the fans? People who found out about M.
Ward from his opening slots on the tours with
Bright Eyes and
My
Morning Jacket? No obvious group of Bright Eyes fanatics was visible in
Schubas, but then again, it was a 21-and-over show so that might have shut
out that contingent. Maybe Ward's fan base is simply growing as more people hear
about him (...through exposure such as his
June 2004 interview on NPR).
Ward's performance was preceded by yet another poem of opaque gibberish from
Chicago's rock concert poet
Thax Douglas. Thax's poems are indecipherable, but at least they're
reasonably short, and I've come to accept them as a sort of Chicago concert
ritual. If nothing else, it's interesting to see the reactions of concertgoers
unfamiliar with his... um... Thaxness.
After Thax left the stage (nearly knocking me over in the process), Ward came
up, the top half of his head enshrouded in a thin blue cap. As he plugged his
guitar into his effect pedals, a young woman near the stage wearing an
M.WARD T-shirt asked him to sign it and he politely replied, "Maybe later.
I'm a little busy now."
Standing away from his two vocal mikes, off to the side of the stage, Ward
lifted his guitar with the neck pointed at the ceiling (for you guitar geeks out
there, the only guitar he touched all night was his black
Gibson J45) and played perhaps the quietest imaginable choice for an opening
song, his version of Bach's first prelude from
"The Well-Tempered Clavier." It's clear that Ward is a virtuoso on guitar,
but he doesn't play this piece with the practiced precision of a classical
guitarist. He gives it a looser, more emotional feeling.
A hush fell over Schubas, and the club would stay quiet for the next ninety
minutes or so, broken only by the appreciative applause between songs, the
occasional shout of "Chicago loves M. Ward!" or the murmur of audience members
singing along in whispers. Ward was violating one of the Laws of Concert
Scheduling by playing a solo acoustic set as the headline act after an opening
set by a loud rock band, but that didn't matter. This crowd was enthralled.
Without pausing, Ward's Bach piece shifted into one of his most touching and
obviously personal songs, "O'Brien," from End of Amnesia. He proceeded to
play some of the best songs off that album, as well as Transfiguration of
Vincent and the new
Transistor Radio. If anything, the set was dominated by key tracks from
Vincent rather than the new CD.
Ward makes his guitar playing look easy, but there are few players who can make
the instrument sound quite like he does. The key is his agile finger picking. On
some songs, he used alternate tunings. It was startling to see that the guitar
part he plays during the verses of "Sad Sad Song" is actually just one chord,
played in an opening tuning without any fingers on the fretboard at all. Based
on that description, you'd think it would be monotous and dull, but the rhythm
and finger-picking pattern keep it interesting.
Ward did not say a whole lot between songs — nothing at all during a long
stretch at the beginning of the concert — and it was hard not to get the
feeling that he's reserved. After all, he uses an initial instead of his full
first name. In the past, he's let his hair hang down over this eyes in concert.
Now, he was wearing a cap that almost seemed like a disguise. He wore a serious
expression for most of the show, though a flicker of a smile sometimes it made
it feel as if the seriousness was just a put-on. Or maybe it was his slight
smile that was the put-on.
(Yeah, yeah, I know this sort of psychoanalysis of someone you're watching on a
stage is pretty bogus, but I can't help it, especially when someone like Ward
puts forward a persona that seems different than most of the other performers
out there.)
Is that voice of his a mask he has chosen? Does he sing in a bit of a whisper to
hide what his voice would sound like at full volume? Or is it just the way he
naturally sounds? He does have a distinctive singing style, with a real heft and
husky tone that gives it more weight than the sort of whispy falsetto that male
vocalists often use when they want to sound pretty.
[Ward's explanation, from the
Merge Records Web site: Ward is at a loss to explain
the origin of his singing voice, a three-pack-a-day rasp that sounds like it
should come from a 75-year-old Mississippi Delta bluesman. It's as much a non
sequitur as the Southern-fried vocal delivery used 40 years ago by Creedence
Clearwater Revival's John Fogerty, a man who grew up just north of Oakland,
Calif. "I don't smoke," Ward says. "I started recording in my parents' house
when I was 16 and, not wanting to wake anybody up, you just start to sing
quieter and play quieter. I think that's why my voice is so messed-up. People
who only know the records think I'm really old or from the South.”]
Ward had no other musicians to help him out, but he never needed any assistance.
Not only did he confirm his mastery of the guitar, he also sat down at a piano
for several songs, showing that the tasty piano playing that pops on some of
this studio recordings is no fluke.When he sang along to his piano playing, his
music felt even more antique — echoing old-time ragtime, blues and jazz, as well
as a slightly more recent influence,
Tom Waits.
It was especially cool to hear Ward playing a piano version of "Flaming Heart,"
a song that's dominated by guitar in the studio version on End of Amnesia.
Another piano highlight was Ward's cover of the
Daniel Johnston song, Story of an Artist," which generated several laughs
with its goofy but heartfelt lyrics.(Ward's version of the song and Johnston's
original are on the 2004 CD
Discovered Covered.)
Ward used his effects pedals to loop his guitar parts on a couple of songs,
allowing him to solo on top of his own chords. Playing "Vincent O'Brien" for his
encore, Ward even stepped over to the piano, with his guitar still slung over
his shoulders, and pounded away at the keys for a joyous bit of racket that
closed the song.
After all of his songs about sadness, Ward introduced his final song of the
night as the happiest tune ever written. It was a lovely cover of "What a
Wonderful World" — with Ward omitting the title line of the song whenever it
occurred, leaving it up to his guitar to speak those words. As he finished the
song, Ward smoothly segued into a snippet of "When You Wish Upon A Star," and
with that melody still echoing on the sound system, he left the stage.
It was a masterful performance.
As I was leaving, I spotted
Andrew Bird in the crowd and briefly talked with him. Bird's obviously a fan
of Ward's music. "I feel a certain kinship with his music," he told me.