Wilco DVD

[bakerian08]

so is there a deluxe edition after all?

 

-justin

where did you hear that?

[you ever seen a ghost?]

wait a second, what board am i on?

 

a couple of weeks ago, somewhere, i heard something about a weblink where a "deluxe" was listed. i hadn't been following the news and wanted to see if anyone else knew anything.

[bakerian08]

wait a second, what board am i on?

 

a couple of weeks ago, somewhere, i heard something about a weblink where a "deluxe" was listed. i hadn't been following the news and wanted to see if anyone else knew anything.

i haven't heard anything. but a lot of people here know a lot more than me.

i had no idea you were on this board

[you ever seen a ghost?]

i had no idea you were on this board. apparently, we have more in common than i thought. i'm just a massive Wilco fan. as you can see from my signature pic, i am more than a little happy to be hanging with Jeff.

 

-justin

[bakerian08]

i had no idea you were on this board. apparently, we have more in common than i thought. i'm just a massive Wilco fan. as you can see from my signature pic, i am more than a little happy to be hanging with Jeff.

 

-justin

ha yeah, you look like you're about to wet your pants.

don't get me wrong though, i'd be the same way if i got a chance to meet him

[you ever seen a ghost?]

i've actually met him twice. this time though (after a solo show) we talked all about the SBS songs he'd played...this was about 6 months before the record came out.

 

-justin

[bakerian08]

i've actually met him twice. this time though (after a solo show) we talked all about the SBS songs he'd played...this was about 6 months before the record came out.

 

-justin

that is really cool. hopefully i'll get to talk to him a bit if i ever make it out to a solo show, or (unlikely) after the show in milwaukee.

are you going to see them on any stops this tour?

[you ever seen a ghost?]

unfortunately not. the fabled Southeast tour did not include anywhere in VA. Asheville, NC is like 6 hours away, so i'll just wait until they swing around in the fall (which i'm sure they will).

 

-justin

[bakerian08]

unfortunately not. the fabled Southeast tour did not include anywhere in VA. Asheville, NC is like 6 hours away, so i'll just wait until they swing around in the fall (which i'm sure they will).

 

-justin

yeah, especially if the new record comes out in the fall

[zebra]

Has anyone else noticed a mystery man behind Pat in the trailer? You can see him crouching down behind Glenn and Pat playing a single maraca when we see Pat throw his maraca in the air and catch it.

 

 

Mod edit: Link to Trailer

[Moss]

Has anyone else noticed a mystery man behind Pat in the trailer? You can see him crouching down behind Glenn and Pat playing a single maraca when we see Pat throw his maraca in the air and catch it.

 

Analyzing it like the Zapruder film, I like it!

[tugmoose]

Further more, can you go and purchase every Wilco record and likely this DVD at places like Best Buy, crappy music stores inside the Mall, Barnes and Noble etc etc etc. I guess that is my point, if you are going to make a commentary on this type of thing, be prepared to put your money where your mouth is. You know, if you hate foreign oil, are you driving a SUV? If so......................hypocritical. Now if you are living what you are preaching (and you preach to the masses from your pearch as a rock musician) then you are not a hypocrite but you are annoying me in my book.

I sound like an ass, but I have a U2 allergy and this qoute from the film fest has me sneezing

It's not like they're in their basements burning CDs and distributing them themselves. They're on a label, and that label has other artists, and that label deals with these stores. It's pretty unrealistic to think any band can exercise that kind of control over distribution, unless they start their own label, which I imagine is rather expensive and time consuming (the Beatles couldn't pull it off). It's a messy world and no one has totally clean hands and if you spend too much time trying to keep them clean, you won't have time for much else.

[bböp]

Has anyone else noticed a mystery man behind Pat in the trailer? You can see him crouching down behind Glenn and Pat playing a single maraca when we see Pat throw his maraca in the air and catch it.

 

Can't say for sure, but it's probably one of their techs.

[nodep5]

It's not like they're in their basements burning CDs and distributing them themselves. They're on a label, and that label has other artists, and that label deals with these stores. It's pretty unrealistic to think any band can exercise that kind of control over distribution, unless they start their own label, which I imagine is rather expensive and time consuming (the Beatles couldn't pull it off). It's a messy world and no one has totally clean hands and if you spend too much time trying to keep them clean, you won't have time for much else.

 

 

I don't disagree with you, and that is why I personally wouldn't make this an issue or focus on my band's (not that I have one) "music" DVD. That is why I hate when movie stars or rock musicians start preaching. We all are part of the problem and all of us have our hands dirty to an extent, so don't start acting like you are the light shining from above and have some great insight into it when you or your record label is part of the machine. It is short sided and unnecessary. Like I said, I have made a personal decision in my life to try to avoid Wal Mart and am about 98% successful, but I do go to Lowes because I can't afford ACE or Tru Value. So it is a mess, but whatever. I just want Wilco to be fun guys who play good old rock and roll and leave the politics up to the blubbering masses of cable news.

[tugmoose]

I just want Wilco to be fun guys who play good old rock and roll and leave the politics up to the blubbering masses of cable news.

And that's fine. I get a more agitated when Jeff goes all whiny about talkers in the audience. Frankly, I don't think Wilco goes overboard with their causes; they're hardly poster children.

 

The idea that just because someone is an entertainer they can't also be an activist is a bit dicy to me. They may alienate fans that way, but it's their band, their career and their call, just as with every fan it's his or her own money.

 

In a perfect world, everyone's words and deeds would be 100% consistent. But if that were the requirement for stepping into the forum of debate and ideas, things would be very, very quiet.

[lost highway]

What is the substance of this Wilco as activists conversation? Is it the Record Store Day thing, or the review of the film that discusses its view of a changing American landscape and culture?

 

As far as I'm concerned having something released exclusively at indie stores on a special day for them isn't all that political. It's just awesome. Going to the record store is awesome, and I will have a special reason to do it that day.

 

As far as the larger view of "Ashes" as it was described in the review- if you can't hang with meditations on the meaning(s) of America and how it changes then you can toss out a good chunk of the Wilco catalog. I think that is a central theme, and I don't know that comparing it to Bono is very accurate.

 

Maybe I'm misreading the argument, but I find 'just fun rock and roll bands' to be mediocre. I like fun, but there's more to be had than fun alone.

[gogo]

OK, as promised, here is my supremely crappy "review"! Caution: spoilers!!!

 

I'm going to start with the end, the Brendan Canty Q&A after the movie. He started by saying that part of the reason they made the movie, about a year ago, was because with the booming economy and rampant development going on throughout the country, they wanted to document a band playing in these great old venues which could soon be bought up and destroyed. Now, doesn't look like any of these places will be going anywhere anytime soon...

 

One of the first questions asked was about the length of the movie, since they must have shot so much footage, was there any impulse to make a much longer movie. Answer: "It's already long as fu*k, dude!" He said there is only so much that a viewer can take without being overwhelmed, and that there are seven extras on the DVD, mostly songs which he felt would skew the set list more towards YHF; he wanted to concentrate a bit more on their current stuff, what this particular grouping has worked out together. He feels that they are the best live act out there right now. He also stressed that he feels great respect among these guys, that this particular group all has nothing but gushy-nice things to say about each other, and that shows on stage.

 

I feel like I'm missing something else important that he talked about here, but I'll probably come back in the morning and fill in some more stuff anyway...

 

So, the movie itself: Opens in Cain's, with a soundcheck of AOAF. If you were interviewed outside the venue, there are no interview segments, but there are shots of the crowd outside, so you'll more than likely see yourself, anyway. I'm trying to remember which songs they played in Cain's. Up through Handshake Drugs, at least, (I cut-and-pasted the set-list from an earlier post below). Anyway, most importantly: damn, do I want to see a shows at Cain's now! Looks like an incredibly cool venue.

 

The transition to New Orleans is some shots on the bus, a bit of Jeff talking about how they had fairly low expectations starting out, and all this touring now is beyond anything they imagined back in the days when they were talking about whether or not they should buy a van so they could play college towns three hours away. Then John and Pat talk some about why playing Tipitina's is so cool for them (great story from John about all the musical generations in his family). And yes, Tipitina's also looks like a very cool venue! They do The Late Greats and Kingpin in New Orleans (with the Total Pros!), we get a few crowd shots ( ), and then they move on to Mobile.

 

During the drive to Mobile, Jeff talks about representational art, and how music has always told stories. We also get that beautiful scene with the bridge that's on the DVD cover. In Mobile, they do Wishful Thinking (I think this was a soundcheck, too) and Impossible Germany. Oh, also, there were a couple of times when the crowd in the theater, watching the movie, broke out into spontaneous applause after a particularly great song. If they'd clapped after every song, it would have been weird, but they didn't. They did go nuts for Side with the Seeds and Impossible Germany, though. I have to say, if I'd heard Brendan Canty talk about documenting these great old theaters before I'd seen the movie, I would have had to ask him afterwards: "Seriously? The Mobile Civic Center?" Because while it might be a great theater, I got absolutely no sense of place from it, certainly nothing like what we saw in Tulsa and New Orleans.

 

After the Mobile show, we see Glenn and Nels backstage, icing everything down. These guys are killing themselves up there! Nels talks about what seems to be chronic whiplash, he ices his neck after every show, and he says that at points when he was recording another album recently, he could barely play. Glenn's also taking care of his hands, and he says that he drew blood that night. Yikes.

 

There were a few more interview segments in there, but honestly people, it's midnight here. I'm getting punchy...

 

Oh, this is when John and Pat talk a bit about the dying out of the old Southern downtowns, the Wal-Martization of the South. And then, oddly, they cut straight to Jeff saying, over shots of touristy Nashville, that he thinks some people romanticize a past that never was. He talks about Hank Williams, for example, being the Madonna of his day, someone who wanted to sell records and actually cared about his position on the charts. The point seeming to be, pop music is pop music, it's about bringing people together for common experiences, and folk music or whatever was not intrinsically any more pure than music is now.

 

In the Ryman, they play Via Chicago, Shot in the Arm, and Monday, and I think the shots of the music/lights freak-out section in the middle of Via Chicago, lighting up the balconies of the Ryman, might be one of my favorite scenes. I always love that in real life, anyway, but man, did it look amazing in the Ryman. I'm pretty sure that one got the movie-audience-applause, too.

 

The transition to DC is some more bus scenes, and we get to hear each of the band members being talked about by one of the other guys. I forget who exactly said what about whom (there was definitely a funny bit from Jeff about Glenn, saying that he was seriously preparing for his new baby, reading all the books, and Jeff told him that when the baby arrives, she'll be the world's greatest improviser, and he's just going to have to deal), but as noted by Brendan Canty, it was all nice-guy, Nels is a gentleman, Pat is the most natural musician, type of stuff. This segment ends with Jeff talking about John, praising not only his musicianship but his even temperment, particularly in contrast to Jeff's own, and saying that while the band has gone through so many changes over the years, he and John are the two constants. He says that while he doesn't want to think about it happening, he thinks the band could withstand another change in line-up, unless it was John.

 

The DC show also includes some odd crowd moments, someone hands Jeff a faux-grammy, and he tries to bite it ("Is this food? It's not food."); and a bra gets tossed on stage, then hooked on the end of Jeff's guitar before he finally manages to fling it away again. Oh, and we get a few more good crowd shots in DC, for any of you that were there...

 

It ends with some random shots of the crowds staggering out after the shows, meeting up with the band and getting autographs and pictures, and a cute piece with Jeff's dad talking about how Jeff keeps exceeding his expectations.

 

Overall, I had a great time. I know it's not a fair comparison, since we only saw bits of those performances, but I definitely felt a difference between this movie and the footage we've seen of the Kicking Television shows. Those videos felt very generically-set to me, while what I saw tonight put me in each of those different venues, and really gave me a new perspective on what these shows are like from the band's viewpoint, what it must feel like to play in a different place every night, to travel constantly, and on good nights, to feel the history of each of these towns and venues. At the same time, I loved the insight into what little rituals the band has, their ways of interacting with each other, etc.

 

So overall: great performances, great movie.

 

I'm sure I've missed a few things here, got some timelines screwed up, etc. Like I said, I'll check back in the morning and see if it's settled down in my head any more, sifted into something I'm able to describe a little more clearly... Or maybe someone else who was there tonight will be able to chime in.

 

 

 

 

1 Ashes of American Flags

2 Side with the Seeds

3 Handshake Drugs

4 The Late Greats

5 Kingpin

6 Wishful Thinking

7 Impossible Germany

8 Via Chicago

9 A Shot in the Arm

10 Monday

11 You Are My Face

12 Heavy Metal Drummer

13 War on War

[bböp]

OK, as promised, here is my supremely crappy "review"! Caution: spoilers!!!

 

Don't sell yourself short...that was an awesome review! In some ways, it sounds kind of similar in tone to the Sunken Treasure film, which makes sense since it was the same director/crew/etc. But I mean in the sense of giving you a feel for what it's like being out on the road in a different town every night--basically what you said. How long did the whole thing run?

 

Interesting that they decided to finish up with the 9:30 show because obviously that was the first show they filmed. Actually the whole thing is backwards, chronologically. I'm sure there's a good reason for that, but it's an interesting progression. Because to show the wear and tear of the road, it would seem like you would want to move in more chronological order. It was by the time of the Cain's show that Jeff was really struggling with his voice. The previous night in Houston, which they didn't film, was the most I've ever seen him struggle vocally.

 

I remember the faux Grammy and the bra in Washington! Was there any mention or footage of "John Stirot's Fan Club" from the Tipitina's shows?

 

Oh, and Cain's...still the only venue I've ever been to where you can buy a six-pack at the bar. That alone makes it unique, if not altogether great for DUI rates in Tulsa.

[M. (hristine]

Maudie, thanks so much for posting this.

 

One of the benefits of traveling to see this band has been experiencing contemporary music in buildings crafted long ago. In many ways the venues are as much characters in my story as are the road, my friends and the band.

 

Can't wait to see this, though I know it will make me hanker even more...

[nodep5]

Ok your review makes me feel better. If the whole Wal mart bit was more related to old venues I can get behind that, and it seems like something a band WOULD know more about. For any of us Missouri folks, it is the difference between Mississippi Nights and the Pageant. Night and Day.

[Preferred B]

Thank you for that, Maudie! Okay, did you have a pencil and paper out during the film? Sounds great, and makes me wish I were seeing another show at Cain's soon.

 

I agree that the chronology seems a little weird. Next people to see a screening with Brendan Canty should ask him about that choice. I'm sure they had a reason; I'd be interested in hearing what it was.

[gogo]

OK, a few more things, in response to your posts:

 

Paul, I would say the structure of the film is similar to Sunken Treasure, but it feels completely different. Part of that is just the difference between something focused on Jeff vs. the whole band, but I also got a very claustrophobic feeling from Sunken Treasure; despite the many beautiful performances in that, the talking-about-talking segments sort of define that one for me. Brendan Canty also mentioned IATTBYH, which he says was a great document of the band going through that period, but because he loves this incarnation of Wilco so much (he was a Nels fan pre-Wilco, of course), he wanted to document this period in their history in a way that showcased their mutual respect for each other. The good-times edit.

 

I did not realize as I was watching that the shows were happening in reverse chronological order. I think maybe part of the decision to do it that way is because the Cain's footage is so great. The shots of Cain's itself are just so loving. I'd also like to note that aside from John and Pat talking about Tipitina's, no one even makes references to the specific venues they're playing. This movie is not the band going on about their love of these venues, it's about the band playing in venues that are just plain cool. Seeing an amazing close-up of Nels' hand, a complete blur in an otherwise crisp shot, then cutting to the pictures along the walls of Cain's, of old country stars who have played there in decades past, was great.

 

And the only mention of Jeff's voice as an issue was at the Ryman show (his steroids comment is in there). They didn't deal with that at all, hardly. Doesn't fit with the good-time feel! Also, Jeff's interaction with the crowd is shown more in the "later" shows (later in the movie). I think that totally works; you get to see the band performing, and the mood is established with the coolest venues, before it gets into the sillier bits in DC.

 

At the end of the 9:30 show, as Jeff's walking off, he says "see you tomorrow night", which has a great the road goes on and on quality to it.

 

And for the record, no, I did not take notes during this movie!

[Preferred B]

I'm even more impressed by your memory, then.

 

And as many, many people have noted - the steroids comment was actually from Cain's. I wonder if they asked Jeff to wear the suit again there so they could more easily splice footage.

[Wendy]

Oh, Maudie! Thank you! You write so beautifully ... I really didn't want your review to end.

 

 

 

I can't wait to get this.

 

 

 

*remind self to check with local indie store for early-onsale participation*

[gogo]

And as many, many people have noted - the steroids comment was actually from Cain's. I wonder if they asked Jeff to wear the suit again there so they could more easily splice footage.

Oh, right! Yes, I thought I remembered some discussion of that, but I forgot what the controversy was. No, in the movie, it definitely looks like he's saying it at the Ryman.

 

I'll be interested to hear if other people who were at these shows catch any other bits of tricky editing.