Nels Cline Singers

[WaronWar]

I am really digging the new album a lot. Great stuff. Too bad that the Singers are not playing close to the Midwest, but I am looking forward to seeing him play with On Fillmore at the end of June at Pritzker Pavilion.

[Three dollars and 63 cents]

I'm bumping this thread to remind everybody of the shows Nels will be playing in the next few weeks.

 

With the Singers:

tomorrow at Dazzle Jazz in Denver (both sets are sold out!)

Thursday and Friday: High Sierra Music Festival in Quincy, CA (Thursday at 7:30 p.m. and Friday at 11:15 a.m.)

 

Tuesday, 7/6: le poisson rouge in New York (sets at 7:30 and 10)

Wednesday, 7/7: Johnny Brenda's in Philadelphia (with Richard Crandall and Good For Cows)

Thursday, 7/8: The Black Cat, Washington DC (with Insect Factory)

 

With Jenny Scheinman's Mischief and Mayhem (with Jenny Scheinman, Todd Sickafoose, and Jim Black):

7/13-7/18: The Village Vanguard, New York (sets at 9 and 11 each night)

 

7/19: The Stone Seminar at the Stone, New York (corner of East Second Street and Avenue C), 7-9 p.m.: "Nels speaks about music, guitars, and life."

 

I don't know what I'm more excited about--getting to see my favorite band for the first time in two years next week or not having to go on a 12-hour road trip to do it!

[WaronWar]

I'm bumping this thread to remind everybody of the shows Nels will be playing in the next few weeks.

 

With the Singers:

tomorrow at Dazzle Jazz in Denver (both sets are sold out!)

Thursday and Friday: High Sierra Music Festival in Quincy, CA (Thursday at 7:30 p.m. and Friday at 11:15 a.m.)

 

Tuesday, 7/6: le poisson rouge in New York (sets at 7:30 and 10)

Wednesday, 7/7: Johnny Brenda's in Philadelphia (with Richard Crandall and Good For Cows)

Thursday, 7/8: The Black Cat, Washington DC (with Insect Factory)

 

With Jenny Scheinman's Mischief and Mayhem (with Jenny Scheinman, Todd Sickafoose, and Jim Black):

7/13-7/18: The Village Vanguard, New York (sets at 9 and 11 each night)

 

7/19: The Stone Seminar at the Stone, New York (corner of East Second Street and Avenue C), 7-9 p.m.: "Nels speaks about music, guitars, and life."

 

I don't know what I'm more excited about--getting to see my favorite band for the first time in two years next week or not having to go on a 12-hour road trip to do it!

 

Enjoy it! I wish I could see the Singers again this summer. I just saw Nels play with On Fillmore and he was great. Once again, his playing with them really showed how he can basically play anything.

[parallelliott]

The Nels Cline Singers will be performing on Wednesday, July 7 at Johnny Brenda's in Philadelphia. And, this just in: they will be joined on-stage by Cibo-Matto founder Yuka Honda! There are two openers: Richard Crandell, who will be performing solo on mbira, and Good For Cows, which is a duo of Nels Cline Singer's Devin Hoff and drummer Ches Smith. Tickets can be purchased here or here.

[cliff4391]

Here's a link to a good interview with Nels by Bill Forman of the Colorado Springs Independent http://www.csindy.com/colorado/freedom-foundation/Content?oid=1753489

[moxiebean]

Link to Nels interview in Express Night Out - don't know it it's been mentioned before but Nels states in the interview that Wilco's starting their own record label.

[Three dollars and 63 cents]

The Singers recorded two segments for NPR this week, one in their studio in Washington DC and one for the Piano Jazz program in New York. No word yet on air dates for either of them, but I'll keep an ear out for them.

[WaronWar]

The Singers recorded two segments for NPR this week, one in their studio in Washington DC and one for the Piano Jazz program in New York. No word yet on air dates for either of them, but I'll keep an ear out for them.

 

Sweet. Thanks for sharing! I can't wait to hear them.

[Three dollars and 63 cents]

We may have to wait awhile--the episode of Piano Jazz that aired this past weekend was recorded in February

[jewess_jeans]

I went to the seminar @The Stone NYC... anyone else? It was actually really interesting, even for a non-musician, even in a VERY hot room. He's very charismatic, and spoke mainly about his equipment, solo and session work. He still seems sort of, umm...amazed and maybe a little embarrassed about his new-found fame. All in all, I'm really glad I went. I know someone was there video-ing it...

[Three dollars and 63 cents]

The Singers' appearance on NPR's Piano Jazz that they recorded in July will be airing this weekend, according to the show's website. Check your local listings or wait for it to appear in the archive, hopefully in a week or so.

 

I hope Divining and King Queen are part of the set list. Those are the two songs they've been playing a lot lately that resonate with me the most. I think it's pretty safe to guess songs like Floored and Thurston County (the stuff I'd rather hear) probably aren't--Marian McPartland doesn't strike me as someone who enjoys noise

[Albert Tatlock]

Interview with Nels Cline from Wilco

Fri, 09/24/2010 - 04:59.

 

By Kateina Petkovska

 

Grammy Award winning alt-rockers Wilco are coming to Prague to play Archa Theatre on the 28th of September. Provokator has a chat with lead guitarist Nels Cline.

 

Hello Nels, thank you for taking my call!

No problem.

 

You’re still in the States?

I’m in Los Angeles right now, where I live; very shortly, I leave for a Wilco concert in Colorado tomorrow and then I go to New York to see my girlfriend.

 

 

How do you feel about the European Tour, you’ll be going as far as Prague, have you been as far east in Europe?

I’ve played Slovenia and Croatia with my trio The Nels Cline Singers, I’ve never played in the Czech Republic but I’ve visited.

 

 

You played with them on the Solid Sound Festival right?

Yeah.

 

 

How was putting that together, mixing different media and artists, are you satisfied with the outcome?

I won’t necessarily speak for everyone, but I think we’re all very pleased and I know I am very pleased with how it came out. It was really an amazing event, it was really fun for us and it seemed also for the audience. We tried to make things affordable, we tried to have good food that was affordable, free parking, free water refill, not to be a part of any of the so called grudging that goes on on tons of such events. The people at MoCA, the museum were wonderful and the space is great. I think it was really good and I think it was perhaps successful enough that we will get to repeat it next year. Something similar, obviously with some new bands, new artists and new ideas, but I’m hoping that that happens, it was really a great experience.

 

 

Would you say that in a certain sense you as musicians, as public figures have a bigger responsibility towards the way the world is developing?

I think that our main responsibility, at least my personal responsibility as an artist, not as a politician I feel that’s the only thing I’m good at. That said, Wilco as a band is very well known at this point that it benefits for various charitable causes and Jeff Tweedy in particular does many charity concerts every year. Naturally I think as musicians that’s probably the best we can do, because I am not personally interested in trying to be a politician. I think the biggest amount of change that I see in the world comes from people changing their minds about things. So it comes from within, rather than somebody trying to impress some kind of doctrine on someone else, I think that never works. There’s so much that needs to be done in the world, I’m just a guitar player. As an older man I’m trying not to loose sleep over these things as much as I used to, because I feel that the only thing that has saved me in my life and maybe I am lucky, is art, so I just try to make art.

 

 

Looking at the list on Wilco’s website it seems like you are concerned with a lot of causes. Among them a lot of sustainability projects, do you feel this is one of the more important things that the public should be focusing on?

I think sustainability is a huge and very important issue. I think that along with finding out why bees are disappearing, because without bees we will have no food, so the issue of sustainability will be at least point, it will be pointless. If there is no pollination going on than there is not going to be food. Similarly if we don’t get on top with what is going on with water, I think than the idea of sustainability is also pointless. This is such a huge issue and we spend so much time, especially in the western world using up the world’s resources and just taking them from anyone that would give them to us or is poor and giving them or selling them to us. It’s completely, a completely pointless waist. So yeah sustainability is very important. In the United States we are already seeing many, many people who have restaurants and all kinds of food service people using locally grown food and making it a priority, to support local farmers. I think the shift towards this and to the extent that we can, recycling has changed really fast in the United States. I think this is a very positive direction and I think a lot of times people aren’t aware of how fast things have changed in terms of were they were. I think that if we can get other countries to add more controls on industrial pollution and car emissions, like we have in California, very strict rules and recycling. Also we have smaller farms and farmers and we have natural food and we have sustainability. They have a great model, it sounds absurd, but there’s a beer company in Colorado that I’ve used as a model before. They’re completely green, they’re profit sharing, it’s fully sustainable, I think with that model we can move forward and not destroy the world.

 

 

Has the band become more serious and maybe more straightforward from Sky Blue Sky on?

It has been the same line line-up of Wilco now for six and a half years. I think as a result of having such a solid foundation of good chemistry that the band can go in any direction that it wants. Each time we work on a new song or make a record there are no discussions about weather the songs are straightforward or not obvious-ish or more progressive. All we try to do is songs that we think sound good when they are finished. Ultimately Jeff Tweedy is the man who says that one sounds good and it’s done. But we work together to create what we think is, I guess just as simple as it sounds, but it’s true, just a good song, a good sound. It feels right to us. If you speak to the direction of the band, because I think directions can change at any time, but what we do have is a very good orchestra right there, good musicians with a lot of mutual respect and versatility. For me it’s been very enjoyable and kind of makes me feel like I’m living in my teenage dream world. I really liked the idea of the rock band, you know a band, I sort of liked having a band, that’s why even my own band has been together for many years rather than changing constantly.

 

 

I hear, the writing in the band itself has become a lot more collaborative in resent years than lead by just Jeff. Does the fact that everyone contributes more affect the sound on a whole new level?

I don’t really know how it worked before in the band. There have been some discussions where I’ve heard that for example Jeff and Jay Bennett were very collaborative. I think Sky Blue Sky is a very collaborative record. We came up with the music sitting in a circle in a loft with small amplifiers with no headphones and primarily preformed the pieces that you hear on the record live, while everybody had input in the sound and the arrangements, the textures on the record; Wilco The Album is really a Jeff Tweedy record compositionally. There weren’t a lot of changes made to the structures of those songs after Jeff brought them in, because he brought in a very polished batch of songs. I think that every record is gonna be different. Collaborative in terms of subtle overdubs and arrangements, but primarily it is structurally the way Jeff brought it in; whereas with Sky Blue Sky many different twists and turns happened in the course of making those songs.

 

 

I have a question personally for you: how does it feel to be named by Rolling Stone as one of the “20 New Guitar Gods” a couple of years ago?

(laughs) My mom was alive then and that came out and I got to tell her about it and she didn’t really understand it, but I think it’s something really fun thing to tell your mom. But other than that it just sort of makes me smile and I tend to set it aside and forget about it. The only thing that sort of made it stand out in my mind, a little bit, is the writer David Fricke and David Fricke in the past has been a really descent writer and a champion of a lot of pretty good music. So having respect for the writer has made me feel slightly less embarrassed, but it’s pretty embarrassing.

 

 

You think it might lead to a “Nels Cline Day” in Los Angeles as Jeff got in St. Louis by the mayor?

No, I don’t think so. (laughs) And I’m actually moving away from Los Angeles so I don’t think they’ll be so happy.

 

 

How do you think that the latest album is perceived and what do you expect from the tour in Europe?

How is it perceived, I don’t really know? (laughs)

 

 

I mean how do fans react when you play new songs, Wilco has a really extensive discography?

We play a lot of songs from the new record; I think that every Wilco show ends with what I would call “straight forward rock and roll.” What we try to do is bring the audience, this is a Jeff way of structuring of concerts, try to bring the audience together behind this straight forward rocking out. By the end, no matter what little dark areas, and perplexing, or subtle areas we went through in the course of the evening, by the end we kind of unite and just have a good time and forget about all that and try to immerse ourselves in what rock and roll is all about, which is this kind of moving around and getting out of one’s daily worries. Wherever we play it seems to be possible for the audience to go there with us. If there is a message it’s just that there’s joy in music making and that rock and roll, while taken too seriously in some ways in our culture, is still a magnificent way for people to just really shake it all off.

 

 

I’m excited to be seeing this on the 28th in Prague.

I’m looking forward. I’ve been to Prague and it’s a beautiful place. I didn’t get to play there I was there to visit a friend.

 

 

Thank you for the interview and I’ll look you up when you’re here.

Thank you Katerina, please say hello.

 

The original interview

[Magnetized]

The Singers' appearance on NPR's Piano Jazz that they recorded in July will be airing this weekend, according to the show's website. Check your local listings or wait for it to appear in the archive, hopefully in a week or so.

 

I hope Divining and King Queen are part of the set list. Those are the two songs they've been playing a lot lately that resonate with me the most. I think it's pretty safe to guess songs like Floored and Thurston County (the stuff I'd rather hear) probably aren't--Marian McPartland doesn't strike me as someone who enjoys noise

 

The show is available here and I'm listening to it right now. Very nice music and someone named John Weber is sitting in for Marian McPartland. He is obviously a big fan of Nels and has conducted a knowledgeable, substantial interview between musical pieces.There's not much mention of Wilco, except for context.

 

Edit: I think my link to the show originally was wrong. I hope I've fixed it now. In case it directs you to the wrong show, though, just go to npr.org, search for Nels Cline, then go to the Marian McPartland Piano Jazz link. It's really a nice listen.

[LouieB]

Piano Jazz doesn't seem to play on NPR here in Chicago anymore since they dumped all the music shows. I wasn't even aware there were new ones being made.

 

Meanwhile I still really like the new album, which reminds ma a whole lot of the Mahavishnu Orchestra records.

 

LouieB

[Magnetized]

Piano Jazz doesn't seem to play on NPR here in Chicago anymore since they dumped all the music shows. I wasn't even aware there were new ones being made.

 

Wow, that's sad in a market like Chicago. We're lucky in my little one-horse town of Norfolk, VA to have 2 NPR stations--one with mainly classical programming and another with all the rest of the usual NPR stuff. Going off topic for just a sec, we actually have a local show here called Out of the Box with Paul Shugrue, that plays great, eclectic music Mon-Thurs from 7-9 and Sat from 1-5. The DJ has an encyclopedic knowledge of alternative, Americana, singer-songwriter, etc. genres and really terrific taste. His favorite album of 2009 was W(TA), so you know he's got it goin' on. If interested, you can check it out streaming or archived here

 

Plug over--back to your regular programming. And by the way, Marian McPartland sounds like she's really on her last legs, sad to say. She sounds worse than Diane Rehm. And I say that with great respect for both of them--just really unfortunate about their voices.

[LouieB]

It is totally pathetic. Chicago has WBEZ, which is the only real NPR player in town and a big one. A few years back they canceled all the music programming although a few music related shows remain, but the evening jazz programming and other type of stuff was all let go. Piano jazz may be on the NPR out of DuPage County (WDCB) but I haven't tracked it down.

 

Instead BEZ repeats alot of the talk shows morning and evening instead. I am sure some listeners like this, but I perfered the music in the evenings and weekends.

 

Marian is on her last leg; she must be close to 100 (92 actually...).

 

LouieB