Wilco ready to go the extra mile

[Albert Tatlock]

I had a student flat like that once.

I could do with the Evening With format coming to London one day - though I do doth my cap to them for the two night stand last time around. Maybe it can be two evenings with then, and a show in Cardiff, on a rugby Saturday ...

 

 

 

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/wilco-ready-to-go-the-extra-mile/story-fnejoevq-1226601385759

 

Wilco ready to go the extra mile

• by:Kathy McCabe
• From: National Features
• March 20, 20136:00PM

JEFF Tweedy chuckles when it is suggested his band has reached some elder statesman milestone courtesy of the title of their coming tour.

"Oh yeah, An Evening With Wilco - we generally play pretty long shows, so it probably should be A Decade with Wilco," Tweedy says.

Since forming in 1994 and consolidating as the current line-up a decade later, Wilco have challenged and delighted the discerning music fan with their genre-hopping experimentation.
 
They became the poster band for the dysfunctional decline of the major label system when one imprint of Warner Music refused to release their breakthrough album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot for it to be picked up by another of the multinational's subsidiaries.
 
Since then, the band's recorded output has won them Grammys while their gigs further their legend.

As Tweedy says, they will play anywhere, any time and average at least 150 shows a year.
 
On their coming Australian tour, their itinerary stretches from the Easter run of blues festivals to the Sydney Opera House and Melbourne's Hamer Hall.
 
"We will play a folk festival one day and in a little club somewhere the next - we're quite good at fitting in," Tweedy says.
 
"We've had to grow into the bigger venues and stages, and we have become really good at that over the years."
 
Tweedy agrees that maintaining their current-line-up for almost a decade is a factor in Wilco's on-stage alchemy.
 
Like all good gigs, the musical conversation the band members have during a show appears effortless and intuitive rather than drilled in their Chicago rehearsal room.
 
It could also be that John Stirratt, Nels Cline, Glenn Kotche, Pat Sansone and Mikael Jorgensen are fine musicians.
 
"It's wonderful to be able to get from point A to B a lot faster," Tweedy says of their on-stage communication. "Music is something people tend to talk about and musicians talk about a lot when they don't know each other very well.
 
"A band like Wilco, who have been doing it together long enough, will have an understanding of certain things that have to be experienced and not talked about."
 
Tweedy has also become in-demand as a producer since taking charge of the award-winning album You Are Not Alone by revered R&B and gospel singer Mavis Staples.
 
He is wrapping up her next record and also has the producer credit on The Invisible Way, the coming release from sub-pop indie rockers Low.
 
The Wilco frontman thought it was an achievement just to meet Staples.
 
"These things are mostly happy accidents," he says. "There isn't time for a whole lot of solicitation of other projects like that.
 
"Mavis lives here in Chicago, so that worked out well and I've been friends with Low for quite a while and they worked around my schedule, which was awesome."
 
Tweedy said Staples taught him how to be himself.
 
"That's a skill. It's really great to watch someone like Mavis Staples work and absorb a certain amount of that spirit or whatever you want to call it. She's so good at being herself," he says.
 
The good news for Wilco fans is that there will be another record from the band, to follow-up 2011's The Whole Love, before he takes on any more production work.
 
SEE Wilco, Sydney Opera House, April 2 and 3, from $79, sydneyoperahouse.com

[dagwave]

in america, we prefer "doff"

[dagwave]

"Tweedy said Staples taught him how to be himself."

 

 

the lessons just may be in the hands of the elders: we must ensure that we're ready to receive them.

 

 

thanks for posting.

[Queen Amaranthine]

"Tweedy said Staples taught him how to be himself."

 

 

the lessons just may be in the hands of the elders: we must ensure that we're ready to receive them.

 

 

thanks for posting.

 

That's a wonderful message for us all.

 

Love that picture with the interview. The super-short paragraphs, though, drive me a little crazy!