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Calvary Chapel presents
For more info:
706-543-0901
www.calvaryathens.com
HOURS: M F 3pm-2am SAT 12pm-2am SUN 12pm-12am
Friday, March 10th
doors at 7:30pm, show at 8pm
Advance tickets $10
at the Carpenters Shop on Chase St.
$12 Day of Show
120 Commerce Blvd., Bogart, GA
(1 block off Atlanta Hwy / behind Cingular Wireless)
inbpins
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706-KINGPIN
♦ ♦
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Jim. Sliermarv
. ploujs your requests on our
^ grand piano- +
♦ in the 77 th frame lounge
House Martinis PBR -
& Manhattans while «m pL
wFule Jim. plays
Come Try Our New Menu featuring Pizza,
Hot Sandwiches, Gourmet Hotdogs & Appetizers
OPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK
FULL BAR
HAPPY HOUR: MON-FRI: 3pm-7pm
with $4.50 Bud Pitchers & $3 Wells
DAILY DRINK SPECIALS
EVERYDAY: 1 Hour Bowling For 1/2 Hour Price Played Belore 6pm
HOMEWOOD VILLAGE PLAZA • WWW.KINGPINS.US
WILCO'S 4 MBSIIS SOM AIR AIIISIIC
EXPRESSION II THE ABE BE EBNSBMPTIBN
W hether in terms of genre, aesthetic or appeal, Wilco treads a
fine line with what it represents as a band. Naysayers brand
the group as an adult-contemporary act dressed up in avant-
garde clothing, while Wilco's champions claim that it is the most
adventurous and exciting rock act in the country. Through 11 years
and six personnel changes, the members of Wilco have transformed
from att-eountry pioneers, subversive pop songsmiths and sonic
explorers, into a mixture of rock and Americana heavily informed
by the last 50 years of experimental music.
The current lineup comprises guitarist-singer Jeff Tweedy, bass
ist John Stirratt, drummer-percussionist Glenn Kotche, guitarist
Nels Cline, sound engineer and keyboardist Mikael Jorgensen and,
the most recent roster addition, multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone.
Jim O'Rourke, whose fingerprints show up on a prodigious vari
ety of contemporary music, produced both their last two studio
albums, 2002's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and 2004's A Ghost is Bom,
and has had an equal hand in shaping Wilco into the unique and
provocative act it is now.
The release of each of these two albums brought claims that
Wilco's shifting identity alienates older fans in the process of
acquiring new ones. If, say, one were able to survey the types of
shoes worn by the audience
members of any Wilco show
here in the Southeast (shoes
being a fairly reliable means
of asserting and ascertain
ing social collectivity), you
would probably get a mix
of tasseled loafers and New
Balances, All-Stars and retro
Asics, Birkenstocks and bare
feet (at least at Bonnaroo).
Wilco's continual reinvention
has given it a broad appeal and
a fluid fanbase, making its live
shows a melting pot of many
groups that would, more or less,
probably not commingle under
normal social circumstances.
Though these groups may proj
ect different ideals on and har
bor different expectations from
Wilco, that the band's appeal
transcends such social pretenses
may prove to be its most prom
ising and powerful asset.
Questions of identity and individuality reside at the heart of A
Ghost is Bom, which combines some of Wilco's most complex and
abrasive music with moments of pop bliss. Ghost received the most
initial success of any previous release, debuting at no. 8 on the
Billboard charts (Wilco's highest spot to date) and winning two
Grammys, including "Best Alternative" album. Some critics, how
ever, responded to the album with more ambivalence than Yankee
Hotel Foxtrot, which saw almost universal acclaim, accusing Ghost
of lacking focus and coherence. From the 10-plus minutes of the
motorik-driven, Neu!-esque "Spiders (Kidsmoke)," to the guitar
chaos that finishes off "At Least That's What You Said," Ghost is
definitely Wilco's most stylistically intrepid album, but this should
not overshadow the thematic consistency and production aesthetic
forming the album into a coherent whole.
Compared to the insulated, mechanical precision and "sound
for sound's sake" aesthetic of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, A Ghost is Born
is an organic exploration into space, clutter, silence and discord,
treating them all with equal reverence (and often in the same
song). The instruments speak using their natural voices, unadorned
with the digital augmentation present of YHF. Piano notes resound
deeply and delicately, snare drums are crisp and textured, and bass
drums exhale tight, controlled breaths. Even the nine minutes of
electrometallic drones and signal searches that arise out of the
structural decay of the ironically titled "Less than You Think" re
tains an AM frequency warmth similar to the dronescopes La Monte
Young produced with the Dream Syndicate in the 1960s.
The album's title is a play off of the phrase "A star is bom."
This word switch—which shifts the phrase's meaning from signi
fying both an explosive ascent into fame and the emergence of
something able to generate its own light, to instead signify the
birth of something translucent, phantasmal and stuck between two
planes of existence—provides a haunting analogy for the darker
side of fame in contemporary culture. In "Handshake Drugs,"
Tweedy explains that, "It's okay for you to say / what you want
from me / I believe that's *he only / way for me to be / exactly
what you want me to be," but later asks, "Exactly what to you
want me to be?" Here he reminds us that the personas and projec
tions given as public objects are not only based on illusions, but
that lying behind these projections are actual, vulnerable human
beings trying to cope with this internal divide, an imperative idea
in a culture where the boundaries between private lives and public
personas are becoming increasingly blurry.
A Ghost is Born also documents an attempt to find reconcili
ation between creativity and commerce in a culture invested in
branding, commodifying, and marketing art. "Company in My Back"
conjures images of the artist as ventriloquist's dummy, speech
dependent on corporate publicity and creativity stifled by legal
morass: "I move so slow, a steady crushing hand / Holy shit there's
a company in my back." Wilco treads the unstable intersection
between the art and the market like no other band, as proven with
its well-documented legal battles with record companies, as well
as the members' outspoken support for updating current copyright
law to better adapt to the potential of cyberspace. The band's
commercial success, despite
regularly allowing EPs and live
shows to be available for listen
ing and free downloading on
line, has made them a touch
stone for file sharing advocates
carving out a legal domain with
little precedence.
Besides the supposedly com
promising effects of commercial
demands on artistic intent,
another theme materializing
within Ghost is communication.
The last track on the album,
"Late Greats," concerns the fic
titious band of the same name
whose song "Turpentine" is the
"greatest lost track of all time."
Tweedy sings, "The best song
will never get sung / The best
life never leaves your lungs /
So good, you won't ever know
/ I never hear it on the radio
/ Can't hear it on the radio." A
superficial listen might present a formulaic rock song proclaiming
that only obscure and under-the-radar acts aie worthy of praise.
But, if taken as an ode to the ineffable forms of artistic ideals, the
song becomes an interesting statement about the limitations of ar
tistic expression in contemporary society. The "greatest song" ever
written is. in itself, an impossibility. For any song, once written
and accentuated, is open to misrepresentation, criticism or failure.
And once released, it will be subject to further mediation like ad
vertising and marketing, and. therefore, destined to become only
an apparition of what was originally intended. The 'greatest song"
can only exist outside of these things, in the purity of intent.
Turpentine, an organic solvent used to strip paint or to take off
a veneer or exterior finish, may prove to be the key to unlocking
the album. Wilco has admitted that, lyrically and musically, Ghost
is its most political album yet. In these terms. Ghost's extended
and fractured guitar solos (another minor, but common, gripe
about the album) take on new significance if thought of as exten
sions of the lyrical content or as another attempt at putting form
to ineffable sentiments. Furthermore, Wilco is one of the few bands
whose fanbase draws equally from both the left and the right, po
litically speaking, and in this sense, the band might be thought of
as a social solvent, able to dissolve cultural or political barriers by
uniting people in the pleasure of experiencing live music, if only
for the extent of the performance.
Wilco stands as a band pushing boundaries and making the mu
sic its members want to make. These guys retain their artistic in
tegrity through making the effort to ensure that their art is made
available to speak to you in whatever capacity it may, no matter
what type of shoes you choose to wear.
Nick Hasty
The Wilco show on Mar. 9 at the Classic Center is sold out.
26 FLAGPOLE.COM • MARCH 8,2006