max abelson's super groovy music video spectacular

#412: wilco - laminated cat (not for the season) (2002)

from the grand salmon-colored new york observer: “everybody okay? everybody situated? got your programs? no? i’m sorry! you guys really look good. i’d always wondered what that meant,” jeff tweedy told swooning fans on monday night, halfway through wilco’s shiny coney island show. “very, very attractive audience—you should feel good about yourselves!”

it’s not that mr. tweedy has only become more stable since ending one of alt-rock’s best-documented drug addictions. he’s a better front man. at keyspan park, his songs started sweet and grew from there—a ray charles keyboard bulged in hate it here, a lap steel guitar whirred in walken, and an early-’70s hi records organ yowled in jesus, etc. it was big, oceanic music.

on the downside, middle-aged mr. tweedy has been writing songs that have a weakness for breezy comfiness: 2007’s sky blue sky even features a song about household chores. but on monday, the band swelled and swirled, so that parts of you are my face had the sweet buoyant bounce of south african pop, but other sections shook like springsteen.

it was weird to hear three perky songs from the band’s gleaming, googly-eyed 1999 pop extravaganza summerteeth, which was co-written by ex-band member jay bennett, who died in may of an accidental painkiller overdose. he had been suffering from health problems, had written publicly about under-insurance, and had sued mr. tweedy over royalties. wilco hasn’t had the same barroom drawl or ecstatic lavishness without mr. bennett, but the music’s much more comfortable.

there wasn’t a lot of comfort during yo la tengo’s opening set. the trio makes the country’s most delectable and expansive indie rock, but on monday they started annoyingly loud and stayed there. the set was fuzzy, muddy and shrill, and by its end there were 16 people near the stage plugging their ears, and one man with a hand to his forehead. but when yo la tengo came back on the stage at the end of the night to join in on wilco’s wild-eyed, long and loopy spiders (kidsmoke), the music had ferocious sparkle.

“i’ll tell you something,” mr. tweedy said afterward, giving a calisthenics and hand-clapping lesson to the audience. “you’re going to feel this tomorrow, right here, and it will feel good. thank you so much. it’s really going to start to burn. but don’t stop. do not stop.”

from march 13, 2008: wilco - cars can’t escape (2001)

it was very sad when 45-year-old jay bennett died. last year i called him “a brilliant little baby,” and 16 days before his death this month i wrote about his problems with arthritis in the observer.  he was practically as cool as george harrison, except more tragic, and he was sometimes dreadlocked.

#369: wilco - misunderstood (1996)

in late april, ex-wilco band member jay bennett wrote on myspace about his hip replacement surgery, under-insurance problems, arthritic aches and knee trouble: “i have been saving as much money as possible ever since i made this new commitment to my health, my future, and my quality of life,” he shared, “and have sold off some vintage recording gear.”

drummer ken coomer, who was also fired from wilco, left one of the few comments: “love you! call me i have a story of a friend who just went through a similar, actually worse surgery…”

how could the tale of jay bennett get sadder? this is how: on tuesday, the chicago tribune reported that mr. bennett has sued wilco frontman jeff tweedy, claiming that mr. tweedy owes him for his eight years in the band, and for his role in their documentary, i am trying to break your heart. that film shows dreadlocked, chubby, whiny mr. bennett giving migraines to mr. tweedy during the recording of yankee hotel foxtrot, hailed as the smartest american rock album in eons when it was finally released in 2002. mr. bennett had been fired in august 2001.

whether or not he gets the $50,000 he’s after—or a functioning hip—there’s some recompense in the secret that wilco hasn’t been the same without him. what is now middle-of-the-road prettiness was once tobacco-stained, waffle-ironed beauty. thanks in large part to mr. bennett’s kaleidoscopic instrumentation, 1999’s summerteeth, for example, sounds like phil spector producing gram parsons covering the beach boys.

mr. bennett’s last solo album, whatever happened i apologize, is available as a free download under a noncommercial creative commons license. “once i am able to get a down payment of sorts together and actually have the surgery performed… i should be operating at approximately 80% capacity,” he wrote on myspace. “i’m functioning way below 80% right now, so what do I have to lose?”

- from my second installment of the observer’s shiny new pop picks

#67: wilco - cars can’t escape (2001)

there are three spectacularly sad things about this song.

one is that jeff tweedy kicked the chubby dread-locked piano player, jay bennett, out of the band soon after this footage was taken. mr. bennett, as proven by the wilco documentary i am trying to break your heart, was such a brilliant little baby that he would complain while tweedy was vomiting because of his migraines. but mr. tweedy is difficult too: besides the headaches—see below—he’s suffered from depression, panic attacks, and painkiller addiction. also there’s the girlfriend hair touching problem too.

the second sad thing is that we watch the song blossom from a beautiful little two-man ditty into a huge full-band freakout, and yet cars can’t escape never made it onto any wilco album.

but the third and much sadder thing is that these lyrics are massively devastating, especially lines like “and in my sleepless head/ our love’s been dead a week or two,” or “there were reasons for you to love me/ but I gave you none.” and then there’s the refrain: “so i tap my glass and nod my chin/ and wonder who you’ve been in rhythm with.” good god.

#66: uncle tupelo - atomic power (1994)

why is wilco so much better known than jeff tweedy’s first band, the plaid-wearing old-time country revivalists uncle tupelo? maybe it’s because by the time of this 1994 concert, frontman jay farrar hated tweedy so much that he wouldn’t sing along on any songs his rival had written for the band.

according to tweedy: “around this time, i would say something into a microphone onstage, and afterward he would pull me aside and say, ‘don’t you ever fucking talk into that microphone again.’” to be fair, tweedy had been caught stroking ferrar’s girlfriend’s (now wife’s) hair while she slept, which is always awkward.

two months before this show, ferrar told the band’s manager to tell tweedy that he was leaving. they toured for a tad bit longer, but this here was their second-ever concert. by august, jeff tweedy was in the studio recording his new band’s debut, wilco’s a.m. it’s too bad uncle tupelo died, considering how perfect the band was at breathing life into old twangy songs like the louvin brothers’ atomic power.

weirdly, ira and charlie louvin loathed each other too: “the way we parted, I never thought of heaven and ira in the same thought,” the surviving brother has said. hatred makes for good country music.