SOUNDTRACK: WILCO-Tiny Desk Concert #509 (February 23, 2016).
As far as I can tell, Wilco is the first band to be invited back for a Tiny Desk Concert (there was a stated rule that no one would come back twice, with some people skirting that by coming with another band). Laura Gibson was invited back since she was the very first attendee, but since Wilco’s newest album has been so successful, it seems somehow fitting that they get invited back.
And perhaps in honor of that, while their last performance was noisy and raucous, this one is decidedly more mellow—with all acoustic instruments. But that doesn’t mean it’s quiet and calm either.
For the first song “The Joke Explained” from Star Wars, they used banjo, acoustic bass, hollow bodies electric guitar (w/ slide), the ever-present melodica and muted drums (w/shakers). And it sounded great.
For the second song, the older “Misunderstood” everybody seemed to switch instruments. Tweedy switched guitars, the acoustic bass became an acoustic guitar, the hollow body became a slide guitar. Nels Cline’s slide guitar brings so much to the song by doing seemingly so little. I love how this simple, sweet song has a wild middle section–a crazy breakdown with noisy cymbals and drums–drummer Glenn Kotche is fantastic–and everyone else playing some crazy high-pitched notes until it all settles back down again.
Tweedy has another guitar for the third song “I’m Always In Love” and the melodica is back. There’s xylophone keeping the melody. And as with all of these songs, Tweedy sounds great and the backing vocals add wonderful harmonies. Cline plays a wonderful slide solo, too.
Before the final song and there’s another guitar change for Tweedy, and he says that after this song, “you guys need to get back to work solving this Trump problem. Figure it out! Its weird!” They play “Shot in the Arm,” another great old song.
The band sounds excellent—a wonderfully full sound even without amplification. I am really excited to see them his summer.
There’s also a nifty video showing “Misunderstood” with two 360 degree cameras so you can see what goes on in the audience during a Tiny Desk Concert. Check it out.
[READ: February 7, 2016] The Photographer
I loved Guibert’s book Alan’s War, in which he took the words of Alan Cope and put them to an amazing graphic novel. Well, he is back again doing the same thing with the words of famed photograph Didier Lefèvre.
Didier Lefèvre died in 2008, but before he died he left a legacy of amazing photojournalism. That includes this trip to Afghanistan which he took with the team from Doctors without Borders.
Alexis Siegel translated this book again, and he offers an excellent introduction which not only explains Lefèvre’s life, it also gives context for everything tat these men and women were up against in that war-torn region.
As mentioned Guibert draws out the story that Lefèvre told him. But this book is different from Alan’s War in that it also uses the photos that Lefèvre took. Guibert fills in the gaps where Lefèvre, didn’t or couldn’t, shoot. And there was a lot he couldn’t shoot. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 