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Sunday, November 09, 2014

The Wilco Diaspora, Part 2: Tweedy & Son


When last we met the members of Wilco, nearly every member of the venerable band had released their own albums - everyone except for main singer and songwriter, Jeff Tweedy. Now his record is here, a double album called Sukierae, made in collaboration with his son Spencer under the name Tweedy. For years, Wilco watchers have been hearing about Spencer's drum prowess, and even hearing it on the last Mavis Staples album produced by Jeff, or on recordings by The Blisters, the OK indie rock band Spencer founded. But now we have the full parental endorsement, 20 songs, several of them featuring just father and son.

Let's get one thing out of the way: Spencer can play. Just 18 years old, he is a tuned-in, versatile rock drummer who easily handles anything his dad throws at him, from the punky blast of opening track Please Don't Let Me Be So Understood, to the tense art-rock of Diamond Light Pt. 1, or the chugging folk-rock of Low Key. It would be unfair to compare him to Glenn Kotche, Wilco's groundbreaking percussionist, but he's not missed in this context.

But as integral as Spencer is to Sukierae, make no mistake: Jeff is in the driver's seat, writing all the songs, singing, playing multiple instruments, producing, arranging and recording nearly everything at the Wilco loft in Chicago. The end result is as convincing a display of his casual mastery as we're likely to get. Despite sometimes sounding tossed off, almost all the songs resonate emotionally and contain well-turned hooks and tangy little touches that keep you coming back. I could see an argument for paring Sukierae down to a single disc, but if you listen in a sitting (try it, you might like it), there's an accretive effect of all the verses, choruses and bridges stacking up, seemingly generated from an unending fount of creativity. You might find yourself thinking American song is in a healthy place with this Tweedy guy.

His deep engagement with the history of his medium is reflected in that first song, with its jokey reference to the classic song sung by The Animals, Nina Simone, and so many others, and Hazel, the penultimate track, which calls back to an under-appreciated Dylan song of the same name from the Planet Waves album. Also, the sequencing of the record can't help but bring to mind the White Album, with its whipsaw shifts of mood and its variety of approaches. The sonic environment of Sukierae is more limited than the classic Beatles album, but Tweedy shows a lot of imagination in how he chooses to present each song.

Like The Beatles, Jeff Tweedy also knows when a little help can be useful, deploying Scott McCaughey (who played with R.E.M. for more than 15 years and currently heads The Baseball Project) on several tracks, mostly on piano, and calling in Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig (who perform as Lucius) to sweeten things with their background vocals on nearly half the songs. I especially love their work on sardonic rocker I'll Sing It, where they channel a little of that Flo & Eddie sound from Electric Warrior. Their Lucius bandmate Dan Molad is also heard on two tracks, but credited differently for some reason. There are three songs with Jeff on his own, with Fake Fur Coat an excellent example of the genre of "strumming and picking folk songs with lyrics that blend the surreal with the quotidian." It is, after all, Dylan's world and we can hardly blame Jeff Tweedy for living in it.

Although the lyrics can be oblique at times, there is a general sense of vulnerability, and even fragility at times. Nobody likes to cry in front of their kids, but there is absolutely no sense that Jeff is holding back to protect Spencer. While Jeff has had his rock star troubles, it seems like things turned out pretty well on the home front, and that feeling of familial cohesion is one of the external delights of the album. It should also be mentioned that father and son share at least one of the emotional cruxes of the album: wife and mother Susan Tweedy's diagnosis of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, for which she is currently being treated. Sukierae (pronounced "sookee-ray") is one of her family nicknames, making the album partly a tribute to her - and it's one she and all the Tweedies can be proud of.

Coming soon: Wilco returns with two career-spanning collections, celebrating 20 years of excellence and exploration. The first, Alpha Mike Foxtrot, will be a box set of rarities and unreleased material, and the second, What's Your 20?, will feature that number of "essential" songs from their eight studio albums.

 

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