2010

A few weeks back we hipped you to Umphrey’s cover of Lisztomania. For their version of the Phoenix tune, the Chicago-based jammers didn’t change the arrangement very much. The same

Wilco is many things, but as they will let you know, you oughta know Wilco and you really should. The Chicago band has seen a few different incarnations, all centering around singer/songwriter Jeff Tweedy and bassist John Stirratt. The latest incarnation seems to be sticking around, as the lineup hasn’t shaken up since 2004 with the last additions of jazz guitarist Nels Cline and multi instrumentalist Pat Sansone. However, despite the lengthy stint of this touring lineup their latest Wilco (The Album) is only the second with the current players, but it is still signature Wilco.

Tweedy’s songwriting is mirrored through dark passages in the live show and subsequently by the opposing beautiful harmonizations. In Tweedy’s words from the Sam Jones documentary, I Am Trying To Break Your Heart, “I don’t want to just fall back on a bunch of easy rockers.” And they wouldn’t as they came to Michigan State University’s Wharton Center.

Tweedy and company started the evening at the packed auditorium by diving into their catalogue with new material off of Wilco (The Album), as the drone and darkness of Bull Black Nova eerily twinkled to begin the night. The slow, psychedelic pings and patters give way to searing guitar pulls as the Tweedy and Cline ebb and flow the weirdness back and forth with the crashing guitar builds through the crowd. Organ swing followed on You Are My Face before venturing back into the drone and light drumming of I Am Trying To Break Your Heart.

READ ON for more from Pietro on Wilco in East Lansing…

For today’s GSW-themed Grousing The Aisles column, we’re passing the proverbial mic to longtime taper Scott Bernstein to tell us all about a recording he made of God Street Wine’s

We’d like to welcome longtime GSW stage manager, lighting director and close friend of both the band and HT, Michael Weiss, to share his thoughts on the upcoming God Street Wine shows at the Gramercy Theatre on July 9 and 10. As we discussed earlier, these shows will benefit a cause near and dear to Michael’s heart – the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

[Michael in his familiar position side-stage at a GSW gig]

When I was a kid, I remember all the hype surrounding The ARMS (Action into Research for Multiple Sclerosis) Concert for Ronnie Lane. I had no idea what the concert was for, or why it meant so much. I just knew that the music, with Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Steve Winwood, John Paul Jones, and more, was great, and that was enough for me. Now, 27 years later, and having been living with Multiple Sclerosis for six years, I understand how much it must have meant to Ronnie to have some of his closest friends come together to benefit, and raise awareness for people living with Multiple Sclerosis.

In 1989, six years after the ARMS concert, and after two years of solid, post-high school Grateful Dead tour, I met Ed Looram at Wesley College in Dover, Delaware. That meeting opened the door to a ton of new music for me. Ed introduced me to hip-hop via De La Soul’s 3 Feet High and Rising, the alter-ego, psychedelic-pop stylings of XTC via The Dukes of Stratosphere, and what would be the life changing family of God Street Wine via a back yard throw down at Ed’s childhood home in Ridgewood, NJ.

For the next 2+ years, if I wasn’t on Dead tour, I would travel from Dover as often as I could to see GSW at what was the home of the early ’90s NYC jam scene: The Nightingale Bar, The Wetlands, and 712 Club, as well as venues outside of the city like the jam-historic Rhinecliff Hotel and 7 Willow Street. Those trips, and that time with the band, Ed and the rest of the original “Winos”, along with the interaction with the other bands, and crews on the scene, would prove to be the things that lifelong friendships and family are made of. READ ON for more from Michael on GSW’s reunion…