A beautiful day with such good vibes that everybody, bands included, seemed a little blissed out. Do we need a little threatening weather or oppressive heat to generate some urgency? – Cedric Watson and Bijou Creole felt urgent, not just in their performance but conceptually. His exploration of his Creole roots not only includes music [...]
Tag Archives: Wilco
The Minus 5 with Steve Wynn and the Baseball Project
October 1, 2009 – 12:01 am
Scott McCaughey says of his band, the Minus 5, that they “never wanted to get too serious, just an anything-goes kind of deal.” That philosophy has led to a revolving door lineup that has included members of R.E.M., Wilco, the Posies, the Decemberists and more. The players have often been friends, so the sessions are [...]
Wilco, Wilco (the album) (Nonesuch)
August 1, 2009 – 12:01 am
Wilco (the band) didn’t preview any songs off Wilco (the album) when it played at Jazz Fest a couple months before the CD’s release. But from Jeff Tweedy’s porkchop banter to the band’s amp-jumping antics and the bare-chested cowbell guy, the Fair Grounds set captured the goofy spirit of “Wilco (the song),” the album’s opening [...]
The Great Divide
May 16, 2009 – 5:34 am
I’ve made no secret of my hostility toward Jazz Fest’s VIP package that allows high rollers to buy their way into a special enclosure in front of the stage. It not only takes the front row away from the band’s biggest fans, but it backs those fans further away from the band because of [...]
Brass Tasks
October 1, 2008 – 12:01 am
In Lafayette’s slumping indie rock scene, young band Brass Bed is a decent size fish getting bigger and bigger in a pond that grows smaller and smaller with each lackluster crowd. In the past 10 months, Brass Bed performed at two of the state’s biggest festivals, first Voodoo Music Experience, then a main stage spot [...]
Drew Landry Band, Bandry Land (Palehorse Music)
June 1, 2008 – 12:01 am
Albums recorded for a C-note and cheap beer aren’t supposed to sound this good. But give it up for Lafayette singer-songwriter Drew Landry, who not only lands his best album yet, but one that could easily contend with anything on the national Americana scene. Landry assembled 23 of his closest pals, including mandolinist Al Berard, [...]
Voodoo Fest: How Do You Voodoo?
October 1, 2007 – 12:01 am
Much of Voodoo involves the acts you’ve known for all these years; then again, there are some you might not know. Wilco’s performance of “Kidsmoke” at Jazz Fest 2005 was one of the festival’s finest moments in years. A study in tension and release, they played the German mechanik beat for long, chorus-less stretches so [...]
Intensity or Surprise
October 1, 2007 – 12:01 am
Wilco’s latest album Sky Blue Sky is one of the most subtle recordings in the group’s history, a surprise to some after the more overt experimentalism of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost Is Born, and even more of a surprise to those who expected a radicalized Wilco now that guitarist Nels Cline is on [...]
