By Steve Rhodes
A weekly look at the magazines laying around Beachwood HQ.
Wilco Wah-Wah
A friend more accepting of Wilco’s decision to license its songs to Volkswagen says “That’s what it takes to pay for Nels Cline.”
I don’t know if that’s true, but it sure isn’t an excuse.
Cline is the guitarist brought into Wilco in 2004 “as one more sign of bandleader Jeff Tweedy’s ongoing interest in broadening the scope and ambition of the band’s sound,” Jesse Fox Mayshark writes in the November-December issue of No Depression (not available online).
“The band has given Cline more visibility than anything he’s done before,” Mayshark writes. So maybe he oughta be paying Tweedy.
Not that Clines isn’t good. He is.
And he gives Mayshark an interesting interview worth your time if you’re a fan of Wilco, Clines or guitar players in general.
Or you can just hear his work on TV selling Jettas.
Guitar Town
“I haven’t been to jail in thirteen years,” Steve Earle says in the same issue. “I haven’t been divorced in ten years. This is the first time I’ve been married sober. And I’ve been making records sober longer than I made records on drugs.”
Regime Change
“When you have a regime that would be happier in the afterlife than in this life, this is not a regime that is subject to the classic theories of [nuclear] deterrence,” John Bolton says in this week’s New York Times Magazine.
Unironically, he’s talking about Iran, not America.
Other Bolton delusions:
* “I think it’s almost beyond dispute that we were right to overthrow Saddam and the threat his regime posed.”
As Doonesbury might say, you’ll have to forgive him, he’s been living inside the bubble.
* “I don’t think the world has a correct temperature.”
Well, a survivable temperature might be considered a correct one.
“[T]he notion that that you are going to reduce carbon emissions enough to have an impact on [global warming] is just – serious people don’t believe that’s true.”
Because serious people believe that folks like Bolton and his friends will always find a way to thwart the public interest out of greed and ignorance.
* About Bolton returning an unneeded Thanksgiving turkey to Safeway: “Well, who are we going to give it to? Here, you want a turkey?”
Again, the bubble.
God and Man
In the same issue, Mark Oppenheimer explains all in the curious story of British philosopher Antony Flew, a famous atheist whose apparent newfound belief in God has evangelicals crowing. But, as Oppenheimer writes, “his change of heart may not be what it seems.”
And “may” is putting it lightly.
Strummer Boy
“In the late seventies and early eighties, Joe Strummer, one of the leaders of the Clash, wrote and performed some of the most mercurial rock-and-roll songs ever heard,” the New Yorker notes in a capsule review of The Future Is Unwritten.
“The director Julien Temple, Strummer’s friend, brings together home movies, audio recordings, and incendiary performances in a documentary portrait of one of music’s true anarchic geniuses . . . Temple weaves together a film that is both heady and humble, entirely worthy of Strummer’s spontaneous, astonishing music.”
Note: Greg Kot and Jim DeRogatis will host a special screening of The Future Is Unwritten at the Music Box on Friday NOVEMBER 16
Dirt Farmers
Also in No Depression:
* “Decades beyond The Band’s heyday at Big Pink, Levon Helm finds new inspiration in the music flowing forth from another Woodstock residence.”
(See also “Levon’s Dirt Farm” in Don’s Root Cellar.)
* “Originally the Sadies were just for kicks; everyone else had things going on,” band member Travis Good says. “Then Neko Case needed a band for a tour of the States so we did it, even though we were still full-on with our other bands. That led to us signing to Bloodshot. Then we bought a van, and once we had a van and a small record contract, we were kind of obliged to start playing as the Sadies a lot more.”
Buzz Kills
In her weekly “About This Issue” note, Chicago Tribune Magazine editor Elizabeth Taylor made the following declaration: “Beautiful people. Gorgeous house. Fabulous art. Scrumptious food. Abundant beverage. This party possessed all the ingredients for another lovely evening.”
Yes. Gorgeous people always make for a lovely party. I can’t wait.
*
Ugly people. Cheap apartment. Music posters. Tostito’s and HoHo’s. A coupla kegs and a full liquor cabinet. (And . . . whatever else walks in the door.) Rock and roll and horny people. Those are the ingredients that promise another lovely evening.
*
ME: It’s so funny what the straight world thinks makes for a great party.
TIM: They always have food!
Posted on November 7, 2007