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Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
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Wilco
Wednesday 11 June @ 15:32:51 |
 by Eric R. Smith
Sam Jones’ debut film, “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart,” could have been just another rock documentary. Fortunately for viewers the subject of his film, Chicago-based band Wilco, proved more intriguing than anticipated and the chance events that unfolded on the first day of filming assumed monumental proportions. Jones has captured the creation of Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, an album already poised to end up historically on a shortlist with the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and the Smiths’ The Queen is Dead among rock’s finest offerings.
Wilco singer Jeff Tweedy has claimed that YHF is his reflection on contemporary America. In an era that has been witnessing the slow death of irony, it is perhaps almost appropriate that Wilco’s musical reflection on the American condition would find itself briefly homeless after the band fell out of favor with the corporate A&R branch of their parent record label, Reprise. The band was courted by dozens of labels in the wake of the jilt and eventually signed with a subsidiary of the company who fired them, what Tweedy calls in the film “the great rock ’n’ roll swindle.”
Art, at least this time, had the last laugh. And Jones was there to record it.
“I Am Trying to Break Your Heart” opens with the recording process and ends with both the announcement that Reprise Records had dropped Wilco from its artist roster and the surprise firing of studio whiz/co-songwriter/lead guitarist Jay Bennett from the lineup. The label insisted that the record required changes in order to be commercially viable. The explanation behind Bennett’s firing is much murkier terrain (and remains so to this day).
Although a band with a rabid cult following whose sales always hovered safely around the 200,000 mark, Wilco was never able to become the breakout commercial success that Reprise wanted. The label anticipated diminishing returns on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and was apparently tired of trying to push an unusually tough-to-sell commodity. Those fans who managed to hear the widely-internet-bootlegged demo recordings sent to the label will understand the frustration Reprise may have felt, a point which Wilco’s Jay Bennett comments upon shortly before his departure from the band. But record companies, like all commercial entities, often fail to see past the bottom line. The loyalty of the band’s fan base and the long-term commercial success of Wilco belied the business decision over YHF. In short, Reprise made a very unwise business move.
For fans of the band, Jones captures an intimate album-making process first hand. While there are perhaps surprises, such as the conflicts within this talented collective, fans closely following the band will already have some insight into the events since the music press covered them while Jones was documenting them.
The firing of longtime drummer Ken Coomer and his replacement with the jazzier Glen Kotche occurred the day before filming began—and isn’t mentioned here.
“I Am Trying to Break Your Heart” is still worth viewing even for non-Wilco fans, if only because of what happened in the process of creating the record. There is both external conflict (Wilco vs. Reprise) and internal conflict (band members vs. each other) in the film. Perhaps most importantly, Jones offers a glimpse into the creative process that has resulted in what many critics consider one of rock music’s historic moments in recording.
The DVD contains bonus video of the band’s intense live shows, of Tweedy’s intimate solo performances, and the creation of the documentary itself. The extra DVD is pretty much fans-only terrain. The live performance video probably serves its most useful purpose once a band is no longer touring, since being there is much different than watching it on a TV screen. The making of the documentary bonus is extraordinarily brief and no new information about the documentary results from it.
What is interesting about the making of the documentary featurette, however, is the reflections from the people involved—director and band members—who wonder how the filming affected their behavior. The presence of a film crew brought out some humor, as when Bennett jokes about drug use, but may have also heightened the conflicts between members, it’s difficult to determine how much the cameras helped contribute to the unraveling of the groups core line-up. In any case Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is what it is, and “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart” attempts to tell us why.
Wilco is the headlining act at the Rock Garden 2003 concert at the Walker Art Center on Fri., June 13. The concert is from 4-11 p.m. with special opening guests The Bad Plus and Fog. Tickets are $26 ($15 Walker members) in advance. $30 ($20 Walker members) the day of the event. Call 612-375-7622 for more info.
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