WILCO:After a stint in rehab...

[KiwiCoromandel]

The job of saving rock'n'roll at the close of the 20th century was foisted on a stroppy university student and part-time psychiatric hospital orderly named Thom Yorke. But the Englishman rejected the notion and filled several Radiohead albums with experimental electronica.

The pundits searched for the next beacon of hope and alighted on Jeff Tweedy, an occasionally vituperative son of the American midwest, who fronted Chicago band Wilco.

When it was released in April, 2002, Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot assumed mythical status in the harsh light of post-9/11 life. The album was considered both a salve and a source of inspiration: alternately intimate and breathtaking. It came complete with a fascinating making-of documentary (Sam Jones's I Am Trying to Break Your Heart).

In 2004, Wilco appeared ready to fulfil their role as saviours as interest in the band surged to new levels in the lead-up to their fifth album, A Ghost is Born. But the truth was Tweedy didn't want to save rock'n'roll; he just wanted to save himself.

Weeks before the album's release he went into a rehabilitation facility to deal with an addiction to painkillers from his battle with chronic migraines. Almost three years have passed since Tweedy's successful self-intervention.

"When I went into hospital I was willing to never write another song and not care in the slightest, if I could just feel better," Tweedy says. "It's pretty difficult to reach that point. You have to feel really bad. What happens for a lot of people is that you start to get healthy when you realise that anything must be better than your current reality, and fortunately that happened for me. The sad part is that you take such a beating to get there."

Wilco start their world tour in Australia, promoting their new studio set, Sky Blue Sky. It sounds like a record written by a man whose life has flashed before his eyes, tender and stripped back, with only occasional punctuation from the group's noted new guitarist, free-jazz luminary Nels Cline.

"It's the first record I've made since I've been able to achieve some health in my life," Tweedy says. "Being a lot more alert and physically capable of being around made it more fun for me."

The protagonist on Sky Blue Sky is suddenly aware of life's telling details. On the first track, Either Way, he re-pledges his fidelity, while in Hate it Here he tries to master mundane domestic tasks as a means of keeping busy.

For Tweedy, who has been married for about 12 years and has two sons, these songs are the flipside to former compositions such as Spiders (Kidsmoke), 11 minutes of visceral guitar breaks and feedback that Tweedy once compared to the physical sensation of his migraines.

"I couldn't have written these songs three years [ago] and have it feel so real to me," he says.

"When you change huge parts of your life, you have to work hard to wrap your mind around a new way of living and it requires an enormous amount of acceptance. If you can keep sight of that acceptance you'll do pretty well. If you can't handle that sense of acceptance you'll end up being pretty resentful."

Tweedy, who is 40 in August, believes one of his greatest achievements has been staying focused by believing in the music he makes (that sounds simple, but rarely is). This means he's never bothered by Wilco albums appearing online for illegal download before they're commercially available. If the music's good, then everything else will fall into line, he says.

How prepared are the band for a return to gigging? "We'll be really sloppy," he says. "It's gonna be kinda glorious."

source:SMH/Craig Mathieson

image:AP:After a stint in rehab, JEFF TWEEDY is back on top.

[DudeAsInCool]

Here is some Tweedy (and Ian Hunter) for ya, courtesy of Stereogum:

http://www.stereogum.com/mp3/Ian%20Hunter%...ig%20Mouth).mp3

[KiwiCoromandel]

i always get wilco..the band...mixed up with wilco johnson...the original guitarist with the british 70`s pub rock band dr feelgood... :)