Something truly peculiar happened to me yesterday. Only twice in my life have I made special trips into a strange room to demand the people there reveal the name of the band they are playing and the song that is being sung. In a strange twist of fate, both times it's been Wilco.These great songs, what planet were they being beamed in from?
It would probably be helpful for you to understand my long tempestuous relationship with Wilco in order to see why this is such a big deal. Wilco and I are like the two cantankerous protaginists thrown together by fate in a romantic comedy, who bicker incessantly like bitter enemies but underneath it all have unrestrained lust and affection for one another.
My earliest recollection of bad feelings for Jeff Tweedy & Co. can be traced back to the summer of 2004. Newly pregnant with my third child, I sat shotgun in a friend's car while he chaperoned my Finn Brothers concert experience. My husband was out of town and knocked-up former groupies can't be trusted to rock the night away at the 9:30 Club without some help. This buddy kept on about his fanatical devotion to Wilco and how he had traveled far and wide to "follow" the tour as it wound its way around the US. All this despite working a full time job and raising a family. I instantly went to the bad place I normally go when I hear about roving groups of music fans truckin' their way across state lines to see the object of their desire.
Deadville.
I knew this drill all too well having had an old boyfriend that bordered on the fault line between Clueless Hippy Vagrant and Beserkville Never mind that he eventually became a wildly successful dentist later on in life: anything Grateful Dead-related had to be experienced and I wanted absolutely NO PART of that droning mellow sea of waste.
My narrow mind was made up in an instant. I fucking hated Wilco.
