No matter how hard we try to push the idea of keeping an open mind, it's a myth.  I don't need to tell you this.  It's bullshit.  Expectations and predispositions are part of being human.  And they're guided by past experiences.  When something veers off the path of your expectations, more often than not it's a letdown.  A big, crappy letdown.   

Let's just get it out of the way.  I'm a Wilco fan.  Have been for a long time.  I think they're maybe the best American band in the past 25 years.  But, even great bands have peaks and valleys, and Wilco's last record and tour was a little stale and gimmicky.  It felt like a concession.  A resignation.  Though the suits were excellent.  

What I'm trying to say here is that while Wilco live is always great, the prospect that they are going to continue to push the envelope really wasn' t there anymore.  Not that that really matters.  Hell, I'd be happy if they came out and played A.M. front to back.  But there's always going to be an important difference between being loved and being relevant.    

After a White Denim opener (missed it...bummer), Wilco opened softly with the slow burn of "One Sunday Morning".  And then 5 of the next 7 songs were...loud.  Dissonant.  Chaotic.  Dark.  Unexpected.  "Poor Places" tailed off into at least 20 seconds of blaring white noise.  The bleeps and blips of "Art of Almost" gave way to jagged, splitting guitars.  "Bull Black Nova" chugged into an unsettling groove.   "At Least That's What You Said" drove the point home: this isn't (necessarily) your older brother's Wilco.  It was a pretty clear message from a band that doesn't seem done exploring after all.  

Oh yeah, and the rest of the show was good too.  For all of Jeff Tweedy's strengths, sometimes it gets lost in the shuffle that he is a fantastic pop songwriter.  I mean, that clever bastard can write a hook.  The band charged through some of the new poppier material ("Dawned On Me"; "The Whole Love") with typical veteran expertise.  And Nels Cline's solo on "Impossible Germany" is still one of the prettiest things you'll hear at a rock & roll show.  

Going into last night, I was ready to appreciate Wilco for what they were.  Ready to ride off into the sunset with them on a few more albums of mellow contentment.  OK with having to reminisce back to when this was an exciting and original band.  Ready to pass the torch on to bands like My Morning Jacket and The National.  But, well...fuckin' a.  Wilco snuck up on me again.  

One of the best things about music is being pleasantly surprised.  Sometimes your expectations are wrong and you don't end up crestfallen.  You just have to keep an open mind.

Check out "Art of Almost" from earlier in this tour...

You pass hundreds of people everyday, and chances are you’ll never see them again.  You don’t care and this doesn’t seem to bother them.  Even most people you actually meet are forgettable, or at least they eventually become forgotten.  You have to be selective.  Music is the same and bands are like people, really.  You don’t want to spend any more of your time than is absolutely necessary with that asshole in the next cube and you definitely don’t want to count your days away listening to Third Eye Blind, for Christ’s sake.  

The Whigs won’t change your life.  Not every band can do that, though – just like every person you meet can’t become one of your closest friends.  That’s an important thing to remember.  By the same token, though, good bands aren’t so easy to find either.  That’s the Whigs, at least for the time being – they are a good band.  They’re young.  They’re fun to watch and they kick a little ass. 

The Whigs stomped and blasted through their set at the Troubadour on Thursday night, sticking mostly to the up-tempo end of their repertoire.  Lead singer / guitarist Parker Gispert thrashed around stage like a true punk son through ragged bursts like “Nothing Is Easy” and “Production City”, and the open-highway crackle of “Violet Furs” was definitely a highlight.  Drummer Julian Dorio is, well, pretty much a badass.  Bass player Tim Deaux turned out to be the band’s secret (albeit sleeveless) weapon.  He showed off some of the versatility that good three-piece bands need to have when he took over lead guitar duties on the hopeful haze of “Half the World Away” while Gispert slurred vocals and banged away on keys.

Here’s the thing about the Whigs - they’ve been reared on 90s shoe gazing and noise walling, but they’ve updated it somehow.  Even some of Thursday night’s catchier tunes featured guitar solos that wouldn’t have been out of place on an early Smashing Pumpkins record.  “Written Invitation” had a great and weird cough-syrup-stoned feel to it.  When they closed the set with a couple of rockers like “Right Hand On My Heart”, Gispert thrashed at his Epiphone and looked genuinely pissed off.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that the Whigs are worth it.  If you cross paths with them in person or in a record store, hang out for a bit.  They may not change your life, but it won't be a waste of your time.

Take a listen to the Whigs here, compliments of NPR.

First off, it’s easy to forget how great the Troubadour is.  Don’t.  It’s the best small venue in this God-forsaken town.  Second, Dawes played the Troub on Sunday night.  The LA locals’ 45 minute set was a homecoming of sorts for four scruffy dudes whose stock is on the rise on the heels of their debut album North Hills. 

If you’ve heard the record, you know that it has a little bit of old school, Laurel Canyon, country rock spit-shine to it.  It’s also got about a half-fifth of whiskey mellow to it.  But Dawes’ live show is a little different.  They’re more enthusiastic and definitely a little louder than their studio polish would lead you to believe.  Lead singer / guitarist Taylor Goldsmith played a beat-up black and white Fender and didn’t pick up an acoustic guitar once.  The bass was turned up, the organ was turned down, and drummer Griffin Goldsmith looked a little angry. 

The short set ran the gamut from picturesque-electric harmonies on the opener “That Western Skyline” to crashing drums and thorny guitar solos on “Peace in the Valley”.   When they romped through “When My Time Comes”, the quick-staccato bassline seemed to put bass player Wylie Gelber in genuine pain by the end of the tune.  They managed to rock a little harder without losing any of the sentiment that makes you want to sit back and smoke a cigarette.  These guys seem to have something for everybody.  And they seemed to leave their heart and soul on the stage.  They’re overall pretty young, pretty talented and pretty fucking interesting.

Lastly, for my (our) buddy Lo - I’m including the below exchange between myself and Austin Lucas, the guy who opened the night with nothing but a drink, an acoustic guitar and a cowboy shirt.

Me: “Hey man, nice set.”

AL: “Thanks…what’s your name (outstretched hand)?”

Me: “Phil, good to meet you.  I heard you say you were from Indiana.  Whereabouts?”

AL: “Bloomington.  You from Indiana?”

Me: “Yeah, a town called Crown Point.  Actually lived in Bloomington for awhile.”

AL: “You probably went to school there, huh?  I’m from Bloomington.”

Me: “Uh-huh, so you hate me already then?”

AL: “Yeah, pretty much.” 

More 90's action coming up soon.  Take a break and listen to "That Western Skyline"  (compliments of Daytrotter) until then.

Jim James, M. Ward, Mike Mogis and Conor Oberst descended on the Greek Theatre Sunday night as the newly-formed Monsters of Folk.  These guys didn’t disappoint, and they didn’t sound new by any stretch.  Each member of the band stretched beyond their comfort zone a bit, playing different instruments at different points in the show and harmonizing with each other along the way.  While James, Ward and Oberst traded from bass to guitar to keys, Mogis deftly moved between pedal steel, mandolin, bass and guitar (this guy can play anything and was impressive as all hell).  The boys seemed to be overall genuinely enjoying themselves.  They also seemed to have a healthy dose of appreciation for the crowd, as James shyly muttered, “It’s a goddamn pleasure to be with you under these stars” at the outset of the show.

In addition to playing a number of tunes as a full band, the Monsters also ran through a number of semi-solo sections of the evening, featuring mostly Bright Eyes and My Morning Jacket originals.

Quick takeaways from the show…

(1)  Jim James has one of the creepiest and prettiest voices on the block.  When James warbled through a solo “Bermuda Highway” on Sunday night, he sounded like a heart-broken, drunken Southern choir boy running away from home.  When this guy sings, he makes you feel what he's feeling, and everyone else just seems a little sluggish.

(2)  M. Ward is an absolute motherfucker on guitar.  His solo version of “One Hundred Million Years” was a quick fix of breezy-frenetic acousticism.  Overall hard to believe that it was just one dude and one guitar.

(3)  Mike Mogis is pretty good on everything, but it looked as if he was born to play the pedal steel.  A friend said after the show that Mogis’ steel playing “sounded like a trainwreck…and that’s how it should sound”.

(4)  Conor Oberst seems less offensive with this band.  Maybe it’s osmosis by association. 

In addition to the songs from their respective bands, there were definitely highlight tunes from the Monsters' recently released record, as well.  The near-electro crash of "Dear God (Sincerely M.O.F.)" was a little more threatening and loud than I thought it could be, and M. Ward leading "Whole Lotta Losin" had the crowd bobbing their heads in unison.  The band also turned out My Morning Jacket's "Smokin' from Shootin'", starting slow and escalating into a blinding fog of distortion and guitars (probably the most bad-ass moment in a night of mellow tunesmithing).  There was even a spoonful of James' typical cheeky humor as he thanked Lucasfilms for the "CGI trees" surrounding the Greek.

In addition to the show being a great way to cap off the weekend, Sunday was also somewhat of a landmark for the column, as I was officially ‘dissed’ by the industry for the first time while trying to pull together some thoughts.  The following exchange took place between me and one of the band’s roadies / representatives as I took out my phone and attempted to bang out some notes (we sat in the front and he was posted right next to us)…

Roadie: “You can’t use cell phones here, man, the band would really appreciate it if you text your buddies later.”

Me: “I’m not texting, I’m just typing something down, I don’t have a pen.”

Roadie: “Why do you need a pen?”

Me: “I’m trying to take some notes.”

Roadie: “Are you reviewing the show tonight?”

Me: “Sort of.”

Roadie: “For who?  Because I’m sure I can find you a pen if you’re reviewing the show.”

Me: “It’s a column called Lightweight Contender.”

Roadie: [condescending look] “Uh-Huh.  I’m sure you can keep it all in your head.  No cell phones." 

I've decided to keep fighting the good fight, even in the face of this oppression.  The list continues tomorrow.

Bob Dylan’s many lives and faces have been written about by a lot of very intelligent people.  He is one of those rare figures in popular culture who has been intensely scrutinized but is still impossible to pin down.  I’m not going to pretend that I can put pen to paper and come up with an angle on Dylan that hasn’t already been offered up.  That being said, when I saw Dylan on Thursday night, I couldn’t get away from the thought that music is extremely fucking personal.  Dylan has been putting his interpretations out into the world for the better part of 50 years.  Yet four thousand people can see the same performance on one particular night, in the twilight of Dylan’s career, and all come away with their own unique impressions.  Goddamn music is an amazing thing.

For me, the great thing about this latest Dylan is that he is positively American.  Dylan’s efforts over the past 5 or 8 years have been like a history lesson in American music – gritty, sloppy, rusty and clean – he has managed to become more of an American institution than he ever was before, which is no small task.  The crowd at the Palladium on Thursday seemed to appreciate that.  This was just one of those nights.  Bob and his band played mostly new songs, and played them well.  Charlie Sexton is back with the band on lead guitar, and he shredded over the coal-engine steadiness of the band.  Dylan was decked out in black from head to toe and slithered from keys to guitar and back again.  He looked not just a little bit like Satan with his leathery skin, pencil-thin mustache and black, flat-brimmed cowboy hat.

When Dylan growled through some of his newer tunes like “My Wife’s Hometown” and “Jolene”, he even cracked a thinly veiled smile that suggested he might be living in the moment.  But, when he grooved through a barely recognizable “Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I’ll Go Mine)” and a ripping “Highway 61 Revisited”, he sunk comfortably into the skin of a different Dylan from a different time.  With an impish grin from behind the keyboard, he still has that ability to look and sound like the ‘wild mercury sound’ Dylan, puffy cheeks and all.  He's every Dylan, and all at the same time. 

I have this burning image of Dylan from the "Don't Look Back" documentary that I can't shake - framed in black & white, cigarette in hand, rubbing his amphetamine-tired eyes and mumbling, "I'm gonna get me a new Bob Dylan.  I'm gonna get me a new Bob Dylan and I'm gonna uuu-sse him!".  Dylan seems to be still finding new versions of himself.  He's never lost the ability to get back to the stations he's already passed.  Here's to 20 more years of new Bob Dylans.  We'll all be better off.