Wilco Wednesday Song Spotlight: “New Madrid”

Today, the Spotlight shines on a song that's not technically a Wilco song as it was originally an Uncle Tupelo track, but when that band broke up, its author, Jeff Tweedy took it with him and has played it with Wilco and his other offshoots enough to render its origins kaput.

This entry was inspired by the news, posted by Kyle Thompson on Facebook, that today is the 209th Anniversary of  the great New Madrid earthquake.

“New Madrid” (Jeff Tweedy)

Jeff Tweedy: vocals, guitar
Jay Farrar: guitar
John Stirratt: bass
Max Johnston: banjo
Ken Coomer: drums

One of Jeff Tweedy’s best pre-Wilco compositions, “New Madrid” was one of four songs from Uncle Tupelo’s Anodyne that the singer-songwriter continued to play after his former band’s breakup.

For John Tryneski of Spectrum Culture, the song is “a bouncy banjo-driven number that pokes fun at Iben Browning’s quackish predictions of a natural disaster in that Missouri town.” This refers to the Texas businessman and author who predicted that a major earthquake would hit the New Madrid Seismic Zone around December 2–3, 1990, and that the US Government would collapse in 1992.

 Of course, this didn’t happen, and as Jay Farrar would note in an interview in 1993, “Ironically, the town has really grown in population since then. People went there and decided it was a good place to live, and there’s been this huge influx of people.’ Jason Nickey, in a review of Uncle Tupelo’s 2003 compilation 89/93: An Anthology, wrote that, along with “Black Eye,” “New Madrid” “hints at the mysterious and complex lyrical turns [Tweedy] would explore later with Wilco.”

Wilco performed “New Madrid” at their first gig in November 1994, while Tweedy’s first solo acoustic show in late December that year also featured the song. Wilco continued to play the song a lot throughout the mid-to-late 90s, with close to fifty documented performances in 1997 alone; its presence dwindled in the 2000s, but it’s been played on every Wilco tour except their 2010 run.

More recently, in the years since the band’s twentieth anniversary tour, it’s been performed in a stripped-down ‘hootenanny’-style in a smattering of show encores. Meanwhile, Tweedy has performed the song more than a hundred times at solo shows or with his Tweedy side-project.

“New Madrid” was the only Tweedy original that was played during Wilco’s all-request/all-covers show at their Solid Sound Festival at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) in North Adams, Massachusetts, on June 21, 2013. After that performance, Tweedy said that whomever it was in the audience that had requested the song should raise their hand. He then thanked the member of the crowd who did so, remarking, “Out of all of the songs in the world, that’s awesome...a wise, wise choice.”

This is an edited excerpt from Wilcopedia by Daniel Cook Johnson, published by Jawbone Press (www.jawbonepress.com). Order your copy here.

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This Week in Wilco: Jeff Tweedy’s new album, book & video plus an Uncle Tupelo live RSD release

If Wilco fans’ wallets aren’t going to be depleted enough by the upcoming release of the major multi-disc Summerteeth: Deluxe Edition, they surely will be with all the other Wilco-related items on the near horizon. 

First up, Wilco founder/front man Jeff Tweedy’s second book, How to Write One Song, comes out next week on Tuseday, October 13. The follow-up to his 2018 memoir, Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back): A Memoir of Recording and Discording with Wilco, Etc., the book’s release will be accompanied by a virtual book mini-tour with Norah Jones & Nick Offerman on Oct. 13, and 14. Info and ticket information is available on Wilco’s official website. 

Tweedy’s third solo album, Love is the King, drops digitally via dBpm on October 23. The vinyl and CD versions won’t be available until January 15, so digital will just have to do for a bit for the ones who desire a physical copy (I’m talking about me). 

Earlier this week, Tweedy shared a video for “Gwendolyn,” one of the tracks from Love is the King. Described accurately on their website as “a little wacky and a whole lot of fun,” involves a close-up of a Tweedy wearing a blue surgical mask looking directly into the camera with a white background.

Once he removes his mask, the bottom halves of a series of somewhat familiar faces lips synchs the song whole Tweedy stares straight ahead. The guest celebrity half faces include Jon Hamm, Elvis Costello, Jeff Garlin, Nick Offerman, Seth Meyers, Robyn Hitchcock, John Hodgman, Norah Jones, Scott McCaughey, and Tweedy’s sons, Sammy and Spencer. Watch it below: 

On November 13, The Autumn Defense, the band that’s so much more than a side project by Wilco members John Stirratt and Pat Sansone, celebrates the 10th Anniversary of their fourth album, Once Around.

The digital re-release includes the original album, along with a bonus track, and a bunch of live tracks from gigs at Amoeba Music Hollywood, and Eddie’s Attic in Decatur, Georgia around in 2010. Having seen a few excellent Autumn Defense shows on that tour, I am highly looking forward to hearing this previously unreleased live material. 

Wilco lead guitarist Nels Cline, who has appeared on more albums than there are days of the year, is releasing Share the Wealth on Blue Note Records on November 13. The record, credited to Cline’s long running outfit, The Nels Cline Singers, will be available on streaming, CD, and vinyl (yay!). 

Last but certainly not least, Tweedy’s former band, Uncle Tupelo, is going to get the vinyl live double album treatment on Record Store Day, Black Friday, November 27. The recording, entitled Live at Lounge Ax - March 24, 1994, is taken from Uncle Tupelo’s performance which was broadcast live on WXRT. As a bootleg, the show has been circulated for years among fans, but I doubt that’ll stop them from obtaining this upgrade.

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Celebrating the 25th Anniversary of Wilco’s first show

“We’ve been practicing in Belleville all week. This is our first show ever.”
- Jeff Tweedy at Cicero’s, St. Louis on 11/17/94

Last night at Wilco’s concert at the Arvest Bank Theatre at The Midland in Kansas City, Missouri, front man Jeff Tweedy told the audience that it was the 25th anniversary of the band’s first ever show. 

This proceeded their performance of “Box Full of Letters,” which, when it was first played at their first show at Cicero’s Basement Bar in St. Louis, wasn’t released until over four months later on Wilco’s debut album, A.M.

For their premiere gig, Wilco went under the name Black Shampoo, taken from the title of a blaxploitation flick from 1976. In Tweedy’s 2018 memoir, Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back), he wrote that the use of the odd moniker, inspired by drummer Ken Coomer’s collection of cult films, “seemed like a funny, self-effacing way to begin our musical second chapter.”

Wilco’s line-up on this day, two and a half decades ago, was Tweedy on lead vocal, rhythm, acoustic and lead guitars, Jay Bennett on acoustic and lead guitars; John Stirratt on bass, Max Johnston on Banjo and fiddle, and Coomer on drums.

A raw feedback-filled recording of the show can be found on these here interwebs with very little Googling, so Wilco fans can easily check out what their favorite band sounded like in the beginning. Incidentally, “In the Beginning” is the name of a CDR bootleg I have of the show. You can hear the boot on YouTube:

Listening to the recording of the gig now, which cuts into the first song “I Must Be High,” is an interesting experience as you can hear Tweedy shaking off the uneasiness of the Uncle Tupelo breakup (Tweedy’s former band, which also consisted of Stirratt and Coomer, played their last show at the club Mississippi Nights on May 1st, 1994) and plunging forward with his new project.

Let’s take a look at the setlist, enhanced by some choice between song banter courtesy of the audibly nervous Tweedy.

“I Must Be High” (“The first song on our record, which won’t be out for a long time, but it’s the first song we ever played, and the first time we ever played is on the record.”)

“Too Far Apart” (Referring to the secret nature of their first show: “So, um, how’d you guys find out? It’s all Beatle Bob’s fault.”)

“Box Full of Letters”

“Should’ve Been in Love”

(“We’re gonna do a song in a minute that we used to do in another band…Max has got an experimental banjo solo in it.”)

“New Madrid” (Uncle Tupelo)

(“This is a song that – it might be kinda ill-suited for Cicero’s Basement, but it’s on our record so…”)

“That’s Not the Issue”

(“I have to sing this kinda quiet, so shut up.”)

“Pick Up the Change”

“The Long Cut” (Uncle Tupelo)

“Walk Where He Walked” (Golden Smog)

“Shouldn’t Be Ashamed”“If That’s Alright” (Uncle Tupelo)

“Give Back the Key to My Heart” (Doug Sahm)

“Wait Up” (Uncle Tupelo cover)

“No Sense in Lovin’” (Uncle Tupelo)

“Lost Love” (Golden Smog) (“Practiced that a million times, man.”)

“Passenger Side” (“Maybe we’ll try that one again later or something.”)

“Casino Queen” (“Thanks a lot for letting us play under a stupid fake name.”)

Encore:

“Reincarnation” (Roger Miller)

(“I really would like to thank you for up to this point not hearing anyone yell ‘Whiskey Bottle,’ I appreciate that – did you hear it? Oh, f***. Nothing against the song, mind you.”)

“We’ve Been Had” (Uncle Tupelo)

(“This is a pretty stupid song, so…a stupider song.”)

“Hesitation Rocks” (Originally known to fans as Let’s Hear It for Rock and Roll”)

Second encore:

(“You know, most of these songs we’ve been playing are from our record that’s gonna come out in March. And then, like the one we just played isn’t on anything. And this one’s not on anything. Although we tried to play it like a dozen times.”)

“Outtasite (Outta Mind)”

“Listen to Her Heart” (Tom Petty) 

Having just formed earlier that year, Wilco had a limited amount of material so 11 out of the 22 songs they performed were covers like the Petty show-closer, leftover Uncle Tupelo tracks, and a Golden Smog song that wouldn’t released for four years (“Lost Love” appears on Golden Smog’s second album Weird Tales, which came out on October 13, 1998).

As for Wilco’s originals, they played 8 of the 13 tracks that would be released on A.M., a song that was an outtake from that album’s sessions (“Hesitation Rocks”), and a song (“Outtasite (Outta Mind))” that would later be on the band’s second album, Being There, that wouldn't officially drop until October 29, 1996.

Although neither features any tracks from this historic event, two Wilco releases were released on the show’s 20th anniversary in 2014. Their first ever “best of” comp, a 2-disc, 38-track collection entitled: What’s Your 20? The Best of Wilco (Essential Tracks 1994-2014), and a 77-track box set, Alpha Mike Foxtrot: Rare Tracks 1994-2014.

Daniel Cook Johnson’s Wilcopedia: A Comprehensive Guide to the Music of America’s Best Band is available for order here.

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