Wilco Album: “Kicking Television: Live in Chicago”

Wilco's Kicking Television (the title of an internet only outtake from A Ghost Is Born) is a double disk live album that was culled from four shows performed in May, 2005 at the Vic Theater in the band's hometown of Chicago. Songs from the band's last two albums, Yankee Foxtrot Hotel & A Ghost Is Born, dominate the album. That's not a complaint as those are two of the finest albums released this decade. The band has stretched out to a six-piece unit and bandleader Jeff Tweedy plays with brilliant consistency. "Spiders (Kidsmoke)" far outstrips the studio version and might be the best track on the album, "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart" is a beautiful cacophony of noise, "Jesus, etc." (which Mr. Tweedy hilarious introduces by saying "let's get this party started with some midtempo rock") has it's violins replaced by an effective slide guitar, "I'm The Man Who Loves You" has a great vibe and shining horns, "Hell Is Chrome" has a piercing guitar solo and "Hummingbird" finds Mr. Tweedy dropping the guitar and working on the keyboards. Older songs include a crowd favorite "Via Chicago", a stirring "Airline To Heaven", the pop brilliance of "A Shot In The Arm" and the closing track a cover of Charles Wright's "Comment (If All Men Are Truly Brothers)". Mr. Tweedy will never be the most energetic performer, but he has loosened up over the years. It helps make for better performances and makes Kicking Television a cd one must purchase.

I've seen Wilco live at least a dozen times and was about 3 rows back at the Vic on May 4th, when this album was being recorded. If you've never seen Wilco live, you need to run out and buy this CD, because as good as YHF, A Ghost is Born etc., are, the studio recordings only hint at what an amazing band Wilco really is. Part of the joy of seeing them live is feeling the connection that Wilco has with their fans, and as much as it is possible to feel through a CD player, you feel. Jeff Tweedy sounds confessional, and the band moves between intimate moments and explosive sound. Wilco becomes increasing more and more experimental each time I see them, and this live album reflects that experimentation. If you love WIlco, you need to own this CD.

About 6 months ago an acquaintance of mine loaned me his copies of AM and A Ghost Is Born. I had never heard of Wilco before (what rock have I been living under for the last 10 years??) so they sat on the shelf until I got my first mp3 player this last Christmas, then I casually loaded them in along with the rest of my CD collection. When their songs came up in the rotation I really didn't pay too much attention, possibly because I mainly use my mp3 player for background music at work and am usually too busy to focus on any one particular song. Then one day my friend told me about Kicking Television: Live in Chicago, he absolutely raved about it and the live show that he recently flew back East to see (Nashville, I think?), so I picked it up and have not been able to put it down since.

Kicking Television is for all intents and purposes my first real exposure to Wilco. First impressions: "What a great live sound they have". "I love this guy's voice." "Wow the crowd really seems to be into it." "Did he just say what I think he just said??" "My GOD, what chord is that they are playing??"

I have a very limited CD collection, but this one absolutely belongs, without a doubt. I have been a musician all my life and I have been playing guitar for almost 14 years now. I also happen to have a alot of classic rock influences. I buy/listen to/play songs because of the music first and foremost, the lyrics are just an added bonus. The first track on this album that I listened to was "Via Chicago" (Disc 2, track 1). At first the simple, 3-chord country feel to it had me reaching for the SKIP button, but no sooner had Tweedy mouthed the words "I dreamed about killing you again last night, and it felt allright to me...", I was totally and inexplicably captivated. The music got better and better as I listened through each disc, and the lyrics continued to be brilliant, original, personal, captivating.

Kicking Television mainly consists of tracks from A Ghost Is Born and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - which is just fine with me because these are both great albums, I've come to find. Many of the compositions have evolved and as a result are much more refined, and arguably sound even better played live when compared to their original album versions. Bottom line is, this is a GREAT album and one of the best live albums I have ever heard. It is a great starting point for new Wilco fans and I highly recommend it to anyone.

My favorite tracks are "Company in my Back", "Handshake Drugs", "Via Chicago", "Muzzle of Bees", "Poor Places", "Heavy Metal Drummer" and "Ashes of American Flags" (awesome guitar solo at the end!)

This terrific recording opens up with a rocking performance of Misunderstood which as it turns out also opens Wilco's seminal recording "Being There". There's no saying that if this was a clever dig from Tweedy telling us that Kicking Television is the next best thing to 'being there' in person. There's nothing quite like witnessing a great live band at the top of their game but failing that this album bears witness to the sublime skills that Wilco are able display on stage.

Recorded at the splendid Vic Theatre over multiple nights in their hometown of Chicago the band manage to replicate the sonic landscape that have defined them since the release of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.

In fact the two disk set is dominated by tracks from 2002's Foxtrot and last years A Ghost is Born with a total of 15 from the 23 tracks coming from one or the other.

Live Wilco are a tight band that plays loose. Once the reluctant guitarist/frontman Tweedy comfortably banters with the crowd weather mocking fans for travelling to Chicago from Kansas City to see a Wilco show or suggesting that they are up past their bedtime.

As a touring band Wilco have become very familar with their stagecraft and a responsive hometown audience enables them to connect to a defree that many live recordings fail to capture.

There are many,many highlights on disk one not the least the A Ghost is born outake 'Kicking Television' after which the disk is named. The piano work is reminicient of Jerry Lee Lewis at his best while Jeff's guitar work is frentic and furious and dips in and under the song to carry it.

'Late greats' has as much bounce as the studio version.... the guitar solo that concludes 'At least that's what you said' is immaculate........'Company in my back' seems like a living, breathing thing as it marches along....'I am trying to break your heart' is a smorgasboard of sound....with "The astray says you were up all night" 'Shot in the arm' has one of the all time best opening lines and the crowd joins in for a boisterous sing along......'Jesus etc' is as brilliant as ever with the "tuned to chords" on display coming courtesy of some dazzling slide guitar work and an impassioned vocal from Jeff....'I'm the man who loves you' is a stone cold jam with guitars, drums, horns and saxaphone cascading of one another to make musical stew.

The second disk opens with the underrated 'Via Chicago' an obvious home town favorite.....Glenn Kotche pounds the skins with gusto for the bands best rocker 'Heavy Metal Drummer'....'Hummingbird' incites immediate toe tapping......"I would die if I could come back new" had the very air I breathe catch in my throat the first time I heard it and resonates just as deeply today and Tweedy gives a heartfelt, poignant treatment to 'Ashes of american flags' to a transfixed audience.....there is some brilliant improvisiation on 'Spiders (Kidsmoke)that were not apparent on the album version and the end result is an eleven minute masterstroke.....the Guthrie tracks 'One by One' and 'Airline to heaven' are gems. The closing song 'Comment' is a somewhat surprising choice seeing as it not a Wilco original and I myself would have prefered to hear 'Theologians' or 'Reservations' if a "wind down" song was what the band was aiming for. Personally I'd also liked to have seen the punk blitzreg of 'I'm a Wheel' included somewhere as well but I have no complaints. This is definatley a treasured purchase and I recommend it to any fan of live music whether they be a Wilco fan or not.

In the past ten years, Wilco has evolved from alt-country, to sunny pop, to most recently avant garde explorations. And though bandleader Jeff Tweedy is generally known for his sure-footed artistry, that last step was a real doozy.

Wilco's two most recent studio efforts appeared to be less an evolution and more a departure from earlier work. Songs were extended into gnarled feedback jams and bathed in concrete musique tape tricks. Tweedy, formerly a raucous front-man, had all the anime of a sleepwalker as he hoarsely whispered obtuse lyrics. Production was muted and cold, further encouraging the sense that Wilco had, to some degree, sacrificed soul for artistic exploration.

The live show has always been any band's best response to creeping concerns of continuity and vibrancy, and Kicking Television indeed saves Wilco's soul. Whether it's that Tweedy and Company have had time to become comfortable with the recent material, or that the tunes themselves are more conducive to this warts-and-all format, new feels right at home next to old, and conveys a warmth that's missing from the studio takes.

"Spiders (Kidsmoke)," an eleven minute sonic exploration with flat production and a monotonous song structure, sounded oddly like Krautrock in studio form. Here in looser confines, it comes off like a combination of early Pink Floyd psychedelia and the angular, extended jams of Television. Granted, that's still a far cry structurally from the bash-n-pop that launched Wilco's career. But when presented in this more organic manner, it's easy to see the ties that bind it to, say, "A Shot In the Arm" - a roomy song from 1999's Summerteeth that's built around a repetitive, five-note progression and is also given a workout on Kicking Television.

It's not just the new songs that benefit from the live treatment. "One By One," a throwaway cut from 1998's Mermaid Avenue grows into one of the most resonant parts of band's repertoire. On the album version, Tweedy's mumbling vocals are further hollowed out by a touch of reverb, giving the impression that the listener is intruding on a private rumination. All instrumentation is evenly mixed throughout the song, and with nothing popping out front at all, the whole thing sounds like background music. Live, the vocals are more clear. Organ riffs, piano chords and guitar solos well up between verses, the musical punctuation breeding an inviting pathos lost on the listener in the song's first go-around.