WIRED magazine gave the public a preview to their 2005 "NextFest" at the Vic Theatre last night. Chosen by WIRED to curate the "NextMusic" event was Jeff Tweedy of Wilco. The show mixed a taste of the gadgetry to be expected at the fair, which begins Saturday and runs till Sunday at Navy Pier, but also an evening of music that Tweedy organized.
It made sense when WIRED announced Tweedy as the curator of their launch party being that the magazine is aimed towards innovation and the future. The very essence of Wilco's career has been about the next step, breaking the rules, and ignoring boundaries. At the magazine's 2003 Rave Awards, Wilco's 2002 album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot earned the award for "Best Musician." It was clear that WIRED recognized something in Wilco that fit with their own reputation. But what did they think Tweedy had in store for them when it came time to put the show together?
Technology can be a blessing or a curse to music. Remember the overblown use of synthesizers in the early 1980's? Funny how things come full circle in 2005. What Tweedy and company have managed to do is what the really great bands figure out at some point in their careers--they explore the studio technology far enough to open new doors for their music, giving their art fresh life. The key to music's future will not be the lastest multi-track studio or digital sound systems. Instead, it will be the most basic human elements that no computer could possibly touch with a microprocessor. In Tweedy's words, "Great melodies and great songs."
And so Tweedy picked two artists that were the most removed from the computer age: harpist Joanna Newsom and The Handsome Family. Ok, so The Handsome Family had a laptop computer on stage with them. The extent of its use was to just provide a backing beat.
The billing must have rattled the brain of some attending the show. Juxtaposed to Tweedy's show was the work of a Northwestern University graduate student. The premise behind the visual project was allowing a computer the chance to experience music the way humans do. In our minds, we can paint our imagination the the words and sounds of the music we hear. Using songs by artists like Wilco, The Shins, Bright Eyes, Postal Service, and Radiohead, the computer compiled all the information available (artist, song title, lyrics), searched for random images it associated with key words in the songs, and projected its interpretation of the songs on a video screen located on stage. "It's like Power Point," joked a woman in the crowd. Her very blunt observation didn't seem unwarranted as the computer's selection of images repeated themselves during the songs.
Space & Time: Jeff Tweedy @ Vic Theatre 6/12/2004 (Photo By: Chris Castaneda)
A harp, an acoustic guitar, a banjo, and a harmonica. These were the instruments to humanity's future in the mind of Tweedy but maybe not so much the future WIRED had in mind to put on display. Curator Thom Yorke for the 2006 "NextFest"?
Clearly it wasn't a farce performed by Tweedy on the good people of WIRED, but you had to wonder what they must have thought when roadies brought out a harp after a computer just shared with a crowd what it visually thought of a Shins song. As far as the overall show went, Tweedy succeeded in arranging a show that truly was innovating in its own way. The Handsome Family sang songs about drowning and the pro-coyote takeover of society, while the pixie-like Joanna Newsom made the Vic Theatre her own secret forrest.
As the former co-owner and talent buyer for the long demised and much beloved Lounge Ax, Tweedy's wife, Sue Miller, would have been proud of the show her husband put together. Hey Jeff, harps on the next Wilco record?
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