BITTERSWEET SYMPHONIES
“WE WANTED TO REIMAGINE THE FUTURE” JEFF TWEEDY
PLUS! OUR EXCLUSIVE 17-TRACK WILCO CD REVEALED! TURN TO PAGE 80, WHERE WE GUIDE YOU TRACK BY TRACK THROUGH UNCUT’S WILCO COVERED JEFF Tweedy wants to show off a harmonica. He makes his way to the centre of the Loft, reaches for it on a shelf, and presents the object like a holy relic. At first it looks like just another harmonica – small, black, maybe a little worn with use – and there are several other similar instruments like this here at Wilco’s hangout/hideout/headquarters/storehouse in Chicago. Then Tweedy turns it over to show the scrawl of a signature. “It’s from Dylan,” he says, then explains how Bob himself gave it to him as a souvenir of their Americanarama tour back in 2014. For a moment, the Wilco frontman, sporting a black hoodie from Grimey’s Records and a baseball cap that barely contains his long, greying hair, reverts back to his teenage self, to that wide-eyed kid from Illinois who pored over the lyrics to Blonde On Blonde and Blood On The Tracks. “I’ve had a Dylan fixation my whole life,” he says. “I haven’t changed at all in that regard. I’m still a fan at heart.”
Dylan’s harmonica is the centrepiece of Wilco’s very own Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, housed on a small set of shelves in the centre of the Loft. There’s a baseball signed by Geddy Lee, a canned ham from Jon Hamm, a picture of Abraham Lincoln bearing the John Hancock of fiction writer/friend of the band George Saunders. A billiards ball from Courtney Barnett sits next to a mug signed by Arlo Guthrie. An empty box of Swedish fish bears the signatures of each member of Parquet Courts. Sitting on the top shelf, coiled up like a snake in a Plexiglas terrarium, is a leather guitar strap signed by Johnny Cash.
“Whenever somebody comes through, they sign something for us,” Tweedy says. “Sadly,
