The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Friday, November 15, 2019 — 5A
On Tuesday, Nov. 5, Wilco took to the stage
at Hill Auditorium for a stop on their Ode
to Joy tour, following a strong opening set
by Deep Sea Diver (featuring a particularly
enthusiastic and capable drummer). The
opener “Bright Leaves” set the tone for most
of the evening — relaxed and melancholy.
Ode to Joy, while perhaps the strongest
project Wilco has released since The Whole
Love (2012), does not translate well to a
live show. The album is fairly low-energy,
more suited to background listening than
to a concert performance. Most of the cuts
from that album felt obligatory, given that
the tour is nominally in support of it. Wilco
played “Citizens” live for the first and, God
willing, last time ever. Luckily, they included
plenty of crowd-pleasing numbers off of their
earlier albums as well. Highlights of their set
included a moving rendition of “Jesus, Etc,” a
face-melting version of “At Least That’s What
You Said,” and an unexpected yet gorgeous
performance of the sparse “Reservations.”
In contrast, their decision not to play what
is by far their second-most popular song
(“California Stars”) was curious yet powerful.
They reeled off almost thirty songs in total;
concertgoers certainly got their money’s
worth in that respect.
Nels Cline is one of the most talented
guitarists of his generation. If you hadn’t been
aware of that entering Hill Auditorium, you
were certainly aware of it by the time you left.
He fired off blistering solo after solo, a truly
impressive display. That said, I think he is far
from alone in the unfortunate belief that the
amount and frequency of notes you play in a
given amount of time are directly correlated
with the quality of a guitar solo. At a certain
point, the melody is neglected in favor of
technical prowess, and it begins to feel as
though I’m watching a gymnastic exhibition
rather than a musical performance.
Jeff Tweedy cuts an unassuming figure on
stage, his relaxed demeanor likely a product of
over 30 years of experience. His interactions
with the audience were minimal yet radiated
a quiet confidence. Tweedy gently ribbed the
crowd for being low-energy a few times during
the set — with the exception of the people at
the front who rocked out for just about every
song (and who Jeff Tweedy lightheartedly
accused of sneaking in alcohol), the audience
was barely capable of remaining on their feet,
let alone displaying any sort of passionate
enjoyment of the music. Unfortunately, this
was not the case with the man behind me who
doggedly clapped along enthusiastically to
each song, unaccompanied and offbeat.
While Hill Auditorium is undoubtedly a
beautiful venue with superb acoustic qualities,
I have never seen a show there that was not
lacking in crowd energy. I attribute this to a
combination of the older clientele it attracts
as well as the cramped layout of the seating,
which does not provide sufficient space for the
audience to stand up and get into the music.
Diehard Wilco fans will undoubtedly have
left Hill Auditorium satisfied, while more
casual listeners likely enjoyed the experience
but could have gone for less extended guitar
freakouts (e.g. “We Were Lucky”). A few
questionable setlist choices aside, it was a
largely pleasing performance; a nice snapshot
of a band, and its audience, ageing gracefully
together.
Wilco at Hill was a little bit
boring, but also pleasing?
GETTY IMAGES
CONCERT REVIEW
JONAH MENDELSON
Daily Arts Writer
In the house where I spent my first ten years,
there was a big stove and oven contraption set
into the wall of the kitchen. The behemoth was
surrounded by terracotta tiles, Tuscan floral
reliefs that only the seventies could produce. It was
a suburban fantasy that any housewife would cry
before. The stove, in its cave of orange sunflowers,
had little red lights near the knobs of each of the
burners to tell when they were hot, as most stoves
do. My first experience of being burned came as a
result of this.
When my parents got married, they received a
perfectly-curated set of kitchen supplies including
several shiny Calphalon pots and pans. We ate a
lot of pasta. Every time my mom would boil water
for dinner, I would sit in front of the stove as she
cooked, entranced by the red light that reflected
up onto each pot’s perfect silver surface. This went
on for months when I was around four years old
until I finally worked up the courage to see what
those lights truly were. I waited until she moved to
the other side of the kitchen to grab the butter and
went for the prize. My hand reached out slowly as
I stared at the red swirl of the light in an almost
hypnotic trance. I smelled barbecue and suddenly
felt a jolt of pain run up my arm.
“Clara!” My mother exclaimed. I felt tears
running down my face as I realized what had
happened. Of course it wasn’t a ghost orb or some
fancy jewel, I said to my four-year-old self, and
now I have to wear a Band-Aid.
In that hundred-year-old house with the bay
window, I grew up happily, for the most part.
There is a tendency to romanticize what you
can’t completely remember, but the snippets of
summer in that home are something I have always
treasured.
The only problem was that we were in Michigan,
a state whose reputation is relegated to few things
other than Detroit, lakes, cherries and brutal
winters. Every year, like clockwork, the snow
would blanket that house like a low-hanging fog,
draping the stucco in a dreamlike curtain of cold.
My parents would climb out onto the flat roof of
our mudroom to cut ice off of the asphalt surface,
pushing it past the ornate windowpanes and into
the frost. I watched in awe as they managed not
to fall off and die, as they warned we would if my
siblings and I even thought about mimicking them.
But even when the ice melted, when the birds
came back out and we started to have a groundhog
breeding problem again, my hands stayed cold.
They say in the laws of thermodynamics that
cold is not a concept on its own — instead, it is
the absence of heat. If that is true, my whole life
has been devoted to chasing what I don’t have.
Although my mother did not believe me until
high school, we share the same genetic syndrome
called Raynaud’s, a minor yet annoying affliction
that prevents blood from circulating completely
through our hands and feet. Because of this, I will
most definitely have cold feet on the night before
my wedding and every other night of my life, too.
Maybe that’s part of why I have been burned so
many times, from that moment in the kitchen at
age four to a curling-iron mishap only two weeks
ago. I don’t feel a fire until I smell smoke, and I
don’t realize I’ve been burned until it’s too late to
go back.
There has been a fireplace in every home my
family’s lived in, and I have always sat too close,
waiting in front of the flames until I couldn’t
stand it anymore. When the temperature drops
each year, I prepare myself for the inevitable
white fingertips I’ll end up with after five minutes
outside, the numbness, the apologies I’ll make for
my vampirish touch. My friends have taken to
calling me “skeleton woman” every time I grab
them, my pale hands like ice on their skin. They
recoil, and my stomach flips over inside my core as
I wonder if I’ll ever hold someone in comfort.
I’ve always remained at a cool 97 degrees, even
when I wanted to be anything else. My fevers only
reach 100, and I was always sent to school as a sick
child because of this. My mother texts me “are
you staying warm?” on an almost-daily basis. It’s
laughable the way that heat, or the lack of it, has
colored my life. The first time I dated a boy I really,
truly liked, I avoided public affection in fear of his
response to my temperature. He wanted to hold
hands on the street, and I feigned an arm cramp.
I almost burned myself again trying to warm up
my freezing fingers with a hairdryer before dinner
one night. We kissed, we laid next to each other, I
strategically hung my feet off the edge of the bed.
It’s stupid, childish, for me to do these things,
but I always fear what my aura of cold will tell
someone what my own words don’t: that I’m
nervous, uninterested, that my heart isn’t beating
a million miles a minute when that should be clear.
Those who know me would describe me as warm,
but my body doesn’t hear it. Instead, I sit by the
radiator, by the space heater, by the fire. But at least
there are glimpses into the heat that my blood is
supposed to run at, a signal that I’m still alive.
And I think that’s the thing that really scares
me: If being human is wrapped up in our heat, our
passion, anger, love, what does it mean to be cold?
Am I any less alive because my touch doesn’t say
so? I have fought for my life as it is, through illness
and unhappiness, but it seems that my body hasn’t
caught up yet. When that day comes, there will be a
celebration within me. But for now, I will wait and
live, even if my hands feel like those of a corpse.
The winter lurking within
NOTEBOOK
CLARA SCOTT
Daily Gender & Media Columnist
When I first heard Wiki featured on Run The Jewels’s “Blockbuster
Night Pt. 2” and Earl Sweatshirt’s “AM // Radio,” I was pretty stoked
— he reeked of the underground hip-hop sound that I vibed with so
hard. Then his first solo tape, Lil Me, dropped, and its mediocrity
eradicated all my interest in the up-and-coming New York rapper
with the quirky
drawl. I passed
over his debut
and never really
dived into his
past work with
Ratking.
But
I would never
skip
anything
with
Madlib’s
footprint
on
it,
so
when
Wiki
dropped
the
Madlib-
produced
“Eggs”
last
September,
I
was excited to
see him bring
his A-game.
Right away, OOFIE doesn’t set itself up for success. “Downfall” is
a standard “I failed but I swear I’m bringing it back this time” type
track, not unlike something you might find on an Eminem album.
It’s unclear what failure he’s talking about: Maybe disappointment
with himself because he’s never had a break-out single or album,
although that doesn’t seem like the kind of worry Wiki would
have. Regardless of what it concerns, hearing themes of self-
disappointment at the very beginning doesn’t set a good tone for
the album. At best, it’s uninteresting, and at worst, it’s cringe-y
(remember J. Cole’s “Let Nas Down”?). I want to grab Wiki by the
collar and say, just show us what you got already!
Digging into the music, most of OOFIE is underwhelming, and
not in any particularly interesting way. Every song is in a sort of
weird middle ground where it’s hard to tell if it’s supposed to be a
chill kickback track or something that slaps in the car. Not that all
hip hop has to fit neatly into those categories, but the album just
doesn’t seem very sure-footed in its direction. I think I’m supposed
to have the windows down in the car during “Pesto” and I think I’m
supposed to drink a beer on the porch to “The Routine,” but a good
song should make me think, I can’t wait to blast this in the car or I
can’t wait to listen to this while I’m chilling with the boys. The only
thing that crossed my mind was I could probably do the dishes to this.
Something that holds this album back is a lack of progression
in the production on most of the tracks. Typically the beat you
hear at the beginning carries the music all the way through. This
is fine for bite-size tracks but it’s easy to lose interest during your
typical three-minute-30-second song. Wiki’s focus on making
lyrical lemonade can only carry a song so far, especially when so
many lines don’t land well (“When you poppin’ Perkies, she pop her
pussy / She drop her tushy, she almost hurt me” … really?). None
of the beats are interesting enough to carry a listener through
the whole track, which is dangerous — in today’s era of hip hop
production, lackluster production is a death sentence. Tracks like
“The Routine” have an interesting, quirky lead sample, but the rest
of the production doesn’t do it justice. More uninteresting drum
patterns and woozy, unexciting pads. It’s no wonder the album ends
up feeling purposeless.
The only beats that are juicy enough to carry through an entire
song are on “Dame Aqui” and “Way That I Am,” but I still probably
wouldn’t listen to them
again if it weren’t for
their features. Princess
Nokia blesses the beat
with her own sixteen
bars on “Dame Aqui,”
while Your Old Droog
and Wiki hold down an
entertaining back-and-
forth on “Way That I
Am.” At some point,
it became clear that I
was waiting for Wiki to
finish and his features
to start. That should
have been obvious on
“Grim” where Lil Ugly
Mane and Denzel Curry
outshine Wiki to an
embarrassing degree.
Wiki’s choruses are
also a stain on every
song. Typically signified by Wiki layering his vocals, it’s mostly
annoying. There’s no saving the hook to “4 Clove Club.” It would have
been more interesting if he went the MF-Doom route and just cut the
hooks out from the start. I want to give Wiki more credit — some of
his writing is really slick, like “Grand maestro of the metro / Damn,
your hand swipes slow, while I get dough” on “Pesto.” It just doesn’t
have any room to stand out, especially put next to pen game demons
like Your Old Droog spitting burns like “Lames on Rap Genius
wanna speak for the God
like televangelists.”
When it comes down
to it, OOFIE has only
convinced me of something
I was pretty certain I
already knew: Wiki is a
feature rapper and doesn’t
have the creativity to hold
down a track on his own.
He fits in a cool niche of
underground rappers with
a strong pen game, yeah.
Your Old Droog fills the
same space, though, and
he executes his ideas way
better. It took a Madlib
beat to put Wiki back on
my radar, and it’ll take
something
better
than
OOFIE to keep him from
falling off again.
Wiki struggles to hold his own on solo album ‘OOFIE’
ALBUM REVIEW
DYLAN YONO
Daily Arts Writer
OOFIE
Wiki
Wikiset Ltd
WIKISET ENTERPRISE
It took a Madlib beat
to put Wiki back on
my radar, and it’ll take
something better than
OOFIE to keep him
from falling off again.
The first time I
dated a boy that I
really, truly liked,
I avoided public
affection in fear of
his response to my
temperature.