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obscure music for the better part of a decade. Some half dozen releases have come and gone without much of a whisper from anyone but the deep alternative underground and the most discretionary critical community. Now with a new record, a modern-day “Rubber Soul” gone bad, former Young Fresh Fellow Scott McCaughey goes for broke with a supporting cast of stars and a hip title, both in a desperate attempt at finally wooing the listening public. Down With Wilco is just that. Over the course of 13 haphazard and disjointed tracks, McCaughey manages to accomplish less with more than anyone in recent memory. He’s called on Jeff Tweedy and the rest of the current Wilco line-up, but in an inexplicable maneuver he resources Tweedy’s lead vocals only once, on the sleepy “The Family Gardener.” So why bother even bringing a very average guitarist like Tweedy on board in the first place if his vocals aren’t going to be used, especially when you’re also enlisting the multi-instrumental talents of R.E.M.’s Peter Buck? All is not completely erroneous here. After all, there’s far too much firepower in this studio to not salvage at least some quality recordings. The wispy “Daggers Drawn” is a fresh piano trot, even if the lyrics make no sense. “Retrieval of You,” co-penned by Tweedy and McCaughey, also tugs at familiar chords and nearly plays out like a lost Beach Boys track. I find more redeeming value in the frisky “Where Will You Go?” than in any other song on the Down With Wilco project. Here the electric guitar parts get kicked up a notch and The Minus 5 honestly seem to break a modest sweat. Unfortunately, the bulk of this well-intentioned but misguided collaboration falls painfully short of its mark. “Life Left Him There” sounds like a scrap from the editing room floor of an old Byrds album, while too many cuts just seem to drag on and on. The dreary spoken-word of “The Old Plantation” seems endless and “View From Below” is simply lifeless. The silly ballad “Dear Employer” is at least interesting as a disc closer, and Tweedy has even been known to include this in recent live sets. It does not, however, come close to rescuing this disc from its underlying character: boring and uneventful. In the future, while searching for side projects during downtime from their host bands, I’m going to recommend that Tweedy and Buck take up racquetball. ~Red Rocker redrocker@bullz-eye.com
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