Let's Go (So We Can Get Back): A Memoir of Recording and Discording with Wilco, Etc.
- Dec 9, 2018
- 3 min read
★★★★★
I honestly can’t recall when I first heard Wilco, or how, but I know it wasn’t until after I’d moved to Kansas City in 1999. I’d arrived from the Bay Area (and Bloomington, Indiana before that) on Memorial Day weekend, which means I got to my new hometown about two months after Summerteeth was released. Once in KC, I made friends with the guys in Rex Hobart & The Misery Boys, and I quickly got into the whole Bloodshot Records alt country/honky tonk scene. Sadly, that’s the most convincing explanation for how I must have found Wilco, and I still couldn’t tell you whether my first album was A.M., Being There, or Summerteeth—or whether it was actually an introduction to Uncle Tupelo first that ultimately led to Wilco.
Lame origin story aside, Wilco has arguably been my favorite active band of the past twenty years. I was already a huge fan (I quickly made up for lost time) when Sam Jones’s I Am Trying to Break Your Heart was released, and saw them for the first time a few months later at the Beaumont Club touring Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. I’ve seen them more than a dozen times since, and from Kansas City to Lawrence, Kansas to Columbia, Missouri, can only recall missing one show in all that time. My wife and I saw two of their five shows during their original 2008 Winter Residency at Chicago’s Riviera Theatre. A year earlier, we traveled to another former hometown of mine, Tulsa, Oklahoma, to see Jeff Tweedy solo at Cain’s Ballroom. A few weeks ago, we spent a great weekend in St. Louis where we got to see him talk about his new book with Jon Hamm.
So, I’m a fan. A big fan. I can’t imagine anyone reading this this book who isn’t. If you’re half the fan I am (which isn’t nearly as big a fan as some, I know), you’ll love this book as much as I did, too. It’s honest and sincere, appreciative and generous, real, self-deprecating, and very, very funny. If you’ve seen Jeff solo, you know what a great storyteller he is, and his ability to do so shines throughout this book. When he gets to sensitive subjects (his wife, Susie’s, cancer; his addiction and recovery; how much to reveal about his kids), candid conversations with his family are transcribed as-is, an intimate and fresh take on telling versus not telling.
If there’s a weakness to Let’s Go it’s that, despite a relatively dramatic life, the book is relatively drama-free. It’s not that Jeff skirts the tough or unpleasant stuff, it’s just that he’s so incredibly grateful to be alive, have the family he has, be in the band he’s built, and get to do what he gets to do. If you’re looking for a tabloid-style tell-all, you’ll be sorely disappointed. But if you’re looking to hang out with Jeff for a few hours, and hear his stories and thoughts about his 50 years on this earth in an incredibly vulnerable and real way, you’ve come to the right place. I finished the book loving Jeff, and Wilco, more, not just because Jeff seems like a great guy (which I believe he is), but because I have a much better appreciation for how he and the rest of the band approach things. One thing I know for certain: I need to make it to the next Solid Sound Festival, no ifs ands or buts.
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