BonoIsMyMuse
Rock n' Roll Doggie VIP PASS
Wilco (The Leak)!
Wilco
- Thread starter U2ME3
- Start date
The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
GirlsAloudFan
Blue Crack Addict
New Wilco album. I wantz it.
GirlsAloudFan
Blue Crack Addict
Alright, Wilco (The Song) just put a big smile on my face.
Lancemc
Blue Crack Addict
Sombody gimme gimme gimme now.
LemonMelon
More 5G Than Man
I would appreciate Wilco (The Album) (The Leak) (The Link), for anyone feeling generous at the moment.
Lancemc
Blue Crack Addict
4 tracks in this album is really fucking good. One Wing is killer.
GirlsAloudFan
Blue Crack Addict
I generally hate judging musics on first listen but I'm done with the first listen and I really enjoyed it. Just some good, concise, melodic pop rock. Kind of right up my alley. And there were a nice handful of tunes that jumped out at me right away. Wilco (The Song), Bull Black Nova, You and I...and then I think I was most impressed with the closing trio of songs. I'll Fight and Sonny Feeling are awesome and then the closer, Everlasting, might have been the one that hit me the most the first time through. It has one of those chord progressions and melodies that you just feel like you've heard before.
Good shit.
Good shit.
Lancemc
Blue Crack Addict
I agree with the Gafman. The final three might be my favorites here, along with One Wing and Bull Black Nova being the 5 standouts at first listen.
I actually thought You and I was pretty underwhelming. It's pretty, but I'm not sure Feist has the best voice for duets. I mean, she's so light and whispy, barely there on her own recordings, let alone put beside Tweedy, she just gets sort of washes over.
I actually thought You and I was pretty underwhelming. It's pretty, but I'm not sure Feist has the best voice for duets. I mean, she's so light and whispy, barely there on her own recordings, let alone put beside Tweedy, she just gets sort of washes over.
BonoIsMyMuse
Rock n' Roll Doggie VIP PASS
OMG, this is so good 
I can hear a bit of every Wilco album in it, but somehow it's completely different, too. This is the album I knew they were capable of ever since Pat and Nels joined the band.
I can hear a bit of every Wilco album in it, but somehow it's completely different, too. This is the album I knew they were capable of ever since Pat and Nels joined the band.
joyfulgirl
Blue Crack Addict
- Joined
- Apr 11, 2001
- Messages
- 16,690
i want it i need it i've got to have it
mikal
Blue Crack Addict
it doesn't seem to be working.
mikal
Blue Crack Addict
maybe it's because i'm on IE, not Firefox.
thetitans2k
Refugee
- Joined
- Jan 9, 2005
- Messages
- 1,752
I can't wait to listen to this. I can't find a torrent for it.
LemonMelon
More 5G Than Man
OK, I'm ready to give my first impressions. But first, here's my current rankings of Wilco's discography and requisite explanations:
1. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (A)
I don't care how cliche the choice is, I don't care how much this album has been fellated by others, this is the closest Wilco has come to making a perfect album. The production suits every song, and the vibe of the album permeates every second, with no moments that truly break the spell. But this album has substance too; play any track here on acoustic guitar and it's just as affecting, while the lyrics are fascinating to dissect, if not wholly comprehensible. One of the best of the decade.
2. Summerteeth (A-)
This was the first Wilco album I purchased, and we go way back. I have a lot of memories associated with this album, and I hold it very dear to me. I actually picked it up with the assumption that it wasn't going to be one of Wilco's more intense records, but I never took the lyrics into account. Featuring tales of domestic abuse, suicide, and self-loathing, this album features the most unsettling set of lyrics Tweedy ever penned. Unlike A Ghost Is Born, however, the band chooses to play down the darkness of the lyrics here, instead emphasizing its indelible melodies and thrilling instrumentation. And it is indeed a fun listen. But for those who seek to dig a little deeper, it's all too clear that these Summerteeth are rotting from the inside out (yes, I went there). One thing it does have in common with AGIB, however, is a pronounced lack of consistency. The great moments kick my ass (She's A Jar, A Shot In The Arm, I'm Always In Love, etc.), but would anyone shed a tear if Pieholden Suite or My Darling never existed? Just the same, this, along with YHF, are the two Wilco albums you MUST own. Once you've done this, go see them live. After that, you won't have to ask me which album to buy, because you'll want them all.
3. Being There (A-)
I don't hae much to say about this one. It's "merely" a couple discs of truly great music. The sheer amount of quality here overcomes any lack of identity this album may have. It's kind of country, kind of rock, occasionally avant-garde, but always a great listen.
4. A Ghost Is Born (B+)
As you all know, I have a very conflicted relationship with this record. Some days, it cuts right through me and I can't help but appreciate its genius. On others, I find it to largely be a pretentious bore. The truth is somewhere in the middle. There is indeed a lot of unnecessary masturbatory avant-garde noodling at play here, but the funny thing is that those moments actually inspire the majority of the album's best material. It's the more straightforward tracks (excepting Hummingbird and, on some days, I'm A Wheel) that actually hurt this album the most for me. Does Theologians or The Late Greats add one fucking thing to this album? Are they REALLY necessary? Wouldn't this album hit a lot harder and flow a lot better if it weren't tempered by these sticky-sweet pop songs? If they're going to indulge themselves half the time, the true spirit and positive qualities of artistic indulgence are inevitably lost, and we're left with a confused hybrid that appeals in some way to all of us, but never hits any of us the way it should. But, in spite of all that, it must be said that there is ALWAYS brilliance to be heard here, no matter your mood, and no matter your expectations. 4 of my top 10-15 Wilco songs are from this record (At Least That's What You Said, Muzzle Of Bees, Handshake Drugs, Wishful Thinking), and that's something no other Wilco album can boast.
5. Wilco (The Album) (B+)
Gotta say that I'm with the consensus on this one: really strong songwriting at play here, highly enjoyable, probably better than Sky Blue Sky, and certainly more exciting. One Wing is THE song here, but it won't be truly brilliant until a more extended rendition is performed live. As I listened, I could feel the epic solo coming on and then......nothing. It ended. And I know this is shallow, but it's one of my biggest problems with the album: where the fuck is Nels Cline? I know guitar solos aren't the biggest deal, but I can't help but be disappointed by the lack of them. Furthermore, the entire middle of the album is pretty middle of the road, safe, and lacking teeth. The songs are solidly written and everything, but meh. Like our good pal No Net On The Horizon, however, the album has some great moments on the edges, and I definitely want to explore those further.
6. Sky Blue Sky (B)
Occasionally heartbreakingly beautiful, occasionally very dull, mostly palatable, soothing Wilco music that I would always enjoy listening to when it's on but seldom actively seek out.
7. A.M. (B)
Lots of good times on display here, but it's simply not what I listen to Wilco for. Just the same, if I Must Be High were on the new record, we would all be praising it for its playfulness and tuneful qualities.
1. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (A)
I don't care how cliche the choice is, I don't care how much this album has been fellated by others, this is the closest Wilco has come to making a perfect album. The production suits every song, and the vibe of the album permeates every second, with no moments that truly break the spell. But this album has substance too; play any track here on acoustic guitar and it's just as affecting, while the lyrics are fascinating to dissect, if not wholly comprehensible. One of the best of the decade.
2. Summerteeth (A-)
This was the first Wilco album I purchased, and we go way back. I have a lot of memories associated with this album, and I hold it very dear to me. I actually picked it up with the assumption that it wasn't going to be one of Wilco's more intense records, but I never took the lyrics into account. Featuring tales of domestic abuse, suicide, and self-loathing, this album features the most unsettling set of lyrics Tweedy ever penned. Unlike A Ghost Is Born, however, the band chooses to play down the darkness of the lyrics here, instead emphasizing its indelible melodies and thrilling instrumentation. And it is indeed a fun listen. But for those who seek to dig a little deeper, it's all too clear that these Summerteeth are rotting from the inside out (yes, I went there). One thing it does have in common with AGIB, however, is a pronounced lack of consistency. The great moments kick my ass (She's A Jar, A Shot In The Arm, I'm Always In Love, etc.), but would anyone shed a tear if Pieholden Suite or My Darling never existed? Just the same, this, along with YHF, are the two Wilco albums you MUST own. Once you've done this, go see them live. After that, you won't have to ask me which album to buy, because you'll want them all.
3. Being There (A-)
I don't hae much to say about this one. It's "merely" a couple discs of truly great music. The sheer amount of quality here overcomes any lack of identity this album may have. It's kind of country, kind of rock, occasionally avant-garde, but always a great listen.
4. A Ghost Is Born (B+)
As you all know, I have a very conflicted relationship with this record. Some days, it cuts right through me and I can't help but appreciate its genius. On others, I find it to largely be a pretentious bore. The truth is somewhere in the middle. There is indeed a lot of unnecessary masturbatory avant-garde noodling at play here, but the funny thing is that those moments actually inspire the majority of the album's best material. It's the more straightforward tracks (excepting Hummingbird and, on some days, I'm A Wheel) that actually hurt this album the most for me. Does Theologians or The Late Greats add one fucking thing to this album? Are they REALLY necessary? Wouldn't this album hit a lot harder and flow a lot better if it weren't tempered by these sticky-sweet pop songs? If they're going to indulge themselves half the time, the true spirit and positive qualities of artistic indulgence are inevitably lost, and we're left with a confused hybrid that appeals in some way to all of us, but never hits any of us the way it should. But, in spite of all that, it must be said that there is ALWAYS brilliance to be heard here, no matter your mood, and no matter your expectations. 4 of my top 10-15 Wilco songs are from this record (At Least That's What You Said, Muzzle Of Bees, Handshake Drugs, Wishful Thinking), and that's something no other Wilco album can boast.
5. Wilco (The Album) (B+)
Gotta say that I'm with the consensus on this one: really strong songwriting at play here, highly enjoyable, probably better than Sky Blue Sky, and certainly more exciting. One Wing is THE song here, but it won't be truly brilliant until a more extended rendition is performed live. As I listened, I could feel the epic solo coming on and then......nothing. It ended. And I know this is shallow, but it's one of my biggest problems with the album: where the fuck is Nels Cline? I know guitar solos aren't the biggest deal, but I can't help but be disappointed by the lack of them. Furthermore, the entire middle of the album is pretty middle of the road, safe, and lacking teeth. The songs are solidly written and everything, but meh. Like our good pal No Net On The Horizon, however, the album has some great moments on the edges, and I definitely want to explore those further.
6. Sky Blue Sky (B)
Occasionally heartbreakingly beautiful, occasionally very dull, mostly palatable, soothing Wilco music that I would always enjoy listening to when it's on but seldom actively seek out.
7. A.M. (B)
Lots of good times on display here, but it's simply not what I listen to Wilco for. Just the same, if I Must Be High were on the new record, we would all be praising it for its playfulness and tuneful qualities.
Our rankings of the albums aren't really all that similiar (I'll do mine later), but I hear where you're coming from with this new one. I probably prefer Tweedy's guitar work more than Nels', but I still wish they'd unleash him. They didn't really do it on SBS either, so they haven't made a great guitar album since Ghost. But as with most of the SBS songs (hell, all of their songs), I'm sure the live incarnations will be behemoths. I can't wait to hear "Bull Black Nova" live. It's like "Spiders" meets the end of "Poor Places." And "One Wing" is absolutely going to rip. I love that one. Been loving it since August.
The thing that worries me about all the live versions trumping the album cuts is the idea that maybe they're becoming more a live band. There is no question they're one of the best live acts on the planet, but I kind of wish they'd commit some of the chaos to record. But whatever. I've listened to the album three times and really like it. Pound for pound, they might have the best discography of any current American band. The National and Okkervil River are certainly up there, as well.
The thing that worries me about all the live versions trumping the album cuts is the idea that maybe they're becoming more a live band. There is no question they're one of the best live acts on the planet, but I kind of wish they'd commit some of the chaos to record. But whatever. I've listened to the album three times and really like it. Pound for pound, they might have the best discography of any current American band. The National and Okkervil River are certainly up there, as well.
Lancemc
Blue Crack Addict
1. A Ghost is Born
2. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
3. Being There
4. Wilco (The Album)
5. Sky Blue Sky
6. Summerteeth
7. A.M.
Just because.
2. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
3. Being There
4. Wilco (The Album)
5. Sky Blue Sky
6. Summerteeth
7. A.M.
Just because.
joyfulgirl
Blue Crack Addict
- Joined
- Apr 11, 2001
- Messages
- 16,690
I rate this post 5 stars even though I haven't heard the new record yet. My order might be slightly different but I agree so much with your analysis of each one it hardly matters. I don't listen to Being There as much as the others so I never quite know where to put it. I love it, though.
sunken_treasure
Babyface
I posted this over at ateaseweb (Radiohead site), so users names will be mentioned but I'm too lazy to write more.
joyfulgirl
Blue Crack Addict
- Joined
- Apr 11, 2001
- Messages
- 16,690
I thought this was worth sharing.
March 5, 2008, 4:34 pm
Shaking It Off
By Jeff Tweedy
The New York Times
Jeff Tweedy is primarily known as the lyricist, lead singer and guitarist of Wilco, one of America’s most popular and critically successful rock bands. He is also a lifelong migraine sufferer whose headaches were for decades compounded by bouts of depression and panic disorder.
In 2004, Tweedy suffered a collapse and entered a rehabilitation clinic in Chicago to treat his conditions and a resulting addiction to prescription painkillers. In Tweedy’s estimation, his new found ability to treat and manage his depression and panic has helped him to remain migraine-free for the past four years. In a conversation this month, Tweedy spoke about how migraines and mood disorders impacted his childhood, his musical career and his creative and personal life.
Boy Meets Pain
I honestly do not remember a time in my life when I did not have headaches, and know what they were and know they were called migraines. My mother was a migraine sufferer, and my sister is as well. Now, if I was having legitimate migraines or I just called every headache a migraine because my mother had them, I don’t know for sure, but, like I said, I don’t remember a time in my life when I wasn’t having them.
As a kid, I did miss a lot of school because I would periodically dehydrate myself — I would vomit a lot with each migraine and it would be really hard to stop. It would often continue that way for hours and hours — 12 hours sometimes.
And I went to see a lot of doctors. I remember long periods sitting around in doctors’ offices waiting to get shots. At one point they determined my migraines were the result of allergies, so I got numerous allergy tests and it turned out I was allergic to everything. I don’t think they ever tested me for an allergy that didn’t come up positive. As a result I got allergy shots twice a week after school for years. I got really good at getting shots as a young kid when a lot of other kids were deathly afraid of them. But it never helped the migraines.
My sister and I compared notes a lot. And my mother stopped having migraines around the time she went through menopause. My own theory is that, in my case, my migraines were connected to my mood disorders.
When I was growing up I lived in a household with caring people — my parents were definitely nurturing and wanted me to be happy and healthy. But it was a different time. If a kid was suffering from a mood disorder in my parent’s generation, the typical response was likely to be, “What are you crying about? I’ll give you something to cry about.” That sounds really harsh but its a reality of my childhood. It was much more difficult for me to explain, “I just feel sad for no reason,” than for them to see I was in literal pain. So I think there’s some connection there. In other words, the psychological suffering of the mood disorder may have manifested itself in a very real pain of the migraine that was much easier to express. It’s obvious your kid is hurting when he can’t stop vomiting and he can hardly open his eyes. And with my mother having migraines herself, she could identify – she knew they were real.
There’s a lot to explore there — there was for me — how much of it was an outward manifestation of a mood disorder.
Panic
I’ve noticed that the arc of a migraine is very similar to some of the traits of panic disorder.
One of the things that happens a lot with panic disorder is that you’ll have an actual panic attack and for weeks or months after that you’ll have a fear of a panic attack that can heighten your anxiety and heighten your stress levels to the point where you end up having another panic attack. To me those things mirror each other. Migraines would add stress to my life in a way that would contribute to the next headache and it would begin a cycle that would be hard to stop. So I would have periods where I would have a migraine very frequently — every other day or twice a week — for months.
The hospital I went to in 2004 to address my painkiller addiction (which happened in part due to the migraines) was a “dual-diagnosis” facility — they treated my panic disorder and depression simultaneously. And I found that once I was able to manage those two things, I’ve been able to be mostly migraine-free for the last four years. For me, that solidified my theory about the connection.
Music
There are a lot of different ways migraines have affected my music, and vice versa: being a musician has allowed me — for lack of a better phrase — to rise above the pain from time to time. I’ve never missed a show because of a migraine. But I’ve played some really horrible shows and cut them short because there was very little I could do to keep going. I’ve played shows where I had bucket on the side of the stage where I threw up in between songs regularly. There’ve been a lot of horrible experiences trying to, well, you know, have the show go on.
On a creative level being able to play music and disappear into something as meditative as music can be has been a real blessing in my life.
Excerpt of “Less Than You Think,” from “A Ghost Is Born,” Nonesuch Records (mp3)
In the worst periods of migraine suffering — in particular during the making of the record “A Ghost Is Born” —the cycle of pain and pain relief and pain killer abuse got really difficult to dig out of. I was rarely able to function for more than a few hours a day. For a lot of that record I was just trying not to be too drugged out and as a result I was suffering from enormous migraine type throbbing pain. Quite a bit of that came out on “A Ghost Is Born.” There is a lot of material that mirrored my condition. In particular there’s a piece of music — “Less Than You Think” — that ends with a 12-minute drone that was an attempt to express the slow painful rise and dissipation of migraine in music. I don’t know why anyone would need to have that expressed to them musically. But it was all I had.
Excerpt of “Spiders (Kidsmoke),” from “A Ghost Is Born,” Nonesuch Records (mp3)
“Spiders (Kidsmoke)” is another. I think we performed that song once or twice – we knew it was going to be on the record but it was one that was looming as a real challenge in the condition I was in. So when we put it together the arrangement ended up being as minimal as possible with the fewest amount of chord changes and I just got through the lyrics and punctuated them with guitar blasts basically just to play through the song. It ended up being a song we were pretty proud of. But it was not much fun to record.
Wrong
I’m sure there were misperceptions about my condition. You know, seeing a rock musician vomit on the side of the stage, I’m sure people thought I was completely out of my mind on drugs or strung out. It didn’t have any kind of long term impact on how people perceived the band, though. Crazy thing is, in my business, that sort of thing is considered an asset. Sick but true.
I remember one time we were opening for R.E.M. in a soccer stadium in Italy. There were 70,000 people there, just an enormous audience. I was really in bad shape trying to get ready to go on stage. I was just sitting in the shower on a chair in the dressing room with cold water raining down on my head because it was the only thing I could do that felt good. The road manager got the local paramedics and they came back and looked at me and said, “What did he take?” It was really hard in broken English to explain that wasn’t really that case. There wasn’t anything they could do for me. I wanted them to give me something to take.
The truth is, as migraine sufferer you begin to doubt yourself, too. There were a lot times when I wondered, “Am I really getting a migraine or am I just dreading what I have to do and because of that starting to work myself up in to lather?” And it becomes a vicious cycle, or circle, of second-guessing and wondering what’s really happening, especially if you’re someone prone to the type of self-examination or introspection that I am.
Even being a migraine sufferer I understand that instinct to not believe it when someone says, “I have a migraine.” I know that that I’ve heard people say it and I’ve wanted to say, “Come on, just get it together. We’ve gotta do this.” Obviously I have a ton of compassion but its such a strange thing to try to communicate. People suffering from migraines in a lot of cases look like they’re faking some ridiculous pain.
Killing Pain
As for the pain killers — it happened initially in the way that a lot of drugs find their way into the hands of rock musicians. Someone gave me some at some point and I took them recreationally. There was nothing noble about it in any way. And at that point I just thought, “Where have you been all my life?” I think it had more to do with my panic disorder to be honest. There was a quality to that type of medication (an opiate) that felt very comforting and maternal. It gave me a sense of well being that was really lacking in my periods of depression and panic. So I just thought, it would great if I could feel like this all the time.
But it really became a problem was when I realized I could get a lot of them because I suffer from migraines. I tried a lot of different medication to ease the migraines and to be honest the painkillers never worked better than anything else — it didn’t work better than Imitrex. The way serious painkillers like hydrocodone and oxycontin work is that they make you not care about the pain and that was really desirable to me — to be able to continue to work and be creative and make music and actually feel normal. It was something that allowed me to be functional for a while.
Even when I took the painkillers in a recreational way I never had a desire to live out any kind of rock and roll pursuit of oblivion. I’ve always been turned off by that idea of the suffering drugged-out artist. It’s always made me sort of nauseated to think that I could fit in to that stereotype. But like a lot of addicts, you come up with a way to prove to yourself that you’re different — that that’s not really who you are. And for me, having very real physical pain was a very easy way to convince myself (and a lot of doctors) that there was something different about me.
After a while it became obvious that it was a problem. I was abusing the painkillers. They became something I was having trouble living without. I would get scared by the amount of drugs I was taking. I was afraid I wouldn’t wake up.
Clean
I made an attempt to stop taking the painkillers on my own, and along with that, because of the amount of anxiety I was feeling, I was convinced that all of the medications I was taking were making me sick. So I not only stopped taking painkillers, I stopped taking an antidepressant I had been prescribed at the time.
Five weeks later, theoretically with a clean bill of health, in terms of the chemicals that were coursing through my body, I suffered a serious mental collapse, most likely from the way I had taken myself off my prescribed antidepressants. So I found myself in the emergency room two days in a row thinking that I was dying, suffering extreme panic and anxiety, without any sort of dissipation whatsoever: It was like a constant state of terror.
On the second day someone at the hospital suggested I go to a dual diagnosis clinic – basically, a mental hospital that deals with addiction. That was the first time that anyone had every suggested anything like that to me, that there was a connection between the two, and that made an enormous amount of sense to me, so immediately I said, “Take me there now.”
And I think it was the first time in my life I’ve ever gotten competent help. I had had a psychiatrist that was prescribing drugs to me without any conscience. I actually had a psychiatrist prescribe Vicodin to me as a way to alleviate anxiety. And I also had a therapist tell me that I needed the painkillers because I had migraines and that I didn’t need the antidepressants because they were just capping my creative energy. This guy was just a quack, an idiot. But when you’re in such a vulnerable and desperate state as I was, you want somebody to help you. I really wish I had been in a condition where I could have known and listened and understood that these people were out of their minds, but I wasn’t. I was vulnerable and I needed someone to help me. But I got really, really bad help. When I got to the hospital, it was the first time I had been given any serious attention and had serious, right-minded physicians helping me.
Excerpt of “Either Way,” from “Sky Blue Sky,” Nonesuch Records (mp3)
After a few days in the hospital, I was stable enough to participate in the program and groups. This was a very hard-core inner city hospital and there were stretches in my month long stay where I was the only white person there or the only person who didn’t come from a gangbanging background, situations that were much, much more serious than mine. So it was never lost on me that I was very fortunate to have a lot of support from a lot of people, including my band and my wife and Tony, my manager. I really didn’t have anybody in my life I was going to have to cut out in order to stay sober and get healthy. I basically had everyone pulling for me in the right direction and everybody in a healthy state themselves.
Next Day
For the most part, I’ve found in the last four years that I do get headaches, but if I’m more conscious and aware and can get to them quicker with something as simple as some Advil, they don’t escalate.
I’ve had one migraine recently. And as a result of the migraine I also had a the first full-blown panic attack I’ve had in months. I think this happened because I didn’t listen to my body and I kept putting off doing anything about it or even admitting to myself I wasn’t feeling well. So that night, the second the kids went to bed — (this is also a trait I’ve noticed: once you have time to fall apart you fall apart very quickly) – I turned off their light and went downstairs and immediately started feeling as bad as I’ve ever felt. And I started to think, “All hope lost, I’m having migraines again.”
But fortunately, it didn’t knock me down completely. I think the amount of work I’ve been able to do in the last four years and the amount of understanding I’ve gained about the different things that contribute to my well-being helped. So it was just a bad day. I had a migraine, I didn’t get anything done. I laid around in bed with ice and I vomited a lot then I got up and did my thing the next day.
March 5, 2008, 4:34 pm
Shaking It Off
By Jeff Tweedy
The New York Times
Jeff Tweedy is primarily known as the lyricist, lead singer and guitarist of Wilco, one of America’s most popular and critically successful rock bands. He is also a lifelong migraine sufferer whose headaches were for decades compounded by bouts of depression and panic disorder.
In 2004, Tweedy suffered a collapse and entered a rehabilitation clinic in Chicago to treat his conditions and a resulting addiction to prescription painkillers. In Tweedy’s estimation, his new found ability to treat and manage his depression and panic has helped him to remain migraine-free for the past four years. In a conversation this month, Tweedy spoke about how migraines and mood disorders impacted his childhood, his musical career and his creative and personal life.
Boy Meets Pain
I honestly do not remember a time in my life when I did not have headaches, and know what they were and know they were called migraines. My mother was a migraine sufferer, and my sister is as well. Now, if I was having legitimate migraines or I just called every headache a migraine because my mother had them, I don’t know for sure, but, like I said, I don’t remember a time in my life when I wasn’t having them.
As a kid, I did miss a lot of school because I would periodically dehydrate myself — I would vomit a lot with each migraine and it would be really hard to stop. It would often continue that way for hours and hours — 12 hours sometimes.
And I went to see a lot of doctors. I remember long periods sitting around in doctors’ offices waiting to get shots. At one point they determined my migraines were the result of allergies, so I got numerous allergy tests and it turned out I was allergic to everything. I don’t think they ever tested me for an allergy that didn’t come up positive. As a result I got allergy shots twice a week after school for years. I got really good at getting shots as a young kid when a lot of other kids were deathly afraid of them. But it never helped the migraines.
My sister and I compared notes a lot. And my mother stopped having migraines around the time she went through menopause. My own theory is that, in my case, my migraines were connected to my mood disorders.
When I was growing up I lived in a household with caring people — my parents were definitely nurturing and wanted me to be happy and healthy. But it was a different time. If a kid was suffering from a mood disorder in my parent’s generation, the typical response was likely to be, “What are you crying about? I’ll give you something to cry about.” That sounds really harsh but its a reality of my childhood. It was much more difficult for me to explain, “I just feel sad for no reason,” than for them to see I was in literal pain. So I think there’s some connection there. In other words, the psychological suffering of the mood disorder may have manifested itself in a very real pain of the migraine that was much easier to express. It’s obvious your kid is hurting when he can’t stop vomiting and he can hardly open his eyes. And with my mother having migraines herself, she could identify – she knew they were real.
There’s a lot to explore there — there was for me — how much of it was an outward manifestation of a mood disorder.
Panic
I’ve noticed that the arc of a migraine is very similar to some of the traits of panic disorder.
One of the things that happens a lot with panic disorder is that you’ll have an actual panic attack and for weeks or months after that you’ll have a fear of a panic attack that can heighten your anxiety and heighten your stress levels to the point where you end up having another panic attack. To me those things mirror each other. Migraines would add stress to my life in a way that would contribute to the next headache and it would begin a cycle that would be hard to stop. So I would have periods where I would have a migraine very frequently — every other day or twice a week — for months.
The hospital I went to in 2004 to address my painkiller addiction (which happened in part due to the migraines) was a “dual-diagnosis” facility — they treated my panic disorder and depression simultaneously. And I found that once I was able to manage those two things, I’ve been able to be mostly migraine-free for the last four years. For me, that solidified my theory about the connection.
Music
There are a lot of different ways migraines have affected my music, and vice versa: being a musician has allowed me — for lack of a better phrase — to rise above the pain from time to time. I’ve never missed a show because of a migraine. But I’ve played some really horrible shows and cut them short because there was very little I could do to keep going. I’ve played shows where I had bucket on the side of the stage where I threw up in between songs regularly. There’ve been a lot of horrible experiences trying to, well, you know, have the show go on.
On a creative level being able to play music and disappear into something as meditative as music can be has been a real blessing in my life.
Excerpt of “Less Than You Think,” from “A Ghost Is Born,” Nonesuch Records (mp3)
In the worst periods of migraine suffering — in particular during the making of the record “A Ghost Is Born” —the cycle of pain and pain relief and pain killer abuse got really difficult to dig out of. I was rarely able to function for more than a few hours a day. For a lot of that record I was just trying not to be too drugged out and as a result I was suffering from enormous migraine type throbbing pain. Quite a bit of that came out on “A Ghost Is Born.” There is a lot of material that mirrored my condition. In particular there’s a piece of music — “Less Than You Think” — that ends with a 12-minute drone that was an attempt to express the slow painful rise and dissipation of migraine in music. I don’t know why anyone would need to have that expressed to them musically. But it was all I had.
Excerpt of “Spiders (Kidsmoke),” from “A Ghost Is Born,” Nonesuch Records (mp3)
“Spiders (Kidsmoke)” is another. I think we performed that song once or twice – we knew it was going to be on the record but it was one that was looming as a real challenge in the condition I was in. So when we put it together the arrangement ended up being as minimal as possible with the fewest amount of chord changes and I just got through the lyrics and punctuated them with guitar blasts basically just to play through the song. It ended up being a song we were pretty proud of. But it was not much fun to record.
Wrong
I’m sure there were misperceptions about my condition. You know, seeing a rock musician vomit on the side of the stage, I’m sure people thought I was completely out of my mind on drugs or strung out. It didn’t have any kind of long term impact on how people perceived the band, though. Crazy thing is, in my business, that sort of thing is considered an asset. Sick but true.
I remember one time we were opening for R.E.M. in a soccer stadium in Italy. There were 70,000 people there, just an enormous audience. I was really in bad shape trying to get ready to go on stage. I was just sitting in the shower on a chair in the dressing room with cold water raining down on my head because it was the only thing I could do that felt good. The road manager got the local paramedics and they came back and looked at me and said, “What did he take?” It was really hard in broken English to explain that wasn’t really that case. There wasn’t anything they could do for me. I wanted them to give me something to take.
The truth is, as migraine sufferer you begin to doubt yourself, too. There were a lot times when I wondered, “Am I really getting a migraine or am I just dreading what I have to do and because of that starting to work myself up in to lather?” And it becomes a vicious cycle, or circle, of second-guessing and wondering what’s really happening, especially if you’re someone prone to the type of self-examination or introspection that I am.
Even being a migraine sufferer I understand that instinct to not believe it when someone says, “I have a migraine.” I know that that I’ve heard people say it and I’ve wanted to say, “Come on, just get it together. We’ve gotta do this.” Obviously I have a ton of compassion but its such a strange thing to try to communicate. People suffering from migraines in a lot of cases look like they’re faking some ridiculous pain.
Killing Pain
As for the pain killers — it happened initially in the way that a lot of drugs find their way into the hands of rock musicians. Someone gave me some at some point and I took them recreationally. There was nothing noble about it in any way. And at that point I just thought, “Where have you been all my life?” I think it had more to do with my panic disorder to be honest. There was a quality to that type of medication (an opiate) that felt very comforting and maternal. It gave me a sense of well being that was really lacking in my periods of depression and panic. So I just thought, it would great if I could feel like this all the time.
But it really became a problem was when I realized I could get a lot of them because I suffer from migraines. I tried a lot of different medication to ease the migraines and to be honest the painkillers never worked better than anything else — it didn’t work better than Imitrex. The way serious painkillers like hydrocodone and oxycontin work is that they make you not care about the pain and that was really desirable to me — to be able to continue to work and be creative and make music and actually feel normal. It was something that allowed me to be functional for a while.
Even when I took the painkillers in a recreational way I never had a desire to live out any kind of rock and roll pursuit of oblivion. I’ve always been turned off by that idea of the suffering drugged-out artist. It’s always made me sort of nauseated to think that I could fit in to that stereotype. But like a lot of addicts, you come up with a way to prove to yourself that you’re different — that that’s not really who you are. And for me, having very real physical pain was a very easy way to convince myself (and a lot of doctors) that there was something different about me.
After a while it became obvious that it was a problem. I was abusing the painkillers. They became something I was having trouble living without. I would get scared by the amount of drugs I was taking. I was afraid I wouldn’t wake up.
Clean
I made an attempt to stop taking the painkillers on my own, and along with that, because of the amount of anxiety I was feeling, I was convinced that all of the medications I was taking were making me sick. So I not only stopped taking painkillers, I stopped taking an antidepressant I had been prescribed at the time.
Five weeks later, theoretically with a clean bill of health, in terms of the chemicals that were coursing through my body, I suffered a serious mental collapse, most likely from the way I had taken myself off my prescribed antidepressants. So I found myself in the emergency room two days in a row thinking that I was dying, suffering extreme panic and anxiety, without any sort of dissipation whatsoever: It was like a constant state of terror.
On the second day someone at the hospital suggested I go to a dual diagnosis clinic – basically, a mental hospital that deals with addiction. That was the first time that anyone had every suggested anything like that to me, that there was a connection between the two, and that made an enormous amount of sense to me, so immediately I said, “Take me there now.”
And I think it was the first time in my life I’ve ever gotten competent help. I had had a psychiatrist that was prescribing drugs to me without any conscience. I actually had a psychiatrist prescribe Vicodin to me as a way to alleviate anxiety. And I also had a therapist tell me that I needed the painkillers because I had migraines and that I didn’t need the antidepressants because they were just capping my creative energy. This guy was just a quack, an idiot. But when you’re in such a vulnerable and desperate state as I was, you want somebody to help you. I really wish I had been in a condition where I could have known and listened and understood that these people were out of their minds, but I wasn’t. I was vulnerable and I needed someone to help me. But I got really, really bad help. When I got to the hospital, it was the first time I had been given any serious attention and had serious, right-minded physicians helping me.
Excerpt of “Either Way,” from “Sky Blue Sky,” Nonesuch Records (mp3)
After a few days in the hospital, I was stable enough to participate in the program and groups. This was a very hard-core inner city hospital and there were stretches in my month long stay where I was the only white person there or the only person who didn’t come from a gangbanging background, situations that were much, much more serious than mine. So it was never lost on me that I was very fortunate to have a lot of support from a lot of people, including my band and my wife and Tony, my manager. I really didn’t have anybody in my life I was going to have to cut out in order to stay sober and get healthy. I basically had everyone pulling for me in the right direction and everybody in a healthy state themselves.
Next Day
For the most part, I’ve found in the last four years that I do get headaches, but if I’m more conscious and aware and can get to them quicker with something as simple as some Advil, they don’t escalate.
I’ve had one migraine recently. And as a result of the migraine I also had a the first full-blown panic attack I’ve had in months. I think this happened because I didn’t listen to my body and I kept putting off doing anything about it or even admitting to myself I wasn’t feeling well. So that night, the second the kids went to bed — (this is also a trait I’ve noticed: once you have time to fall apart you fall apart very quickly) – I turned off their light and went downstairs and immediately started feeling as bad as I’ve ever felt. And I started to think, “All hope lost, I’m having migraines again.”
But fortunately, it didn’t knock me down completely. I think the amount of work I’ve been able to do in the last four years and the amount of understanding I’ve gained about the different things that contribute to my well-being helped. So it was just a bad day. I had a migraine, I didn’t get anything done. I laid around in bed with ice and I vomited a lot then I got up and did my thing the next day.
LemonMelon
More 5G Than Man
Nice take.
Random observation: You Never Know = My Sweet Lord meets Everyday People. It's superbly written, and feels very soulful and classic. Not my favorite on the album by any means, but I can't deny its appeal.
joyfulgirl
Blue Crack Addict
- Joined
- Apr 11, 2001
- Messages
- 16,690
Well, we made it nearly a month with copies of Wilco (the album) floating around out there before it leaked. Pretty impressive restraint in this day and age. But the inevitable happened last night. Since we know you're curious and probably have better things to do than scour the internet for a download (though we do understand the attraction of the illicit), we've posted a stream of the full album at WILCO (the album) . Feel free to refer to it as "wilco (the stream)" if you must.
We also have our usual guilt abatement plan for downloaders. If you have downloaded the record, we suggest you make a donation to one of the band's favorite charities, the Inspiration Corporation -- an organization we've supported in the past & who are doing great work in the city of Chicago. Information and donation button here: Inspiration Corporation–Catalyst for Self-Reliance : Employment Services, Supportive Services and Housing Services in Chicago, Illinois : Donate Now : Volunteer Now.
That's all. Enjoy the stream. Tickets for summer shows, etc. WILCO : SHOWS Note that we'll be holding a free online midnight screening of the "Ashes of American Flags" film this Friday night (at both midnight US Central time and again at midnight Pacific). So get the popcorn or whatever together and be sure to log on and tune in on Friday.
Wilco HQ
Similar threads
- Locked
