from the nov. 16 ny press:

jeff tweedy
november 16, 8

there’s a minute-and-a-half scene buried near the end of the dvd outtakes to the wilco documentary i am trying to break your heart, where a shaggy jeff tweedy sits with a smiling stuffed monkey leaning against the wall, calmly staring straight ahead, strumming and picking “bob dylan’s 49th beard” for the camera. it’s a fitting song for tweedy, who in the manner of dylan, now exists as “jeff tweedy,” the character from i am trying. it’s now tweedy’s challenge to expand upon that character under watchful eyes. so far we’ve learned more about his migraines and his painkiller use since the film’s release. with the release of wilco’s new live album, kicking television, wilco fans (most of whom have caught the group live) will have yet another permanent record of tweedy as the leader of his heralded band. tweedy, though, is currently on a 13-date tour sans band—“jeff tweedy solo performance.” his solo performances hearken back to that outtake from the film, where it’s just him and his guitar. there’s that intimacy and that chance to see tweedy in the flesh and wonder how he’s been doing lately. during the last 20 years, he’s kept busy playing with a number of bands who have more of a right to the term “supergroup” than, say, the new pornographers. there were the alt-country superstars uncle tupelo (with jay farrar, now of son volt). then there was golden smog (who are in the process of reuniting—go minneapolis!), featuring jayhawks’ gary louris and soul asylum’s dan murphy. more recently, there’s been the loose fur collaboration with musician/über-producer/ex–sonic youth member jim o’rourke. and then, of course, there’s wilco, who finally ditched the alt-country thing when they unleashed yankee hotel foxtrot back in 2002, subsequently causing the indie-rock world to briefly implode. soon after, tweedy announced to the chicago sun-times that ryan adams could have wilco’s old sound. (we hear he’s doing wonderful things with it these days.) and then there’s the million-times-told story behind the making of yhf, with its entangled record-company foibles, band-member departures and eventual successes captured in that documentary. in the course of all this (and wilco and tweedy’s follow-up, a ghost is born), tweedy has only released one solo album, 2002’s chelsea walls, the soundtrack for ethan hawke’s directorial debut, and it’s worth owning only if you’re “really into” all things jt. when he performs solo live, as he will twice this week, he brings out all the jeff tweedys in all the bands that he plays in, doling out their tunes with a feeling akin to the energy from a pre–newport folk dylan, who, at last count, was on his 11,000th beard. jeff tweedy still has many a beard to grow before he’s gone.