THE WYMAN WEEKLY

Underemployed. Unattached. Unimpressed.

Issue 34 December 11,1996

I was really disturbed by the "Unplugged" thing. I can't put my finger on why, but I never felt good about it. I mean, acoustic music has been going on for a long time and there are a lot of people who can take an acoustic guitar and play it, and they seemed so marveled by that idea ...There is a lot of music that can be exposed (in ways) that would really be more entertaining than hearing you play your hit song on an acoustic guitar.

- Tom Petty, in the January '97 issue of Musician

COME TOGETHER

On Thanksgiving, I was blessed with the sights and sounds of John Lennon's "Imagine" being used in a commercial for American Express. The message of the ad seemed to be that if you go out and buy some stuff, you'll help poor people. Straight out of the Reagan/Bush/Clinton handbook, I swear. Two questions came to mind: 1) Who has bigger glasses - Harry Caray or Yoko Ono? 2) Couldn't we pop Mark David Chapman out of jail for one day to pay a visit to Yoko? I'm not the biggest Beatles fan (not by a long ways, but if they would have broken up before the release of Sgt. Pepper's, it'd maybe be a different story for me) but I've always liked John Lennon. His "more popular than Jesus" line is one of the most misunderstood quotes of this century. That it pissed off a bunch of religious weirdo idiots tends to put me in Lennon's corner.

Lester Bangs' "Thinking the Unthinkable About John Lennon", written four days after Lennon's murder, sums up certain members of the boomer generation ("who refuse to let their 1960's adolescence die a natural death" ) and the post-boom generation ("who will snatch and gobble any shred, any scrap of a dream that someone declared over ten years ago") as well as anything I've read. Lester also points out that getting all maudlin and hokey about Lennon's death probably goes against Lennon's general take on things. In light of that, it's good that we here in Minneapolis have Curtiss A doing his annual John Lennon Tribute at First Avenue. Curtiss just comes out with his band (though this year he came out solo and did "Working Class Hero" to start things off) and plays the man's songs without much direct commentary. He has the ability to sound uncannily like Lennon, which is what I need to get me through something like "I Am the Walrus", in which the only thing I like is Lennon's vocals. Curtiss also has a wicked, goofball sense of humor that he uses between songs. But mostly, he and his band and assorted guests just play Lennon's songs and have a good time doing it. And you can't ask for any better tribute than that.

1996

Don't be fooled into thinking that any publication's "Year in Review" issue is put out to prompt discussions or help you catch up on anything you might have missed. These issues exist because they're easy to do and critics love to make lists. So here's Wyman's Year in Review:

Best albums: 1) Semisonic, Great Divide - a contender for best album of the nineties. 2) Metallica, Load - another knockout from one of the most intelligent, important, and influential bands of the last twenty years. 3) Wilco, Being There - a blueprint for their impressive live shows.

Best singles: this one's hard, because mostly you just hear these songs in your car. 1) That song by Imperial Teen, 2) "Down in Flames" - Semisonic, 3) "Where It's At" - Beck

Best live performances: 1) Wilco at First Avenue in July or in November - you had to be there. 2) Iggy Pop at First Avenue in April - raw power, indeed. 3) Steve Earle at First Avenue in March - an underrated and underappreciated songwriter.

Best movies: 1) Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie - hilarious. 2) Lone Star - understated and great because of it. 3) Trainspotting - scary, funny, gross, etc.

The Five Best Wyman Weeklies of the Year as ranked by Paul Datura in the January '97 Spin:

1) #18 July 3 - in which Wyman starts out just trying to help his dad, winds up at a gas station, falls in love with a girl because of a radio station, hails the working man, stirs generational conflict, watches the watchmen, and ends up talking to God.

2) #8 March 28 - The Good: Steve Earle and a girl in a sweater. The Bad: Miller Brewing, Mountain Dew, John Lydon, City Pages. The Ugly: Neil Young. Wyman leaves heaven, gets kissed on the cheek, waits for the end of the world.

3) #30 November 7 - Wyman reads a book, watches TV, gets picked on by teenagers, feigns interest in politics, and stays up all night.

#4) #23 September 23 - Wyman sees married people and Gopher fans and doesn't like it. He goes to work and goofs off. Somehow this takes up two pages.

#5) #3 February 22 - Wyman drinks beer, keeps his clothes on, threatens us with his music, dives into slackerdom, and figures out that the Democrats and Republicans are the same because they both have blonde beauties who want to do him wrong.

CORRECTIONS

Oops. I was wrong last issue. Wilco started out their show with "Sunken Treasure." I also forgot to mention a real cool part of the Semisonic show was when it was over. The screen went down in front of the stage, the lights came on, and we all headed towards the exits. The Jayhawks "Blue" then came on the sound system. Everybody sang along with the chorus: You make me feel so BLUUUUUE / Why don't you stay behind / So BLUUUUUE / Why don't you stop and look at what's going down. We all hit the high notes, of course.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Sending Wyman money, buying him lunch, or giving him music is highly encouraged. And if you do so, you get to see your name in print. Thanks go out to the following for their financial support: Mike "Big Bucks" McGough, Tim "Heh Heh Heh" Berg, Michaela "It'll Just Be Our Secret" Wentz, Joel "Can I Have Tomatoes in My Omelet?" McElhany, Tricia Hamak-Sundeen, and Mark "Big Finance" Janning. Thanks to Shannon Lynch for the cassette o'tunes. Thanks also goes out to Gary Wentz, Bob Schultz, and Chris O'Connor (The Three Wise Men), who helped me get through the dark early days of this weekly. Gary is the one who came up with the idea for this newsletter, although he probably would wisely deny it at this point. I no longer blame all my hangovers on him.

I'll be going on hiatus for a while and will be back sometime after the new year. Please don't be waiting for me.

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