Culturally, I spent a good deal of my time at UVA going to the weekly OFFscreen film events and listening to as much Wilco as I could get my paws on. So I hope you rock doc buffs will be as pleased as I am this Friday at 7pm, when filmmaker/Fugazi drummer Brendan Canty screens Ashes of American Flags in OFFscreen’s usual stomping grounds, the Newcomb Hall Theater. (Ticket details here.)
Canty first saw Wilco perform after the release of 1999’s moonshot makeover album, Summer Teeth, but says the release of A Ghost is Born marks the point where the band began to really turn him on live. "The whole period where Jeff [Tweedy] started experimenting with more, like krautrock and noise and things like that," explained Canty in a phone interview. "I started seeing them every time they came through D.C. I’d go, and make sure other people went with me."
Ashes of American Flags tracks Wilco on a tour of small clubs in the U.S., and cuts a few adrenalized (and one ‘roid raging) sets with a few candid band clips. Watch the trailer below, then read on for more from the interview:
Canty is no stranger to documentaries: He and his bandmates were the subjects of Instrument, Jem Cohen’s career-spanning Fugazi doc that OFFscreen showed a few years ago. Since Fugazi’s hiatus, Canty has directed a handful of arresting concert films, from a Jeff Tweedy solo tour (Sunken Treasure) to his "Burn to Shine" series, which rounds up musicians from talent-rich cities for a one-song performance in a house slated for demolition.
Canty and I spoke a bit about Cohen’s influence on his work; he cited Lucky Three, a short film about Elliott Smith, as a moving touchstone. [Watch a lengthy clip here.]
"Very simple, good microphone, Elliott Smith singing with an acoustic guitar," he listed. "When Elliott died, I thought, ‘God bless Jem Cohen for documenting that in the simplest, most beautiful way.’" (A way that heavily informs Canty’s restrained lens and slightly existential philosophy in "Burn to Shine.")
"If you have a camera and the ability to preserve things, then you should do it," said Canty, a no-excuses chorus that neatly sums up the career of the band he spent a fair portion of his 43 years in. "If you have the equipment, the energy, especially if you have the access, then you should preserve the things you love most in that way."
And for Canty, that’s Wilco, who he praised for elevating its older material for live sets. "Everything was being elevated by the band with Nels Cline and Glenn Kotche, and Pat [Sansone] and Mike [Jorgensen]," said Canty. "They were really taking all these older songs and killing them live, taking them to totaly new heights."
"I think that with Fugazi…our records were OK, as far as we were concerned. But our live performance was where we really tried to prove ourselves. And that’s the same thing I get out of Wilco."
Leave desperate pleas for another local Wilco show after the beep.