Jay Bennett: Celebs Rumors

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic In 2002, director Sam Jones made what is widely considered a benchmark for 21st century music documentaries with “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart: A Film About Wilco,” a movie that lucked into just about all the subject matter that could make B-roll footage of the making of an album into A-list material. It had conflict within the band, between an auteur and another member of great talent; conflict with the soon-to-be-ex-record label, over the basically unwanted classic-to-be “Yankee Foxtrot Hotel”); and said auteur doing his own demon-wrestling, outside foils notwithstanding. Now, it’s easier to see that Jones’ good fortune in happening upon all that wasn’t all luck. More than 20 years later, Jones has come up with another gold-standard music doc, in the form of “Jason Isbell: Running With Our Eyes Closed,” newly streaming on HBO Max. This time, as the creation of another amazing record — Isbell’s “Reunions” (recorded in late 2019 and released a few months later) — is put under the filmic microscope, there are no record-company bookkeepers as unseen baddies in the backdrop to a making-of. Major labels and the conflicts that come with them are so 2002, right? But one common thread is intra-band tension… as it probably will be in most good rock docs now or 20 years from now. It gets more interesting than that, though. In this instance, the difficult vibes are between bandmates who double as a married couple — Isbell and his fiddler-spouse, Amanda Shires. Here, unlike the by-now iconic beefing between Jay Tweedy and Jay Bennett, we know no one’s ultimately going anywhere, right?

EXCLUSIVE: Inspired by the recent success of The Last Of Us, Wind Sun Sky Entertainment (WSS) is teaming up with Productivity Media to adapt an episodic scripted series based on the Roblox platform game Creatures Of Sonaria.

Wilco have announced a series of 20th anniversary reissues for their fourth album, ‘Yankee Hotel Foxtrot’ – pre-order them here.Seven special editions of the landmark album will be released via Nonesuch on September 16, including a Super Deluxe version made up of eleven vinyls and a CD.The aforementioned version includes demos, drafts, and instrumentals, charting the making of ‘Yankee Hotel Foxtrot’, plus a live 2002 concert recording and a September 2001 radio performance and interview.The set also includes 82 previously unreleased music tracks as well as a new book featuring an interview with frontman Jeff Tweedy, drummer Glenn Kotche, and Jim O’Rourke, who mixed the acclaimed 2002 album; an in-depth essay by author Bob Mehr; and previously unseen photos of the band making the album in their Chicago studio, The Loft.For the Yankee Hotel Foxtrotrecording, Wilco was Jeff Tweedy, John Stirratt, Leroy Bach, Glenn Kotche, and Jay Bennett with Craig Christiansen, Ken Coomer, Jessy Greene, Fred Lonberg-Holm, and Jim O’Rourke.A live rendition of ‘Reservations’ taken from ‘Snoozin’ At The Pageant – Live 7/23/02 At The Pageant, St. Louis, MO’ – a recording that is part of the Super Deluxe LP and CD sets as well as the Deluxe LP and digital sets – has been shared as a preview of the 20th anniversary reissue.