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| Images courtesy of MVD Visual |
While longtime horror director Gorman Bechard of Disconnected
infamy (available thru Vinegar Syndrome by the way) has been a frequent
purveyor of exploitation thrillers in his forty-year spanning filmmaking career,
at the tail end of the 1980s the director took a break until the 2000s with a
clean slate, now doing documentaries and occasionally dramas. Pairing up with Drive Somewhere: The Saga
of the Vulgar Boatmen music documentary filmmaker Fred Uhter in his second
co-directorial effort, Bechard set his newfound investigative sights on
Chicago, Illinois based alternative rock band Wilco and the tragically
short-lived life of one of its key creative talents in Where Are You, Jay
Bennett?
A man whose musical genius and penchant for experimental
alternative country rock helped shape three of Wilco’s seminal albums Being
There, Summerteeth and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot as well as the Mermaid
Avenue/Woodie Guthrie sessions with Billy Bragg, the film follows the band’s
transcendent rise to stardom in the 1990s and the crucial role Jay Bennett
played in their mutual creative successes.
But after getting too experimental and finding himself at odds with Jeff
Tweedy over mixing abilities while contending with a documentary crew on the
film I Am Trying to Break Your Heart: A Film About Wilco, Jay Bennett
finds himself exiled from the band he helped create. Nevertheless Bennett pursued a solo career
comprising five solo albums before tragically perishing over a prescription
painkiller Fentanyl patch in 2009, leaving behind a complicated if not
overlooked legacy is only really getting a fair handshake by fans and newcomers
alike.
Comprised of a series of interviews with key players in the
saga including Billy Bragg, Edward Burch and Ken Coomer though utilizing
preexisting interview content for Jeff Tweedy’s side of the story, Where Are
You, Jay Bennett? is nevertheless a cozy introduction to a subgenre of
music yours truly honestly knew very little about. Something of a hang around documentary
interspersed with photographs, archival concert footage and newly rendered
animation bits by Edwin Gendron, the story becomes ever more fascinating when
you start to peer into Jay Bennett’s technical innovation skills and comfortability
with leanings into the avant-garde musically.
Of course another reason to enjoy Where Are You, Jay Bennett? are
all of the frequent needle drops from both Wilco and Bennett’s solo
discographies, giving fans and newcomers a smattering of what both projects had
to offer listeners.
Being new to Wilco and the innovative driving spirit
of one of Jay Bennett, Gorman Bechard and Fred Uhter’s relaxed yet well researched
and engaging documentary film newly released on streaming platforms and blu-ray
disc from MVD Visual represents another splendid exploration of an untapped
category of musical genius I likely wouldn’t have known about without this
film. That Jay Bennett passed away at
the age of only 45 leaves behind many still unresolved emotional questions for
both bandmates and fans alike invariably makes this nuanced portrait of the
gifted musical talent a poignant one.
Now the question is which Wilco and/or Jay Bennett solo album
should I start with?
--Andrew Kotwicki
