One more Gram

AS one of the pillars on which rock'n'roll was originally founded, country music has had a rum ol' time of it through the years. One moment it's a dreadful twangy racket with songs about girls called Mabeline and risible accounts of losing your wife and home in a poker game ... and then, one listen to Hank Williams or anything ever done by Gram Parsons, whether in The Byrds of The Flying Burrito Brothers, is enough to make you forswear any other type of music. It's funny like that.

There's always been something primal about country and even if your name isn't Billy-Jo, you can do like The Rolling Stones (on Wild Horses) and Elvis Costello (anything off Almost Blue) and countless others and mine that rich country seam that runs below the surface of more musical styles than you would have thought. In our little EU-funded country, we've polarised the form to the extent that you can veer between the spectacularly awful "country'n'Irish" bands who clog up what's left of the ballroom circuit and the sublime musical endeavours of The Stars of Heaven in the 1980s, whose country-tinged magic is reflected today by the Jubilee Allstars.

Apart from U2's opus, the first album this year to get uniform, across-the-board critical acclaim is a double CD country influenced set by a newish American band called Wilco whose Being There album is a remarkable piece of work that has every single critic to date reaching for the Gram Parsons comparisons.

"Just don't mention Gram Parsons to me," says Wilco's lead singer and chief songwriter, Jeff Tweedy, "I mean it's getting to the stage where I don't even like the word "country" being used about the album. A group like Badfinger had that sort of sound on one or two of their records but no one ever dared called them country." I'm still desperately trying to work out how he managed to drop Badfinger into the conversation (strange people, these country-tinged Americans) ... It shouldn't come as much of a surprise that Wilco haven't just emerged with an album as good as this without some sort of pedigree - in this case, four members of Wilco used to be in Uncle Tupelo, which makes a lot of sense when you think about it.

Funny name, not just for the band but for the album (why the Peter Sellers reference?); explain yourself Jeff: "The name of the group comes from radio slang for "will comply" which we thought was kind funny and yeah, in a way the name of the album is after the Peter Sellers film of the same name". The movie in question is the one where Sellers plays a dim gardener whose gnomic comments on the state of gardening lead him to be mistakenly taken for one of the leading socio-political commentators of his day. Veiled comment on the music biz or what?

Back to Gram Parsons, who we can't mention, and your other influences, talk me through your record collection please?: "Well, my main influence is the second wave of punk rock, bands like The Clash and The Sex Pistols". What do you mean "second" wave? "Well the first wave happened in the US with MC5 and The Stooges," he replies, displaying a shockingly revisionist tendency in his reading of popular music. "But there was also people like Merle Haggard who would have influenced me and the funny thing about all these country greats is that their lives were much more messed up than any rock'n'roller you care to mention - which is one of the reasons why country music is so primal."

As a concept album without a concept and as a self-confessed attempt to "look at the emotional experience of songwriting from the inside out", Being There looks set to become one of those slow-burning classics that will be around for many a year. Jump the queue and get used to it now.

Wilco play Whelan's, Dublin tomorrow at 8 p.m. Being There is on Reprise records.

FOLLOWING the collapse of Go! Discs (it's the curse of Paul Weller by the way, there's a five CD box set of The Jam out in June), The Frank and Walter's album, Grand Parade will be released on the Setanta label some time in June, although there may be a bit more use of the correcting fluid on the schedule before that. The Franks also play The Mean Fiddler, but on May 10th...

The last time I heard anything from Belgium, it was by Plastic Bertrand and it was called a Plane Pour Moi, but now we have Perry Rose, who would really not like to be known as "the new Plastic Bertrand". He's massive in Europe and you'll see why when he comes over here to appear on Live At 3 (did no one tell him?) and play the Roisin Dubh, Galway tonight, support Norma Waterson in Whelan's next Tuesday and play his own headlining gig at the Da Club on Wednesday 16th...

We were banging on about this album months ago and with due cause too - The Sewing Room, now minus Stan Erraught, although he plays on the album, are launching their second album, Sympathy For The Dishevelled in Whelan's next Monday. And because they're kind, caring'n'sharing sort of people, they'll give you a free copy of the album as part of the £5 admission price. What more do you want - an invite?