Coming soon on The Daily Vault: Wilco, Clapton, The Subways and more

Wilco is back and today we've got a look at new album The Whole Love courtesy of new contributing writer Richard Fulco.  Coming soon, look for reviews of Wynton Marsalis & Eric Clapton, The Subways, Phil Spector, Color Radio, Switchfoot, Spottiswoode & His Enemies, Last Charge Of The Light Horse and more, plus a concert review of Opeth and Katatonia.  Who said things slow down when fall comes??

R.I.P. Jay Bennett

The Chicago Sun-Times has the sad news about longtime Wilco member Jay Bennett, dead in his sleep at age 45.

R.I.P. Jay.

Wilco: Kicking Blu-ray

The film production company that issued the highly-regarded 2002 Wilco documentary I Am Trying To Break Your Heart is now in a very public tussle with the band over release of a Blu-ray edition of the film. The issue is that the original film was shot in grainy super-16mm black and white, and the soundtrack of the Blu-ray edition is identical to the DVD version -- no remastering -- so what you get, according to the band, is the identical product with no improvement in picture or sound quality for ONLY twice the price of the DVD. Wilco has posted a message on its Web site referencing an e-mail blast to its fans in which it advised them not to buy the Blu-ray edition because it was not worth the extra money. Plexifilms responded with a blog post titled "I am trying to release a Blu-Ray" in which it defended its decision and the picture quality differential between the Blu-ray and DVD versions, and pledged to postpone the release until it can work things out with Wilco.

Meanwhile, we assume all Wilco fans caught the band's memorable visit last Thursday to The Colbert Report, including a very funny interview between Stephen Colbert and frontman Jeff Tweedy, and an exclusive performance of "Wilco The Song," a parody meant to, among other things, tweak Joe The Plumber.

The album is dead; long live the album

Interesting trend popping up in the news this week: artists doing their damnedest to make sure the album survives as an art form.

As the Associated Press notes on MSNBC.com, the list of artists taking a moment to perform classic albums live in their entireity has ballooned from an oddity into a full-blown trend. In recent months we have seen: Lou Reed playing Berlin on its 35th anniversary, Public Enemy performing It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, Sebadoh playing Bubble and Scrape, Mission of Burma performing Vs., Liz Phair recreating Exile In Guyville (which she will do again later this month), and -- well, okay, THIS isn't exactly news -- Roger Waters playing the entire Pink Floyd classic Dark Side of the Moon as his second set at Coachella. Not to mention similar recent performances of whole albums by artists as diverse as Jay-Z, Lucinda Williams, Sonic Youth, Wilco, Slint, Iron Maiden and GZA.

In the era of the download, where individual tracks and custom playlists have gained prominence in the marketplace, it's great to see that the artist's vision of a substantial set of interconnected songs can still have a place at the table. Rock on, album-makers...