Back in 2001, Jeff Tweedy and Glen Kotche worked on music for Chelsea Walls, the debut film as director from noted actor Ethan Hawke. Sprinkled with performances from cast member Robert Sean Leonard, a highlight from the late jazz singer Jimmy Scott, plus songs from Wilco proper, one of them featuring Billy Bragg, the soundtrack was released the following year on HDCD under Tweedy’s name without much fanfare and has lingered since as one eventful step toward Wilco’s post-Jay Bennett trajectory. But the music deserves better than that, as Omnivore Recordings understood. The label has reissued the set on CD and on vinyl for the first time with two worthwhile bonus tracks. It’s all out now.
It’s unusual for a great film to have a subpar soundtrack, and please bear in mind I’m not really talking about the choice of previously recorded songs that you or I happen to think aren’t very good. To wit, Supertramp’s “The Logical Song”: I’m not a fan, but it’s use in Magnolia is still pretty sharp. And I’m not even really speaking about movies with soundtracks that are predominantly made up of extant songs, anyway.
I’m talking about great films with original scores that are considered poorly conceived or executed or likely both. There are exceptions, like flicks on shoestring budgets infused with unfortunate needle-drop library music, or action blockbusters marred with jazz-funk gratuitousness or synthesizer-driven atmospheres once considered cutting-edge but now absorbed as rinky-dink. Sometimes these deficiencies become part of the film’s overall appeal. But more often, they mar the whole like a crusty cold sore arriving just in time for yearbook photograph day. Try as one might, it becomes impossible to not fixate on the blemish.
However, superb soundtracks for less than worthwhile films are not so uncommon. Although I haven’t personally undertaken much research into the matter beyond consulting the internet, it’s still safe to gauge that “good OST but bad flick” is the consensus with Chelsea Walls, though not notoriously so. It’s not like the film has been banished into a dark corner of recent history and then forgotten about.
No, Chelsea Walls is easily accessed for streaming right now and purchasable on DVD. In fact, I intended to watch it in preparation for this review…and then, as is so frequently the case in life, I never made the time. As a fan of Ethan Hawke and of indie film in general, I’m unsure why I’ve never gotten around to Chelsea Walls before, except perhaps that it was filmed on digital video in an era when DV was, almost without exception, a visually unpalatable experience. I also don’t recall ever seeing Hawke’s movie for rent in a video store (remember those?).
Chelsea Walls is set in the legendary Chelsea Hotel in NYC (in Hawke’s original notes for the soundtrack, he describes the building as the film’s protagonist) and its cast includes Kris Kristofferson, Uma Thurman, Rosario Dawson, Vincent D’Onofrio, Natasha Richardson, Robert Sean Leonard, Steve Zahn, and Tuesday Weld.
And yet, the film is rarely discussed (and as said, it hasn’t been locked up in a vault by Lionsgate Studios), except as a footnote in Hawke’s career (even less so now, as he directed the well-received Blaze, a biopic of country musician Blaze Foley, in 2018) and maybe sought after by fans of Tweedy and Wilco who know the scoop.
For a while, the Chelsea Walls HDCD as released by Rykodisc was one of a couple ways to hear Wilco’s “Promising” (legally anyway, as I’m sure it made the filesharing rounds), at least prior to the release of the 4CD/4LP collection Alpha Mike Foxtrot (Rare Tracks 1994-2014) by Nonesuch in 2014 (it’s also apparently on the “All Over the Place” 10-inch released by Reprise in 1997, though I’ve never seen a copy of that).
Dating from 1994, “Promising” consists of Tweedy singing and playing guitar with Max Johnston on dobro. Redolent of Wilco’s budding sound, it’s a solid tune, both by Wilco and in the version by Robert Sean Leonard which closes the album, one of three songs sung by the actor that constitute a pleasant surprise on this expanded edition of Chelsea Walls (Leonard’s “Promising” is one of the bonus tracks).
His other selections are a short reading of the gospel standard “Softly and Tenderly Jesus Is Calling” and a two-guitar acoustic version of Wilco’s “The Lonely 1” that was cut with Steve Zahn. While the three Leonard tracks aren’t mindblowers, they are likeable enough that it’s kind of a bummer the supposed plan for a record by the guy never panned out.
“When the Roses Bloom Again” eventually turned up on the third volume (and on the Complete Sessions) of Wilco and Billy Bragg’s fruitful Mermaid Avenue project, a collaboration focused on the work of Woody Guthrie, but I do believe the track was initially exclusive to Chelsea Walls. Note that it’s not actually a Guthrie song; the lyrics are instead by Will D. Cobb and Gus Edwards, with Tweedy reportedly discovering them in Guthrie’s papers and then writing new music for them.
Wilco and Bragg’s “When the Roses Bloom Again” is enjoyable enough, but it can’t help but take a back seat to Laura Cantrell’s exquisite version, which titled her top-notch album from 2002. More stunning on Chelsea Walls is a reading of John Lennon’s “Jealous Guy” by Jimmy Scott, seemingly cut live for the film with a band that includes Jay Bennett, Ken Coomer, and John Starritt of Wilco with jazz vets Mike Kanan, Victor Jones, and Hillyard Greene.
This leads us to the collaboration of Tweedy and Glenn Kotche, who was then part of the trio Loose Fur with Tweedy and Jim O’Rourke, but not yet a member of Wilco proper (the appearance of Bennett and Coomer on “Jealous Guy” establishing they were still very much part of the band at the time of release). These duo excursions are largely improvisational (the wildly rocking “Red Elevator” registers as a major exception) and representative of Wilco’s future direction if not their sound. This collab endures as Chelsea Walls’ most significant non-cinematic facet.
To describe the efforts of Tweedy and Kotche as oozing a similarity to Sonic Youth is probably lazy, but I’ll do so anyway, as it should help solidify the interest of those into Wilco’s more experimental side. But there are a few sweet twists, like Tweedy’s piano in the loosely jazzy “Frank’s Dream,” Kotche on vibraphone and Tweedy on what sure sounds like a harmonium in “The Wallman,” and just a hint of Big Star’s Third in “End Credits.”
Also appealing are Tweedy and Kotche’s variations on a simple, vaguely Velvets-like guitar progression in “Hello, Are You There?” and “Finale” in a pair of takes, the longer of the two previously unreleased and featuring a few passages of dialogue from the film. Along with “Jealous Guy,” the extended “Finale” tempts me to take the plunge and check out Hawke’s film, as I’m beginning to suspect Chelsea Walls the movie is better than its reputation. It’s soundtrack certainly holds up.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
B+
