Wilcohatchee: Four Friends, Two Americas, and the Road Between Them
A Southern Road Trip Through the Heart of America's Culture Wars
It’s five p.m. and still around 85 degrees, which is staggering to our Canadian sensitivities. We’re tired, covered in mud, running low on gas, the sun’s probably about to go down, and we’re lost in the backwoods in Winnsboro, South Carolina.
Dave and Phil are in their rented Polaris side-by-side as Dave—who’s outdoorsy, half-Danish, and has a degree in cartography or some shit so we trust his compass—stares at the wet paper map we were given four hours earlier. He yells something to Joe and me in our own SxS, but we can’t hear above the engines and AC/DC blaring into the late afternoon heat. Phil’s on his phone, but not likely looking at anything like a map. Dave points and puts his UTV in gear. We shrug, and I follow. We haven’t seen another rider in a while. An hour, maybe. But as we come around a dark, coral-mudded and curved incline, we run into a tribe of off-roaders, stopped mid-trail, shirtless and cranking Coors Lights, flying Trump 2024 flags off the backs of their Can-Ams like it’s the Fourth of July at Mar-a-Lago. We can’t go back, because another couple of Brandons in UTVs have joined, and we can’t go forward. We’re trapped, we’re lost, and we’re not among friends, except for each other.
Worse, we’ve all seen Deliverance.
When Wilco took the stage at The Amp Ballantyne on a perfect evening in May, the sun setting behind Charlotte, 3500 people arched into the amphitheater, it marked the seventh time I’d seen them live. They’re not my favorite band, though certainly in the top ten, but the only act I’ve seen live more often is Neil Young. There’s something special about Wilco live, a band that transcends their catalog when on stage. The successor to Uncle Tupelo (another favorite) and a staple of the rock/Americana scene for over 30 years, Wilco has seemingly always been a part of my life. There are old photos of lead singer Jeff Tweedy and Uncle Tupelo co-frontman Jay Farrar in which I can feel their discord, the complication of their collaboration, that fold into my own chromogenic memories like family, like friends, convincing my recollections that we grew up together, or hung out in high school.
A few weeks ago, after my brother-in-law passed away tragically, I was rooting through a pile of long-forgotten developed photos for non-digital, artifactual memories of him. Mid-search, I came across a bunch of pics from my late-teens and early 20s, when developing film was a proud endurance in patience producing keepsake documents. We were babies, so sure we knew what life was and so excited to get there. The photos were reflections of long, complicated stories about the enduring legacy of our commitment to each other and our friendships. That, and the photos of my brother-in-law tucked within them, had me sobbing in a closet in my house, overcome by the reminder of life, of aging, of people I knew during formative years, and the realization that soon, we would start the process of leaving this place. More than half of our lives were over, and more than half spent together.
Earlier in the year, my high school friends and I planned a trip to Charlotte. I say high school friends, but I’ve known Phil since I was three, and Dave and I were in kindergarten together, Joe came later, the summer we turned fourteen, but he made up for that time so quickly that I often forget he wasn’t there from day one. The North Carolina escapade was to see Wilco, a delayed celebration of my December marriage to, for the first time in my life, someone who loved me and I loved back without apology, with the exception of my family and these three idiots. There were a few options, whose only prerequisites were live music and something outdoors that wasn’t fishing, because I hate fishing and when we get together, since we’re middle-aged white dudes, , we go fishing or golfing,I guess. Nashville, Pearl Jam, and yes, fucking fishing were suggested, but ultimately I chose Wilco (and Waxahatchee) in Charlotte with some off-roading scheduled in place of angling..
I arrived in Charlotte first with a sign made for picking up Dave at his gate, a plain white piece of paper like a limo driver would’ve had in 1980s films, with “GENIUS” written on it in thick black lettering, a callback to a business card Dave had made for himself when we were roomates in the early aughts that contained just the humble noun and our phone number. As his plane taxied, he texted to request I sport a red toque so as to be easily spotted amongst the throngs, which of course I was already sporting. Dave lives in Calgary, married with two kids. He maps mines or something. He’s the most laid-back man I’ve ever met, and his serenity and laughter and love for life are contagious. One time at a keg party in high school, some kid double my size made a move to kick my ass. Dave quietly stepped between us, looked at the kid, took a swig of his Labatt 50, and the kid backed down. That’s so Dave.
We drove around Charlotte a bit before the others arrived, playing a Wilcohatchee playlist I made to familiarize the boys with bands they didn’t know as well as I. The last time I had seen Dave and Phil was in Calgary two years earlier, when the four of us fished (ffs) the Bow River. Since then, I’d met and married my wife Candice, started writing again, enrolled in an MFA, and settled into the kind of life that they have found on a quicker timeline; I was afraid of leaving the comfort of high school dynamics. It felt safe. But they knew we were supposed to grow up. It took me a while to catch on.
It’s a singular feeling to have friendships where, at one point, not a moment of our lives passed unshared, and now we exist so separately. To review the previous two years with Dave, cruising up Highway 77 in a rented Kia Telluride, is surreal. It has been, unequivocally, the best two years of my life, and that Dave wasn’t there seems wrong, because he was always around during my happiest days. They all were. The four of us still talk a lot; we’ve got a WhatsApp thread, but being in each other’s presence is different. Every time we get together, we settle into who we were and who we’ve become in moments, like only hours had passed since we last hung out.
We head back to pick up Phil and Joe at the airport. Phil, a doctor with a wife and two boys in Toronto, streams through the airport crowd, stocked up at duty free, and carrying his fly rods. He refuses not to fish. I respect the commitment. Phil’s accomplishments are humbling. To become a doctor is a commitment to science that requires perseverance beyond my capacity. I can’t even imagine how much information his mind holds in any one minute, even if it’s occasionally at the expense of simpler knowledge. Being a doctor makes him a problem solver by nature, and any small thing that has gone awry in the time we’ve been friend, he fixes, with a phone call or sheer stubbornness. He’s a funny dude, both intentionally and un, and a small-c conservative in a way that informs our playful arguments. My socialism is adorable to him, I imagine, born half of my upbringing in a fairly left-wing family of artists and socialist militarism. My great uncle started the CBC, and my grandfather was a celebrated general in the Canadian Armed Forces, and that dichotomy is present in the generations that followed. The other half is born of the life I’ve chosen, committed to literary endeavors, questionable decisions, and a good time. Of course, I’m projecting. I doubt Phil gives much thought to my life choices. But over the course of the trip, he will care for us in a maternal way that wasn’t present in our youth, but is so indicative of who he’s become in his adulthood. He’s also a huge Leafs fan, which puts him at odds with Joe and me (Sens and Habs acolytes), but a few days later we’ll enjoy a game 7 Panthers 6-1 thrashing of the Buds. In Canada, the only thing better than your team’s win is Toronto’s loss.
Joe arrives last, troubled by plane problems at Dulles, an airport that haunts him (usually having to connect through DC because of Ottawa’s absence of direct flights to anywhere), consistently being subjected to delays and canceled flights.. I see Joe the most, (he’s still in Ottawa, where we grew up) with his wife Krista, who we’ve all known longer than Joe, and their two daughters. Joe is impressive in a way I don’t think I ever could be. He’s a good man, which may seem reductive in a world of bad men, but he stands true to what Mill wrote, that: “bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” Joe has not once in his life been guilty of doing nothing. He’s built a business, built a life, and now has settled into the rewards of that peerless work ethic to a generous and benevolent early retirement. He likes fishing and golf too, and I allow it. There’s no one else in my life who has been there for my wonderful highs and desperate lows as Joe has. He’s who I go to for counsel, for solace. He and his family are my family, pure and simple. And these men are my brothers. I'm blessed to have known and loved them.
Dave and I had already picked up provisions: food, gin, beer, and near-beer. We speed out towards Lake Norman, where we’ve rented a house. The traffic is confusingly thick for a smaller city, but we revel in catching up and giving each other the gears like it’s 1994 and we’re on our way to a house party. The jokes are the same, cutting and more complex. Phil is bald. Dave likes beer. Joe has a timid bladder. I’m a recovering drunk. This is love .
We have a quick turnaround before Waxahatchee takes the stage at 6:30, and we’re an hour away. As the designated driver and sober officiant, getting them out the door is like wrangling There’s rarely been an urgency to their manner, but I grew up with strict rules and adherence to time, so my anxiety bubbles like it did pre-Prozac, which entertains them to no end, and their lack of urgency intensifies in jest. We finally get on the road, maneuver traffic, and inexplicably priced express lanes to get on track to catch Waxahatchee’s first song. Except Joe has to piss, of course. And so does Phil. And Dave. I do too, but I’m a stubborn fucker and have always refused my bladder’s sovereignty. I reluctantly pull over at a Burger King, and cut in front of Joe for the urinal just to be a dick. As I wait in the car minutes later, I’m alone, wondering what kind of middle-age ailment one of them has that makes pissing take so long. The trio finally exits the fast food chain with Whoppers and fries in hand, partly out of hunger, partly because they know it’ll annoy me. Thirty years ago, we would have argued for hours about the offense, but in the comfort of our years and friendship, it’ll simply become a running joke over the weekend.
Pulling out of the parking lot back onto the highway, I tap the brakes and send Joe’s fries all over the SUV.
I’ve seen Waxahatchee three or four times, and what I appreciate most from Katie Crutchfield's pseudonymous musical project is how much she’s grown as an artist. When I first saw her in a tiny bar in Montreal in 2017, it was a raw and aggressive performance, coming off the release of Out in the Storm. Crutchfield argued with a surly attendant. The woman I was with tried to pick up the drummer. The hit single off the album, “Silver,” was a propulsive indie anthem, full of momentum and eager for transformation, and it felt worthy of the humid Quebec summer night. If I turn to stone, The whole world keeps turnin’, I went out in the storm, And I'm never returnin', felt like a warning at the time. They’re not connected, but three weeks later, I had my last drink, and “Silver” has always felt like the song that played over the closing credits of that part of me.
Waxahatchee, in its current incarnation, has eased into indie Americana, and Crutchfield has settled into a kind of performative and artistic confidence that I aspire to. The latest release, Tigers Blood, is an absolute masterpiece following the transcendent musical pivot of Saint Cloud, the bridge from urgent rock to mellowed country-tinged introspection. We’re on foot to the venue, a brand new amphitheater just outside Charlotte’s downtown core, and only I’m frustrated by catching the opening chords of “3 Sisters” flittering into the evening sky. The song is one of those I wish I’d written.,I don’t see why you would lie, It was never the love you wanted is hauntingly reminiscent of a line from Douglas Coupland’s Life After God, that I’ve held onto since my teens: “One of the cruelest things you can do to another person is pretend you care about them more than you really do,” something my friends have never been guilty of. I wish they knew the song better, so they could see the symmetry of the moment I do, but they’re already at the beer tent.
I sulk briefly before Dave offers me an Athletic Non-Alcoholic IPA, and we fight our way to find a spot on the lawn, which is way fuller than I had expected. Joe fearlessly works his way through the beach blankets and REI camp chairs to a perfect spot just behind the sound booth, which will prove even more perfect when the booth’s tent is removed before Wilco comes on. Waxahatchee moves into “Right Back to It,” which appears on the new album as a duet with MJ Lenderman, but performed live doesn’t miss the new indie darling a bit, as Crutchfield’s warbling countryesque voice perfectly croons, I've been yours for so long, We come right back to it, and the night couldn’t be more perfect already.
I don’t know if there an album that’s come out in the past 10 years I identify with as music as Tigers Blood, as seeing the songs live for a second time, on this occasion sharing them with the boys in the abating North Carolina evening feels like a soundtrack built for the moment, and the “Right Back to It” chorus couldn't have been more perfect: I've been yours for so long, We come right back to it, I let my mind run wild, Don't know why I do it, But you just settle in, Like a song with no end, If I can keep up, We'll get right back to it.
A Wilco show feels like a family barbecue. As I wrote a few years ago for FLOOD, its fanbase has aged with the band (an essay whose title I wish I had saved) in an organic and comforting way. Parents bring their kids, young and old. A girl walked by us in what was obviously her dad’s RHCP tee, her dad with a Wilco shirt brand new from the merch tent. Kids colored in front of us on the lush lawn, alternating between dancing to Waxahatchee, assembling glow-stick hula hoops, and being lost in wonder. When Wilco came on stage, it wasn’t raucous, eager cheers, but rather the kind of reception you give your cool uncle when he arrives late for Thanksgiving dinner with his new girlfriend and a bottle of Jack.
The band kicks things off with “Company in My Back” from A Ghost is Born, and the crowd immediately descends into sway and crest. AGB and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot are two of my favorite albums, but Wilco playing them live in front of a few thousand people is a different animal. The band is faultlessly tight, and at times feels like their playing is tethered to the audience, moving as one. I made the playlist for the boys, but nothing makes a new Wilco fan like “Handshake Drugs” or “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart” live, which stand out in the show’s first half-hour. There is such value to experiencing music in person, with other people. There’s simply nothing like a large group of mid-tempo rock fans knowing and singing along to a song. It is love. It is bliss.
This is my fourth sober Wilco show, and recovery on these outings with my oldest friends feels like a third wheel. Quitting booze is the single most important entry in my biography, with the exception of the afternoon at The Whitney two years ago when I was making fun of a Jeff Koontz sculpture next to a beautiful woman with similar disdain for pop art. Eighteen months later, we were married. My only regret about sobriety is that I’ll never be able to get drunk with these men again, that our nights together will always diverge, like a noodling solo to a song only I know. They don’t care, of course. They love me sober. They see my happiness. And I’m here, with them, in this place, celebrating each other, and there’s no way that happens if I’m still working down the bottle.
The venue, oddly, encourages movement. Not so much in terms of dancing, because the pit is assigned rigid seating and the lawn behind it is dominated by low-rise lawn furniture, but rather in its infrastructure’s suggestion that no one stays in one place. Tweedy makes reference to it between songs, that the crowd is constantly milling about. Not an indictment, he says, just a quiet observation. During “War on War,” Joe and I find a quiet spot to sit with a lingering attachment to nicotine we can’t seem to break. Just watching the miles flying by, You are not my typewriter, But you could be my demon, seems performed for us. Joe tells me he’s never seen me happier, and that it started with the battle over my own demons, and has reconciled in the love and gift of my marriage. Joe and his wife were ever-present in that battle and its victory, and I love them as much as anyone I’ve ever met. They changed my life.
You have to lose, You have to learn how to die, If you want to want to be alive.
Fucking right.
As the show goes on, we regroup with Dave and Phil and find ourselves alone in the VIP section, stage left, the three of them arguing playfully about fishing or investment opportunities or lawn care as I dance alone to “Jesus Etc.”/“Heavy Metal Drummer”/“I’m the Man Who Loves You”. To passersby, I must appear drunk, but I’m simply lost in the joy of the music, the joy of the crowd, and the ease with which I now find myself in the absence of alcohol. This moment, every moment, is a gift, and the songs flow through me as I dance around them. This is love, man. Just hold my hand and you’ll understand.
On Sunday night, we got tickets at the North Wilkesboro Speedway for the NASCAR All-Star race. I’m not entirely sure how this event got added to the agenda, but I’m willing to go fishing with these guys, so I’m sure I can handle stock car racing.
I was wrong.
I’m a Canadian who splits his time between Ottawa, Vermont, and Brooklyn. The America I know, the world I know, leans left into compassion, inclusion, and equity. This world, at the track, does not. Everyone seems angry. Smiles are limited and attributed to inebriation. There’s a certain amount of projecting here, again, as I’m making assumptions about the crowd’s leanings, but I can feel them making the same about mine. After a weekend of escaping the political chaos of the country, if just for a minute of respite, in the arms of Canadians, simplified and civilized in our quiet differences, the fluorescent amplification of 25,000 race fans wearing their allegiance on their sleeves is overwhelming. Dave, Joe, and Phil seem less bothered, eager for pulled pork and Busch Light, but I’m anxious and wishing I still smoked, which everyone at the speedway seemed to. They don’t work down here, though. They’re not married to an American. They don’t feel weight that comes with pushing back against a country falling into facism every fucking day.
And in my mind, I’m blaming the NASCAR fans,. There is a kind of pervasive, violent patriotism present that burns far past jingoism. This is the cult that elected Trump twice, the population that he convinced to vote against their self-interest. They wear uniforms coded in MAGAism; Let’s Go Brandon hats, black Old Glories, and Blue Lives Matter flags. There’s a pre-race prayer, and Jesus is not so much cheered as celebrated in opposition to other options. There is hostile pageantry. The opulent excess of motor sports is worshipped in a way that explains a lot about the avarice and gluttony of the American Dream. And it’s fucking loud, a volume I have never expereinced, even during the opening credits of Phantom Menace or a live stream of January 6th.
This could not feel more like a different universe than Wilcohatchee, where one community embodies the spirit of love and soulful escape, while the other trucks in excess, opposition, anger, and competition for more pie than the next guy. We escape around lap 148, and I’ve never been so relieved to have left anything. Google Maps takes us off-country, through twisting curves and the rolling hills at the edge of the Appalachians. It’s striking in its allure, even in the waning light of nine p.m. This country is beautiful, vibrant, and diverse. Three days previous, I had woken up in the Green Mountains, and here I was in the Pisgah Forest, both appalled and in awe of a place that could be everything but has chosen to be everything else. Dave and Phil half-nap in the back seat, and Joe and I quietly discuss what’s next as the dark backroads wrap around us. We open the windows, and it’s so wonderfully quiet, just forest and the distant whirr of the speedway left behind. We speak in near whispers. I need to get some writing out into the world, and Candice needs to find the time and space to make her art. He and Krista are building on their property in Quebec, preparing their kids to head off into adulthood. The moment is a denouement to the weekend, a quiet dissemination of the conversations we hadn’t found space for, and the melancholy of the waning hours of time together that is at a premium at this juncture in our lives.
We’ll do it again soon. Maybe next year. We’ll probably have to go fishing. But I’m okay with that. I would do anything, give anything, for just a minute more. And I’m forever grateful, blessed, for the time I’ve had with these friends.
We get back onto a service road, which we hope will get us back to base camp. The signage is limited, and the day is falling. We trust Dave and his mapping, but believe the dark of oncoming night more. We end up in another makeshift camp party, more Trump flags and light beer. And a river, about thirty feet wide and who knows how deep. Dave and Phil idle at the bank. A woman in a NASCAR tank top on an ATV scoffs at their hesitation and throws her emptied beer can into the woods. An eight-year old speaks up, “It ain’t that deep you pussy,” and Dave knows he has no option now but to cross the river. He puts it in gear and drives out. From our vantage point, we can’t see if he’s made it. The brush and crowd obscure the other side of the river, and wherever that path leads. I look at Joe and he laughs, shugs. I put it in gear and head out into the unknown depth of the muddy waters because I’d follow my friends anywhere and trust that there’s something for us on the other side.
Great piece
I’m seeing Wilco next month. I’ll listen a bit differently. I enjoyed this piece.