IFLTS: 'Wires and Waves,' Rilo Kiley

'Wires and Waves,' Rilo Kiley
From 2001's 'Take Offs and Landings'

'Wires and Waves' is an often forgotten Rilo Kiley gem. It's a simple theme -- distance, time and what separates people -- but the songwriting team (and former lovers) Jenny Lewis and Blake Sennett have the power to take worn ideas and desires, and turn them -- through well-crafted words -- into creative images and stories.

Typical of early Rilo Kiley songs, this one features a driving bass line and textured guitar solos from Mr. Sennett, who is, without a doubt, one of the more interesting guitar players in the "indie" rock scene. (One could certainly argue that Rilo Kiley is now more mainstream -- they are signed to Warner Bros after all -- but when this album came out in 2001 on Barsuk Records, they were certainly indie and low-fi.)

I saw Rilo Kiley for the second time in March 2003 at T.T. the Bear's Place in Cambridge, Mass. It's a tiny club that holds maybe 300 people. The show was sold out, so my ex and I licked our stamped hands, and pushed them onto the hands of our friends to get them in. On that evening, the band played a slowed down version of 'Wires and Waves' that stayed with me, and a couple of years later, I had the opportunity to tell Sennett how much I enjoyed it. He said they only played it that way a handful of times. I considered myself lucky.

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