Uncle Tupelo

Hey there.

For those interested in the history of Wilco or the past of Uncle Tupelo or the origins of Son Volt, check out this article on Jay Farrar in Reuters. Here's a bit about Uncle Tupelo and Wilco.

Farrar has been walking that tightrope since founding Uncle Tupelo in 1987, mixing punk rock sensibilities of the 1980s independent college rock scene and fused it with the folk traditions of the Carter Family and the Louvin Brothers.

Pundits would later call the music "alt country" or "no depression," taken from the Carter Family song that was the title track of Uncle Tupelo's first album.

Uncle Tupelo imploded in 1994 amid tensions between Farrar and the band's other principal songwriter Jeff Tweedy, who went on to form Wilco.

"The most unfortunate thing about Uncle Tupelo is that we were a young band," Farrar said. "We weren't really calling the shots. I found it incredibly frustrating that people at the record company that we didn't even know were making decisions about what songs were going to be released as singles, when I thought those decisions should be coming from the us."

BAD GUY

Those tensions were detailed in a recent biography of Wilco by Chicago Tribune music critic Greg Kot, who paints a sometimes unflattering picture of Farrar as uncommunicative and unwilling to share the spotlight with Tweedy.

"The book is very myopic," Farrar said. "I occupy the adversarial category that a lot of other guys do in the book, whether it's other musicians or the record company. It's unfortunate there isn't an objective history of Uncle Tupelo."

Wilco has since gone on to make several critically acclaimed records, including the hit album "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot," which has outsold Son Volt's entire catalog and was the subject of the Sam Jones documentary "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart."

"It is weird when there's a large level of hype associated with someone I'd known in the past," Farrar said. "But I just concentrate on what I do. I don't look at thinks like they're a competition."

Meanwhile, I purchased the new Son Volt album last week on iTunes. The album is titled "Okemah And The Melody Of Riot." Being the whore to the opinion of the masses that I am, my favorite Son Volt album is their first one, "Trace." Yes, I also get sick of all the people out there claiming that their favorite album by any group is "their first album." Seriously, it is like a sickness. How can it be that the first album is always better. I refuse to believe it. This is why I have never purchased "Ten" by Pearl Jam. Sure, there are other good reasons not to own TEN
1. It sounds like Foghat
2. Rock Music sucks, I like R & B
3. Ed Vedder seems like a whiny bitch

Anyway, back to Son Volt. The album is pretty good. There's a song "Jet Pilot" that makes fun of George W. Bush in a mildly entertaining way. The song "6 String Belief" muses on the ability of rock n' roll to provide meaning in a meaningless world. Or rather, that is the meaning I have imposed upon the song. Farrar lyrics are a bit hard to decipher, but they usually sound really good and like they might actually mean something even if they don't appear to.

Anyway, if you are a Jay Farrar fan, there is really no reason not pick up this album. If own no Son Volt, don't buy the damn thing. Get "Trace" and see if you like it. Or better yet, purchase "Anodyne" by Uncle Tupelo.

Speaking of interpreting lyrics, Jakob Dylan had this to say to the Chicago Tribune the other day:

"When the band broke [in 1996] and people started taking notice of us, I never expected anybody to hear my songs," Dylan said before a stop last week in St. Louis. "It was important to me what I was saying, but it was on a very isolated level. When I started writing songs, I was cautious of people looking too far into them. And they certainly have. And they still do. And it's not worthwhile at all, to any songwriter, really. But to do it to me -- I admit I was protective of that when I began writing. I didn't want to give anybody what they thought might be something else."

That would put any writer in a trick bag. It's not good form to write under limitations. "It was very restrictive. I began proofreading. If I thought a line might be too scrutinized, I would lose it -- against my own better judgment. It's nonsense on my end and the listener's end. I'm proud of all the records, but I wrote those early records when I was younger. I hadn't written that many songs, and I hadn't settled into a style that I was comfortable with. I'm still not. Songwriting is supposed to always keep evolving."

I found that pretty interesting given the pressures of being Bob Dylan's son.

Walmart Strikes Again!!
They have changed the album cover of Willie Nelson new album.


--THE PANDA

And...Farm Aid is coming back to Chicago.