Uncle Tupelo - 89/93: An Anthology
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Free Music Notes for 89/93: An Anthology
Free Music Review: booze, whiskey, jeezus and homespun heroes
Hit: 4 Stars
This music makes you wanna get in your car and tour the Mid-west. And it seems to embody the spirit of old school country and folk songs. Some of em' ain't pretty! A few are downright depressing. But that is what makes them great. It's that tendency to lean toward the dark side that gives them their poignancy, in my opinion.
The songs are littered with characters and people we all seem to know: middle class, hard working, hard drinking, anti-depressant swallowing, front porch sitting, regular-kinda-folk-people. There's murder ballads, straight ballads, rockers, folky tunes and all that good stuff that made up all the great country and folks lyrics.
I don't know exactly where Uncle Tupelo originate from, but it seems like it could be Gary, Indiana, Detroit, Michigan, Erie, Pennsylvania, etc, etc. All those nasty places that represent much of what home seems to me.
Favorite lyrics:
"I took a fifth and I poured me a shot/and I thought about all the things I haven't got/and I drank that down and I poured me some more/kept drinking and pourin' til I felt the floor."
"I don't know what I'm breathing for/ cause the air around here ain't so good anymore/weatherman says fair/but he looks like a lie/nothing's free in this country/ and there's no place to hide.
If you have an interest in listening to the roots of Wilco and Son Volt, then by all means check this out. If you have any interest in roots music at all-- meaning folk and country roots-- fused w/ rock then, again, take a chance.
Free Music Review: Cool country.
Hit: 4 Stars
I was late to the Uncle Tupelo party, even though I lived around St. Louis at the time. Much like Gram Parsons before, Uncle Tupelo seem to have gotten more recognition after the fact than they did while together. Both artists are credited with pioneering this so called alt-country scene, though "UT" include elements of punk as well. This anthology of theirs may be imperfect, but it's still the perfect place to start your collection of the group or genre. Included is "No Depression", "Whisky Bottle", "Moonshiner", and a live "We've Been Had". Plus a decent cover of The Stooges "I Wanna Be Your Dog". At 21 tracks, this disc is a good example of quantity, as well as quality. If you like this, you might also like Wilco, Son Volt or The Jayhawks.Free Music Review: space wastin' REE-visionism
Hit: 3 Stars
"Screen Door" was correctly relegated to the latter reaches of Uncle Tupelo's debut album "No Recession." It should have been left there. That it was not is a blatant attempt to woo the Eagles-listening lunkheaded aging frat boy/scratchy-voiced sunburned halter-topped bleached-blond fans of Wilco. I guess it was regarded as the only halfway presentable Tweedy song from the first album. Myself, I consider "Train" to be superior, although hardly great. That song, however, is too punk. And this compilation is about nothing if not obscuring UTs roots as a Black Flag/Replacements/Husker Du-influenced alt rock band with country tinges and instead setting them up as the love child of Woody Guthrie and Graham Parsons right from the git-go.
The selection from the first two album represents Jay Farrar's addled desire to set himself up as a classical American folkie (hint: learn to ground your lyrics in something a little more solid than vodka jello) and Jeff Tweedy's insistence that he existed, which he hardly did on "No Repression." One of the high points of the collection, however, is the Tweedy selection from "Still Feel Gone," when he blossomed as a songwriter. Farrar meanwhile edits a perfectly respectable electric rock song into a crappy acoustic demo version as he continues to try to get his Maybelle Carter thing on.
"I Wanna Be Your Hog" is not a bad cover, mind you, but hardly essential and hardly worthy of the place of honor it commands on this collection. "Effigy?" Give me a break. It's another OK cover, but never more than an amusing bonbon in concert. "Sauget Wind" was not good enough to make the cut the first time around and it still ain't. And where the hell is "Before I Break?" It's the best song on No Depression, the song that set concert audience a-fahr (that's afire, as an Ozark mountain folksinger would say it) back in 1991. "On liquor I spent my last dime..."
The boys did somehow figure out that "Chickamauga" and "New Madrid" were the best songs on Anodyne. I'm glad Farrar didn't decide to give us a demo where he accompanies himself on an old Gibson with strings that hadn't been changed farty years, as they say in St. Louis, rather than the album version, which rocks.
I wanted to give this collection one star for just being lame in its overall execution, regardless of some of the great music it contains. But Uncle Tupelo is a 5-star band. Farrar and Tweedy are both brilliant musicians when they are not being ridiculously undisciplined, which is most of the time. So I split the difference star-wise.
Free Music Review: Wilco vs. Son Volt
Hit: 3 Stars
If you're a die hard Wilco fan then your probably going to get this, and you probably should. But if you're still getting into them and Jeff Tweedy is your main focus, then I have to say you'd be better off w/some earlier Wilco albums if you don't have them all. Ofcourse the lead vocals are shared by Tweedy and that dude from Son Volt, who I cant think of his name right now.. I didn't imagine that'd be such a problem until I found myself having to skip over every other song on this anthology because the singing was of mundane vocal range/attitude and the lyrics were reaching for somekind of universal simplicity but always falling into easy klea-shayz. The liner notes are going on and on about this band was inventing some altcountry/roots rock movement in a very official, overblown "Rolling Stones Magazine" type way which is quite unnerving for anyone who might have a Neil Young or REM CD in their collection. And like myself they might end up wishing they were actually buying a new Wilco one to add to it instead of this... But the Stooges cover of "I Wanna Be Your Dog" is so b*dass it alone makes the purchase worth it if you just need that fix and you dont care. For anyone who may not've heard, try the band "Loose Fur" if you like skipping over lesser vocalists (Jim O'Rouke on that one) to get to some great Jeff Tweedy songs for a more recent fare. I have to admit it is cool hearing Mr Tweedy's early stuff forming a better picture of connecting the dots to one of our best song writers going these days... I guess I'd give it 3 And A HALF stars if there was a half option, even though I wanna keep hating on that other singer.Free Music Review: Cousin Corinth
Hit: 3 Stars
Good name, Cousin Corinth or Auntie Jackson just wouldn't have the same ring. I propose all alt-country bands should name themselves after towns in Mississippi from now on. Wilco could become Brother Clarksdale and Steve Earle could use as his moniker Rev. Rosedale. Julie and Buddy Miller could change their name to Julie and Buddy Sugarditch, a reference to that fine Mississippi hamlet where the sewers weren't so good for many of the townspeople. Musically, this is as if Gram Parsons washed his dog and the dog didn't like it but we did, a lot, and paid for it through the nose. They're getting back to their roots in the 1970s and for that we need to thank them. The version of John Cale's "Gun" included here is excellent with everyone pitchin' in to approximate Eno's treated guitar on the original. Not included for some reason is their famous take on the Willie Dixon classic "Natchez Burning" which features a twenty-minute pennywhistle solo from the leader of the group. However, the great tune "No Depression" is included; of course, the movie of the same name is well-known now to all fans of roots, guitars, rivers, deserts, Joshua Tree, small breasts and grannie dresses and all the rest of the great legacy of the essential alt-country movement, now its own section at the Dollywood amusement park.