#4 Uncle Tupelo

Discovering Uncle Tupelo felt like a moment in time. Or rather, moments in time. It all started in the spring of 1994, just outside of Boston. I was a sophomore in college, hanging out with my housemates, recounting the events of the night before. Some party, another party, bar, bar, etc. We’d all trudged around the night prior, with the exception of our friend Flanders, who was visiting from Maine. Flanders broke from the pack and saw a show downtown. I asked about the band. “They're called Uncle Tupelo. Want to hear them?” was all he could muster. He stepped out and grabbed a CD from his car. A few minutes later, he hit play on track six from one of their records. The song was “New Madrid” from Uncle Tupelo’s final, and perfect, swan song, Anodyne. It took but a few seconds and I was floored. It was Neil Young, Johnny Cash, The Clash, all in one. I’d never heard anything like it. By the end of the day, I'd made my way to Tower Records on Boylston and had my own copy.

Anodyne was on a major, but their first three records were on Rockville Records, a label that, I think, only put out UT records. In 1994, if you wanted records on an indie label, sometimes you had to dig. Mail order catalogs, *good* record stores, a direct outreach to the label. I was able to order the first three from a small record store a town over from my hometown. On the day they arrived, which was a month-plus later, I put all three in my car CD changer and drove around. For hours. Maybe an entire day. It was Still Feel Gone that hooked me first. That explosive opening on “Gun.” The punk/grunge hometown fury of “Postcard” and “Watch Me Fall.” This music, for me, was seriously life changing. (I know I say that a lot, but here, seriously, I ain't kidding.) Uncle Tupelo did to me what The Beatles did to many in the 60s. I read every single magazine article available. I joined groups online. My brother and I even went so far as to drive from New Jersey to the band’s hometown of Belleville, Illinois, to learn as much as we could. We were going to write a book. Even had a name: Mining Traditional Terrain, The Story of Uncle Tupelo. We went to their high school and talked to their teachers. We hit a local bar and asked if they knew Jay or Jeff. One bartender had a vague recollection. We kept writing. Unfortunately, family stuff derailed the book, but we’d put pen to at least 150 pages, now lost somewhere on a hard drive out in the ether.

In addition to the music, many of my closest friends are culled from discovering this band. Friends all over the country: Buffalo, Minneapolis, Chicago, Atlanta, Austin, Houston, LA, Pensacola, Raleigh, Cincinnati, Seattle and on and on. Their words and sound led me to a million bands. Almost literally. From 1994 to 2010 or so I must’ve seen 30-50 shows per year, with almost every band somehow pointing back to UT. Jay Farrar, Jeff Tweedy, Mike Heidorn, and later, Ken Coomer, John Stirratt and Max Johnston, were, without question, one of the most influential bands in the history of rock n' roll. The Avetts? Right to UT. Isbell? Tupelo. Ryan Adams? Yep, Tweedy and Farrar.  Any of those bands that caught on the past decade due to a banjo on side stage? Yep, UT. Yeah, some will say this sound was already breathing via folks like Gram Parsons, Jason and the Scorchers, or even the early Jayhawks, but no one did it like Uncle Tupelo. And no one has since, and many have tried. 25 years later, I still listen to their records regularly, and it’s always as if those songs have lived with me every day since that afternoon back in 1994.  And I’m sure they will remain for years and decades to come.

Favorite record: Still Feel Gone (1991)

Where are they now: Tweedy, with Stirratt in tow, went on to form Wilco, one of the most revered indie-rock bands of the past few decades. Farrar has put out countless great records under Son Volt, Gob Iron, as well as via, well, Jay Farrar.