•
Rating: A few weeks after their breakup and the end of a tour that was anything but "easy," Uncle Tupelo played for three consecutive nights in the Northwest, not far from their home. The venue is the legendary "Lounge AX" in Chicago, the windy city, where winters are freezing and don't leave before May. 1994 is no exception. The band, the recognized leader of the alternative country movement, now easily fills clubs in major cities across America and Europe, and no longer just university town gyms and pizzerias in the vast countryside. The times now seem ripe for Uncle Tupelo's large-scale breakthrough, but as time tells us, it won't be so. The "cold war" atmosphere between Jay Tweedy and Jeff Farrar, at loggerheads for at least a year for a thousand reasons, has already marked the band's destiny, paradoxically at the peak of their creative and musical arc. The double vinyl "Live At Lounge Ax / March 24, 1994" testifies to this without mincing words. It's a great live album, "one of those they don't make anymore," and when they do, I add, no one unfortunately gives them any attention...
The classic trio (Farrar-Tweedy-Coomer) is complemented on stage by multi-instrumentalist Max Johnston (Michelle Shocked's brother) and future Wilco member John Stirrat. The sound is thus richer with nuances compared to the live performances of previous years, with inserts of fiddle, violin, and mandolin. The press is finally curious. Uncle Tupelo is on everyone's lips; they have managed to create a genre, updating the lesson of bands like Jason & the Scorchers and Lone Justice, building an even more original sound, indebted to the Clash just as much as to Hank Williams. Their latest album, "Anodyne," the first on a major label, is perhaps their best ever for critics and fans, certainly the most mature.
In the live test, the Belleville band does not disappoint. Each of the two leaders delivers their songs with passion and pride, and it's a real guitar duel where, metaphorically, D.Boon beats the laziness out of Gram Parsons. There are lots of videos available on YouTube. Jay and Jeff's glances never meet, and the tension between the (former) lifelong friends is palpable as Wanda Nara's breasts would be, Icardi permitting. It's clear the guys can no longer stand each other. No one finds the time for a word or a smile, they just play. The marriage between the heart-wrenching folk spirit of Jay Farrar and the punk-rock soul of Jeff Tweedy is at its end, and those are the last commitments before the farewell. Jay has already made his decision, and nothing will change his mind. In his laconic biography, he recounts that Jeff even tried to steal his girlfriend the year before while he was driving the band van to nowhere, and the other was sitting in the back making advances... Jeff will deny it, but Jay's anger and resentment will last for decades.
The place is packed, and there are people wall-to-wall in the huge room, making it seem like Ikea on a Sunday afternoon. The fans are in unconditional adoration; no drunk yelling with a beer in hand wanting to hear a punk version of "Oh Susanna." It's an attentive and devoted audience, almost intimidated by the stature the band has reached. The time to plug in the amplifiers and off they go with the famous mix of punk and roots that will forever influence American music in the coming years. Jay Farrar's hooky guitar riffs resonate in the opening with "Chickamauga," and it's an immediate thrill. His band, or at least what he always thought could be "his band," had to sound like this, dirty and bustling, very little pop. The subsequent Son Volt will demonstrate this in a somewhat repetitive manner. But on the other side of the stage is Jeff Tweedy, who has grown enormously as a composer and performer. And he is also much more communicative and charismatic than Jay Farrar, he appeals and is appealing. He has a bulging repertoire of fantastic songs that are becoming, day by day, more significant and inspired than those of Farrar. And Jay doesn't seem able to accept this. "Watch me fall" bursts in beautifully and ignites hearts. Jeff immediately makes it clear that he is not a mere extra but the co-protagonist of the evening. The concert proceeds with all those pieces that should now be considered "classics." Jay is often forced to double the ex-friend on the counter-chorus and seems to do it reluctantly. Even when he has to do the solos on Jeff's song bridges, it seems he has a finger up his backside. But he knows he has to do it. Not a word between songs, just music. The boys definitely like playing fast live, and the record flies by as quickly as the songs. The Tupelo look for inspiration to the roar of Husker Du and the sound of Minneapolis because "that's their land," a certain Woody Guthrie would have said. But even their slower, more acoustic songs, the more rootsy ones, are imbued with a sort of frantic inertia that never diminishes the driving force coming from punk, which just a little later would fuse into grunge. In this sense, “Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down” is simply exceptional, a masterpiece of traditional punk to pass on to posterity. The country and rock influences clash (un)comfortably against each other in songs like "Acuff-Rose" with a guitar-folk flavor or in "We've Been Had," electrically charged and full of feedback, one of the few songs sung choral in two voices by Jeff and Jay.
The double disc is so full of fantastic pieces that they should all be mentioned. "The Long Cut" by Tweedy, for example, in its definitive and devastating version, hits straight to the heart. It is the song that, a few days earlier, the record company unexpectedly selected for the UT's guest appearance on the Late Night Show with Conan O'Brien, live nationwide. Jay is fuming because it's written and sung by Tweedy, and in the YouTube video, you can't help but notice his unrestrained joy. The concert continues with an intense "Grindstone" in a "stop & go" version. It's that wonderful Jay song that opened the incredible "March 16-20, 1992" produced by REM's Peter Buck, an album that, listened to today, slaps home all the bands mimicking tradition, from Mumford & Sons to the Lumineers and various friends. At times the rhythm slows, revealing acoustic pearls like “New Madrid” or “Anodyne.” Other times, the band becomes threatening and desperate, like only a Midwest group, closely related to Homestead/Reflex punk, can do. Like in old standbys “Postcard” and “Gun,” or the concluding “Whiskey Bottle,” inspired by life in a small town with a desire to escape that faded America, where dreams inevitably end in a bottle. There is still room for a tribute to the Creedence with the cover of “Effigy” and then off to bed without a goodbye, in classic Farrar style. Think that a few years ago he came to play here in Turin, just him with his guitar, he looked like a Hobo escaped from a Kerouac page. In a place that calling it such was already a compliment, Jay sat in a corner, punished, with his plaid shirt and bangs over his eyes, waiting for the place to fill up with those brave 30 people who dared to buy the ticket. I approached with my discs in hand to be signed, and he scribbled them with his initials, as if they were papers to grade. “Did you like our town Jay?” “Not so much…”. End of fondness. Tons of empathy, that's the character, take it or leave it…
What else to say about the album? “Live At Lounge Ax / March 24, 1994” is a wonderful journey into memory for those who loved the band and a potential revelation for those who never knew them. To them, a relentless penance that involves repeated listening to Achille Lauro's new album, on their knees on beans... Unfortunately, the vinyl was released in a limited scant edition, for Record Store Day 2020. Only an unreachable 2,500 copies on vinyl, as if it were a pair of disgusting Lidl sneakers, and for that matter, mostly distributed in the States. It's a crime, but the market today goes like this. We are drowning in crappy music by fake rappers while a record like this won't be heard by anyone. Yet it represents a faithful snapshot of an unrepeatable period. Outside the stereotyped internet schemes, it captures a band searching for a way out of a pre-written future. Uncle Tupelo will chart a new path on the yellowed map of the States, a path that perhaps has always been there, but no one seemed interested in following. Their music will (re)bind melody and traditions without compromise, in a nation that, musically, was losing its identity, exactly as it is doing now. Playing songs of pride that people couldn't just love but would ultimately deeply believe in, Uncle Tupelo will restore honesty and integrity to a scene truly shattered by the 80s. 30 years have passed, but it seems like yesterday. Now there are Blanco and Mamhood as guests of Defilippis, sorry but I have to go…
Loading comments slowly
