What The Hell Happened To... 06.29.09: Uncle Tupelo - March 16-20, 1992

Posted by C.A. Bell on 06.29.2009

With upcoming releases from both Son Volt and Wilco, why not take a look back at an album from the two Midwestern boys that started it all?

Sometimes, the stars just align right for a column. With both Wilco and Son Volt releasing albums over the next month (within seven days of each other, no less), it seemed time that we take a look at where both of those groups came from. Alternative Country fans and just about any Midwesterner will know that I'm talking about Uncle Tupelo. The songwriting team of Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy formed the crux of this band from Belleville, Illinois, just outside of St. Louis. Uncle Tupelo is best remembered, along with the Jayhawks, as the forerunners of the alternative country music genre. Influenced just as much by Husker Du and the Minutemen as they were Hank Williams and Woody Guthrie, Uncle Tupelo actually began as a hardcore punk group, but moved towards country when they realized the local Missouri and Illinois audiences would be more likely to show up for a country group than punk. That was good for us. The group's 1990 debut album, No Depression, became a battle cry for the genre. Only four years later, the band went through a historic breakup that would form two groundbreaking bands; Son Volt and Wilco. The breakup was a result of the increasing competition between songwriters Jeff Tweedy and Jay Farrar. This chasm became so antagonistic that it still affects their music and fan base today. As a matter of fact, it is still difficult in some parts of the country to talk about either band without discussing which camp you are in. I remember discussing Wilco with someone who actually said that you couldn't be a fan of both groups. Your choices were to either like one or hate the other. For the record, I was a Jay Farrar guy up until Wilco's release of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. After that, there was pretty much no way to deny that both of these guys were brilliant musicians in their own right. Yet with all of this acrimony and discussion, it seems like talk is rarely about the music these two created together. Even when people do talk about the music it is most often about either No Depression or the band's big label debut and final album, Anodyne. I think a truly great work has slipped through the cracks. So, let's do it up right as 'What the Hell Happened To' takes a look back at Uncle Tupelo's March 16-20, 1992.

Track Listing:
1. Grindstone (Farrar, Tweedy) – 3:16
2. Coalminers (Trad.) – 2:33
3. Wait Up (Farrar, Tweedy) – 2:09
4. Criminals (Farrar, Tweedy) – 2:20
5. Shaky Ground (Farrar, Tweedy) – 2:49
6. Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down (Trad.) – 1:53
7. Black Eye (Farrar, Tweedy) – 2:19
8. Moonshiner (Trad.) – 4:23
9. I Wish My Baby Was Born (Trad.) – 1:39
10. Atomic Power (Bain, Louvin, Louvin) – 1:51
11. Lilli Schull (Trad.) – 5:15
12. Warfare (Trad.) – 3:43
13. Fatal Wound (Farrar, Tweedy) – 4:09
14. Sandusky (Farrar, Tweedy) – 3:43
15. Wipe the Clock (Farrar, Tweedy) – 2:36

Genre: Bluegrass, Traditional Country
Label: Rockville
Release Date: 08.03.92
Recording Date: 03.16.92-03.20.92
Running Time: 44:38
Producer: Peter Buck

The Players:
Jay Farrar – bass, guitar, harmonica, vocals
Jeff Tweedy – bass, guitar, vocals
Mike Heidorn – drums, cymbals, tambourine
Brian Henneman – banjo, bouzouki, guitar, mandolin
John Keane – banjo, bass, guitar
Peter Buck – feedback
David Barbe – bass
Andy Carlson – violin
Brian Holmes – accordion

What was going on in 1992:

With Nirvana's Nevermind officially having taken over the planet, Alternative Rock had stepped out to take its moment in the sun in 1992. New bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, the Stone Temple Pilots, and Alice in Chains were having success on the charts and introducing the newly crowned ‘Generation X' to a host of bands that had previously eluded the mainstream, like Sonic Youth, the Meat Puppets, Mother Love Bone, the Vaselines, Husker Du, the Minutemen, and Black Flag. Alternative wasn't the only genre making waves however. Mainstream Rap was turning away from the party tunes of Run-DMC and towards more hardcore acts like Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Da Lench Mob, and Cypress Hill. Heavy Metal was beginning to shift away from the hair bands and move into much darker acts like Tool, Rage Against the Machine, Pantera, and Anthrax. Industrial hit, probably, its most productive era with important releases from Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, Pigface, and Skinny Puppy. On top of all of these genres moving into a much darker territories, the seeds for what would become Britpop were also taking shape with Paul Weller's first solo effort, and important releases from XTC and the Manic Street Preachers. Looking over a list of the releases from '92 reads a bit like a 'who's who' of the defining music for my generation. Here are just a few examples:

XTC – NonSuch
Tool – Opiate
They Might Be Giants – Apollo 18
Sugar – Copper Blue
Stone Temple Pilots – Core
Sonic Youth – Dirty
Singles – Soundtrack
The Screaming Trees – Sweet Oblivion
Red House Painters – Down Colorful Hill
Rage Against The Machine – Rage Against The Machine
Phish – A Picture of Nectar
Peter Gabriel – Us
Pigface – Fook
Pavement – Slanted & Enchanted
Paul Weller – Paul Weller
Pantera – Vulgar Display of Power
NOFX – White Trash, Two Heebs And A Bean
Nirvana – Incesticide
Nine Inch Nails – Broken
Mother Love Bone – Mother Love Bone
Monster Magnet – Spine of God
Ministry – Psalm 69
Manic Street Preachers – Generation Terrorists
The Jesus & Mary Chain – Honey's Dead
The Jayhawks – Hollywood Town Hall
INXS – Welcome to Wherever You Are
Ice Cube – The Predator
House of Pain – House of Pain
The Flaming Lips – Hit to Death in the Future Head
Faith No More – Angel Dust
Eric Clapton – Unplugged
Dr. Dre – The Chronic
Daniel Johnston – Frankenstein Love
The Cure – Wish
Blind Melon – Blind Melon
Black Crowes – The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion
Beastie Boys – Check Your Head
AC/DC - Live

The Album:

R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck first saw an Uncle Tupelo show in 1990. The impressed Buck met with the band after the show and they exchanged ideas about bluegrass music. They even discussed the possibility of working together on a project, but nothing would come of it until two years later when the band was considering a new album. Uncle Tupelo made the trip to Georgia and stayed in Buck's house during the recording so the band could put more money towards studio time and engineering costs. What resulted was a straightforward acoustic country/folk album. March 16-20, 1992 is an oddity of the Uncle Tupelo catalog because it lacks the punk-inspired start-and-stop electric power of their other albums. The songs split almost half and half between originals and traditional, creating a pure album of laid back country tunes.



The album's first two tracks, "Grindstone" and "Coalminers", are fantastic examples of working class country music. The kind of songs that you might think is just as likely being played around a campfire as in a studio. Without reading the liner notes, it is difficult to tell which of these is original and which is traditional. Jeff Tweedy's first true credit on the album is on its third track, "Wait Up". Here you can experience the seeds the balladry Tweedy would continue writing on future Wilco albums, resembling tracks like "Blue Eyed Soul" and "Forget the Flowers". The fourth track, Farrar's "Criminals", is a scathing indictment of the first Bush presidency and provides an excellent example of Farrar's folk-styled songwriting. The traditional, "Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down" is an all too rare example of Tweedy and Farrar harmonies that truly define Uncle Tupelo. The band's cover of "Atomic Power" shows their dedication to recording an honest traditional country album. This cover, by the way, was what impressed Peter Buck the most during his first experience with the band two years earlier. Tweedy owns the traditional "Warfare" in a way only he can. What you can hear in this song is the beginning of what Wilco would do with Billy Bragg on the Mermaid Avenue albums. For all anyone wants to say, it is absolutely obvious that Jeff Tweedy loves American music. March 16-20, 1992 closes with "Wipe the Clock", perhaps my favorite Farrar ballad of all time. This song is an all-around performer; closing the album and being just an amazing statement of Farrar's perspective at that time. A 2003 reissue of the album would also include a cover of The Stooges' "I Wanna Be Your Dog", which is an interesting tip of the hat to the band's first loved genre.

Why Has March 16-20, 1992 Been Forgotten?

Reason 1: A Sign of the Times

The fact of the matter was that country just wasn't cool enough yet for the American Underground scene or the alternative record buying public. As you can see from the list of releases in '92 above, it would be easy for any album to get lost in the shuffle against some of those fantastic works. On top of that, the mainstream of almost all major genres were moving into a harder and darker area, while Uncle Tupelo seemed to take a step back from their hardcore punk background on March 16-20, 1992. Furthermore, in an era when Nirvana and Pearl Jam were selling millions of records talking about the apathy of youth, any album about the plight of working adults is immediately set apart from the mainstream. To make matters even worse, the album was generally considered disingenuous amongst Tupelo's peers. Bands that had been playing the road with Uncle Tupelo found it hard to listen to an album about coalminers played by suburban punk fans. You might ask yourself, ‘Why would they release an album like this if the entire record industry seemed to be going another way?' Ah, patience is indeed virtuous.

Reason 2: Rockville Records

At the time March 16-20, 1992 was made, Uncle Tupelo was well already at odds with their record company, Rockville Records. The band had been arguing that Rockville owed them for unpaid royalties from Uncle Tupelo's prior two albums, No Depression and Still Feel Gone. At the same time, Uncle Tupelo was being courted by Sire Records. The band had activated a clause in their contract that would allow them to shop around for better offers. You might remember earlier in the article when I mentioned that the band stayed at Peter Buck's home during the recording to help pay for studio time. That was because Rockville Records, probably seeing the writing on the wall, only issued the band a budget of $13,500 to record March 16-20, 1992. Even for a small-time, Midwestern record label, that is a paltry amount to provide the group that has literally put your company on the map and helped create an entire new genre of music. After opening up their wallets so wide for the production, you can imagine how much effort the company put into promoting the record nationwide.

Reason 3: Nobody Puts Jay Farrar in a Corner

Uncle Tupelo KNEW this record wasn't going to take off with a mainstream audience. They decided to make this record, first out of excitement to work with Peter Buck (which was the only reason Mike Heidorn waited until after the recording to quit the band), and second…to piss everyone off. Jay Farrar was quoted as being angry about being called the next Nirvana, because he thought there was no such thing and that all of those types of statements were simply ridiculous. Uncle Tupelo was also supposedly motivated by artists like Neil Young and Bob Dylan, for releasing commercially adverse albums against mainstream expectations after their own biggest commercial successes, to do something no one expected. Also, the band had been pushed into an almost ‘we have nothing to lose' ideology by their situation with Rockville. They knew this would be their last album on the label and that Sire was ready to make an offer, so they didn't really care if they sold record one.

Of course, this all becomes completely confusing by the band's decision to not support the album during live performances. Apparently, Farrar and Tweedy felt that audiences would not appreciate the pure country tracks on the album (note the band's change TO country to draw audiences), so they decided not to play tracks from the album during live performances. For any of you that are fans of either Farrar or Tweedy, you have to admit that these guys are great at reliving their pasts in performance. Whereas many artists attempt to skim over projects they belonged to in the past, both of these guys are surprisingly fantastic about incorporating their Tupelo works into their current shows. But, if you look at their live set lists, you will notice a glaring lack of tracks from March 16-20, 1992, even today. It would almost seem like the band wanted to keep this recording a secret unto themselves.

Why Should You Care?

Outside of this just being a great album, full of fantastic songs; outside of this being a great archive of two of the best contemporary songwriters working together; March 16-20, 1992 is a truly important album in music history. This was recorded before O Brother, Where Art Thou? This was before Silverspun Pickups, Old Crow Medicine Show, and Leftover Salmon. This was the first time, in modern music, that an American Underground group brought a quality, purely bluegrass album to Generation X. I won't try to claim that Uncle Tupelo made country cool, but they did break ground. This album was made without any pop or rock infusions…it was the FIRST of its kind for kids born in the 1980s. I can't remember when it first became okay to admit that Johnny Cash or Willie Nelson made great music, but I do know that this album was made before that. Uncle Tupelo was instrumental in bringing a seemingly antiquated music into the progressive music scene and not even the Jayhawks had created a more authentic effort than March 16-20, 1992.

Furthermore, I believe that March 16-20, 1992 clearly puts both Tweedy and Farrar on their individual paths as songwriters. This is the first album that Tweedy begins to really flesh out his ideas about balladry, ones that he still uses today. Tweedy marks Nick Drake's album, Pink Moon, as his songwriting influence for this record and that style of the continuous thought to represent feeling is one that he has used on tracks up through even the upcoming Wilco record. Farrar would use the same songwriting tracks that he exhibited on this album to cement himself as a storytelling songwriter with the ability to incorporate physical environments into his songcraft.

Buying Guide:

This is a new feature I'm introducing to the column to help the interested listener decide how to go about delving into their artist we are featuring. If you don't own any Uncle Tupelo albums, but are interested in diving a bit further, I would not recommend this as the first purchase. The sound created on March 16-20, 1992 is not representative of the band's overall legacy. For that, you should look to their last release, Anodyne. But, this album is a necessity for anyone who is already a fan of the band or who really enjoys bluegrass and traditional country. It is a fantastic example of contemporary songwriters paying homage to this era of music.

Another issue of ‘What the Hell Happened To' has come to an end. Thank you very much for reading. I truly appreciated all of the great comments from last week. Feel free to keep them coming! Next week, we're going to leave the traditional a bit and find out why Trent Reznor always seems so angry (hint….it's a band from a long, long time ago and a country far, far away).

One Last Thing

Rest In Peace Jay Walter Bennett - Though many thoughts turn to another lost musician this week, we will never forget what you gave us so thanklessly. You were the very definition of under-appreciated. We will miss you. Thank you.