Uncle Tupelo - Anodyne

Uncle Tupelo - Anodyne (Sire, 5th October 1993)

One of the driving interests for this project is an interest in the most famous corners of the early 90s alternative scene. This bears a little explanation: I know most of these bands by name or singles but never felt the need to invest in something which had so little to lose or gain. I mean this less in a structural way (e.g. ‘selling out’) than sonically. From my vantage point, 90s hardcore and the circumstances in which it was produced, create a far more interesting sound than most alternative acts which sounded too clean, too ‘made’. Yet as this project and their presence indicates, this opinion has shifted in the years since: The distinction still holds but I simply like to think about how artists navigate commercial spaces or cross these thresholds and how they sound while doing so. 

I’m leading with this to make somewhat credible that I had heard about Uncle Tupelo but didn’t know that it was the project of Jeff Tweedy and Jay Farrar before there was Wilco or Son Volt. My general beef with alternative country is that it too often masqueraded alt-rock as country, paying little to no interest in the sound of country. Which brings us to Anodyne, a record which expresses this mindset as good as any. After it was completed, Farrar announced that he was leaving the band (»Working in the halls of shame / Lay it down in full view / Lay it down«) after his relationship with Tweedy had soured. A split you can already feel on the record: On Anodyne, Jay Farrar mostly writes country songs, while Jeff Tweedy tries on rock songs. There are two good songs of Tweedy on the record: »Acuff-Rose« a song written for and with the fiddle and »No Sense In Lovin’« in which he lets the pedal steel take center stage. Mostly though Tweedy writes catchy and clever riffs (»We Been Had«, »The Long Cut«). It is most irritating on »New Madrid«, where his presence overpowers the banjo and pushes it even further back in the mix.

If the liner notes can be trusted this was also the first time since their debut that the band worked with a pedal steel guitar, here played by The Chicks’ Lloyd Maines. Beware the puritan but few things sound as country to me as pedal steel and Ferrar knows it. A pedal steel guitar allows the player to modulate the chords via pedal and knee levers, allowing for smooth transitions within the scale. It demands a very precise play but rewards one with the most expressive and versatile sound. On »Anodyne«, Maines first creates a wailing, outdrawn howl, before going into a joyous riff. It’s a gorgeous, gorgeous song. Ferrar gives Maines the space, sings around him as on »Fifteen Keys«. There’s an understanding here of how to engage with country, how to write for its specific sound which is simply not there in Tweedy’s cuts and would vanish completely on early Wilco.