Being a weeklie podcaste from Madison, Wisconsin featuring several remarkable curiosities therein occurring being a compendium of live music from divers artistes
Show #74 – Uncle Tupelo's Farewell
June 19th, 2006
Will the end of June approaching, my inbox is being flooded with reminders to renew my domain. This means that Up the Downstair will soon celebrate its first anniversary. While I honestly have no idea what I’ll do to celebrate, if anything, this week’s show kind of brings things full circle. The very first show I posted featured Son Volt. And now, almost 51 weeks later, I’m going with Uncle Tupelo.
UT started out in the mid-80s as The Primitives in Belleville, Illinois, near St. Louis. The band line-up featured:
Jay Farrar – Guitar, Vocals
Wade Farrar – Vocals, Harmonica
Mike Heidorn – Drums
Jeff Tweedy – Bass, Vocals
Towards the end of 1986, Wade Farrar left the band and they renamed themselves Uncle Tupelo. The Tupes played a heady mix of punk and American folk/country. The band gigged constantly and their first album, No Depression, was released in June 1990. It was named after and featured a cover of the old Carter Family tune, “No Depression in Heaven”.
Still Feel Gone, their second effort, appeared in the fall of 1991. Like its predecessor, it was a mix of electric & acoustic, punk & folk. The balance tilted towards the folk with their third album, March 16-20, 1992. It was an all-acoustic affair produced by Peter Buck of REM. Drummer Mark Heidorn left after the album’s completion to become a family man and was replace by Bill Belzer. Belzer lasted on about 5 months and was replaced by Ken Coomer. This line-up was signed to a major label – Sire Records. In the spring/summer of 1993, the band retired to Austin, Texas and recorded Anodyne which came out later in the fall. Their sound had changed a bit as the Neil Young/ Creedence Clearwater Revival influences came to the fore.
Anodyne proved to be The Tupes’ last album and they split up in May of 1994. Jay Farrar went on to form Son Volt while Jeff Tweedy replaced Farrar and christened the new band Wilco.
Today we have Uncle Tupelo’s final show from 1 May 1994 at Mississippi Nights in St. Louis. It features the entire show minus the encores which I’ll post another time. This is a great soundboard recording. Here’s Jeff Tweedy’s setlist.
Download show
The show was also videotaped by an audience member. A fan has coupled the video with the soundboard audio and created a DVD of the show. The guy did a fantastic job and I hope to post a clip here soon.
Related posts:
Thanks for sharing this!
i split the long mp3 into the 18 songs and included some pics in a zip file. See here: Awesomeometer
Thanks. Enjoying this immensely. So glad someone got this down and grateful that you’ve posted it. By the way, amazingly fast download!
if you are talking about the youtube clip of postcard, that was me. i have some fine tuning to finish the whole show. the cd is longer, as some stuff was edited out of the vid (pre encore shouts outs and thank yous. hopefully i get it done…ugh. i’ve got other random stuff at http://www.youtube.com/user/26drdeath26
John – thank you much!
I have this on vhs, always wanted to somehow get it on the computer. i appreciate it.
Rob – shoot me an email if you want this on CD or DVD.