2008 Woodie Awards
View print edition front page as a PDF
The Scene
Pixies' hooks shape generation
Pop-punk masters change music
By Stephen Tringali on 4/14/08
Part 2 of a 3-part series
Alt-country and indie rock icons Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy first started hanging out after realizing their shared love of punk rock in high school English class. Farrar admired the Sex Pistols, and Tweedy adored the Ramones.
Both stole punk records, like Elvis Costello's "My Aim Is True," from their local library and, along with fellow Uncle Tupelo member Mike Heidorn, frequently ruined the local football player and rich kid parties by dropping in unannounced, scratching their Fleetwood Mac and Journey LPs, and blasting Black Flag and Minutemen tapes instead.
Farrar, Tweedy and Heidorn continued to comb music's history for the next great punk rocker. What they soon discovered was a sound totally unrelated to punk in a sonic sense but very much related to it in a subject matter sense: "After punk rock, [folk and country music] was the thing we were really into," Jeff Tweedy told UNo MAS, which interviewed Tweedy on Feb. 19, 1994. "We kept tracing [punk rock] back farther and farther. We thought, 'Punk's okay, but man, this is the real punk rock.' But you know, Woody Guthrie was a lot more punk than that - he lived it."
Guthrie could very well be considered one of the first punk rockers - catalogue of rebellious songs, a guitar adorned with the slogan "This machine kills fascists," and a connection to the Communist Party. Whether the rest of the world believed this did not matter to Uncle Tupelo. Guthrie was their latest punk hero, their reason for juxtaposing his dustbowl-era folk with the razor burn menace of 1980s hardcore punk.
Uncle Tupelo mined other folk and country sounds for inspiration. They discovered the blues of Leadbelly and the country of the Carter Family and the Louvin Brothers. Both sounds were quickly incorporated into the band's brash brand of punk rock and can be heard in equal measures on their first album, which was named after the A.P. Carter song "No Depression."
Alt-country and indie rock icons Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy first started hanging out after realizing their shared love of punk rock in high school English class. Farrar admired the Sex Pistols, and Tweedy adored the Ramones.
Both stole punk records, like Elvis Costello's "My Aim Is True," from their local library and, along with fellow Uncle Tupelo member Mike Heidorn, frequently ruined the local football player and rich kid parties by dropping in unannounced, scratching their Fleetwood Mac and Journey LPs, and blasting Black Flag and Minutemen tapes instead.
Farrar, Tweedy and Heidorn continued to comb music's history for the next great punk rocker. What they soon discovered was a sound totally unrelated to punk in a sonic sense but very much related to it in a subject matter sense: "After punk rock, [folk and country music] was the thing we were really into," Jeff Tweedy told UNo MAS, which interviewed Tweedy on Feb. 19, 1994. "We kept tracing [punk rock] back farther and farther. We thought, 'Punk's okay, but man, this is the real punk rock.' But you know, Woody Guthrie was a lot more punk than that - he lived it."
Guthrie could very well be considered one of the first punk rockers - catalogue of rebellious songs, a guitar adorned with the slogan "This machine kills fascists," and a connection to the Communist Party. Whether the rest of the world believed this did not matter to Uncle Tupelo. Guthrie was their latest punk hero, their reason for juxtaposing his dustbowl-era folk with the razor burn menace of 1980s hardcore punk.
Uncle Tupelo mined other folk and country sounds for inspiration. They discovered the blues of Leadbelly and the country of the Carter Family and the Louvin Brothers. Both sounds were quickly incorporated into the band's brash brand of punk rock and can be heard in equal measures on their first album, which was named after the A.P. Carter song "No Depression."
Be the first to comment on this story