![]() ![]() NT: One last question: Are you enjoying playing these songs you wrote 20 years ago? I’m definitely happy living here from a logistical standpoint. It’s a good central location and the music of the region is omnipresent, so I suppose growing up here has an influence. ![]() JF: It does, particularly being located in St. Do you think your Midwestern setting has influenced your sound? NT: You were born in Illinois where Uncle Tupelo formed. I thought maybe “Windfall” could be something, but ironically I think the instrumentation probably worked against it. JF: No, I never expected “Drown” to do well on radio. SNOTTY: On June 12, together PANGEA-a band that describes its music as “poppy, snotty, shitty, fitty, punky, stunky garage-pop and roll”-plays the Fremont Theater lobby.NT: When you decided to revisit Trace after 20 years, what surprised you most about the music? What kind of memories did it bring up? It’s a pretty expansive sound, and live it feels sort of like a Wild West shootout of steel guitars. ![]() JF: Eric Harwood plays pedal steel and Gary Hunt is on fiddle, mandolin, and electric guitar, oh, and steel guitar on a couple songs where we do a dueling steel guitar thing that never happened on the studio version. Now that you’re playing the songs again, have you had to modify them to adapt to the more spartan instrumentation? NT: You’re traveling as a trio, but on the Trace sessions you had a full band and a pedal steel and a fiddle. A lot of songs are, ah … we’re kind of re-inventing them along the way. Jay Farrar: When we decided to tour in support of the reissue of Trace, I thought it best to present the songs in an elemental way, to boil them down to their essence. New Times: You’re being billed as the Jay Farrar Trio. New Times spoke to Farrar by phone about the album and his upcoming concert. The album features one emotional gut-punch after another, with tracks like “Tear Stained Eye” and “Live Free.” I can’t wait to hear these songs live at Live Oak! “You’re with me now, will be again/ Other points in between/ And the cruel, cruel mornings/ Turn to days of swim or sink// If living right is easy, what goes wrong/ You’re causing it to drown/ Didn’t want to turn that way/ You’re causing it to drown.” “Sky cracks open/ The walls falling through the floor/ Just as well to keep it/ A guessing game in store,” Farrar sings. 10 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Tracks. The album’s one radio hit, “Drown,” reached No. The lyrics are wonderfully impressionistic, the instrumentation punchy and potent, and Farrar’s forlorn hangdog voice just right. The lead track, “Windfall,” is one of those ultimate driving songs you want blaring from your speakers as you sail along some deserted back road: “Now and then it keeps you running/ It never seems to die/ The trial’s spent with fear/ Not enough living on the outside// Never seem to get far enough/ Staying in between the lines/ Hold on what you can/ Waiting for the end not knowing when// May the wind take your troubles away/ May the wind take your troubles away/ Both feet on the floor, two hands on the wheel/ May the wind take your troubles away// Trying to make it far enough/ To the next time zone/ Few and far between past the midnight hour/ Never feel alone, you’re really not alone.” This is a great album that still holds up. ![]() On Friday, June 17, the Jay Farrar Trio will be playing songs from Trace at the Live Oak Music Festival at Camp Live Oak off Highway 154, about 80 minutes south of San Luis Obispo (visit for details and tickets). 166 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart, but it made the top 10 of Rolling Stone’s critics’ list and remains a groundbreaking and seminal album in the alt-country genre, which is why Farrar reissued the album last year on its 20th anniversary with eight additional demo tracks and a 1995 live-show recording. Meanwhile, Farrar formed Son Volt, releasing Trace in 1995. Uncle Tupelo had two great songwriters in Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy, but rancor between the two led to Farrar leaving the band, whose remaining members led by Tweedy went on to form a “little” act called Wilco. SON VOLT RETURNS? : Son Volt frontman Jay Farrar will play songs from his former band’s debut, Trace, in a trio setting at the Live Oak Music Festival on June 17. ![]()
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