Two years after releasing Union, roots-rock pioneers Son Volt will return with their tenth album Electro Melodier in July. The album features a new group of personal reflections and socio-political songs from frontman Jay Farrar, who originally set out to make a nostalgic record that paid tribute to the music of his youth.
“I wanted to concentrate on the melodies which got me into music in the first place,” Farrar said in a statement. “I wanted politics to take a back seat this time, but it always seems to find a way back in there.
“I wanted to concentrate on the melodies which got me into music in the first place,” Farrar said in a statement. “I wanted politics to take a back seat this time, but it always seems to find a way back in there.
- 5/13/2021
- by Jonathan Bernstein
- Rollingstone.com
Last year, singer-songwriter Arlo McKinley played a set at the intimate Nashville venue the High Watt. A couple of very important things happened that evening. For one, the Cincinnati-based performer landed his current booking agent out of it. Secondly, among those in attendance was Jody Whelan, Director of Operations for Oh Boy Records, whom McKinley had gotten to know after playing an AmericanaFest event for the label a year earlier. At Whelan’s side was Oh Boy’s star artist, John Prine.
“It’s the only time I’ve ever been starstruck.
“It’s the only time I’ve ever been starstruck.
- 8/12/2020
- by Jon Freeman
- Rollingstone.com
Last week’s fifth annual Outlaw Country Cruise featured no less than four eclectic guitar pulls, culminating with an all-star final night lineup of Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, Raul Malo of the Mavericks, and Son Volt’s Jay Farrar.
Each artist sang three songs, including new material from Williams (“Big Black Train,” the Trump-skewering “Man Without a Soul”) and Earle (“The Mine”), who also paid tribute to late songwriter David Olney with a rendition of his “Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.”
The writers round concluded with a sing-along of “This Land Is Your Land,...
Each artist sang three songs, including new material from Williams (“Big Black Train,” the Trump-skewering “Man Without a Soul”) and Earle (“The Mine”), who also paid tribute to late songwriter David Olney with a rendition of his “Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.”
The writers round concluded with a sing-along of “This Land Is Your Land,...
- 2/7/2020
- by Joseph Hudak
- Rollingstone.com
“You can only guess who that might be about,” Lucinda Williams said after a scorching performance of her new song “Man Without a Soul” aboard the fifth annual Outlaw Country Cruise last week. A droning, guitar-driven track, the song doesn’t mention its subject directly, but as Williams alluded, it’s impossible to not pin the lyrics to the impeached President Trump.
“You bring nothing good to this world, beyond a web of cheating and stealing/you hide behind your wall of lies, but it’s coming down/yeah, it’s coming down,...
“You bring nothing good to this world, beyond a web of cheating and stealing/you hide behind your wall of lies, but it’s coming down/yeah, it’s coming down,...
- 2/4/2020
- by Joseph Hudak
- Rollingstone.com
Son Volt celebrate the glory in the grind of being working musicians in the new video for “Devil May Care,” which premieres today via Rolling Stone Country. The song is one of the lighter offerings on the band’s upcoming politically charged album Union, which will be released on March 29th.
Cruising along with breezy acoustic strumming, the carefree Americana tune soundtracks a montage of road scenes, featuring frontman Jay Farrar and his longstanding alt-country crew moving from gig to gig. The vintage-hued footage unfolds like a scrapbook of tour...
Cruising along with breezy acoustic strumming, the carefree Americana tune soundtracks a montage of road scenes, featuring frontman Jay Farrar and his longstanding alt-country crew moving from gig to gig. The vintage-hued footage unfolds like a scrapbook of tour...
- 2/19/2019
- by Jedd Ferris
- Rollingstone.com
Alt-country pioneers Son Volt offer insightful commentary on income inequality in “The 99.” The newly unveiled single appears on the band’s upcoming album Union, which will be released on March 29th.
Calling back the amplified sound of Son Volt’s early efforts, including 1995’s landmark album Trace, the new track is a dusty Heartland rocker punctuated by a gritty closing guitar solo. Lyrically, singer Jay Farrar is in protest mode, giving a voice to those struggling to make ends meet with chant-worthy lines like, “Already spent, already spent. No way...
Calling back the amplified sound of Son Volt’s early efforts, including 1995’s landmark album Trace, the new track is a dusty Heartland rocker punctuated by a gritty closing guitar solo. Lyrically, singer Jay Farrar is in protest mode, giving a voice to those struggling to make ends meet with chant-worthy lines like, “Already spent, already spent. No way...
- 2/15/2019
- by Jedd Ferris
- Rollingstone.com
Jeff Tweedy thought Wilco’s 2004 album, A Ghost Is Born, would be his last. At the time, his addiction to Vicodin and his lifelong anxiety issues had spiraled so far out of control that on tour he routinely fell asleep in his bathtub without being sure he’d wake up. He wrote songs like the gorgeous elegy “Hummingbird” for his young sons, “who could turn to it when they were older … to have some deeper connection to the dad they’d lost.” When the band recorded “Spiders (Kidsmoke),” he was...
- 11/30/2018
- by Patrick Doyle
- Rollingstone.com
When Americana pioneers Uncle Tupelo released their major-label debut, Anodyne on October 5th, 1993, it should have been the beginning of something big.
In a way, it was. Led by Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy from tiny Belleville, Illinois, the alt-country movement’s promising breakout band was packing clubs in major cities across America and Europe, not just the college towns where they spent years building their fan base.
They were following up their left-turn acoustic record, March 16-20, 1992, recorded with R.E.M.’s Peter Buck, with their best record...
In a way, it was. Led by Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy from tiny Belleville, Illinois, the alt-country movement’s promising breakout band was packing clubs in major cities across America and Europe, not just the college towns where they spent years building their fan base.
They were following up their left-turn acoustic record, March 16-20, 1992, recorded with R.E.M.’s Peter Buck, with their best record...
- 10/5/2018
- by Jim Beaugez
- Rollingstone.com
Death Cab For Cutie frontman and recent Westboro Baptist Church target Ben Gibbard will be releasing a solo record, his first. Former Lives is due out Oct. 16 on Barsuk, and will contain 12 songs Gibbard’s written and recorded over the past eight years. That includes a few reworked versions of songs he’s performed live before, whether on tour with Uncle Tupelo and Son Volt’s Jay Farrar in 2009, or all by his lonesome in 2007. He’ll tour a little bit around this record, but no dates have been released. Former Lives was recorded by Earlimart ...
- 7/17/2012
- avclub.com
This week has been a blitz for re-issue announcements, what with the added incentive of a "holiday" right around the corner. Record Store Day seems to be an impetus for catalog-combing, so there are David Bowie, My Bloody Valentine, Paul and Linda McCartney, Beatles, Andrew W.K. and Uncle Tupelo reissues on the way. No, Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy didn't get back together again for Rsd. But their entire album output is getting revisited, with heavyweight vinyl of 1990's "No Depression," 1991's "Still Feel Gone" and 1992's "March 16-20, 1992." Super fans may have noticed "Anodyne" in there, with the only current...
- 3/23/2012
- Hitfix
Are you in the Chicago area today? If you happen to hear a bunch of party horns or see a guy walking around with Mylar balloons, it's probably Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy, who turns 43 years old today. The venerable Tweedy has survived a number of personal and professional setbacks (drug addiction, chronic migraines, band break-ups, the death of former collaborator Jay Bennett) and has become one of the indie rock world's most inventive minds and enduring icons.
Tweedy first broke into the music world with Uncle Tupelo, a group formed by friends Tweedy, Jay Farrar and Mike Heidorn. Though the genre didn't really exist yet, Uncle Tupelo helped form the backbone of alt-country, which introduced classic Nashville sounds and songwriting tropes into traditional jangle-and-mumble indie rock. The band released four albums (including the watershed 1993 release Anodyne) but disbanded shortly after the release of their final album because of rising tensions between Farrar and Tweedy.
Tweedy first broke into the music world with Uncle Tupelo, a group formed by friends Tweedy, Jay Farrar and Mike Heidorn. Though the genre didn't really exist yet, Uncle Tupelo helped form the backbone of alt-country, which introduced classic Nashville sounds and songwriting tropes into traditional jangle-and-mumble indie rock. The band released four albums (including the watershed 1993 release Anodyne) but disbanded shortly after the release of their final album because of rising tensions between Farrar and Tweedy.
- 8/25/2010
- by Kyle Anderson
- MTV Newsroom
Longtime sideman takes the lead with first solo album It’s hard to believe A Friend of a Friend is David Rawlings’ first album under his own name. For more than 12 years, the Nashville-based musician has toured, written and recorded with Gillian Welch, exploring the well-worn byways of country, bluegrass and stringband music while making the old-timey sound new. As a hired gun, he’s played sideman to artists following in Welch’s wake or creating their own: Sara Watkins, Ryan Adams, Bright Eyes, Guy Clark, Mark Knopfler and Jay Farrar, among others. So his debut as Dave Rawlings Machine is either...
- 11/12/2009
- Pastemagazine.com
Although Son Volt's Jay Farrar and Death Cab For Cutie's Benjamin Gibbard create music from two different perspectives--one uses roots-Americana as his template, and the other employs emo pop-jangle--their blend on the documentary soundtrack One Fast Move Or I'm Gone: Kerouac's Big Sur creates a sly folk variant that syncs perfectly with Jack Kerouac's classic. To lines directly taken from the beat author's lesser known Big Sur, a book considered by many to be as much of a classic as On The Road, Farrar composed original music that tracks Kerouac's detox pilgrimage from New York to California with Gibbard building on his partner's acoustic groundwork. Mike Ragogna: How did your collaboration begin? Jay Farrar: Ben and I were asked to contribute songs to the documentary One Fast Move Or I'm Gone. I think it was from my familiarity with Kerouac's work and...
- 10/21/2009
- by Mike Ragogna
- Huffington Post
It seems like lately that Ben Gibbard has his eyes on the big screen. The Death Cab for Cutie frontman seems to be popping up in a number of cinematic circumstances. He has a speaking-only role in John Krasinski's adaptation of David Foster Wallace's "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men," recently released. He combined forces with Son Volt/ex-Uncle Tupelo songwriter Jay Farrar on the rootsy score and soundtrack to "One Fast Move or I'm Gone: Kerouac's Big Sur." He also appears in the film, speaking on the beat icon's novel "Big Sur." Gibbard will be speaking, too, in a doc on...
- 10/20/2009
- by Katie Hasty
- Hitfix
Music: Review:Jay Farrar & Benjamin Gibbard: One Fast Move Or I’m Gone: Music From Kerouac’s Big Sur
Curt Worden’s documentary One Fast Move Or I’m Gone examines the period of Jack Kerouac’s life when he retreated from the public eye and tried to quit drinking—a period he wrote about in his 1962 novel Big Sur. For the movie’s soundtrack, Kerouac’s nephew Jim Sampas asked rootsy singer-songwriter Jay Farrar to take the author’s own words and compose some songs around them, to be sung by an assortment of guest vocalists. But the initial pairing of Farrar with dreamy-voiced Death Cab For Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard proved so fruitful that the two ...
- 10/20/2009
- avclub.com
Jay Farrar and Benjamin Gibbard have lately been devoting their artistry to converting Jack Kerouac's spirited prose into song and verse, a collaboration album known as One Fast Move or I'm Gone: Keruoac's Big Sur. To support their project, which is slated for an Oct. 20 debut, they'll be hosting a special series of four concerts around the U.S. where they'll perform songs from the record along with other surprise material.
- 9/15/2009
- Pastemagazine.com
Anyone decrying the death of books has only to check out the music world to see that literature is still alive and kicking, even if the authors of said work aren’t. For example, just recently we spoke to Ben Gibbard and Jay Farrar about their collaborative album based solely on beat-poet and alt-culture icon Jack Kerouac’s novel Big Sur. While the duo’s record, the October-release One Quick Move or I’m Gone, is an ode to the written word, it’s hardly the first. Here are 10 fantastic songs brought to you by books:...
- 8/24/2009
- Pastemagazine.com
"I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes 'Awww!'"
This dazzling bit of prose surfaces within the first several pages of Jack Kerouac’s On The Road. The 1957 book chronicles the budding Beat movement and has been a model for countless artists and adventures chasing after rich living ever since.
This dazzling bit of prose surfaces within the first several pages of Jack Kerouac’s On The Road. The 1957 book chronicles the budding Beat movement and has been a model for countless artists and adventures chasing after rich living ever since.
- 8/13/2009
- Pastemagazine.com
Jack Kerouac's writing holds an integral spot on many a musician's required reading list. The late writer pioneered and documented the Beat movement, paving the way for much of the writing and music that would come in the latter half of the century. Perhaps his most celebrated work, 1957's On The Road captures the spirit of the cross-country tour and the floundering and frenzied lifestyle of an artist. Channeling the essence of Kerouac's life and canon, Son Volt frontman Jay Farrar and Death Cab's Ben Gibbard are working on a project that Farrar told St. Louis alt-weekly The Riverfront Times may see an October release.
- 7/17/2009
- Pastemagazine.com
Over Jay Farrar’s past few albums—with Son Volt and on his own—the country-rock singer-songwriter has struggled to fit his drawling monotone into contexts where it won’t sound so limiting. He’s tried matching his voice to an equally stark sound, and hiding behind more elaborate arrangements. Now, with Son Volt’s American Central Dust, Farrar reverts to the kind of straight-ahead, socially conscious roots music he’s been pushing since his Uncle Tupelo days. The songs on American Central Dust lean heavy on twang and moan, fiddles and mid-tempos, workingman’s laments and historical tragedy. Reduced ...
- 7/7/2009
- avclub.com
Stream Wilco's Wilco (The Album) in its entirety here.
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Former bandmates travel familiar territory
Wilco: Wilco (The Album)[Nonesuch]74/100
Son Volt: American Central Dust[Rounder]61/100
Admittedly, a joint review of the latest albums from Wilco and Son Volt is a bit unfair. It’s been 15 years since the two bands rose from the ashes of Uncle Tupelo, and both quickly left their progenitor behind in terms of musical style, lyrical maturity and commercial success. No matter how influential Uncle Tupelo was (and that’s certainly debatable), the band released only four albums in its seven-year history. Escaping its shadow should’ve been easy for frontmen Jeff Tweedy and Jay Farrar.
--
Former bandmates travel familiar territory
Wilco: Wilco (The Album)[Nonesuch]74/100
Son Volt: American Central Dust[Rounder]61/100
Admittedly, a joint review of the latest albums from Wilco and Son Volt is a bit unfair. It’s been 15 years since the two bands rose from the ashes of Uncle Tupelo, and both quickly left their progenitor behind in terms of musical style, lyrical maturity and commercial success. No matter how influential Uncle Tupelo was (and that’s certainly debatable), the band released only four albums in its seven-year history. Escaping its shadow should’ve been easy for frontmen Jeff Tweedy and Jay Farrar.
- 6/30/2009
- Pastemagazine.com
Son Volt’s new release, American Central Dust, its third in four years, finds alt-country purveyor Jay Farrar embracing the band’s new-found focus. Mixing its trademark raw and plaintive sound with bar stool prophesies, Son Volt once again tackles complex contemporary issues through the aural simplicity of the heartland. Taking a break from tour rehearsals, Farrar caught up with Paste to talk about kids, Keith Richards and the inspiration to return to his musical roots.
- 6/23/2009
- Pastemagazine.com
Son Volt will release its next album "American Central Dust" on July 7. It will be the Americana-inspired rock group's sixth full-length and its first since signing with Rounder Records.
"Rounder has shown a long term commitment to music forms, like folk and blues, that I have a lot of respect for," frontman Jay Farrar told Billboard.com.
"Going with Rounder has been a kind of a full circle continuum -- the first Rounder person I met with was instrumental in booking Uncle Tupelo gigs years ago," Farrar added.
The 12-song collection is described as a return to Son Volt's debut album "Trace" following 2007's experimental "The Search." The current Son Volt lineup includes Dave Bryson on drums; Andrew Duplantis on bass and backing vocals; Chris Masterson on lead guitar; and Mark Spencer on keyboards and steel guitar.
"Rounder has shown a long term commitment to music forms, like folk and blues, that I have a lot of respect for," frontman Jay Farrar told Billboard.com.
"Going with Rounder has been a kind of a full circle continuum -- the first Rounder person I met with was instrumental in booking Uncle Tupelo gigs years ago," Farrar added.
The 12-song collection is described as a return to Son Volt's debut album "Trace" following 2007's experimental "The Search." The current Son Volt lineup includes Dave Bryson on drums; Andrew Duplantis on bass and backing vocals; Chris Masterson on lead guitar; and Mark Spencer on keyboards and steel guitar.
- 4/7/2009
- icelebz.com
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