At 10:14 AM -0500 05/3/99, Dave Purcell wrote:
>In my best Beavis voice, I'd respond, "Uh...so what?" Uncle Tupelo wasn't
>at the helm of *anything*. The media made them, in retrospect, the leader
>of this so-called movement. Terry's point is well stated: country
>rock/roots rock has been around for a long damn time (as you well know)
>and it doesn't mean a hill of beans that a bunch of journalists who
>wouldn't know Commander Cody or the Scorchers from their own arses have
>declared UT as grand champeen of this last round of country rockers. I
>like UT a lot, but they weren't originators, they were simply a band the
>media folk latched onto. People can say it all they want, but it doesn't
>make it so.
Well the genesis of this thread had to do with the way
Tweedy is being perceived as distancing himself from the alt-country
tag at seemingly every opportunity in interviews. The
tag itself orginally gained wide currency to describe UT and
similar bands, didn't it? Earlier bands in similar styles had
other tags applied to them, such as roots rock, country rock,
etc.
Personally, I don't argue that these tags couldn't also
be applied to UT, but Tweedy isn't bringing up these tags
in his interviews. As I remember the articles, Tweedy
specically addresses whether he would define his band
as being part of the "alt-country" or "No Depression" movements.
I don't think the point (originally) was whether UT originated
or pioneered this style of music, but simply that they found
themselves described with a label that didn't exist until after
they had already started playing in that style. If Tweedy
didn't set out to define himself with this tag -- as perfomers
in well-established, long-defined genres such as blues or
country do --, but rather found others defining his music for
him, perhaps it's not surprising that he doesn't feel much
loyalty or committment to keep using that tag.
Ross Whitwam [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Molecular Pharmacology & Therapeutics Program
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, NYC
