Jay Farrar

UnkleToop wrote:Did anyone get the audio book narrated by Jeff? How did you like it?

I did, and I can’t imagine having digested it any other way. Hearing Jeff read it adds *so* much. His tone, his sarcasm, and his intonation are critical. He does a phenomenal job narrating it. Highly recommended, even if you’ve already read the text.

Tim in the ATL

Did anyone get the audio book narrated by Jeff? How did you like it?

I'm about two-thirds of the way through and can't put this book down. It's well written, very honest and tackles all the obvious subjects that fans of Tweedy/Wilco/Tupelo would want touched on.

Regarding, Jay Farrar, I don't see anything in the book that would add fuel to, or poison anything. In fact, Tweedy acknowledges that Jay "had a gift for lyricism and an authentically great voice that made everything he sang sound like the Old Testament." Which I found humorous.

Also, the ghost/pipe organ barn prank was pretty funny.

I'm just past Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and then jumping eight years later to where he hears the news of Jay Bennett's death.

Highly recommend this book.

Great fucking read. If you like Tweedy or Jay or UT or music in general. Also the new Tweedy solo is pretty fantastic. Kinda want to go back and listen to some of the last few Wilco’s that I found less than stellar.

I just finished the book and I loved it. Probably half the book is devoted to Jeff's pre-Wilco life. I don't believe there any huge revelations regarding Uncle Tupelo but it's nice to hear the story (the good and bad) from a firsthand account.
One thing Jeff did confirm is that Brian Henneman was offered the lead guitar job in Wilco after his studio work on A.M. and Brian declined. I had heard that story before but there was always some ambiguity surrounding it. Brian has given "aw shucks, I believe something about that came up but I don't really know" kind of answers. Jeff definitely has mixed feelings about A.M. but he loved what Brian did on it.

turpentim wrote:A rather awesome nugget from Tweedy’s new memoir:

"I guess the most miraculous encounter of all would be when Uncle Tupelo opened for Johnny Cash at a club in Santa Ana, California in 1993. We didn’t meet him and June Carter before the show, but we could hear them during our set, through the curtains on each side of the stage and shouting "Woohoo!" between songs. It was startling. There is nothing in this world that can prepare you for Johnny Cash shouting "Woohoo!" at you while you’re trying to remember how to play the bass. Backstage after the show, they were so complimentary and sweet. They were impressed that we were playing old songs like ‘Moonshiner’ and ‘No Depression,’ which was written by June’s father, A. P. Carter. I don’t know about the other guys, but I don’t remember saying much. What was there to say to Johnny Cash? It was like talking to the Empire State Building or a bald eagle. They invited us to a songwriting barbecue they were hosting in Nashville. I’d never heard of such a thing, but it sounded amazing. June just kept saying she wanted to take us home and give us all baths. I didn’t know if that was part of the deal, but it didn’t sound the least bit dirty when she said it. The offer seemed so genuine and crazy, we seriously contemplated canceling the rest of our tour so we could drive two days straight through, all the way to Nashville and be able to say we wrote songs and ate barbecue at Johnny Cash’s house. Then the financial impracticality of that plan set in, so we took a rain check and stood dumbstruck in the parking lot behind the club waving goodbye to their tour bus."


Tim in the ATL

Great story. Going to have to put this book at the top of my Xmas list, right behind Jay’s 62 SG.

A rather awesome nugget from Tweedy’s new memoir:

"I guess the most miraculous encounter of all would be when Uncle Tupelo opened for Johnny Cash at a club in Santa Ana, California in 1993. We didn’t meet him and June Carter before the show, but we could hear them during our set, through the curtains on each side of the stage and shouting "Woohoo!" between songs. It was startling. There is nothing in this world that can prepare you for Johnny Cash shouting "Woohoo!" at you while you’re trying to remember how to play the bass. Backstage after the show, they were so complimentary and sweet. They were impressed that we were playing old songs like ‘Moonshiner’ and ‘No Depression,’ which was written by June’s father, A. P. Carter. I don’t know about the other guys, but I don’t remember saying much. What was there to say to Johnny Cash? It was like talking to the Empire State Building or a bald eagle. They invited us to a songwriting barbecue they were hosting in Nashville. I’d never heard of such a thing, but it sounded amazing. June just kept saying she wanted to take us home and give us all baths. I didn’t know if that was part of the deal, but it didn’t sound the least bit dirty when she said it. The offer seemed so genuine and crazy, we seriously contemplated canceling the rest of our tour so we could drive two days straight through, all the way to Nashville and be able to say we wrote songs and ate barbecue at Johnny Cash’s house. Then the financial impracticality of that plan set in, so we took a rain check and stood dumbstruck in the parking lot behind the club waving goodbye to their tour bus."


Tim in the ATL

Tweedy on the Marc Maron podcast this week is a good listen.

good again.

nice

Makes me want to hear more about a new Son Volt album
being mixed. I think this solo Tweed album has a few good
songs but thank goodness for iTunes

‘Don’t Forget’ is the best song Tweedy has written in 14 years. Would fit nicely on A.M. if not even on some UT records. I also like ‘I Know What It’s Like’ and ‘Warm (When the Sun Has Died).’ There a few other good ones on here amidst the duds. But again, ‘Don’t Forget’ — WOW.

Tim in the ATL

I'm reading the book - jumping around a lot for now, eventually will read it in order - and it's interesting enough. I don't like what I've heard of the solo album, and I like Wilco's albums less and less each release. But seeing Wilco live or Tweedy live solo is still a great show. And he's a funny, charming dude. I went to his first book release event a couple weeks ago - Ira Kaplan of Yo La Tengo "interviewed" Tweedy, and then Tweedy played 3 acoustic songs at the end. I enjoyed the 1 hour conversation and the 3 songs, and the ticket price included the book, which they handed out. But for $49 a ticket, I was hoping for a little more live music at the end. Kaplan was asking his own questions and reading some fan questions, but none were about Farrar.

I really liked Farrar's book because, while a quick read, there's nothing else like it. Everyone writes a regular memoir or autobiography - Jay wrote these little vignettes, like 3 minute songs.

The Farrar parts in Tweedy's book are nothing really new from the Greg Kot book or what Tweedy and Farrar have said in interviews. The most interesting part to me was Jeff saying Jay was very much into hacky sack at one time.

Here's something from a NPR review of the book:

"But writing the book, I was able to talk a little bit more than I've ever been able to about how much Jay and I loved each other — I mean, or at least I loved him. He changed my life and he helped me learn how to play the guitar. We shared a lot of information about records and spent an awful lot of time together trying to figure things out about music and how to be in a band and what other people's music meant to us."

https://www.npr.org/sections/allsongs/2 ... making-art

I got the Audible version of the book when i saw that Jeff was actually reading it. I really enjoyed it. He seemed fair about the UT stuff I thought.

I enjoyed the book. The sections on Farrar and Bennett were especially interesting for me. Jeff comes across as very reflective and honest in this book.

Jay's book was interesting, but I'd love for him to write a book like Jeff's.