Son Volt - Trace

trace is ok but it's a bit formulaic and the lyrics are trite. that's not always a bad thing, but if it's something that you're predisposed to dislike, it'll get on your nerves.

my favorite son volt is wide swing tremolo.

You can probably find it for half that at a used record store. It never exactly flew off shelves... I'm fairly certain I got my CD copy used for like $2 in the super-cheap used bin.

I completely agree with the first condition, but disagree strongly with the second. The monotony endemic to the entire discography drowns out the *really* good songs, which are scattered throughout it. No album is completely wonderful, but there are moments on each that make them all worthwhile. Trace is probably the better of Son Volt's releases, but it too suffers from sameness.

i stand by what i said about trace but i do think it's a great album if you can put aside the sometimes-corny lyrics. the kcrw dj played "windfall" last night and i sang along with every word.

Hard to imagine anyone under 40 giving a shit about this if it came out today. This album holds up in a big way though

haven't listened to this in a while, but i think it's one of the better records of its kind. some of the rockers are a little generic sounding, but things like windfall, tear stained eye, out of the picture and that ron wood cover are perfect.

Drown is my favorite song he ever wrote.

This album? Classic, classic, classic. Son Volt without the Boquist brothers? dud, dud, dud. Jay singing in that higher register? Mega-dud.

my favorite album either of these two put out post-tupelo. and then the five best after that are all wilco. weird how that worked out

drown's ac/dc goes alt country vibe is epic

^ this. My first thought when I heard "Drown" was "Cool, it's Gram Parsons fronting AC/DC!"

I saw them in the summer of '96, and they were raging. First encore was Cheap Trick's "Downed," which killed; second was "Chickamauga," which blew the roof off the joint.

"Route" is my fav off this album, except for the clumsy "here for now, transient tomorrow" line

ha, i always hated drown (tho i might hate it less now, i don't know). at the time, i referred to it as farrar's hootie song.

YOUR COUSIN IT

drown also makes me think of the brief period in 1995-6 when vh1 was like "heyyyy maybe alt-country is something ... oh never mind."

living right is easy, tyler

this album was a huge deal for 14yo me when it came out, absolutely love it

maybe the whole thing is sorta hokey, i dunno, it is literally impossible for me to have a rational opinion

ooooh tyler u watch it

tupelo was legit one of the greatest bands

i kinda fucks w/the first golden smog EP and first full length

I think it's the percussion in Drown that gives it that feel, pretty excellent otherwise. "When in doubt, move on" is a musical pressure valve for my vagabond tendencies. I mean, this whole album is. Doesn't hurt that all the geographical mentions are about my home region.

I totally forgot Brian Paulson recorded this, great record, "Drown" is a stone classic

It sounds like a Son Volt post-Trace S&D is in the mail. I know I'd certainly benefit from such a thread.

The 2nd Son Volt record is one of the alltime momentum killing releases. Everything they had built up with Trace was instantly destroyed.

yeah,i should pull trace out and listen. maybe i'll love drown. i know we've discussed it on a tupelo thread, but really, the biggest bummer about trace is that farrar doesn't play any lead guitar. not that the guitarist is bad, but i feel like it could use a little more ragged glory. the rockers on this are just a little too tidy.

& yeah, the second son volt record was so boring! i remember really trying to get into it. not even sure if i've heard the third one.

son volt was not helped by being literally one of the most boring live bands that ever existed

one of the boquist bros used to bartend at a place i went to fairly frequently, he was a nice guy

xp Man, that second record was depressing. The songs were indistinguishable from one another. I bought the third one, hoping they'd get their shit back together. The arrangements were more varied, but after listening to it maybe 20 times I couldn't tell you how any of the songs go.

my favorite album either of these two put out post-tupelo. and then the five best after that are all wilco. weird how that worked out

hahaha. yep.

the narrative around the time was that 'a.m.' was a pretty nice little record but 'trace' showed who the real tupelo genius was. now i think the narrative is farrar got out some of his great albeit one-note songs on that first album while tweedy was *~~spreading his wings, warming up for flight~~*

lil tweedy bird

"Blind Hope" on the third Son Volt album is a pretty good one

they did a nice cover of "Tulsa County" around the time of the second album, search for that one

get yr 20th-anniversary pitches ready

Reunion tour with the original (REAL) line-up, please. Also, somebody get Jay to start singing back in his normal register again.

so they never actually got the original lineup back together? i remember there was an attempt back in the mid 00s... think that's about when i stopped paying attention.

I remember seeing him in 1996 before Straightaways came out. It was one of the worst shows I ever saw, every song was slow and plodding, like he was playing underwater. Plus he played what seemed like the entire Straightaways album so nobody knew a single song.

Beginning in 2001, Jay Farrar released several solo efforts that postponed further releases from Son Volt. Farrar reformed with the original members of Son Volt to record a song for a tribute album for Alejandro Escovedo. The sessions reportedly went so well that Farrar and the other band members intended to record once again in the autumn of 2004. Just prior to the sessions, however, Farrar and the other band members abruptly ended negotiations.[1] Farrar formed a new version of the band with a different line-up and released an album on Transmit Sound/Sony Legacy, Okemah and the Melody of Riot,[2]

I can't imagine the original Son Volt members would be too eager for a reunion after that.

It's so odd reading reports of downer Son Volt shows; the two I saw (summer '96, late/winter '97) were totally high-energy, with the whole band stalking the stage like Crazy Horse on uppers. Only semi-bummer moment was when they ended the '97 show with a cover of Big Star's "Holocaust" -- not a great tune to send the crowd out into the bitter cold with.

I saw Son Volt in Chicago in 1998 (Kot's review here). It was horrible, like kornrulez describes. Farrar played lead only on "Chickamauga" and it was by 1000000000000000 times the highlight of the night, like finally everyone woke up for 5 minutes. And I guess the cover of "Last Time Around" was ok. But otherwise, it was a horrible night. that's the last Son Volt show I bothered with

I've said it before, probably in this thread, but Trace is still the most disappointing album I ever got. Uncle Tupelo were my favorite band, Farrar seemed obviously the heart of the band, and this is what he came up with? he was my favorite guitarist of the era, so having him basically retire from lead was a major drag. RIP

Side A of Trace is untouchable: "Windfall," "Tear Stained Eye," "Live Free," "Route," "Drown." BAM. And their ACL from the Trace era is pretty great.

Ha, the two shows I saw were at Metro. "Chickamauga" (and Farrar's insane solo on it) was definitely a highlight of the first show ('96; they didn't play it at the '97 show), and I thought, jeez, why didn't he play lead the whole time?

But I loved Trace, and I was listening to it constantly at the time.

xp

for the 20th anniversary wilco should release a cover version of the album as a free download

Yeah, I remember when the first Wilco album came out, and it was pretty eh, and then the first Son Volt comes out and folks are all not bad! And then the second Wilco comes out and people go wow, and the second Son Volt comes out and zzzzzzzzzzzz. Which brings us up to the present.

Don't know anything about Farrar. Is he OK? What went wrong?

this band could really bore the shit out of a room of 1000+ people like nobody's business

i was a HUGE tupelo stan

but yeah it's funny how Farrar was considered the "real talent" of Tupelo and the 1st Wilco album is a fun record def breezy etc and Trace came out real hard w/"Drown" etc and as Josh said I would have bet Tweedy was the one to fade into obscurity, now Uncle Tupelo is just a side note of a Wilco wiki :(

farrar has just really hoed that single row and tbh when he's singing it sounds like he's actually hoeing a row

but what's also funny is his singing isn't demonstrably worse. i think he just ran out of tunes and interesting arrangement ideas.

this band could really bore the shit out of a room of 1000+ people like nobody's business

The most vivid memory I have of that really dull NJ show nearly 20 years ago was after they played Ten Second News, my friend turned to me incredulously and said "Somehow they managed to slow that down."

lol

doug sahm jumped onstage the first time i saw Son Volt and that was a good time, obviously.
i don't remember being terribly bored when i saw them back then, but not exactly being thrilled either.
farrar's early 2000s solo records have a few good moments iirc, mixed in with the dull.

first time I saw Wilco, in 1995 in Austin (spring? one of their first shows I think) they played a Doug Sahm (well, Texas Tornados) song, "Who Were You Thinking' Of". I don't think Sahm was there. it ruled though.

at this point we should all forget about wilco and son volt and just listen to doug sahm

The sessions reportedly went so well that Farrar and the other band members intended to record once again in the autumn of 2004. Just prior to the sessions, however, Farrar and the other band members abruptly ended negotiations.

iirc the other dudes were going to be paid as sidemen and said fuck that

is there a thread about the Texas Tornados? man they ruled.

at this point we should all forget about wilco and son volt and just listen to doug sahm

TRUTHBOMB

In his part of the liner notes to the Wilco box set, Bill Bentley (who'd been Tupelo's publicist) recounts getting chewed out by Sahm for electing to carry on with Wilco instead of Son Volt; "...you gotta go with the other guy. He's gonna happen." Sahm said.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukOEXaGIQLw

A 20th anniversary vinyl reissue of Trace would be nice. The (shitty) 90s pressing goes for hundreds of dollars.

And here it is...

http://www.brooklynvegan.com/archives/2015/08/jay_farrar_cele.html

prescient

Sounds kinda good