UNCLE TUPELO
Beloit College, Beloit, WI
September 11, 1992

Uncle Tupelo Upgrade Series, Vol. 8

Source: Soundboard, likely master or first generation cassette, from the band’s archive

taper unknown

Transfer to DAT (by Shayne Stacy, 1994): cassette (from Uncle Tupelo’s archive) > consumer Aiwa belt drive deck > Sony DTC690 using monster audio cables > DAT (90M tape, 32 kHz)
Transfer from DAT (by Shayne Stacy, 2019): DAT > Sony PCM-R500 > Audiophile 2496 card > WAV;
Final adjustments by mrpember (November 2020): Audacity (very minor edits) > CD Wave Editor (tracking) > TLC > Flac (8)

01- Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down (beginning cut, vocals low at first) [traditional]
02- True to Life
03- No Depression [traditional]
04- Watch Me Fall
05- Shaky Ground
06- Atomic Power [Louvin Brothers cover]
07- Whiskey Bottle
08- Wait Up
09- Wipe the Clock
10- I Wish My Baby Was Born [traditional]
11- Do Re Mi [Woody Guthrie cover]
12- Life Worth Livin’
13- I Wanna Be Your Dog [Stooges cover]
14- Still Be Around
15- Warfare [traditional]
16- Moonshiner (tape flip, very beginning cut) [traditional]
17- Grindstone
18- Sin City [Flying Burrito Brothers cover]
19- Motion Pictures [Neil Young cover]

LINEUP

Jay Farrar: guitar, harmonica, vocals
Jeff Tweedy: bass, guitar, vocals
Bill Belzer: drums
Brian Henneman: guitar, banjo, mandolin

The purpose of the Uncle Tupelo Upgrade Series is to circulate live recordings of Uncle Tupelo and related bands with known lineages, focusing on recordings taken directly from masters or from the cleanest, lowest generation copies available. Some are shows that have circulated online for years with unknown or incorrect lineages and others are shows that have not been widely circulated in the file-sharing era. I will share any information I have regarding the recordings, as well as any features of the shows themselves that make them special to me.

NOTES ON THE RECORDING

In late 1994, Uncle Tupelo’s management very generously allowed taper / collector / superfan Shayne Stacy access to their archive of live cassette tapes. That is if you consider a bunch of cassettes that they had thrown in a box in the closet, many with very little or no identifying information, to be their “archives.” Most of those recordings as well as an embarrassment of other great shows are available for streaming on Shayne’s website, https://sacramentomusicarchive.com/.

This is another recording that was completely unknown among the fans until Shayne got access to the band’s archives. This has never circulated on file sharing sites with a verified lineage back directly to the band’s copy, but in listening to the version that has circulated this is at most a minor upgrade as far as the sound quality goes.

NOTES ON THE SHOW

A rare all-acoustic show, as far as I know the only folk festival they ever played. The band did a few acoustic sets at Cicero’s Basement Bar in 1990, and there were a few nights on their US winter tour in 1992 where they played mostly acoustic simply because their amps and/or elecric guitars broke, but this set is still quite unique. The show is actually what you might expect for the tour following the release of their third album MARCH 16-20, 1992, with 9 out of the 15 songs from the album and acoustic versions of some favorites from the first two albums and a few covers. Brian Henneman sat in with them for the full set which is a treat.

This show is one of the earliest recordings of the band with Bill Belzer on drums, he formally joined the band about 6 weeks before this show. The set includes one of only two known versions of Neil Young’s classic “Motion Pictures” with Jeff’s introduction that mentions “honey slides” showing that they had been listening to the famous recording of Neil’s May 17, 1974 show at the Bottom Line (one of the all-time great ROIOs in my opinion). The set also includes one of only two known live versions of “Warfare” and “I Wish My Baby Was Born.”

Fun fact: Jeff Tweedy has said that they learned “Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down,” “Warfare,” and “I Wish My Baby Was Born” from the HIGH ATMOSPHERE compilation of old-time folk songs recorded in the mountains of Virginia and North Carolina in 1965 by John Cohen from the New Lost City Ramblers. There is an interesting variation between the version of “I Wish My Baby Was Born” on that record, sung unaccompanied by Dillard Chandler, and Uncle Tupelo’s version. In the beginning, Dillard sings that he wishes he could trade his own life for the life of his stillborn child (“…and me poor girl were dead and gone / and the green grass growing over my feet.”). In Uncle Tupelo’s version, that got flipped to where the singer wished he could trade the life of the mother for the life of the child (“…and you poor girl were dead and gone / green grass growing over thee”).

Enjoy,

mrpember, November 2020