The Bands of My Youth

I'm reading Greg Kot's "Wilco: Learning How to Die" this week. It's a short book, a history of the band Wilco (one of my personal favorites. Right before I started this blog I went to their show at the Uptown, which rocked hard). The book is more like a biography of Jeff Tweedy (the leader of Wilco) than being about the band itself. The early chapters deal with Uncle Tupelo, probably one of my favorite bands of all time and definitely the best band to come out of Belleville, Illinois, ever. The book is not what I would call well-written, the writing can be flat and uninspiring, but the story is very compelling. Of course, it could just be the personal feelings I have for Uncle Tupelo that make it so engrossing to me.

Which is probably why, when I got to the part of the book that dealt with the breakup of Uncle Tupelo, I became so incredibly sad. I was reading late at night in bed (couldn't sleep, but that's an unrelated issue) and had to put the book down. I couldn't read anymore. I had to go downstairs and listen to some of the albums and just listen. Recapture the feeling I had when I first heard those tunes on No Depression, the feeling that someone finally was saying what I had felt. They were speaking to me through my stereo, they knew what was missing for me for all those years in high school. It was great, and it was melancholy, because that music's gone.

I guess I shouldn't be too sad, the two guys seperate and find their own identities in their own bands. Both excellent bands, that put out music that I love, but sometimes I just wish they could have worked it out. It's an elegy for what might have been. Now I'll throw on some Wide Swing Tremolo or Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and celebrate that these guys are still young, still prolific and have grown as artists apart from each other. Besides, they're still speaking to me through the stereo. As they've grown, so have I. I hope these conversations go on forever.