Uncle Tupelo

For those of you not keeping score at home, Jay Farrar is a central figure in the alt-country movement, a loose-knit collective of songwriters exploring American roots music. The bible of alt-country is a 'zine called No Depression, which takes its name from the title of the debut by Farrar's first band, Uncle Tupelo, which appropriated it from an old Carter Family song. When Uncle Tupelo split in the mid-'90s, Farrar went on to form Son Volt (the rest of Tupelo morphed into Wilco)

Though the road remains, it provides no more," Jay Farrar sang in a world- weary baritone Wednesday night. "It can only take us away. " Farrar's scuffed-up soul voice is central to the pull of Son Volt, the Midwestern roots-rock quartet that performed at the Silk City Lounge. It's a voice that's on the lookout for something permanent and true - on the highway, the river, the AM dial - but, finding only sorrow and loss, decides to keep moving. "Here today, transient tomorrow," Farrar sings in Son Volt's hardest- hitting song, "Route.

Call it alt-country, Americana or No Depression. Or if you really want to get cute, call it y'all-ternative. There's an alternative-country movement bubbling up from the underground, coursing its way through rock clubs, record stores and even radio. Mainstream country radio remains as conservative as ever, the breakthrough of LeAnn Rimes' gloriously old-fashioned "Blue" notwithstanding. And many alt-country acts are too stridently independent and make music too rough around the edges ever to reach (or even seek)

"You still love rock and roll," crooned front man Jeff Tweedy, opening Wilco's show at the Trocadero Friday night with "Misunderstood," the lead track from Wilco's 19-song double album, Being There. It was a fitting beginning to a show that played like a tribute to rock's grand tradition. Tweedy isn't shy about wearing both his heart and his influence on his sleeve. Wilco blazed through a diverse set of material that gave nods to Exile on Main Street-era Rolling Stones on "Casino Queen," the Big Pink era of the Band on "Kingpin," and Pet Sounds-Beach Boys on "Outtasite (Outta Mind)

Jeff Tweedy sings as if he's lost something really important to him, but he's not so sorry to see it go. Tweedy is the lead singer and songwriter of Wilco, the roots-pop quintet that pulls into the Theater of Living Arts tonight. (But don't call Tweedy the group's leader; Wilco, above all, is a band.) A.M., Wilco's Sire/Reprise debut, is chock-full of classic breakup songs, but you won't catch Tweedy sounding the slightest bit bitter. "I got a lot of your records in a separate stack," he sings with raspy regret on "Box Full of Letters.

New Multitudes , the album on which Jay Farrar, Jim James, Anders Parker and Will Johnson set unused Woody Guthrie lyrics to music, is a work of intimate mystery, born of hours in the archives and sentiments that Guthrie himself either abandoned or left buried on purpose. But on stage at Union Transfer Tuesday night, the songs burst into the public sphere, pushing private thoughts into the open and converting whispers to a full-blooded shout. The four musicians, who took equal time at the microphone, have worked together in numerous configurations - Farrar and Parker in Gob Iron, James and Johnson in Monsters of Folk - but with disparate public profiles.

It took Wilco a long while to get going at the Theater of Living Arts on Thursday night. The first hour of the roots-rock quintet's show was flat and poorly paced. Beginning with a slowed-down cover of Doug Sahm's "Give Back the Key to My Heart," the group couldn't gather any momentum, and it didn't help that a bad sound mix rendered Max Johnston's fiddle, banjo and Dobro almost inaudible. Save for the stutter-step "Too Far Apart" and John Stirrat's yearning "It's Just That Simple," none of the warm-hearted, country-tinged tunes from the band's A.M. (Sire/Reprise)

There are roughly 1,350 miles of highway between New Orleans and Minneapolis, and every one of them is somehow accounted for on Trace, the mesmerizing debut offering from the roots-rock quartet Son Volt. Singer and songwriter Jay Farrar, who once led the pioneering Uncle Tupelo, lives in New Orleans. His band rehearses in Minneapolis. As the band was developing, Farrar made regular drives back and forth, often stopping in his hometown of St. Louis to see relatives or drop off musicians.

It seems half the musicians with a good head on their shoulders and a twang in their voice are resisting the tag of "country" or "country rock" these days. Instead, they're answering to the call of "Americana" music, judging that term far more inclusive (both creatively and geographically), more modern and free from country's oft-negative baggage. Today, let's focus in on an Americana subset that actually harkens back to the 1960s pop scene, when jangly, tight-harmonizing hybrids of rock and country were first heating up the charts with hits like the Everly Brothers' "Bird Dog," The Beatles' "I'm a Loser" and The Byrds' rendering of "Mr. Tambourine Man. " If it takes a new coat of paint to market this still-tasty brew, so be it!

New Multitudes , the album on which Jay Farrar, Jim James, Anders Parker, and Will Johnson set unused Woody Guthrie lyrics to music, is a work of intimate mystery, born of hours in the archives and sentiments that Guthrie himself either abandoned or left buried on purpose. But on stage at Union Transfer Tuesday night, the songs burst into the public sphere, pushing private thoughts into the open and converting whispers to a full-blooded shout. The four musicians, who took equal time at the microphone, have worked together in numerous configurations - Farrar and Parker in Gob Iron, James and Johnson in Monsters of Folk - but with disparate public profiles.

The marquee headlining act at the Philadelphia Folk Festival this year might seem an odd choice as poster boy for a venerable institution's brave new youth movement. When the festival sets up camp on the Old Pool Farm in Schwenksville next weekend, as it has every August since 1962, Jeff Tweedy will take the stage Saturday afternoon with only an acoustic guitar, the most traditionally folkie of instruments. Tweedy is a 42-year-old guy whose music - reaching back to his beginnings with the alt-country band Uncle Tupelo - has always retained ties to the hallowed American vernacular traditions that the Folk Festival celebrates.

For those of you not keeping score at home, Jay Farrar is a central figure in the alt-country movement, a loose-knit collective of songwriters exploring American roots music. The bible of alt-country is a 'zine called No Depression, which takes its name from the title of the debut by Farrar's first band, Uncle Tupelo, which appropriated it from an old Carter Family song. When Uncle Tupelo split in the mid-'90s, Farrar went on to form Son Volt (the rest of Tupelo morphed into Wilco)

"I used to take a lot of pride," recalls Levon Helm, "when we would be compared to Procol Harum or Bonnie and Delaney. Those kind of bands were my favorite, and I was always real flattered by it. " An ounce of guile would make that a ton of sarcasm - most of us would turn a whiter shade of pale if forced to come up with a single title by either Delaney or Bonnie. But Helm, who in the Band gave voice to "Up On Cripple Creek" and "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," seems too wise - and too kind - for either quality.

It seems half the musicians with a good head on their shoulders and a twang in their voice are resisting the tag of "country" or "country rock" these days. Instead, they're answering to the call of "Americana" music, judging that term far more inclusive (both creatively and geographically), more modern and free from country's oft-negative baggage. Today, let's focus in on an Americana subset that actually harkens back to the 1960s pop scene, when jangly, tight-harmonizing hybrids of rock and country were first heating up the charts with hits like the Everly Brothers' "Bird Dog," The Beatles' "I'm a Loser" and The Byrds' rendering of "Mr. Tambourine Man. " If it takes a new coat of paint to market this still-tasty brew, so be it!

Call it alt-country, Americana or No Depression. Or if you really want to get cute, call it y'all-ternative. There's an alternative-country movement bubbling up from the underground, coursing its way through rock clubs, record stores and even radio. Mainstream country radio remains as conservative as ever, the breakthrough of LeAnn Rimes' gloriously old-fashioned "Blue" notwithstanding. And many alt-country acts are too stridently independent and make music too rough around the edges ever to reach (or even seek)

"You still love rock and roll," crooned front man Jeff Tweedy, opening Wilco's show at the Trocadero Friday night with "Misunderstood," the lead track from Wilco's 19-song double album, Being There. It was a fitting beginning to a show that played like a tribute to rock's grand tradition. Tweedy isn't shy about wearing both his heart and his influence on his sleeve. Wilco blazed through a diverse set of material that gave nods to Exile on Main Street-era Rolling Stones on "Casino Queen," the Big Pink era of the Band on "Kingpin," and Pet Sounds-Beach Boys on "Outtasite (Outta Mind)

Project yourself into the future, and imagine you're at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. You're standing in front of the Hootie and the Blowfish exhibit. Don't laugh. Hootie will be there: The sales figures alone guarantee it. After checking out the Darius Rucker mannequin, the band members' report cards and film clips of the guys explaining the name, you get around to the block of text inside the display case. "Hootie and the Blowfish sold over 12 million copies of its debut, Cracked Rear View, in the United States alone," it reads.

Though the road remains, it provides no more," Jay Farrar sang in a world- weary baritone Wednesday night. "It can only take us away. " Farrar's scuffed-up soul voice is central to the pull of Son Volt, the Midwestern roots-rock quartet that performed at the Silk City Lounge. It's a voice that's on the lookout for something permanent and true - on the highway, the river, the AM dial - but, finding only sorrow and loss, decides to keep moving. "Here today, transient tomorrow," Farrar sings in Son Volt's hardest- hitting song, "Route.