{"id":2447783,"date":"2019-08-20T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-08-21T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=311475"},"modified":"2019-08-20T22:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-08-21T04:00:00","slug":"son-volts-jay-farrar-discusses-protest-record-union-and-headlining-belly-up-aspen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/son-volts-jay-farrar-discusses-protest-record-union-and-headlining-belly-up-aspen\/","title":{"rendered":"Son Volt\u2019s Jay Farrar discusses protest record \u201cUnion\u201d and headlining Belly Up Aspen"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Son Volt will headline Belly Up on Thursday.<\/strong>
Courtesy photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Singer and songwriter Jay Farrar of Son Volt<\/a> doesn\u2019t expect his band\u2019s potent new protest record, \u201cUnion,\u201d to change the world. But he hopes it can inspire some dialogue and prick the conscience of some listeners.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not so presumptuous in thinking I\u2019ll really change anyone\u2019s mind,\u201d Farrar said last week in a phone interview from the road. \u201cIt\u2019d be great if it made someone ask questions or learn more about some of the content of these songs a bit further.\u201d<\/p>\n

The band recorded \u201cUnion\u201d with the legacy of American protest music in mind. Farrar recorded his voice and guitar tracks at Woody Guthrie Center in Oklahoma and the Mother Jones Museum in Illinois, drawing inspiration from the singing Dust Bowl poet and the labor organizer.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlong the way, songs lined up that had some protest content,\u201d Farrar said of the choice to record in these monuments to American resistance. \u201cI felt like those songs, in particular, would benefit from being recorded in a more challenging environment, like the Mother Jones Museum and the Woody Guthrie Center, that might inspire along the way. And I think they did.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the tradition of Guthrie and Phil Ochs and early Bob Dylan, Farrar has taken the day\u2019s headlines and made art of them, aiming to raise the voices of America\u2019s dispossessed and reflect on the injustices of his time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just writing about the things I was reading about and thinking about,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Son Volt released \u201cUnion\u201d in March and has been on the road with the new songs since then. The band will headline Belly Up Aspen on Thursday night during a Colorado swing that also includes the Gothic Theater in Englewood on Friday and Washington\u2019s in Fort Collins on Saturday.<\/p>\n

In the ballad \u201cReality Winner,\u201d Farrar tells the story of the young military intelligence officer-turned-whistleblower who leaked to the press an NSA report on Russian election hacking to the press in 2017 and who is now serving a five-year prison sentence for it. Reading about Winner\u2019s prison sentence, her aggressive prosecution under the Espionage Act and her inability to tell her story to the public, Farrar was inspired to take on Winner\u2019s voice and write in the first person.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought the least I could do was write a song to let others know her story,\u201d he said. \u201cShe\u2019s really not having much contact with the outside world. She\u2019s cut off from talking to journalists and such.\u201d<\/p>\n

In \u201cThe Symbol,\u201d Farrar has penned another first-person account, this one about a Mexican immigrant who helps rebuild New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, but now faces deportation and separation from his children in the Trump era.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was from reading the headlines, some of it from my personal experience \u2014 knowing there were a lot of Mexican workers brought into New Orleans to rebuild after Katrina,\u201d Farrar said. \u201cThere was a nexus of those memories and what was going on in the paper with DACA and people being deported.\u201d<\/p>\n

The record\u2019s anthem, no doubt, is \u201cThe 99,\u201d an electric guitar-driven rocker for the dissatisfied 99% that\u2019s mobilized since the days of Occupy Wall Street which Farrar will relish performing in the 1-percenter haven of Aspen. Playing it has been a high point of recent Son Volt shows, Farrar said: \u201cYou can\u2019t argue with guitar solos, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

The 13 songs on \u201cUnion\u201d are often quiet and the lyrics plainspoken, in the American folk and alt-country tradition that Farrar has epitomized over the past three decades. His writing is poetic, intelligent and focused, his voice restrained and often weary.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnion\u201d joins a short list of Trump era rock protest albums with lasting power, following the likes of Drive-By Truckers\u2019 \u201cAmerican Band\u201d and Gov\u2019t Mule\u2019s \u201cRevolution Come \u2026 Revolution Go.\u201d<\/p>\n

The five-piece Missouri-based band\u2019s recent live sets have been stacked with about half of the songs off \u201cUnion\u201d as well as Son Volt tracks spanning the band\u2019s 25-year, nine-album catalog. Occasionally, they\u2019ll bring out a classic from Uncle Tupelo, the massively influential alt-country group that Farrar co-led with Jeff Tweedy from 1987 to 1993.<\/p>\n

\u201cUncle Tupelo tried to take in a wide spectrum of sounds and styles of music, and that comes through in those records,\u201d he said of the band\u2019s revered early 1990s discs. \u201cI do still like to roll out some songs from that era once in awhile.\u201d<\/p>\n

atravers@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Son Volt will headline Belly Up on Thursday.Courtesy photo Singer and songwriter Jay Farrar of Son Volt doesn\u2019t expect his band\u2019s potent new protest record, \u201cUnion,\u201d to change the world. But he hopes it can inspire some dialogue and prick the conscience of some listeners. \u201cI\u2019m not so presumptuous in thinking I\u2019ll really change anyone\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2447783","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-25 09:47:37","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2447783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447783\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2447783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2447783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2447783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}