[video] Uncle Tupelo - "The Long Cut" (live on Conan O'Brien)

Here’s Uncle Tupelo in February 1994 making their television debut on Conan, soon after the Anodyne release and shortly before their last ever show the following May. According to Greg Kot’s Wilco biography Learning How To Die, the band was asked by their label (and Conan’s people) to perform “The Long Cut”, a Jeff Tweedy song, on T.V. over one of Jay Farrar’s. Needless to say at that point in the band’s tumultuous history, the request didn’t go over well with the soon-to-be Son Volt frontman (he had already announced the dissolution of UT and was only still touring out of loyalty to their manager). Regardless of the circumstances, a long-haired Tweedy sounds completely engaged here. Gaining gain confidence as the song goes, Tweedy rips into his vocals in a way that, now, we haven’t heard from him in years - with the ferocity of an artist who’s got a lot to prove.
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