Still Figurin' Out Who I Think I Am

This one's about the Rez Juke catch-up (6 of 9).

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I not gonna lie (c'mon now, when do I?)...I am not the world's foremost Creedence Clearwater Revival authority. Don't get me wrong; I like most of the songs I've heard by them. I think they're pretty neat-o for what they are and what they did, but I think I speak for the majority of people who have ever owned any CCR recordings when I say "I've only ever owned their greatest hits cd". Like, do they even have any other albums? 'Cuz that's the only one I ever have seen, anywhere. Not that I go lookin' or anything, but if I happen upon someone's cd or record collection, and I notice they have some CCR, it's always fuckin' Chronicle, Vol. 1. And not Vol. 2 or Vol. 3 (which is bullshit because I don't think there's even such a thing as the 2nd or 3rd volumes, so don't title your shit Volume 1 because that implies more volumes are coming...you lying fucking liars ).

And I still have the very first copy of that Volume One chicanery I ever owned, and it still plays, and lemme tell you why that's a big deal. It's a disc an old coworker burned for me back...1998 I think? On a first-generation cd burner. The guy was tellin' me about this thing, and he was ecstatic about it as one should've been at the time. He was like "Dude, I have all these cds, so you tell me what you want and I'll burn 'em for you!", and he dragged out "burn" like some kind of tweaked-out surfer bruh (which he was certainly not, but he totally had that right because he now owned the coolest piece of home electronics in all the land). He came into work one day, and I think neither of us took the other seriously when he offered, but he threw a stapled pack of paper in my surprised direction that, no shit, contained every cd he owned, and told me to circle what I wanted or whatever, so I went to town on his big-ass typed out list. I gave it back to him a few days later, and he was like "Ok, cool, I'll get on this soon. Gimme a few weeks...", because back in the old days burning music took actual, measurable time. It was kinda insane...you kids'll never know the struggle. I've seen Starbucks coffee shops go up faster in the time it took to burn a cd in 1998.

We also had to agree on some kind of payment, because blank disks (we also spelled "disc" with a "k" in Old America) were like $2 apiece. Also, a pack of Marlboros could be had for $2, and I know this because that's the year I started funding my own nicotine purchases rather than constantly bumming them off of friends and coworkers. Nowadays, a pack of smokes is like $10 in some places, as is like an entire 100-ct. spindle of blank cds. And I've conveniently forgotten the point I was trying to make. But all I know is I still have some of those very same cds.

Anyway, ya know what song isn't on CCR's Chronicle? (See how easy it was just to call it that, without the hokey "Vol. 1" next to it?) The most underrated song, I'm sure, in their entire catalog..."Effigy". Six god damn minutes of pure, slow-burnin' hellfire. The devil himself's ecstasy on wax. I demand that John Fogerty stop being some kind of one-flannel-shirt-ownin', own-band-hatin' baggadouche and tell me why he thought this decision was ok? Because clearly he did not have CCR's best interests in mind.

But what I do have in its place is the next best thing...the No Alternative compilation album  , which might be the first great collection of my generation's preferred method of teen angst. There isn't a single shitty track on that cd, for my money. And on it is Uncle Tupelo's version of "Effigy"...also six minutes of slightly less CCR-ish hellfire. Maybe it's a little more smokier, and possibly more of a generic commodity at its peak, but still a little eerie and unbecoming nonetheless. Like an effigy should be.

Uncle Tupelo was at the forefront of some kind of movement called "Alt-Country", and because that label had been thrown around a lot in reference to them, I stayed away from getting further into them than "Effigy". But their members' creative pedigrees collectively after they broke up is ridiculous: Jay Farrar went on to form Son Volt and had some success there, and also teamed up with Ben Gibbard from Death Cab For Cutie to create an entire album based on Jack Kerouac's Big Sur (One Fast Move Or I'm Gone  ; Jeff Tweedy and the rest of Uncle Tupelo formed a little group named Wilco, and they're famous.

And ya know what I learned today? Tom Fogerty (John's brother and ex-bandmate) died of AIDS-related complications in 1990 (coincidentally, No Alternative was a cd sold to benefit AIDS research, which I did know). And even if he wasn't dead, I doubt CCR would reunite, because John's pretty much a selfish a-hole in my opinion who wrecked the band, probably for not putting "Effigy" on their stupidly-named bullshit Greatest Hits collection. Meanwhile, Uncle Tupelo will also not be reuniting anytime soon, because Tweedy's too cool now for Farrar...Son Volt may have struck first with their minimal commercial success, but Wilco has sold billions of albums since, still remains a viable touring act, and is so badass that they once performed an entire 27-song live set consisting only of covers   at their own concert festival. Jeff Tweedy doesn't need you, Jay Farrar (and whoever else may have been in Uncle Tupelo but has since been fired from Wilco)!

"Last night I saw the fire spreading to the palace door...
silent majority weren't keeping quiet anymore."
Lyrics.