COFFEE CREEK
Cicero's Basement Bar, St. Louis, MO
JUne 11, 1992

*Uncle Tupelo Upgrade Series, Vol. 7*

Source: Soundboard, likely master or first generation cassette, from the band's archive

taper unknown

Transfer to DAT (by Shayne Stacy, 1994): cassette (from Uncle Tupelo's archive) > consumer Aiwa belt drive deck > Sony DTC690 using monster audio cables > DAT (90M tape, 32 kHz)
Transfer from DAT (by mrpember, November 2020): DAT clone(1) > Tascam DA-20 > M-Audio Audiophile USB > PC > Audacity (minor edits, mainly removing some brief blank passages) > CD Wave Editor (tracking) > TLC > Flac (8)

Set 1
01- Buckeroo (end only) [Buck Owens cover]
02- Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way? [Waylon Jennings cover]
03- Love's Gonna Live Here Again [Buck Owens cover]
04- Your Gentle Way Of Loving Me [Byrds cover]
05- I Wanna Destroy You [Soft Boys Cover]
06- ?? Sleeping Room (?)
07- Wallflower [Bob Dylan cover]
08- (Is Anybody Goin' To) San Antone? [Doug Sahm cover]
09- You're Still On My Mind [George Jones cover]
10- Sing Me Back Home (Merle Haggard cover]
11- Powderfinger (has a cut) [Neil Young cover]
12- Atomic Power [Louvin Brothers cover]
13- Wrote A Song For Everyone [Creedence Clearwater Revival cover]
14- ?? truckin' instrumental (?)

Set 2
15- Get Back To The Country [Neil Young cover]
16- Wasted Days & Wasted Nights [Freddy Fender cover]
17- Blue Eyes [Gram Parsons cover]
18- Moonshiner (has a cut) [traditional]
19- Wasn't Born To Follow [Byrds cover]
20- A Good Year For The Roses [George Jones cover]
21- Do-Re-Mi [Woody Guthrie cover]
22- Thanks A Lot [Ernest Tubb cover]

Encore 1
23- Are You Ready For The Country? [Neil Young cover]
24- Texas Me [Doug Sahm cover]
25- Mendocino [Doug Sahm cover]
26- Movin' On [Merle Haggard cover]

Encore 2
27- Buckeroo (end only...again) [Buck Owens cover]
28- ?? Texas in the Rain (?)
29- Turkey In The Straw [traditional]
30- She's About A Mover [Doug Sahm cover]
31- Waltz Across Festus (sic) [Ernest Tubb cover]

LINEUP

Jay Farrar: guitar, vocals
Brian Henneman: guitar, lap steel, vocals
Jeff Tweedy: bass, vocals
Mike Heidorn: drums

Tom Parr: guitar on track 31


The purpose of the Uncle Tupelo Upgrade Series is to circulate live recordings of Uncle Tupelo and related bands with known lineages, focusing on recordings taken directly from masters or from the cleanest, lowest generation copies available. Some are shows that have circulated online for years with unknown or incorrect lineages and others are shows that have not been widely circulated in the file-sharing era. I will share any information I have regarding the recordings, as well as any features of the shows themselves that make them special to me.

For Vol. 7 we stay at Cicero's Basement Bar for the second of four shows they did there between December 1991 and July 1993 as their alter-ego, Coffee Creek. Coffee Creek was a (mostly) country (mostly) covers band with Brian Henneman that gave them a way to have fun and play at Cicero's after they had outgrown the tiny place. It also gave them an excuse to play full sets with Brian and to really showcase him since he was between bands at that point. Depending on who you talk to, some say the name came from an internal challenge to play the shows totally sober, with caffeine being the only intoxicant.


NOTES ON THE RECORDING

In late 1994, Uncle Tupelo's management very generously allowed taper / collector / superfan Shayne Stacy access to their archive of live cassette tapes. That is if you consider a bunch of cassettes that they had thrown in a box in the closet, many with very little or no identifying information, to be their "archives." Most of those recordings as well as an embarrassment of other great shows are available for streaming on Shayne's website, https://sacramentomusicarchive.com/.

There were two Coffee Creek shows from Cicero's in that box of cassettes, this one and July 30, 1993. This led to much rejoicing, as no one had heard even a hint about Coffee Creek recordings up to that point. For that reason, my best guess is that this show is directly from the cassette master. As with the other board tapes from Cicero's that were in the archive it sounds really good given the tiny room, making me think the sound engineer created a separate mix just for the recording. I left the recording alone other than taking out some gaps from tape flips / cuts.

I would mainly call this a lineage upgrade since the circulating versions all came from the same source and the sound on the versions I've heard have always been good. It includes two incomplete versions of the Buck Owens' instrumental "Buckeroo" that are not included on the most commonly circulating version.

Other than the incomplete versions of "Buckeroo" it is hard to know what else might have been cut. After "Mendocino" Brian seems to be introducing "Wild & Blue" by John Anderson, a song they played at other shows, but there was a tape cut immediately afterwards.


NOTES ON THE SHOW

Not seeing Coffee Creek is one of my biggest regrets. The shows must have been so much straight-up FUN. Brian Henneman acting as MC and aping Doug Sahm's song introductions ("The Coffee Creek band is back and we'd like to thank all the beautiful fans for all the beautiful vibrations"), Brian's wicked guitar playing, Jay Farrar's amazing voice and vocal instincts when singing other people's songs (even if he didn't always nail the lyrics), Mike Heidorn egging everybody on from the back, the revved up crowd right on top of them...just fantastic.

As someone who came to Uncle Tupelo from the indie / punk world (as were the vast majority of fans when the band was still active), I will admit that I first heard many of these classic country songs from the Coffee Creek recordings. Some were or became regular parts of Uncle Tupelo sets, some were unique to Coffee Creek. Many of these songs clearly resonated with the band: "Sing Me Back Home" was a common encore at Son Volt and Jay Farrar for years; 10 years after this show Brian and the Bottle Rockets recorded all of the Doug Sahm songs on here for their SONGS OF SAHM record; and 18 years later, "Wrote a Song For Everyone," the only song on which Jeff sang lead, was done by the great Mavis Staples on her Tweedy-produced album YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

There are some holes in the setlist. Track 6 is a song by a local country singer, I heard Brian tell the story of it at one point but I've forgotten the details. Track 14 is an instrumental that I really feel I should know but I can't place. Track 28 sounds a lot like a Doug Sahm song but it's not one I've heard.


Enjoy,

mrpember, November 2020