Jay Farrar

Uncle Tupelo was an alternative country music group from Belleville, Illinois, active between 1987 and 1994. Jay Farrar, Jeff Tweedy, and Mike... Heidorn formed the band after the lead singer of their previous band, The Primitives, left to attend college. The trio recorded three albums for Rockville Records, before signing with Sire Records and expanding to a five-piece. Shortly after the release of the band's major label debut album Anodyne, Farrar announced his decision to leave the band due to a soured relationship with his co-songwriter Tweedy. Uncle Tupelo split on May 1, 1994, after completing a farewell tour. Following the breakup, Farrar formed Son Volt with Heidorn, while the remaining members continued as Wilco. Although Uncle Tupelo broke up before it achieved commercial success, the band is renowned for its impact on the alternative country music scene. The group's first album, No Depression, became a byword for the genre and was widely influential.
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Gob Iron is an American musical group officially formed in 2006. It consists of Uncle Tupelo/Son Volt's Jay Farrar and Varnaline's Anders Parker.... Their debut album, Death Songs For The Living was released on October 31, 2006 by Transmit Sound/Legacy Recordings. Their name comes from a British slang term for a harmonica. The songs that would become Death Songs For The Living were recorded spontaneously during a five-day period in autumn of 2004 in Farrar's studio in St. Louis. Farrar had originally intended to record a new Son Volt album, but that project was postponed in favor of these songs. The songs played, with one exception of a Farrar original, were reworked versions of traditional folk songs by artists such as Rev. J. M. Gates, Stephen Foster and the Stanley Brothers. Lyrics and melodies have been altered, some almost entirely rewritten through what is sometimes referred to as the "folk process". While Farrar and Parker chose the songs on the fly, it was later found that death was a common theme running through; hence the title, Death Songs For The Living. The songs are punctuated by nine short instrumentals, one between every pair of songs.
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Artemis Records was a New York-based independent record label, founded in July 1999 by former chairman/CEO Danny Goldberg and closed in April 2006. The label, distributed by E1 Entertainment, was home to a diverse group of artists including Spacehog, Lisa Loeb, Crossbreed, Steve Earle, Black Label... Society, Sugarcult, Better Than Ezra, Boston, Dope, Little Barrie, Stephan Smith, Kittie , The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Lollipop Lust Kill, Jaguar Wright, Ruff Ryders, John Hiatt, Khia, Kurupt, The Pretenders, Peter Wolf, Alan Parsons, Murphy's Law, Jeffrey Gaines, Jill Sobule, Josh Joplin Group, and the late Warren Zevon. Artemis was the #1 U.S. independent label in terms of market share from 2001 to 2003. It released the last three albums of Warren Zevon's career including the Grammy-winning The Wind, five albums by Steve Earle including his Grammy winner The Revolution Starts Now, as well as gold albums by Kittie, Kurupt and Khia. Artemis also released the triple-platinum album Who Let the Dogs Out by The Baha Men, as well as albums by The Pretenders, Rickie Lee Jones and Jimmie Vaughan.
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Sire Records is an American record label, owned by Warner Music Group and distributed by Warner Bros. Records. The label was founded in 1966 as Sire Productions by Seymour Stein and Richard Gottehrer, each investing ten thousand dollars into the new company. Its early releases as a record label... were issued in 1968, distributed by London Records. From the beginning, Sire introduced underground, progressive British bands to the American market. Early releases included the Climax Blues Band, Barclay James Harvest, Tomorrow, Matthews Southern Comfort and proto-punks The Deviants. The label was distributed by Polydor Records from 1970 until 1971, during which time the now-famous logo was introduced, and then by Famous Music from 1972 to 1974, during which the progressive rock band Focus charted with their 1972 hit "Hocus Pocus". In the seventies, Sire released a number of compilation LPs, including the 3 volume "History Of British Rock" series, and diverse artists such as The Turtles, Duane Eddy, The Small Faces and Del Shannon. ABC Records inherited Sire's distribution contract when it acquired Famous Music in 1974.
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Dutch East India Trading is an independent record label based in Rockville Centre, New York. It has released music by such artists as Sun Dial, The Orb, The Smiths, Soul-Junk, Die Monster Die, Prong, The Cure, Robert Wyatt, A Guy Called Gerald, Bongwater, Opium Den, Indian Bingo, Meat Beat... Manifesto, and Doom. Homestead Records, Giant Records, Grass Records and Rockville Records were among the imprints of the Dutch East India Trading group.
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