A discussion of Seattle Grunge Rock

[dodog]

Various - Sub Pop 200 - 1988

Nice comp for the uninitiated.............

Sub Pop was a GREAT label. I remember picking up The Reverend Horton Heat's "Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em" because I had enjoyed so many other artists on this label. I was NOT disappointed.

 

[Pio1980]

Dude on the left:

Interesting how one pic can put it alltogether. Taking a rough guess at the ages, I was there ca 1959-1960 and pretty much a loner interested almost exclusively in 19th Century 'serious' music by the usual suspects Romantic composers. Pop music wasn't very interesting to me then until the British invasion of the mid-1960s. I was never in the demographic mentally, socially, or chronologicacally, for punk or grunge , so my severely limited appreciation for any of it is understandable. Anyone whose taken a music appreciation course in person or thru the radio knows how important having someone who knows and appreciates a genre and can effectively explain it can bring others to appreciate their pleasure place, Carl Haas for classical to Henry Rollins for a very broad range of genre (who is unavailable to me).


Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

 

[131east23]

Dude on the left:

If you went through puberty in the late 70's, well there you are, or maybe there are your representatives. Funny how that movie is a great guide to teen fashion of the day, actually better than "Dazed and Confused" which is really just a (pretty accurate) memory of those times with slightly older kids as the stars.

And where do the Pumpkins fit into all of this? Never really thought of them as grunge. The guitar work always got me right where it counted. It was familiar yet new and different. Not everyone was on the same page with the Smashing Pumpkins. I heard that they resurrected "the stoner chord" and that is where their sweet guitar sounds emanated from.

Can any guitarists verify this stoner chord thing and if so give a short definition of it. Or is it just a fable?

 

[onwardjames]

Guitarist for 30 years here. Never heard the phrase "stoner chord" tho I think the thing that Smashing Pumpkins DID do is use chords that weren't always root fifths. There were heavy overtones going on.

 

[KeninDC]

Pumpkins have been shoehorned into grunge. Like STP and even Alice in Chains. Safe for discussion here, unlike, say, the Black Crowes.

Heard an old black DJ on WPFW play some "Doo Wop" and he noted that it was not called "Doo Wop" until later. "We called it soul," he remarked. I doubt any of us without a time machine yelled, "hey, play some classic rock!" back in 1977.

The "90s" setting on some Vox digital amps sounds suspiciously like Billy Corgan's tone.

As for the "stoner chord," I think Monster Magnet was quite good at it, whatever it is.

 

[onwardjames]

As for the "stoner chord," I think Monster Magnet was quite good at it, whatever it is.

HUGE fan here. Yeah, I'd say they had it in spades.

Monolithic, Baby! is a flat-out masterpiece, not to mention Powertrip or at least 3 others.

 

[c-atle-79bay]

Thanks "Stoner Chord" just discovered a new band from that phrase. Baroness, lumped with Monster Magnet.

 

[Mystic]

Nirvana
Palaghiaccio Theater
Marino, Italy
22 February 1994

Set:

Radio Friendly Unit Shifter • Drain You • Breed • Serve The Servants • Come As You Are • Smells Like Teen Spirit • Sliver • Dumb • Run To The Hills (jam) • In Bloom • About A Girl • Lithium • Pennyroyal Tea • School • Polly • Very Ape • Lounge Act • Rape Me • Territorial Pissings • All Apologies • On A Plain • Scentless Apprentice • Heart-Shaped Box • jam

 

[Mystic]

In memorium

Soundgarden
Superunknown
(A&M, 1994)

 

[SA-708]

I hope Andrew and Chris have a chance to get together in the afterlife and catch up.

 

[JesusChrysler]

I saw Chris (and Soundgarden duh) exactly 1 week before he died.

I have never cried for someone I've never known personally but I did that day.
Shit I'm tearing up typing this.

****.



Matt

 

[Djcoolray]

I never got into the why and wherefores of it all, when it first started to surface in '93 I loved it. I was in my thirties and staitioned in Germany and the music was hitting hard in the clubs with added reverb. Then as the music changed it even got better. Now I'm in my sixties living near Seattle and I dig it cause the music is all over the radio stations here and we must have the most radio stations in one place in the country cause I've got nine strong staitions not including the other categories like classic rock and NPR....

 

[BigElCat]

Cat Power is pretty good!
another obscure band from that era would be "Mr T Experience".

I remember them! I think of them as a band from college years tho , while grunge was more high school.

I was/am a major fan of the Mr. T Experience. The lyrics are really involved. Everyone should hear 'The History of the Concept of the Soul'. I don't think they're grunge, but hey ?

+1!
say what you will about Courtney, Hole Rocks!

Hole is great, and Courtney is incredibly talented. Her voice was (maybe still is) top tier.

I pretty much like all the mainstream Grunge music (I'm 53 now).

 

[Mystic]

I saw Chris (and Soundgarden duh) exactly 1 week before he died.

I have never cried for someone I've never known personally but I did that day.
Shit I'm tearing up typing this.

****.



Matt

Cornell was a special talent, man.

 

[Pio1980]

I remember Soundgarden specifically for Black Hole Sun.
Re Seattle grunge. Was working for Boeing really that depressing, I remember thinking.
For you, Chris.
R. I. P.

 

[Worried Man]

I loved the whole grunge thing, and I'm glad I was around to "experience" it, as it were, although I was much older than most of the people who were into it. I was born in 1955, by the way, but music has never been confined by generation for me, i.e., I've always enjoyed riding the waves of new music. Anyway, I had been into "college rock" and such in the 1980s, so I was aware of the SubPop label and their bands a few years before Nirvana's Nevermind and the subsequent grunge explosion. I think that much of it now sounds a bit dated, especially Mudhoney, even Soundgarden. Nirvana remains listenable.

But yeah, SubPop was a great label. I have a few SubPop singles from the singles club, including a Smashing Pumpkins single on bubblegum pink vinyl.

 

[BigElCat]

Re Seattle grunge. Was working for Boeing really that depressing, I remember thinking.

ROFL. What's a world without ICBMs ?

 

[Pio1980]

ROFL. What's a world without ICBMs ?

That vid is a lot more disturbingly dark than I remembered.

 

[BigElCat]

I guess Chris got tired of the roller coaster. I'll be 7 years clean and sober on Aug. 10.

say what you will about Courtney

Courtney's beautiful. A guy would just have to lock her out of the house before he went to sleep.

 

[Pio1980]

I guess Chris got tired of the roller coaster. I'll be 7 years clean and sober on Aug. 10.



Courtney's beautiful. A guy would just have to lock her out of the house before he went to sleep.

I got 34 in three weeks.
Courtney never struck me as a ray of sunshine.