#Screaming Trees

[mb-scatafalcostuff]

Screaming Trees ~ "Sworn and Broken" (1996)

[ph0totr0p1c]

if you aren't wearing hoop earrings, are you really grunge?

[guerrilla-operator]

MARK LANEGAN

[jarofalicesgrunge]

Alice In Chains and Screaming Trees Concert at Noorderlicht Tilburg 1993

📸 by Popline ©️

[possible-streetwear]

[rockingreads]

Mark Yarm: Everybody Loves Our Town: An Oral History of Grunge (2012)

So, so much has been written about the 1990s alternative rock revolution centered in, of all places, the rainy outpost of Seattle, WA, but there's nothing quite like hearing from the people who wrote, played, and promoted the songs that turned the world on its ear.

Mark Yarm (no relation to Mudhoney leader Mark Arm) took it upon himself to collect and contextualize these stories in 2012's Everybody Loves Our Town: An Oral History of Grunge, which, at almost 600 pages, positively bulges with the results of over 250 interviews.

Well, there is a lot to cover, since Yarm starts his investigation in 1980s, post-hardcore America, gradually piecing together the precursors (Green River, the U-Men, the Melvins, Skin Yard, Mother Love Bone, etc.) and the peculiar cultural/musical landscape (including the impact of Sub-Pop and other labels) that eventually nurtured the ideal conditions for grunge's emergence.

Yarm then extensively chronicles the movement's '90s heyday in the words of its biggest stars (Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains), secondary players (Screaming Trees, Mudhoney, Tad, etc.), AND relative busts (Gruntruck, Truly, Love Battery, etc.), plus tangential participants (the Melvins, Smashing Pumpkins, Hole, etc.) and even satellite movements like riot grrrl (L7, Babes in Toyland, 7 Year Bitch).

In fact, part of me almost hoped that Yarm would wrap up his, errr ... yarn with Cobain's suicide, but he soldiers on to address the Seattle scene's depressing decline and disintegration amid commercial co-opting (Candlebox, Bush, Stone Temple Pilots) and fatalities.

It's a lot to take in, but it's also a reminder that, maybe the most exciting thing about the grunge era, and why its still recalled so fondly by those of us who experienced it in the moment, is that it wiped the popular music slate clean like almost nothing before or after it.

Oh, sure, Britain's punk rock uprising of the late '70s usually claims the same honor (and it obviously influenced many of the artists in this book), but it simply wasn't as commercially and globally pervasive as what happened in Seattle, in 1991.

That's why many observers not incorrectly described '91 as "the year that punk broke through," and why everyone under 30 suddenly considered loading up on long-johns and flannel in order to relocate to the Pacific Northwest.

Featured Records:

Mudhoney: Superfuzz Migmuff EP (1988)

Alice in Chains: Facelift (1990)

Nirvana: Bleach (1989)

Soundgarden: Louder than Love (1989)

Pearl Jam: Ten (1991)

Mother Love Bone: Apple (1990)

Buy from: Amazon

[mtvscreengrabs]

Nearly Lost You - Screaming Trees (1992)

[gett-merkedd]

Corporate prison, we stay, hey

I'm a dull boy, work all day, oh

So I'm strung out anyway, hey

— Layne Staley

[traderrock]

[spilladabalia]

Screaming Trees - Nearly Lost You

[sawbladeleadpipe]

mark lanegan in the music video “nearly lost you” by screaming trees, 1992

via

[h3re-c0mes-s1ckness]

My favourite cross dressers

[fallen-starchild]

Mark Lanegan.

3 years.

[jarofalicesgrunge]

Alice in Chains and Screaming Trees flyer 90s Concerts ©️

[rockingreads]

Mark Lanegan: Sing Backwards and Weep: A Memoir (2020)

When Mark Lanegan published his gritty, unsettling, teeth-grinding autobiography, Sing Backwards and Weep, in April of 2020 (on my 50th birthday, no less!), he was amazingly one of the few '90s grunge frontmen still breathing!

So his unsparing account of his years of drug addiction and the music career he somehow managed to pursue in spite of it with the ever-dysfunctional Screaming Trees (while close friends and peers like Kurt Cobain, Layne Staley, and others dropped like flies all around him) makes for a gripping read.

Based on Lanegan's candid misadventures, the fact that he ultimately beat the odds to enjoy immense critical acclaim, relatively stable and continued success both as a solo artist and key contributor to Queens of the Stone Age and other projects, plus some manner of personal contentment is nothing short of a miracle.

Indeed, by the time you put it down, this is one of those rock star memoirs that leave you thinking "there's no way this guy should be alive!"

And yet, it still felt like a tale of triumph over adversity with a seemingly open-ended happy ending … until Lanegan sadly passed away two years ago, still far too young at 57.

The only consolation it that he lived to be much older than many of those who knew him well could ever have expected.

R.I.P.

Featured Records:

Screaming Trees: Sweet Oblivion (1992)

Screaming Trees: Dust (1996)

Queens of the Stone Age: Songs for the Deaf (2002)

Buy from: Amazon

[musickickztoo]

Mark Lanegan † February 22, 2022