#layne staley my beloved

[nirvana-ok]

Alice in Chains’ self-titled “Tripod” album was released 28 years ago today. November 7th, 1995.

Featuring the singles “Grind”, “Heaven Beside You”, and “Again”, it was the third studio album released by the band and the final with Layne Staley ♥️

📸 Photo by Marty Temme, 1995

[junkh3ad]

Layne Staley is the only singer i come back to time and time again no matter how many years it’s been. I wish he was here, i wish he knew how influential he was and i wish he had gotten the help he needed. Mike Starr’s retelling of his last time seeing Layne always sends chills down my spine and i completely get why Mike blamed himself for all those years. How couldn’t you? Your best friend died and you were the last one to see him, you tried to help but risked losing him if you did, but you lost him either way.

I always think about what could have happened if Layne got the help he needed. Maybe he’d stop blaming himself about Demri, Maybe he’d still be making kick ass music. Maybe he still would have died.

I had no way of knowing him, i was 3 when he died! But i miss him every day. Any video i see with him makes me so happy, he was such a great guy by the looks of it and from the stories i’ve read. Layne Staleys been the center of my heart for so long, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

[nineinchnymph]

Layne Staley, My Beloved 🖤

[ladyxskywalker]

comfort tag game 💐

tagged by the lovely @zinzinina 💕

no pressure tags 💌 @paper-n-ashes @hopeamarsu @clydesducktape @tlcwrites @artemiseamoon @mariesackler @writeforfandoms @honeymunson @justrunamok @pearlstiare @saradika @serkenobi @penfullofwordsaheadfullofstories

please make your own post, do not reblog 💌

comfort foods: pizza, my favorite chinese food, baked ziti, a grilled cheese sandwich with soup, fries, hot wings, linguine with mussels, spicy roast beef, a nice piece of chocolate cake, strawberry ice cream

comfort beverages: hazelnut or mocha coffee, earl grey or lady grey tea, chocolate shake

my comfort songs: a thousand miles from nowhere, I could fall in love, como la flor, always, the magic, this light between us, nutshell (live), bleed the freak, would?, no excuses, heaven beside you, hallelujah, wander this world, what a feeling, slow burn (aly&aj), slow dancing, all the pretty places [💌]

my comfort stories: (movie, book, fanfic): the holiday, ever after, you've got mail, the karate kid

my comfort characters: lorelai gilmore, regina mills, fallon carrington, klaus mikaelson, luke skywalker, obi wan kenobi, johnny lawrence, joe cruz, kim burgess, king francis & queen mary, henry de tamble

my comfort daydreams: kissing layne staley in 1993, falling in love with klaus mikaelson in a fictional world, sailing or seeing a waterfall, being in a field of wildflowers on top of a mountain, a meet cute where I am the leading lady of my own story

my comfort memories: one summer in college when me & my friends spent a perfect day together, playing catch under the brooklyn bridge, going to the beach, being little, going to concerts with my best friend joe & taking pictures with the bands, getting to go for a ride in his ford bronco with the top down, crazy parties at my friends' house when we first met that reminded me of beloved 80s movies

my comfort videos: (youtube, tiktok, etc.) orsara recipes, frankie cooks, carlo and sarah, recess therapy, the dodo, joewayyy, hnicholsillustration, selena live at the astrodome, alice in chains videos

my comfort outfits: (any season) my black sabbath shirt from their final tour with their picture on it, jeans, & black suede ankle boots, leather jacket; fall sweaters, sports shirts for my fave teams & players; cute fitted tops with jeans, or dressy shorts, strappy sandals, charm bracelets, my heart necklace, & matching ring ����

my comfort friends: in my daily life, my best friends anthony, javan, & josh 💛🌼

my comfort activities: watching baseball with my mom, going to the park & getting pizza with my bro, having a drink at my new favorite bar, going to the beach, crocheting, listening to music & singing with my favorite songs, eating out at the diner

my comfort objects: (stuffed animal, painting, momento) my soft baby yoda, my tiny kittens stuffed animals I've had since I was little, my stuffed fuzzy hedgehog with a funny winter hat, my duckie that I've had since I was little, my brooklyn nets teddy bear that I call 'kevin bear' after kevin durant, a painting in my room that my best friend javan made for me, smooth rocks from the beach

misc. comfort things not listed above: cozy hugs & warm laughter, joking around & being silly, flowers in my backyard, my favorite sweatshirts, socks, & cozy blankets, baking cookies, going to the nature trails

[aidenr0se]

name: aiden rose bancroft - original character / para / novella nickanames: aiden rose, bug age: 23 birthday: november 23rd facing: miley cyrus established: 2011 occupation: pop star, actress, model born: nashville, current california resident siblings: vera bancroft orientation: pansexual pro nouns: she/her relationship status: taken by layne thomas pets: none, yet children: angel baby staley exes: brayden hemsworth parents: deceased smoke: yes drink: no any other doc: recovering h addict ------ timeline: 1989 to in storyline present 1993 ------ at a young age aiden was forced into childhood modeling, and began signing at the age of 9 without any lessons. she began acting at the age of 11, and retired from that at the age of 19.

at 20 she met her current partner -- while dabbling and battling an extensive addiction to dope. at nearly 21, her now partner and her separated -- reconnecting while in her first bout at rehab. coincidentally they were at the same center in hidden hills, californa. aiden was forced into rehab after her home in maibu burnt to the ground during a series of severe fires that plagued the area, shortly after the fire where she escaped without any harm, the married her now ex husband brayden -- the relationship lated 3.5 months, due to her continued use of smack, and over disdain for her then partner. she had truly never let her feelings for layne die, and she mostly married brayden out of complacency as they too, had extensive history. after signing off on her divorce papers, she recorded two tracks, which have never been played live. "bad mood" and "he's not him". in the midst of her session she overdosed and was forced into a rehab facility where she completed 60 days in patient, where her and layne reconnected. ----- the pair, layne and aiden reconnected and completed their time together, being released only 30 days ago. they were surprised to realize they were on the same tour bill for lollapalooza 1993 and have been prepping for the tour for the last three weeks. they are set to start in vancouver within the coming days. layne and aiden have had time to spend alone together, with supervised visits of course. the one drawback of label control. finally, they are on the road to the first show in vancouver bc, where they will be preforming, but also sharing a sober bus. aiden has extreme anxiety to play a saturated rock festival as a pop artist, and has prepared a list of past and new songs to play, as an opener for her beloved boyfriend's four piece band alice in chains from seattle.

overall, aiden is thrilled to have a safe sober space to retire to with her partner as both her and layne are dreading this commitment. ----- ooc note: this is my original character, that i have written since 2011. i have NO open connections this is a fxm storyline i write privately with layne's writer. IF roles become open i will make an edit here i have been rping since 2006 - please, do not fuck with me. i am not claiming to be my muse, i simply face her. our timeline is 1993 this blog was created to see what tumblr had to offer as far as ocxoc content. if you are not part of a grunge rp, you are most likely not welcome. this is a specific nice and a lot of information has to be known and known well. i was previously, maddie/maddison dolce. so if you know who that is, yes i'm back. this is for FUN and layne's writer and i are following a specific timeline. i WILL follow other oc's back if i feel a connection please don't count on it. tags that are ooc will be tagged as such. tia.

[milkmakesmesick]

layne staley 1993 interview // everyone left ~ puzzle

[badcountryofficial]

facelift alice in chains so good

[goomifon]

A few portraits of my beloved singer Layne Staley from Alice in Chains. Layne is my favorite person, I love all his styles, his music, his personality. I love portraying him

[lunapwrites]

Hi Jass 💗🌸 58 and 104 for the music ask thing please! <3

Aaah Julia my beloved hi!!!

I see you have gifted me another punny one. XD

“Well, one of us had to have taste, and it certainly wasn’t you. Least not at first.” “Coming from the man who thinks Stairway to Heaven was overrated.” "Coming from the man who had never even heard of Zeppelin until I started sharing my records with him." "That's not--" "They had other songs than that and Black Dog, you know."

Remus is a music snob, send tweet.

OK so for this one it's important that it's the cover. (Also OH MY GOD LOOK AT BABY DAVE GROHL.) The original is too cheery somehow; it really requires the gritty moodiness of grunge. The vibe is this:

It's cold and it's raining and you've got no umbrella and it doesn't matter because you had one job. One. Only say just enough to get them off your ass. But they dug under your skin, into the meat of you and you bit back (you never bite back.) You lost your temper. And that bill of yours that's finally come due got passed to him instead and you can't be bothered by how cold it is -- you can't feel it -- because it's colder in hell and you may have just sent him back.

Thanks for the ask! <3 <3

PS: fun fact that no one asked for - kurt was in the top 3 contenders for grunge-era musician faceclaims for remus along with layne staley when i first started down this road and if that doesn't tell you all you need to know about his backstory in LTL i don't know what will lol. either way it ended up being neither of them in the end; their overall energy wasn't quite right.

[sexydeathparty]

Mark Lanegan, Screaming Trees And Queens Of The Stone Age Singer, Has Died Aged 57

Mark Lanegan, singer of the grunge band Screaming Trees, has died aged 57.

The musician was also a member of rock bands Queens Of The Stone Age and The Gutter Twins, and collaborated with artists such as Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain.

A statement posted on Mark’s official Twitter account said he died at his home in Killarney, Ireland, on Tuesday morning.

The statement reads: “Our beloved friend Mark Lanegan passed away this morning at his home in Killarney, Ireland.  

“A beloved singer, songwriter, author and musician he was 57 and is survived by his wife Shelley.  No other information is available at this time. We ask Please respect the family privacy.”

Our beloved friend Mark Lanegan passed away this morning at his home in Killarney, Ireland.  A beloved singer, songwriter, author and musician he was 57 and is survived by his wife Shelley.  No other information is available at this time. We ask Please respect the family privacy

— mark lanegan (@marklanegan) February 22, 2022

Mark joined Screaming Trees in the 1980s and went on to produce eight studio albums until the group’s split in 2000.

He first appeared on Queens of the Stone Age’s Rated R album in 2000 and lent his voice and songwriting talent to several songs.

He later formed The Gutter Twins with Afghan Whigs vocalist Greg Dulli. The musician also featured on the 1995 album Above by Mad Season.

As frontman of Screaming Trees, the 6ft 2in star produced some of the genre’s most psychedelic and experimental music.

Formed in 1985, their commercial breakthrough came with the release of 1992’s Sweet Oblivion, which was buoyed by the popularity of grunge bedfellows such as Nirvana.

The album birthed their biggest single, the soaring Nearly Lost You.

When they disbanded in 2000 amid creative differences, Mark went on to establish himself as a varied and successful solo artist, working under numerous aliases and with artists including English multi-instrumentalist Duke Garwood and cellist Isobel Campbell.

In 2020, he published a “no holds barred” memoir called Sing Backwards And Weep, in which the musician covered everything from “addiction to touring, petty crime, homelessness and the tragic deaths of his closest friends”, among them Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain and Alice in Chains’ Layne Staley.

Last year saw him publish another book, a memoir called Devil In A Coma, in which he detailed his battle with Covid-19. In an excerpt from the book, published by The Guardian, he told of being placed in a medically induced coma while in hospital in County Kerry, Ireland.

An excerpt says: “From the moment I was brought out of my chemically induced sleep and was told what had happened and where I had been, I was determined to survive this nightmare, even though I had very little say, actually, no say in the matter, and had zero ammo to fight with.”

Speaking to the PA News Agency about his book and friends, he said in 2020: “I think about them both a lot. And the book actually restarted that thought process all over again.

“I kind of made peace with a lot of that stuff but it doesn’t mean you stop thinking about those guys or stop missing them or stop loving them.”

His last album, Straight Songs Of Sorrow, arrived to critical acclaim in 2020.

Throughout his career he collaborated with some of the biggest names in the music industry, including Massive Attack, Moby, Pearl Jam, the Eagles of Death Metal and more.

Screaming Trees drummer Mark Pickerel has led tributes to his former bandmate and “big brother”.

May you truly Rest in Peace Big Brother @marklaneganpic.twitter.com/XwgO10bRkL

— mark pickerel (@mtpickerel) February 22, 2022

Very sad news about Mark Lanegan. "in The Fade" by @qotsa is one of the greatest songs of all time. nearly lost you is incredible 💔

— Mark Ronson (@MarkRonson) February 22, 2022

Devastated by this-heartbreaking a huge talent on so many levels-such an amazing voice and all those beautiful words-love and respect to family friends and all those who loved his unique artistic vision💔💔💔 https://t.co/7UszbGg7iz

— Manic Street Preachers (@Manics) February 22, 2022

Mark Lanegan was a lovely man. He led a wild life that some of us could only dream of. He leaves us with fantastic words and music! Thank god that through all of that he will live forever. RIP Mark. Sleep well. Love Hooky. X pic.twitter.com/Xnx76y68YC

— Peter Hook (@peterhook) February 22, 2022

MESSAGE FROM IGGY: Mark Lanegan, RIP, deepest respect for you. Your fan, Iggy Pop

— Iggy Pop (@IggyPop) February 22, 2022

Aww man, Mark Lanegan.

— Elijah Wood (@elijahwood) February 22, 2022

Oh no. Terrible news that Mark Lanegan has left us. Safe travels man - you’ll be missed 💔

— Tim Burgess (@Tim_Burgess) February 22, 2022

Hearing about Mark Lanegan passing away has properly stopped me in my tracks. I’m absolutely gutted. Met him on a couple of occasions and I was nervous because I loved him so much. He was a perfect gentleman, really kind. One of THE great singers of the last 30 years. So sad 💔

— Badly Drawn Boy (@badly_drawn_boy) February 22, 2022

Killarney councillor and publican Niall O’Callaghan said people in the town were saddened to learn of Mark’s death.

He told the PA news agency: “On behalf of Killarney and the people, we would like to sincerely send our condolences to the family of Mr Lanegan.

“We are all in the town saddened to learn of the untimely death. Killarney is a small town and we all know each other; it’s a tight-knit community.

“It is a sad day for the town when you lose anyone who lived here. For a man of the stature of Mark Lanegan, it was a real honour that he choose to live in Killarney.”

from HuffPost UK - Athena2 - All Entries (Public) https://ift.tt/zo09E5d via IFTTT

[nehistripesseattle]

The Crocodile had always been my favorite venue for the annual Layne STALEY tribute. There’s so much energy and for myself, I can sense spirits lingering around. Nonetheless, it’s like home to many of us. From 8/24/19, this is Jar of Flies, including Brendan Maier. Brendan is now a permanent member of this beloved tribute band. Photo by my good friend - Kurt Clark also of NeHi Stripes Seattle @nehistripesphoto - link to purchase tickets to the 2021 tribute available in our bio. See you all there! -CC #laynestaleytribute2021 #jaroffliestributeband #brendanmaier #nehistripesseattle (at The Crocodile) https://www.instagram.com/p/CSfIFBnpaoq/?utm_medium=tumblr

[tunesiloved-blog]

Chris Cornell - a 24 year soundtrack to my life

I don’t think that there has been a week in the last 24 years when I haven’t listened to Chris Cornell’s voice. His music has been the soundtrack to my life and listening to his songs conjures up vivid memories - sitting in a field watching bats at twilight, bouncing around in a darkened club with sticky floors, sitting in the car listening to just one more song before going to the office, his screams drowning out the clanging in a MRI scanner… Knowing we’re in a post Cornell world has made everything feel off kilter. I won’t grow old together with his music; instead he now occupies the same space as Jeff Buckley. A music catalogue that is beloved yet tinged with sadness and what could have beens.

At first I didn’t know the song that was playing when I first heard him. I was listening to John Peel on my Walkman in 1993 and his voice stopped me in my tracks. It was days later before I found out it was Rusty Cage. His music meant a lot to me because from that night, before I knew who or what it was, it spoke to me on a visceral level. Something in me recognised itself in the music and it was like coming home. As simple as that.

Finding out about bands, especially the ‘grunge’ ones in the 90s involved a lot of detective work, you were reliant on the weekly music press, radio, and friends who had access to MTV. I remember waiting weeks for the Louder than Love, Temple of the Dog and Singles CDs to arrive from the US and had a tape of Badmotorfinger that I literally wore out. So it was surprising when I was in the US a few months after the release of Superunknown to see exactly how popular they were.

Superunknown will always be their most well known album. It showed greater sophistication than Badmotorfinger but still as heavy and fearsome, you could hear echoes of the struggle with depression and darkness in the lyrics. I also associated with it as an introvert, dealing with other people and trying (and failing) to find a way of fitting in only to be left confused and exhausted by it all.

The Day I Tried to Live is a perfect example of this frustration. It starts out ‘I woke the same as any other day/Except a voice was in my head/It said seize the day, pull the trigger, drop the blade/And watch the rolling heads’ but then by the end of the song ‘I woke the same as any other day, you know/I should have stayed in bed’. And who hasn’t felt like that? Other stand outs were Mailman as the perfect ‘fuck you’ song, My Wave, Fell on Black Days and of course Black Hole Sun.

However Down on the Upside is my favourite album; it’s complex and dark and I have a greater understanding of it as I have grown older. Jason Heller from Pitchfork said that it is “every inch as dense and harrowing as In Utero” and he’s right. It starts off with Pretty Noose, a track that could have been on Superunknown, then by the third song you are swept into Zero Chance starting with the poetic ‘I think I know the answer/I stumbled on and all the world fell down/And all the sky went silent/Cracked like glass and slowly/Tumbled to the ground.’ Then it hits you in the gut with ‘They say if you look hard/You’ll find your way back home/Born without a friend/And bound to die alone.’ You are then promptly thrown into Dusty where you are ‘back on the upside’.

This rollercoaster goes throughout the album – and it’s worth noting that this is an album that you need to listen in its entirety and not cherry pick. Grab a drink, sit down and truly immerse yourself in it. After all these years Tighter and Tighter still makes me tingle down to my toes and Blow up the Outside World is now desperately sad.

Temple of a Dog was an album that simply ached with longing and grief (Reach Down and Hello 2 Heaven), but valiantly tried to pull you into a celebration of life and love too (All Night Thing and Call Me a Dog). It was completely different to Badmotorfinger and gave a hint of what would be found in his solo albums. Euphoria Morning felt like an explosion of everything that he was keeping to himself since Seasons. You can’t miss the sense of grief for Jeff Buckley threaded among the songs about alienation and relationships in Wave Goodbye and When I’m Down, where he says ‘I’m always drowning in my grief’. In fact I think that the loss of his friends had a greater impact upon him than anyone realised.

In 2015 in a one off gig called Sonic Evolution, Cornell joined the remaining members of Mad Season and accompanied by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. I can’t think of anyone else who could do justice to Layne Staley’s lyrics and make it sound less like an elaborate karaoke and more a celebration of his work. Once again, he sang some Temple of the Dog songs and you just knew that there was so much musical potential in that room just waiting to explode.

King Animal showed that Soundgarden weren’t reforming just to make money off the old back catalogue, with an album that was a solid progression from Down on the Upside, borrowing influences for Cornell’s time with Audioslave and Timbaland as well as Matt Cameron’s experience with Pearl Jam. One song in particular stands out for me and has been the perfect kick up the ass track. Rowing is powerful with its mantra like simplicity, pulled along by a bass line that is reminiscent of Rusty Cage, complemented with some mixing that he clearly picked up from making Scream. ‘Don’t know where I’m going I just keep on rowing/I just keep on polling, gotta row Moving is breathing and breathing is life/stopping is dying/you’ll be alright/Life is a hammer waiting to drop/Drifting the shallows and the rowing won’t stop… Rowing is bleeding, bleeding is breathing/Breathing is feeling, running and freezing We’re getting dirty but I stared out clean/Keep on Rowing.’

I was lucky enough to see him twice, once with Audioslave in 2003 and the other in 2013 with Soundgarden. Each time was truly exceptional and were the best gigs I have ever seen. They both simultaneously gave me goosebumps and also bought me to tears more often than I’d like to admit. Hearing Tighter and Tighter, Cochise, Rusty Cage and Outshined were some of the highlights. I don’t think I’ll ever attend a better concert, what’s more I think that everyone attending knew they were witnessing something special.

He left such an extensive back catalogue, but also worked not only with his friends from Seattle, but further afield. The three Audioslave albums were inspiring with a shift towards a Morello style rock where he was able to showcase another aspect of his voice. Scream with Timbaland was …. interesting (although the title track is an insistent ear worm). He also helped produce the posthumous Jeff Buckley albums, and showed great sensitivity handling the unfinished work. It makes me wonder what will stem from his death, you cannot be such an integral part of a musical scene without shockwaves being felt far and wide. When that happens, the safety valve is to make music. Even in death, he will be the source of musical inspiration.

While I’ve been writing this it has been thundering for most of the time, as if the music is reaching the heavens and the sky itself is shaking with frustration of the unfairness of it all. A friend said we shouldn’t have been surprised that it ended as it did, in retrospect we were warned - and we were. Yet in listening back (and some of the songs are exceptionally hard to do so) I feel that he was often recognising his depression and the darkness that haunted him, yet he said he’d carry on and still got up every day – until he didn’t.

My heart hurts for his family and how much pain he must have been in, and how hard he fought it for so long. His was a talent that only happens once in a lifetime and only truly recognised now he is gone. We as a society let him, and so many others like him down. We need to end the stigma of mental illness, especially for men. He did warn us and carrying on with that burden must have been exhausting, I hope he is at rest now.

[babalicious]

POWERFUL ESSAY On Music/Creativity, Depression / Generational Shifts, etc. - Bravo Rich Larson! - so much resonates for this 52 year old, still struggling...***

“Chris Cornell died early Thursday morning. His band Soundgarden played a show on Wednesday night at the Fox Theater in Detroit. Two hours after the show ended, he was gone.

For two days, I’ve been working on a piece to pay tribute to him, and it’s been a struggle. Usually when I have a problem like this it’s because I’m staring at a blank screen trying to figure out what I want to say. That’s not the problem this time. The problem is I have way too much to say.

I’m not going to sit here and claim to have been a huge fan of Soundgarden. I didn’t dislike them, I just had to take them in small doses. I was a fan of Cornell. I love “Seasons,” the solo song he had on Cameron Crowe’s movie, Singles. It’s a droning acoustic song about isolation and the meaningless passing of time. Your basic nihilistic statement written at what was probably the peak of rock’s most nihilistic period.

I was a fan of Cornell as a person. Of all the great musicians that were packed into Seattle in the late 80’s and early 90’s, from Mark Arm of Mudhoney to Jeff Ament of Mother Love Bone and Pearl Jam to the Great Tortured Genius himself, Kurt Cobain, Cornell seemed like he rose a little bit above the others. He was the unofficial communicator of the Seattle scene. Like a Pacific Northwest Sinatra, he had a charisma and a calm grace about him. He was thoughtful, even charming, in interviews, unlike his compatriots who disdained fame and accolades (or at least pretended to). Cornell was the guy who seemed most like he could handle all the attention without turning it into an existential crisis.

Now he’s dead because, as it turns out, he had been dealing with an existential crisis most of his life. I was a fan, and I had a ton of respect for him. But it’s taken me a little while to understand why his death has affected me as strongly as it has.

At first I thought it might have something to do with the fact that I was mostly a bystander while the music of my generation was taking over. Just as Nirvana and Pearl Jam were making that gigantic breakthrough in 1992, my fiancé and I discovered we were pregnant. So instead of investigating mosh pits at the 7th Street Entry, or watching Soundgarden and Pearl Jam rule the stage at Lollapalooza (it was a traveling festival in those days), I was hastily throwing together a wedding and then changing diapers. My wife and I got an early jump on things, so we’ve always told ourselves that we’d make up for lost time in our forties and fifties.

Well here we are, and something like this just makes it feel like we’ve arrived too late. But while that’s a legitimate thing, I don’t really think that’s exactly what is bothering me.

Then I thought maybe it’s a generational thing. Grunge is the gift that Generation X gave to the world of music. We took all that slacker cynicism, mixed it up with our older siblings’ sneering punk attitude, Zeppelin’s low end and, if we’re being honest, a little heroin. The result was the musical version of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. It was gorgeous art that was absolutely sure that nothing really matters, making it feel immediate and important. It was the sound of a generation telling everybody, including ourselves, to fuck off.

And while we were wallowing in our splendid alienation, our spokespeople, predictably, started dying. First it was Andrew Wood of Mother Love Bone. A lot of us didn’t know about him until Cornell, along with Wood’s erstwhile bandmates (who were about to form Pearl Jam) memorialized him with a one off tribute called Temple of the Dog. Somehow, Wood’s story made death part our music’s romantic foundation.

A couple years later, Cobain killed himself with a shotgun. He was 27. Our Bob Dylan, the voice of our generation, threw it all away because he was afraid he was becoming a cliché. At least, that’s what we told ourselves at the time.

Shortly thereafter, Kristen Pfaff of Hole overdosed and died in a bathtub. And then Shannon Hoon of Blind Melon overdosed and died on a tour bus. It felt like people like D’arcy Wretzky of Smashing Pumpkins, Scott Weiland of Stone Temple Pilots, and, perhaps especially, Courtney Love – Pfaff’s bandmate and Cobain’s widow – were all headed in the same direction.

Alice in Chains’ Layne Staley died of a gruesome overdose. The fact that his body was not discovered for more than a week felt somehow fitting. He was a emblematic of a generation that just wanted to be left alone.

And just when it felt like our music, and maybe our entire generation, would never live to see 30, things turned around. Love and Weiland cleaned their acts up (at least for a while). Bands like Pearl Jam thrived long after the term “Heroin Chic” disappeared. Before we knew it, we were a decade into a new century and a lot of the Poets of Grunge were still standing. Some of them were even in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It felt like our heroes were out of the woods.

When Weiland died of an overdose of cocaine, alcohol and MDA at the end of 2015, it felt like an echo, and not something rooted in the present. He had become the most notorious addict of them all over the years; in and out of rehab so many times we had all lost hope for him. His death was something that had been predicted so often for so long that it might as well have happened in 1997.

But Chris Cornell died of suicide on May 17, 2017, at the age of 52. He was a dad. He was a philanthropist. He was becoming an elder statesman of rock. He was a grown up. Cornell was aging gracefully, even doing that thing where some guys get better looking as they get older. He got Soundgarden back together, and they made a great new album a couple years ago. His voice still had all the power and strength it had displayed in his youth. Much like the rest of us, the world had kicked his ass a couple times, and he survived.

But now he’s gone, and goddammit, his is the death that bothers me the most. As I’ve been thinking about this, I’m realizing that it’s both a personal and a generational thing. Cornell had a long struggle with depression. As have I. As have many of you.

It’s possible that, along with grunge, Generation X’s other great gift to society is depression. I mean, of course it was here long before the Baby Boomers started re-producing, but we talk about it more than those who came before us. We talk about it as a demon or a monster. It’s a dark shadow that shows itself at any point in time without warning. It surrounds us, isolates us, and quiets us. Depression likes to blame things. We feel like shit because of mistakes we have made in life or because of the state of the world or because we aren’t perfect. Without a lot of help and a lot of work, it’s impossible to know that it really is a chemical imbalance in our brains. After twenty-plus years of trying to de-stigmatize depression, some of us still have a hard time recognizing it for what it is. And even then, it doesn’t always matter.

You might think grunge is about anger, but that’s not completely true. Yes, it can sound that way, but it’s really about depression and cynicism. Those two go hand-in-hand, along with their nasty little sister, anxiety. When the three of them get going, they just eat hope as quickly as it can be summoned. That leaves despair and despair is exhausting, not just for those who experience it, but for the people around it as well. So we keep it to ourselves because we don’t want to be a burden. And then it gets to be too much. 

Doesn’t matter if you’re a student, a mom, an accountant or a rock star. It doesn’t matter if you’ve written about it your entire life as a means of keeping it at bay. It doesn’t matter if the music you made about it brought in fame, respect and millions of dollars. It doesn’t matter if your entire generation has suffered from it. Depression makes you feel totally alone. You hit the breaking point, and then, like Chris Cornell, you die alone in the bathroom.

This was a well-respected member of his community; a beloved musical hero who seemed to have it all together. This could have been any of us. And brothers and sisters, if it’s you, don’t mess around with it. Please find some help.

Cornell is speaking to us all one last time. This isn’t something we left behind with our twenties. This isn’t something cured by age or financial security. This isn’t something you “outgrow.” If it’s allowed to fester, depression is stronger than wisdom. Depression is insidious and tenacious. 

Depression can get to anybody. It can make you feel like an old man at 27. It can make you feel lost as a child at 52.

Call it a senseless tragedy. Call it a second-act cautionary tale. Call it whatever you want. Just don’t blow it off as meaningless.

Rest in peace, Chris.”   ************************

Rich Larson is a freelance writer & budding publishing entrepreneur. If you like what you’ve read here, please CONSIDER THIS. He can be reached at richlarson@nexttenwords.com

[thedigitalcrates]

#WCW 😍 A woman this talented , beautiful, & successfull shouldn't be depressed ... its something about this business that drives these type geniuses CRAZY! We need to shed a light on this issue that usually leads to drug use and SOOO MANY fallen stars!!! Was thinking a lot lately about Kurt Cobain, Tupac Shakur, Jimmy Hendrix, Bradley Knowell, Layne Staley, Scott Weiland the list goes on and we as an artistic community need to address the mental health of our beloved entertainers !!! This has been on my mind HEAVY lately ! #digitalcrates #rawliferecords #artistic #guitar #hiphop #song #musician #recording #band #rap #classic #pop #rockstar #musicvideo #songs #musical #festival #group #concert #bands #rocknroll #rockband #singer #likeforfollow #likeforlike #producer #pianist #support