Soundgarden

What? Was the limp-pop direction of his first (& only) solo joint failing him so much that he's reverting back to his Badmotorfinger / Louder than Love uber-aggression stance?

It's a shame - both Superunknown & Down on the Upside had some good tunes on them. And, yes, that's TUNES. I'm partial to those two albums, but that's not to slight Badmotorfinger at all. Their stuff preceeding that is catch-as-catch-can - especially Ultramega OK, which only lives up to the latter half of its title. (I know Maura would vehemently disagree, though. Or, at the very least, respectfully refute.)

Personally, I think Soundgarden was better @ going "pop" than being "grunge". If you want Sabbath-esque guitar leads & thud-thud- thud, all you need is the Melvins. All you should want is the Melvins. All there is is the Melvins, really. (Granted, King Buzzo can't wail like a Mecha-Christina (post-testosterone shots, mind you), but SG's excessive use of that schtick didn't do Chris any favors.)

By the way - despite my developed aversion for all things Classic & Rock, I'd have to say that Led Zeppelin III and IV are nearly unassailable. Lumping the Zep in with the Doors is a damn shame.

Best and most effective damn dump on Zac I've ever read. Yow!

After that, classic. After I was out of high school and I went through various phases of elitism, I sort of forgot how classic. But I remembered eventually.

All of the last three albums are worth listening to, as albums, though if your tastes lean toward songwriting and "hard rock" rather than metal you'd probably prefer Down on the Upside and, moreso, Superunknown. But Badmotorfinger is a motherfucker.

Aside from that, late-career singles to search (I am very much counting on Maura to pop up and recommend early ones):

Badmotorfinger: Rusty Cage, Outshined, New Damage

Superunknown: Fell On Black Days, Mailman, Limo Wreck, The Day I Tried To Live, 4th of July

Down on the Upside: uh, I don't know most of these songs by name, and I don't have my CD with me, but the two singles (Blow Up the Outside World and Burden in My Hand) are good too. "Never the Machine Forever", maybe?

As a matter of fact, their a-sides record would be an excellent purchase if you want some Soundgarden but don't think you want a whole album.

Soundgarden just couldn't top their masterwork, and "Down On The Upside" had some naff moments. Fortunately for us, their recorded output was capped off by the sublime "Boot Camp."

But one thing I was taken with was during the bridge or somewhere in the middle of all the riffage in the middle is this pretty direct lift of a couple Jesus Christ Superstar themes which I never picked up on in 1992 for one reason or another... despite picking the very same themes up in Pegboy and Afghan Whigs records from the same year. Anyone else catch that?

In any case, Soundgarden -- in their day (now many, many, many moons ago) -- were fucking **MASSIVE** , and a QUADRILLION LIGHT YEARS OF BROAD SWEEPING VAST DISTANCES better than their snivelling little pals in Nirvana. First saw them at L'Amour in Brooklyn (with Voi Vod and Faith No More) circa Louder Than Love and they blasted a new part in my hair. Great, great, great band .

big fans of Killing Joke, by the way.

Soundgarden had their moments.

I don't really see much of a point of comparison with Soundgarden and Nirvana anyway, other than they were both guitar rock bands from Seattle....Soundgarden has way more in common with the bands that Myonga just cited than Nirvana....

Also, I REALLY REALLY REALLY WISH I WOULD HAD BEEN AT THAT SHOW....christ what a lineup! I need to listen to some Voivod.

And yes, the show in question was godlike. Voi Vod had recently released Nothingface and FNM were promoting The Real Thing. And this was at a shitty, tiny little club. I was wearing a Dread Zeppelin shirt at the time, and Matt Cameron -- seemingly on his way out of the men's room during Voi Vod's set -- says "that's some funny, fucked up shit!". Yay.

i had erased dread zeppelin from my memory until i read that. yikes! boy i bet that wouldn't seem as funny if i heard it now...

I like 'em both just fine.

Actually, honestly, I guess Soundgarden were better than I ever give 'em credit for. If I'd never read a single interview with or article about them, I'd like 'em more than I do. (But still not as much as Sabbath or Zep, from whom they borrowed plenty despite their nonsensical denials.)

alex in nyc is officially the biggest crybaby on ILX.

How does merely stating a fact make me a crybaby?

I've never heard anyone else make the comparison, but Soundgarden's songwriting remind me a lot of early Traffic- stuff like "Mr. Fantasy" and "Forty Thousand Headmen"- in the lyrics, the dynamics and in Cornell's singing.

I wonder if "My Wave" was meant as a Yes rip, because it reminds me of part of "Ritual"...

Anyone know how much some of their rarer vinyl is worth? Such as:

Louder Than Live (yes, Live) on blue vinyl.
Hands All Over promo single.
Loud Love promo single.
etc.

Try completed listings on ebay -

http://cgi.ebay.com/SOUNDGARDEN-Louder-Than-Live-promo-12-blue-wax-punk_W0QQitemZ370061040886QQihZ024QQcategoryZ306QQcmdZViewItem

63 on ebay, can buy it mint on musicstack for 70.

Thanks, but how do you search for ebay completed listings?

It is under advanced search, it requires you to sign in. If you don't have an account, google is pretty good for finding recent listings too.

try http://www.popsike.com/ too

http://www.popsike.com/php/detaildata.php?itemnr=4873252359

The hell?:

The biggest highlight came when Morello introduced former Soundgarden members guitarist Kim Thayil, bassist Ben Shepard and drummer Matt Cameron. The three former bandmates took to the stage with none other than Tad Doyle, former frontman of TAD and current powerhouse singer for Brothers of the Sonic Cloth. He led the band through a three-song "Tadgarden" set that included a Soundgarden rarity and a classic.

Doyle, who is good friends with the Soundgarden crew from their days as tour and labelmates on Sub Pop, sang a powerful rendition of "Nothing to Say" and delivered a scream-laden "Spoonman," which included Morello on rhythm guitar.

It appeared as if a lot of the crowd, which was a mixture of old school grungers in their mid 30s to late 40s and younger Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave fans, didn't quite know what to make of Doyle.

lol that sounds pretty great, though i guess you would have had to sit through a tom morello solo show to see it?

haha yes... and here i am stuck with tix to see cornell ;_;

Photos and more:

http://cherrycanoe.wordpress.com/2009/03/25/nothing-to-say/

the 12 year old me just bust a nut

badmotorfinger is nothing short of explosive when the right mood hits. strangely it makes for a truly nostalgic listen, most likely because it encapsulates the creative heights of an era that was so dominant and far-reaching in its exposure, but also so brittle and dependent on the energy and conviction levels of its principle players to survive.

The iPod in my head is playing 'Room a Thousand Years Wide' right now.

that's called your brain.

Well I'm amused:

http://www.soundgardenworld.com/

I'm going to remain optimistic until further notice.

I'm pretty hyped for this though from recent material not sure if Chris' voice can still hit those big heights

I really hope this is true!

If this is true, then I'm sold. Soundgarden was 'my band' when I was a 14-year-old really discovering music for the first time, and they were my gateway drug to so much amazing stuff it's unbelievable.

I'm pretty hyped for this though from recent material not sure if Chris' voice can still hit those big heights

― Jamie_ATP, Friday, January 1, 2010 6:31 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah, that's my one concern too. although i'm pretty sure they'd still put on a killer live show where i wouldn't notice much about his voice anyway. i wonder how extensive or long term this will be, considering that Matt Cameron still tours with Pearl Jam all the time.

lmao @ Cornell tweeting "Knights of the Soundtable ride again!""

Yamamoto or Shepard?

I'm gonna take a wild guess that the bassist from the later and far more successful half of the band's career is the one involved in the reunion.

Hiro's got his own reunion going on with Truly, last I read.

This could be awesome. I hope it is. They don't have to hang around for long...just do an awesome tour of awesome shows and let me relive my youth ONE last time. Fingers-crossed that Cornell can still get his scream on...

Frankly I'd just be jazzed to see Thayill back on stage again

i'm enough of a stan that i actually went to see The Traveling Chris Cornell Good Time Rock'n'Roll Revue last year and i was worried going in but The Voice was in good form. Whatever behind-the-scenes technical wizardry was required to pull that off, I'm sure it'll still be available in 2010.

my juvenile, factually-unsupported theory is he stopped screaming when he cut his hair. grow hair back = screaming returns. in my mind, it's that simple.

grow hair back = screaming returns.

I think they're coming back as a lounge act. A full album of Wayne Newton and Burt Bacharach covers.

They will be 10X better.

:|

...another year of overwrought acoustic "Imagine" and 'Billie Jean' covers. DO NOT WANT

I think they're coming back as a lounge act. A full album of Wayne Newton and Burt Bacharach covers.

So what, less Soundgarden and more Sound Patio?

I guess with this and Alice In Chains back in business, it is time to buy stock in flannel and ripped up jeans with the 20 year cycle coming right on time.

I loved grunge (really Nirvana) at the time, but in terms of the 20-year retro cycle, I was hoping pop music would latch onto something else. I mean, don't nu-metal and screamo take the angst-fueled rage from grunge, anyway? (Unfortunately, they forgot the tunefulness and, for the most part, lack a legitimate basis for angst, but they seem to have the shouty-screamy part mastered).

I mean, don't nu-metal and screamo take the angst-fueled rage from grunge, anyway?

no offence daniel, but i have to say anyone who said this, i'd doubt whether they'd actually ever heard grunge, screamo or nu metal.

indeed haha

i'd doubt whether they'd actually ever heard grunge, screamo or nu metal.

I heard a lot of grunge in my 20s. I've stayed away, for the most part, from nu-metal and screamo. I'm open to learning or being disabused of wrong ideas, tho! What am I missing?

Every single time a grunge band reunites or tours or has a new album or a high profile reissue for the past 10 years there's been a bunch of goofy "grunge is back/we're cycling back to grunge already" grumbling. Did people go "it's the British invasion all over again!" when the Stones released albums in the '80s?

The Stones didn't really go away (like Pearl Jam I guess), but I remember theere "return to the psychedelic 60s" in the reviews for Steel Wheels around that tune Continental Drift. There was more of a ton of nostalgia being pushed on stuff like The Doors, Beatles and Hendrix. Around that time the Dead's concert crowds really expanded. The mass popular music magazines like Rolling Stone and Spin both referenced back to that stuff all the time. Not that those artists have ever really not been popular since the late 60s, but I think that late 60s stuff did get a big boost in popularity around the 20 year cycle in the late 80s.

Grunge/alternative music is just one of the next things in the docket, as the last decade was all about getting into reviving new wave/early hip hop/post punk stuff.

I'm sure like Alice In Chains is doing now, Soundgarden (and Stone Temple Pilots) are going to rake in some cash playing shows if they play the gigs. All of those bands stopped touring pretty early, one for obvious reasons, so there is probably some pent up demand to see them live.

This is where we can be thankful for the Foo Fighters having been a huge act on their own, because otherwise I'd get the feeling there would have been some sort of 'reunion' by now.

Coming soon, 3d Imax Nirvana reunion featuring Rock Band Cobain, broke Novoselic, and Dave "Probot" Grohl.

I'm sure someone out there is probably going to try to put together a Cobain/Nirvana movie like this one, which is also an example of 60s nostalgia in the late 80s.

http://i.allstarpics.net/images/orig/6/p/6pirvrzu903868i9.jpg

It'll be called "Rape Me".

Perhaps we should all script it now so that WE can be the committee that ruins it before some other committee does.

yeah, whatever ... I'm "sorta" psyched about this, as Soundgarden was a huge band for me -- I bought a used cassette of 'Ultramega OK' from Wazoo Records in Ann Arbor shortly after the album was released (they were mentioned in some article in Rolling Stone at the time about cool new college rock bands -- reviewer specifically mentioned that they sounded "like Led Zeppelin", so of course I was hooked.)

I saw them probably 10 times between '89 and '91.

I saw the Voivod/Soundgarden/Faith No More tour twice. I saw the Danzig/Soundgarden/Corrosion of Conformity tour twice. I saw the tour with Swervedriver, I saw them on Lollapalooza a couple times. Some other one-offs like the time they played Saint Andrews Hall with Big Chief opening up. Basically they were like my fave band, and they sounded so good with pot, which I was smoking a ton of in those days.

I randomly bumped into K1m Thay1l when I was in Seattle in November (I flew out to Seattle to see Them Crooked Vultures), what a thrill. Cool guy. Had fun drinking beer with him in Capital Hill.

"I saw the Voivod/Soundgarden/Faith No More tour twice."

My biggest concert regret. I was 16 and the show was 21+. It nearly killed me.

when me and high school buddies went to the show in Kalamazoo, we totally stalked Snake. We watched him walk into a bookstore, and followed him in. He was in the science fiction. We walked up to him and told him what big Voivod fans we were. He shook my hand but looked uncomfortable. I feel bad about it now.

i'd doubt whether they'd actually ever heard grunge, screamo or nu metal.

I heard a lot of grunge in my 20s. I've stayed away, for the most part, from nu-metal and screamo. I'm open to learning or being disabused of wrong ideas, tho! What am I missing?

well, mostly, i don't think there's hells of much grunge in Nu Metal, tbh - maybe Alice In Chains and PJ are an influence on yer Creed, etc, but when i think of that genre i think of Limp Bizkit, of Korn, and the like, who all dealt in a particularly numb-nutted version of rap-rock. as for screamo, again, it seems to take influence more from hardcore, etc than grunge per se, though tbh the only screamo i really rate is the AWESOME blood brothers.

Oh, I definitely buy the Nu-Metal/Numb-Nutted Rap-Rock link. Meh. I'm happy to hear that these terrible genres trace few bloodlines back to grunge.

Hey, which of those two terrible genres is that terrible song from where the singer growls "I'm doin' the best I ever did/I'm doin' the best I can/Now GO AWAY!" The intent of this song must be to make the listner LOL.

for some reason that lyric is making me think of the wonderful Blondie song 'go away', which it most certainly is NOT, so i don't know!

that song is by Godsmack, who were named after an Alice In Chains song and are way more nu-grunge than nu-metal

RIGHT! That's the terrible band -- and terrible song -- I was thinking of.

Nu-grunge . . . phooey.

daniel i don't know why youre so worried about nu-metal since we are talking about soundgarden who rule hard and always have.

lol, not really worried; it was part of a tangent. But, now that you mention it, Soundgarden was my second favorite grunge act (far, far behind Nirvana).

well, mostly, i don't think there's hells of much grunge in Nu Metal

there's lots of grunge in nu metal. Korn's debut is basically Faith No More + Pantera/Machine Head/Early 90's Sepultura groove metal + grunge song dynamics

my first Soundgarden show was Big Day Out in Melbourne in 1994...also my first real 'concert' so I had no idea what I was in for got myself a primo spot right up the front & they opened with 'Searching With My Good Eye Closed'. As soon as the music started the crowd surge lifted me off my feet and I wound up 20 people deep...scary at first but DAMN it was fun. Never forget that feeling of the bass and the guitar like piledrivers in my chest...my ears rang for days after and I was hooked.

Saw them again in 95 I think...also a great show but that first was my favorite.

Strangely, I saw Nirvana twice on the Bleach tour, but I never saw Soundgarden. I only really like Screaming Life tbh.

I only really like Screaming Life tbh

That's what everyone says! It is great, though.

I know. I get teased often for (almost) always liking a band's first release best. In this case, nothing Soundgarden ever did afterward sounds remotely like Screaming Life though. It's a little gem.

And I was just way more into Nirvana, Tad, and Green River. Soundgarden were leading the way towards the side of grunge that was reaching up into the stars instead of down into the muck.

Screaming Life was the shit..."Little Joe" one of my alltime favorite SG songs. Soundgarden was probably my first introduction to something that sounded like metal but wasn't. You know that wasn't a hair band, and that wasn't Metallica. It was something else, and I was fascinated. I think I was maybe 14 or 15...a total eyeopener for smalltown me. I mean, I was all over Pearl Jam, but the early Soundgarden was something that felt more like it was mine, because not everyone liked it the first time they heard it. the banshee wail kind of pissed people off and that pleased the hell out of my teenaged self.

SOUNDGARDEN WILL BE ONE OF THE HEADLINERS AT THIS YEARS LOLLAPALOOZA FESTIVAL. WE HOPE TO SEE YOU ALL ON AUGUST 8TH AT GRANT PARK, CHICAGO ILLINOIS.
BEN, CHRIS, KIM AND MATT

http://www.soundgardenworld.com/

/street team

Still not worth $200. Lady Gaga, The Strokes, Arcade Fire, and Green Day are the other headliners.

If they're smart the opening song will be "Searching With My Good Eye Closed."

Do people actually care about the Strokes still? Anywhere?

I would totally pay less than $20 to see the Strokes play in a small club.

Truth be known, Cornell's voice is so shot that he's using auto-tune for this show

Sorry to derail, but...

Is it just me, or are Ultramega OK and Die Kreuzen's October File basically the same album?

wish I was going to the "Nudedragons" show in Seattle tonight

http://www.ticketmaster.com/event/0F004486C4BD63A8?did=danger

+1 if I'd known i'da flown up for it

i think chris cornell is one of the best hard rock vocalists of the 90s. too bad he is a douche.

pretty sure a list of the greatest hard rock vocalists of all time would be almost wall to wall douches.

think it just was announced this afternoon, roger. else I'd have probably done the same

I know! I'm not chastising you for late notice -- it's clearly meant for local fans -- I'm just sayin' ;-)

http://www.spin.com/articles/reunited-soundgarden-play-secret-seattle-show

Setlist:
1. "Spoonman"
2. "Gun"
3. "Searching With My Good Eye Closed"
4. "Rusty Cage"
5. "Beyond The Wheel"
6. "Flower"
7. "Ugly Truth"
8. "Fell On Black Days"
9. "Hunted Down"
10. "Nothing To Say"
11. "Loud Love"
12. "Blow Up The Outside World"
13. "Pretty Noose"
14. "Outshined"
15. "Slaves And Bulldozers"

Encore:
16. "Get On The Snake"
17. "Big Dumb Sex"
18. "Waiting For The Sun"

ha they certainly are fans of anagramming aren't they?

That's a pretty good setlist

I thought that name sounded familiar... they played a secret warm-up gig before their Badmotorfinger tour 20 years ago under the name Vince Whirlwind and the Nude Dragons.

Pretty awesome that they played something from every album.

Wow. are there any boots flying below the radar? I'm curious as to how his voice held up, cuz many of those songs are shriek-fests.

"Slaves and Bulldozers" though, omg...would love to hear that live!

jeez .. that setlist kinda rules! so much 'Louder Than Love' stuff!! figgered they would just play the "hits" from their AOR era. but no "My Wave", "Day I Tried to Live", "Black Hole Sun" ... nuts! actually pretty psyched for the Lolla show now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiZ2wg1ZBxc

I've been listening to Louder Than Love a lot lately. I think it holds up pretty well as a solid hard rock album. There's a definite Jimi Hendrix/Voodoo Child influence in Hands All Over (same in Even Flow, btw). I love the way the melody is there just to let Chris Cornell belt out long notes - the words are pretty irrelevant.

Hands all overrrrr!
Dead composerrrrrr!
Broke the toasterr!
Hang stockbrokerrs!

LTL has always been my favorite album of theirs. I love the Terry Date production, it's very "roomy". when I came out I was a senior in high school and used to come home from school every day, hit up the one-hitter, and blast the thing in my room. good times

when "it" came out...

outed

um so Chris sounds OK....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceLsm8qsHMw

That sounds pretty f'n good!

I had to check and re- check that set list.
No Blackhole Sun?

I was never a huge fan but *that* song is a keeper

Love the Die Kreuzen mention^^^^ Great band.One of the best HC albums (the s/t) ever followed by that gothemo October File. Classic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sghQIma-2g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ihZNidf5h4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u09QeukRV2M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BK3f3RSpgA

i'm not crazy about the pre-Shepherd records so i was almost hoping that whenever they tour around here the set would be just the hits straight up, like similar to the set i saw them do at Lollapalooza a few months before breaking up, but yeah pretty cool that they went through the whole catalog and ignored their biggest hit. they'll probably be at least a little more crowd-pleasing on the festival circuit, though, i imagine.

aww....Cornell's voice sounds shot on "Spoonman" - as I feared, but was hopeful after the first youtube posting.

damn they sound great

cg listen to nothing to say he sounds pretty good there all things considered

xpost I was just posting that he sounds a million times better on Nothing to Say.

all things considered I think I'd pay to see em. I never got to the first time around

now if only they'd play Limo Wreck

What? Was the limp-pop direction of his first (& only) solo joint failing him so much that he's reverting back to his Badmotorfinger / Louder than Love uber-aggression stance?

Good lord, this sentence.

soundgarden were never uber-aggressive either, always supremely graceful

A passerby wearing tie-dye said to one person desperate for a ticket, "Good luck in life."

I <3 Soundgarden but you have to give it up for this zing

i think its actually scientifically impossible to be zinged by someone wearing tie-dye tho

soundgarden were never uber-aggressive either, always supremely graceful

― a rhetorical style that implies an unwritten "now taste my ass" (stevie), Monday, April 19, 2010 5:56 AM (3 hours ago)

old big bad ass circle of power Comin To GETCHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!111!!!11!!!

yeah but even that song breaks down to a slow sweet groove around 1:30

Good god it's nice to hear Thayil again. I don't even care if Chris can't maintain the screaming anymore. Definitely psyched to see them.

There's a supposedly decent rec gone up on D1M£AD0Z£N if anyone's interested.

yeah really if i go to a show it'll be to hear the band ROKK THE FUKK OUT, if the vox sound good it'll be a bonus

is there any word on how extensively they'll be touring and whether they'll be doing headlining gigs all over or mostly festivals?

The "limp-pop" thing was actually Cornell's second solo album. People keep forgetting the actually not terrible Euphoria Morning. I'd rather have had more in that direction than Audioslave tbh.

god i hope they do more than fests--feelin too old for that bullshit.

Yeah I would love to see them, but not paying huge $$$$ to deal with the Lolla crowd in 100 degree August heat.

Timbaland Is Producing CHRIS CORNELL?!? How In God's Name Did I Miss This?

There are few things worse in this world than hearing Chris Cornell's pinched, straining scream further ruin a song that was already pretty shitty to begin with.

I don't want to haul my ass to Chicago, definitely hoping for a few more shows.
Cornell sounds a hell of a lot better than I thought he would in those youtube clips.
and that set list...short of Little Joe, that's almost my perfect setlist. NO BLACK HOLE SUN!!! If I never heard that song again it would be too soon.

Ha! My first reaction to the setlist was "Aw, no litte joe!"

Keep in mind since this was a secret show, the setlist might be more 'obscure' than what they play at 'Palooza. could also be that Cornell hates Black Hole Sun too....

Recording seems to be here, haven't downloaded it yet so I don't know what the quality's like.

http://theshadowkick.blogspot.com/2010/04/nudedragons-live-4-16-10.html

I is be burning that on first opportunity.

woohoo

Part 1 of the file is already gone. Did anyone snag it and can link it?

damn.

all this love is making me wish i hadn't deleted scream the mixtape off my hard drive a few weeks ago.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3318/3547729051_38e0c09bda_o.jpg

not sure i ever listened to it all the way through - but for the artwork alone it was worthy of some love.

Part 1 appears to be back up. I'm d/ling now, will report....

burned the bootleg, minus Searching With my Good Eye Closed, which is a corrupted file. will report back...

oh yay some asshole in the audience is singing along so I can't hear Chris much on Rusty Cage...

so my impressions are I won't listen to this much but it's a neat lil souveneir, the band sounds great, like they haven't missed a step. Chris goes flat a bit vocally, but he sounds better than I expected. his shriek is more shrill than melodic nowadays, but he still hits some good ones. he has 'old man' sounding moments like he did on his "Carry On" album but even Fell On Black days he modifies the way he sings it to fit his current voice.

totally wanna see em now.

ok he sounsd awful on Slaves and Bulldozers :(

haha now i'm afraid to listen :S

it's interesting that they so heavily favored songs from the Badmotorfinger/Louder Than Love period where Cornell was probably screaming a bit a more than on the last 2 albums, maybe he felt like he had something to prove by singing those songs again.

yea for sure. he did hit some real nice screams that show some of it is still there, but I can imagine he only had that stamina early in the show and had to result in turning the awesome "NOW I KNOW WHY YOU'VE BEEN TAKEN" shriek into a....polite tinny falsetto. It kind of....deflates the track :/. plus it's also hard when you're playing guitar at the same time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crILNt7-kj8

from the same show

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K913KVe3kH8

The aesthetic slide from shitkicking potheads covering Cheech&Chong/Spinal Tap into...whatever this[^]is...is why I bailed after Badmotorfinger. Somewhere along the way their tongues got too far into their cheeks and numbed up their critical faculties.

Anyway Kim Thayil kicks ass.

But the song is from the Badmotorfinger sessions...which explains why it's so badass. A+ for the Hawkwind video as well.

Ah, I thought it was new. And my impression was that it would have fit nicely as a filler track on Badmotorfinger or LTL. My other thought was, "Man I miss Thayil".

I know its a new Cornell vocal track, but is it a new recording of a song they wrote back then? Or is this a "cleaning up" of an older recording?

from wikipedia:

The song was recorded during sessions for Badmotorfinger and, according to Chris Cornell in an interview with USA Today, "Black Rain" captures "that super heavy version (of the band) we were finally realizing to its fullest potential about 1991." On September 17, 2010, a Music Video was released, directed by Brendon Small of Metalocalypse.

i thought the singing sounded totally like Badmoterfinger era Cornell!

There's just no way he could sing like that these days.

I still would go see them for Kim tho'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tkrMIGTStc

Soundgarden to record a new album...
http://www.spinner.ca/2011/02/16/soundgarden-new-album/

nooooooooooooooo

I would completely and 100% endorse this.

That is, if time travel were an option and we could get pre-1994 Chris Cornell in to do vocals.

Ah, could be ok. If we're talking about reunited alt rock bands from my youth I'd much rather it were Faith No More though.

^ yes!

I think it's great they're recording again. I want to hear what great new riffs Kim has in store for us.

I mean, how bad can this really be? They sounded okay to me on their reunion gig.

yeah, seriously. obviously i'm going to be cautiously optimistic until i hear anything, but i feel like Soundgarden has as good or better a chance as any of their peers of making a good album today -- also it's not like Cornell would be doing anything better on his own and the other guys mostly haven't had very productive creative outlets in a while, maybe they could really use that collaborative spark again.

also i'm psyched for the live album they're releasing next month that was recorded in '96, saw them at Lollapalooza that year and it was a killer set

i dunno. cornell really hasn't been on his game since well... 1996. his first solo record was alright, though his lyrics have really taken a dive over the years into this weird superficiality i didn't think was possible. the fact that the other guys haven't been up to much either (aside from cameron) also makes me cautious.

i just hate when bands shit on their legacies. jane's addiction and smashing pumpkins have dragged their good names through the muck, and for what? their hearts might be in the right place, but there's nothing worse about a band that doesn't know when to call it quits.

there are probably better examples of this, but i think alice in chains have come probably the closest to releasing a record that is consistent with their older records. they toured for years prior to even stepping into a studio.

with a new singer though! disgusting they still use the AIC name

i disagree. cantrell was always the main songwriter in that band, and his vocals always had a strong presence on the older records as well. layne stayley was certainly a significant part, but not to the same extent as other lead singers in other bands. plus, the new singer's voice wasn't even very high in the mix on the new record. blasphemy or not, after almost ten years they were still able to make an "alice in chains" record without sounding like some sort of shitty parody or caricature.

i've made this argument on ILM before, but i think a lot of music fans invest far too much importance in breakups as a convenient narrative that tells them when the door is shut on a band making music or doing anything that matters to their legacy, far beyond simple cynicism about bands reuniting for money or whatever. if guys who made great music together once wanna take a break from that for a while, and then give it a try again, let 'em. if it sucks, i'll file that album away and keep listening to Superunknown, no skin off my back.

I have never heard the new AIC and don't ever care to either. I wanna hear the new Soundgarden.

I'm eating a tuna sandwich

i've made this argument on ILM before, but i think a lot of music fans invest far too much importance in breakups as a convenient narrative that tells them when the door is shut on a band making music or doing anything that matters to their legacy, far beyond simple cynicism about bands reuniting for money or whatever. if guys who made great music together once wanna take a break from that for a while, and then give it a try again, let 'em. if it sucks, i'll file that album away and keep listening to Superunknown, no skin off my back.

― tellysavalas (some dude), Wednesday, February 16, 2011 8:52 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

true enough. i'm excited about the whole reunion, don't get me wrong, but just cautious because of how fast it seems to have happened. it's hard to not be worried about something i know and love, but you're right.

i guess compared to AIC touring for 4 years before dropping a new album it's fast, but i feel like Soundgarden's been feeling this out pretty patiently and it seems like they didn't even start to give any indications of a new album until they took a while to try working on new songs and make sure they wanted to take the plunge, so hopefully they know what they're doing.

I'm actually looking forward to the new Soundgarden studio disc. I like their first three albums (don't like Superunknown or Down On The Upside, though) and I like a lot of the first Audioslave album and a few songs on the ones after - I don't think Cornell's lost much vocal power at all, if any.

i thought the song they did on conan was pretty good too

I think I'm looking forward more to this than the new Radiohead.

i've made this argument on ILM before, but i think a lot of music fans invest far too much importance in breakups as a convenient narrative that tells them when the door is shut on a band making music or doing anything that matters to their legacy, far beyond simple cynicism about bands reuniting for money or whatever. if guys who made great music together once wanna take a break from that for a while, and then give it a try again, let 'em. if it sucks, i'll file that album away and keep listening to Superunknown, no skin off my back.

― tellysavalas (some dude), Wednesday, February 16, 2011 8:52 PM (58 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is way otm especially as it becomes less and less possible to make a living from music--i tend to treat all "breakup news" as "plan on an extended 3-10 year break" now

new song:

http://www.kisw.com/pages/12721576.php

a little bland but not bad, Thayil ripping into one of those instantly identifiable solos is what makes it. the real test will be how much they let loose on the album tracks.

yeah. as this is a song made for a blockbuster film, i'm not going to be too hard on it. looking at that tracklisting, they sure are keeping interesting company...

well, it starts off sounding like soundgarden, before taking a detour into californication (bullshit), though i do like the halfway point it eventually settle into. and yeah, thayill is baddass for the last minute or so.

that soundtrack list kind of makes me cringe.

"kind of"

I think I'm going to wait for the album before I pass any kind of judgement. It's difficult to say how quickly they knocked this one together.

we're all hoping they knocked that one together real quickly, aren't we?

It ain't no 'Loud Love' unf.

Soundgarden have a new album out next week?

http://cdn.stereogum.com/files/2012/09/Soundgarden-King-Animal-608x608.jpg

listening to the first single "Been Away Too Long" as it sounds good, not great. or what others have said up-thread.

I've heard a couple of tracks and I'm still not feeling it. Cornell's vox sound really ragged and weird.

but Bee OK otm, its sounds good, just not great.

i think the full album is pretty great. its what the album after down on the upside would always have sounded like imho. good and psychedelic.

playing live on BBC 2 tonight - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01nw95g

XP - Stevie, I noticed your review and was glad to see the word psychedelic, are there any tracks in the same ballpark as She Likes Surprises or Switch Opens?

more a darker, heavier psych than 'she likes surprises', but lots of lovely complex, karmic kim thayil guitar stuffs. and cornell's in fine, fine voice.

I'm liking this a lot more than I expected to, four tracks in anyway. Nothing to make me cringe like 'Live to Rise' so far.

Yeah, Live To Rise is awful, and made me fear the worst.

Listened to the whole thing on the train this morning. The only songs I remember after a single play-through are the first two (which have been streaming) and the last one. And the first two sound more like Chickenfoot songs than Soundgarden songs, mostly due to generic hard-rock riffage and Cornell's vocals having degenerated into a Sammy Hagar-ish gravelly howl. But later in the album, he seems to recover his range somewhat.

Weird trivia note: This is the first Soundgarden studio album not to have a band photo on the cover.

i could never figure out if the weird distorted face on the Superunknown cover was Cornell or not

"Non-State Actor" is the first leak from the new one that i've found encouraging at all. curious to see the writing credits, sounds like it could be a Ben Shepherd joint.

This is an unmemorable dud of a record. I know I shouldn't have expected anything else, but I had hopes. It's not a shamefully horrific album, but it is a blandly sad one.

it's so strange because i don't know why they would do this and not go all in creatively. it's not like being the most accessible Soundgarden they could be means a fraction of what it did commercially in the '90s, they may as well play to the base.

Tracks I've heard are slightly on the bland side. Better than AIC's comeback at least.

AIC did better than anyone could've expected given the personnel handicap though!

Yeah, despite Cantrell being the principal song writer it really proved how vital Layne was to the band.

it's so strange because i don't know why they would do this and not go all in creatively.

Probably because they're doing it for the money, and their label wanted something that can play on the radio. They could play to the base, sure, but Soundgarden got forgotten pretty quickly and it seems like they were only rediscovered by doom metal dudes over the past few years. So some base. Their market today, as far as their record label bosses is concerned, is pretty much dad rock.

That's the position I'm taking, anyway, and it doesn't sound nearly as disappointing through that filter.

yeah but a) nobody listens to rock radio and b) reunited SG would probably sell the same number of albums and concert tickets in 2012 with or without rock radio hits. "Live To Rise" was #4 on the rock charts and the official soundtrack single from the biggest blockbuster movie of the year, but that doesn't mean it really registers beyond (or even among) the band's fanbase in any meaningful way. reunited Alice and Stone Temple Pilots and "Sublime With Rome" had rock radio hits too. Soundgarden at least had enough of a creative legacy that they could've nurtured that among their fanbase. Superunknown was a pretty weird album to represent a band's commercial peak!

i don't think bands in Soundgarden's current position really get told what to do creatively by labels anyway. i imagine they made the album they wanted to make, or thought people wanted from them, without being forced or led by anyone.

just to be clear, the album's much, much better than Live To Rise, even if it doesn't set you on fire.

yeah i'm assuming that has to be the case. should really not post much here til the album drops anyway.

a) nobody listens to rock radio

Nobody you know listens to rock radio. As someone who works for a hard rock/metal label, let me assure you that getting songs on the radio is a hugely important part of promoting a band.

::long sigh:: listen i prob listen to rock radio more than 99% of the people on this board and realize it does have a more significant listenership than most of them would like to believe. i'm just saying, in the larger context of terrestrial radio and popular music as a whole, it matter so so so so much less to so fewer people than it did the last time Soundgarden made an album.

especially for an established band like Soundgarden.

the audience of all of atlanta's rock stations combined isnt as big as the audience for its single biggest hiphop station. my understanding is that's basically a nationwide trend

yeah definitely

This is a subject for another thread, but I can't figure out hip-hop's business model.

Yeah, I can't believe people pay money to hear that crap either.

http://www.wearysloth.com/Gallery/ActorsK/9460-19426.jpg

i like this record!

i mean half of it is the pleasure of hearing thayil, shepherd, and cameron play together on a new record

the audience of all of atlanta's rock stations combined isnt as big as the audience for its single biggest hiphop station. my understanding is that's basically a nationwide trend

― turds (Hungry4Ass), Wednesday, November 7, 2012 12:58 PM (6 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is not true where i live, but minneapolis and atlanta are like opposites

anyway this record has some good playing on it! vox/lyrics mostly suck but yeah i'm digging hearing kim playing again....about as good as you could expect

i mean half of it is the pleasure of hearing thayil, shepherd, and cameron play together on a new record

This is all I really care about from a SG reunion.

yes! hearing cameron/shepherd hold it down and thayil soar is something else. cornell isn't half-bad either. i've only listened to KA a couple of times so far, but nothing has really hit me as being jarringly bad yet. he's at least a lot less creepy than he was w/ timbaland, and not as sentimental/transparent as he was with audioslave. so that's something.

chris cornell is a horrible person

seeing them tonight. stoked.

also finally bought the reissue of Superunknown (remaster isn't spectacular but lost my 18-year old version and wanted the bonus disc) but now on re-reading the lyrics to Mailman part of me wonders if it's about salad tossing o_O

they were awesome in london earlier in the summer - played superunknown in its entirety (save Half, disappointingly).

yeah my friend went last night and said it was Superunknown and BMF heavy, which is music to my ears.

if they play "Limo Wreck" and "Mailman" I will lose my shit. i've always dreamed of hearing those in a live setting. it's an outdoor show too so it won't be sound bouncing off walls and make me go deaf.

so...great

haha!

cornell doesn't seem to have aged a day, does he?

Saw them here in September last year, what a set! They kicked off with 'Incessant Mace' and kept dipping deep in the catalogue even as they played most of the hits. They're not much of a stage presence, but hey. The one they didn't play was 'Black Hole Sun', and as I was leaving the moaning of punters around me was something else. I mean you paid €60 to see a band play one song? Feck off.

It's a shame though because he can actually sing that song live now, unlike back in the day!

my only complaint (if it's even a complaint) is that they were a little 'hits' heavy. I woulda loved to hear "Mailman" or "Limo Wreck". but who gives a shit really?

this is the reason I love outdoor shows. hearing "Fell on Black Days" as the sun was setting = <3

Saw them last week too. I was there mostly for NiN, but it was cool to see SG back together. Cornell was in great voice. I don't know how well-regarded the Down on the Upside era is, by them or the fans, but I was disappointed they skipped the entire album since the show was pretty much all hits anyway.

he played "Burden in My Hand" and "Pretty Noose" last night, which surprised me given how static their setlist had been over the last few weeks. I was glad - don't love Upside, but I love those two songs, especially the latter.

I was quite surprised at how full-voiced he sounded on "Beneath the Wheel". No, it wasn't as powerful a wail as it was in the Ultramega O.K. days, and he had to strategically take breaths to get through it. But there was power behind that falsetto, rather than wispiness. For a guy that's pushing 50 that was technically a baritone anyway, to hit stratopheric notes like that is extremely impressive.

He did a helluva "Fell on Black Days" too!

Those are exactly the two songs I would have liked to hear. Aw well. "Fell" was the highlight of the show for me too.

Cornell won me over on the last reunion tour -- all I needed was to hear 'Like Suicide' live again and I was back to full fangirldom

Just bought Screaming Life/Fopp on vinyl and it is really incredible how these two EPs framed my entire way of listening to music. And I'm still hearing new things in both (and in "Ultramega OK," and "Louder Than Love," and "Badmotorfinger," and the Temple of the Dog album too)

uh also how did nobody let me know about the three disc set of b-sides and other rarities that came out last month

you're all fired

;_;

maura i had a tweet where i made fun of the title, that is pretty much the most helpful thing i could have done

i wuz gonna maura but i didn't wanna be that guy that posts shit to someone who would already know perfectly damn well about it so GUESS THIS ONE'S ALL ON YOU

anyway surprised if there's anything on it (except steve fisk apparently) you wouldn't have collected??

i have most of the pre-'93 stuff but idk it's just nice to have it all in one place!

anyway fine you're all rehired

Nothing To Say is the best thing they ever did

ultramega ok is such a fucking tragedy :'(

^ said cuz "flower" and "beyond the wheel" really ought to hold their own with "nothing to say" (along with "hunted down", "hand of god", "hands all over", about half of badmotorfinger, etc). but for the production.

uh also how did nobody let me know about the three disc set of b-sides and other rarities that came out last month

No one told me either, argghh!

There are a bunch of covers on the comp.

the covers are often great, the sabbath cover is better than the original. the first disk of rarities is often great. the third disk? i don't know who would ever want to listen to the third disk.

I thought the covers were almost uniformly awful (particularly that Sabbath tune) though the version of Budgie's "Homicidal Suicidal" is pretty decent, the rarities I could take or leave, and yeah, the third disc is pretty much disposable.

if by 'that sabbath tune' you mean their cover of into the void then O_o

i love their into the void cover

Really don't like it. Mainly because it's one of the best lyrics Sabbath ever wrote, and these clods had to fuck with it because the message wasn't heavy-handed enough for 'em.

are you trying out for bill magill?

The 'Void' cover is exactly what you'd expect (except for some lyric changes). Original is better by virtue of Iommi's tone.

The third disc has 'Karaoke', which is a monster tune, better than anything else they did in the DOTUS era.

ultramega ok is such a fucking tragedy :'(

― Adding ease. Adding wonder. Adding (contenderizer), Sunday, December 28, 2014 5:17 AM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^ said cuz "flower" and "beyond the wheel" really ought to hold their own with "nothing to say" (along with "hunted down", "hand of god", "hands all over", about half of badmotorfinger, etc). but for the production.

― Adding ease. Adding wonder. Adding (contenderizer), Sunday, December 28, 2014 5:32 AM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Just been reading that Kim and Jack Endino have gone in and completely remixed 'Ultramega OK' for release sometime this year, kinda jazzed about hearing a full blooded version of it.

oooooooooooo

Last night's setlist

Spoonman
Kyle Petty, Son of Richard
Outshined
Black Hole Sun
My Wave
The Day I Tried to Live
Been Away Too Long
Blow Up the Outside World
All Your Lies
Ugly Truth
Flower
Fell on Black Days
Jesus Christ Pose
Rusty Cage
Beyond the Wheel

Wow

Yea. Great set. A lot of people bolted when the big hits were out of the way

nice

Can you be more specific about when they bolted?

it was a really lame crowd. the 20k seat arena was maybe a third filled, the floor maybe 40% full, the rest of us in seats, and the intro for Soundgarden only got a meek "yay" from the crowd.

then they rolled off the biggie Superunknown songs and "Outshined" and everybody got briefly excited but once "Been Away Too Long" started, the exodus started slowly. I was surprised that "Blow Up the Outside World" didn't get more of a reaction, it was a fairly popular song when I was in high school. and then the Ultramega OK tunes was enough to thin the place out considerably.

i always love when they end with Beyond the Wheel tho. that's a killer closer.

Wish I had been in one of those empty spaces.

How was Cornell's voice during the show?

Too bad no "hands all over"

xpost he's never going to be the vocalist he was again, but he's getting a little of it back. tbh he's pretty good at the high notes when he stays up there a while (ie "Beyond the Wheel"), it's the flipping between head voice and chest that he struggles more with (but, tbh, that was true to a lesser degree even in his prime - always an inconsistent live singer).

His highs still have surprising potency even if he doesn't make them as dirty as he used to. His mid to low range actually sounds a lot closer to what it did in the 90s than it has in a while.

his yells sound more shrill than they used to, but he's doing them again which is cool. idk overall I was pleased. "Jesus Christ Pose" was kind of painful though. the verse at least - the rest of it he was pretty good.

cornell has sounded great the last few times i've seen him. he's a way more consistent live singer now afaict

he does avoid the highs on Outshined a bit tho. which is weird cos he doesn't play guitar on that one.

"Spoonman" he was actually screaming again, surprisingly.

apparently their show yesterday was same setlist, except no "Ugly Truth" and instead of "All Your Lies" was "Incessant Mace"

they're appraently on right now in Ft Myers. I should be working but I'll be watching setlist.fm to see what the nerds add in real time.

I should know their later albums better than I do, but I got off the boat after Superunknown.

down on the upside is underrated imo

i've been listening to "Zero Chance" a lot given my moodiness recently.

my fav solo song of his

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6GlbuBKu1o

cornell has sounded great the last few times i've seen him. he's a way more consistent live singer now afaict

This. Which Matt is drumming with them at the moment, Cameron or Chamberlain? Much as I loved Pearl Jam I always feel bad that SG sometimes have to tour without Matt Cameron as he's such a distinctive and inventive drummer.

Was watching some old footage of SG doing Jesus Christ Pose on YouTube a while back - Ben Shepherd was playing like a motherfucker, flayling and hurling himself around and not seeming to miss a note

I always enjoyed Shepherd's slightly psychedelic leanings and 'Switch Opens' is a lovely example and a good reason to revisit DOTUS.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfdQ-u0nUmU

"Head Down" is my favorite Sheperd penned track

Chris is one of my all-time favorite vocalists. That Euphoria Morning video was nice.

I'm waiting to hear the Singles soundtrack reissue and see what the unheard tracks are like.

he was sounding kinda rough a while back, there was some throat surgery stuff in there somewhere that I think put him at a disadvantage for a while, but ever since the Soundgarden reunion shows I think he's just been going from strength to strength vocally. The Temple of the Dog show I saw at the end of last year was jaw dropping for how right-on his voice was. I mean, he can't get ALL the way up there like he used to but jesus, he's getting 90% of the way there which is awesome to see

I've forgiven him for Billy Jean and have finally moved on from those dark times lol

Uh wtf

http://abc7.com/entertainment/rocker-chris-cornell-dies-at-52-rep-says/2006846/

no no no no no nooooo

wow that is a bummer RIP

fuck WHAT

unreal that all of these dudes are gone. Cornell, Weiland, Staley, Cobain.

don't forget andrew wood

fuck i wouldn't be anywhere near here probably without soundgarden cracking open my mental door between metal and "modern" rock (1990, you know)

Gutted, what a voice. I remember someone on ILX saying he was a better singer than Robert Plant, and I think they might have been right. Will play Superunknown loud this morning.

Oh man RIP.

Soundgarden was never my thing but there was never any denying Cornell's talent and presence.

well this sucks :(

wow this is unexpected. RIP.

this fucking sucks so hard

so so so so fucking sad. and not that this is why its tragic, but there was a new SG album coming too, I heard.

this hurts

This fucking sucks

Listened to this 10 times in a row already

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xeFx4WG0CA

can't get my head around this at all

this is so sad, RIP. we saw him in brisbane about 18 months ago and he was great.

@stevie http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/7760610/chris-cornell-the-promise-soundgarden-album

i keep thinking of how life affirming the temple of the dog show was

so they were on tour at the moment and they'd played a show last night?

You were the first person I thought of, Maura. Damn.

"Mind Riot" was always the song I randomly defaulted to in my memory when I thought of them and him. Probably going to be doing so in general all day today.

Well...shit.

Have any details about the cause of his death emerged? Cause even though this was a long time ago it's kinda alarming (taken from that Billboard interview just upthread)

"I remember years ago, we were doing Badmotorfinger, and I saw some drama on the Holocaust with Willem Defoe as a boxer [Triumph of the Spirit]. I watched it late at night, and I woke up the next morning and we were flying from Sausalito back to Seattle. I got a migraine so bad that I had to be hospitalized. The blood vessels had expanded so much in my brain that I couldn’t really talk. I could see that this was blue [points to a bottle], but I couldn’t remember the word that was the symbol for the color blue. It was a scary thing and I’ve never had that since, but it’s stuck with me that there’s some part of me that has a hard time with that on some level that’s way more intense than I would have expected."

And yeah, realizing ALL those frontmen are gone from the era and place, all of whom were legit huge breakouts or on the verge of becoming one, is crazy to think about. (Saw them all live too aside from Wood.) Vender is the only one left, and when you think about how he started there precisely because Wood died -- I mean, I'd feel pretty damn weird if I were in his shoes.

Found in the bathroom, a band around his neck.

thanks, i can think of 10000 better ways of phrasing that

Quoting the police directly. You're welcome.

Damn! Quick story.. In a matter of a week I saw him in LA, played blackjack at the same table in Vegas
for a couple hours and then saw him at a bar in NYC. He remembered me, bought a round and we talked for a bit. He was a super nice and humble guy. Rip bro

I can't believe this. I just saw him at a phenomenal Soundgarden show like three weeks ago. He seemed full of life and in good spirits. He sounded great and seemed generally locked in, not going through the motions at all.

nobody ever outshined you, bro. RIP.

goddamn this sucks so much. Euphoria Morning was one of the first CDs I bought with my own money, weirdly

I was just thinking of "Seeking a Friend for the End of the World"

So so sad about this

I'll have to get off and stop Googling now, the last song they did yesterday was the extended version of Slaves & Bulldozers and he slipped in some lyrics from 'In My Time Of Dying' apparently, so sad.

aw what the hell

lanegan and arm are still around but yeah.

Ah shit. Awful news. I'd lost touch with what he'd been up to and didn't realise he'd struggled so badly with depression. It's taking too many. RIP.

I saw Shawn Smith on Saturday night and thought then about how many of that era had gone (particularly the constellation that surrounded Andrew Wood).

Louder than Love was one of my most played tapes in high school. Even had the t shirt. Dude was a monster and will be missed.

He was on such great form the last two times I saw SG.

I even loved a fair bit of King Animal.

Listening to Fresh Tendrils and the "Throw yourself away" refrain is giving me serious chills.

wow, stunned

ordered louder than love from Columbia House and really fell in love with it, saw them open for GnR on the Use Your Illusion tour

but yeah as Maura said they def along with Jane's probably deserve as much if not more credit than Nirvana kicking off alternative and bringing that to metal kids in the cornfields

RIP

WFT? I can't believe this. He was a genuinely nice guy, great singer. Always struck me as one of the 90s grunge folks who seemed the most together. I'm stunned.

Holy shit.

i always loved this song from the LOUDEST LOVE ep

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktJ3pgdEHy4

this b-side to 'flower' was good too, very eerie and weird (it's from the SCREAMING LIFE sessions)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpuiJPtE4a4

Amazing that Lanegan is outliving them all. First grunge show I saw was in 1989, Mudhoney with Soundgarden in support. Good times.

I saw Soundgarden co-headlining with Voivod, with Prong as the opener. Cornell walked on our shoulders and hands.

Damn, I haven't really listened to them in years but those 90s albums were my shit when I was 16-17.

Never mentioned it on this thread, but I bought the remix/remaster of Ultramega OK when it came out earlier this year and holy shit, it's amazing. If you haven't heard it, buy it.

xxxpost Not the same scene, but I was just thinking about how amazing it is that Reznor outlasted all of these guys.

Years back I wrote up the three times I saw SG in 1992 for a blog series I was doing -- good memories all

https://nedraggett.wordpress.com/2010/03/08/not-just-the-ticket-29-soundgarden-january-29-1992/

https://nedraggett.wordpress.com/2010/05/11/not-just-the-ticket-43-soundgarden-april-25-1992/

https://nedraggett.wordpress.com/2010/08/02/not-just-the-ticket-58-lollapalooza-92-sept-12-1992/

Favorite by default was the first time, but they were all fantastic.

Really gutted about this, Superunknown is one of my favourite rock albums. R.I.P.

I can't... he should have been making music for a long long time.

This sucks.

Superunknown was a monster of a record. I remember listening to it the day it came out and just being bowled over by its power. I wish rock records still sounded that good.

I cannot understate the totemic importance that Badmotorfinger had upon my adolescent life. It's probably only second to Physical Graffiti in the number of times I've replayed it.

To my mind it's still very weird and random -- in a good way -- how Soundgarden ended up on A&M in 1989. I mean, nobody could have predicted exactly what was to come, and all labels by default are chasing cash as much as A&R dreams, but that was such a strange outlier for the time in terms of anything major label, in terms of the cover aesthetic, the actual content of the songs on Louder Than Love, etc.

I play Soundgarden on my iPod more than most bands. They are my go-to "I am so tired I need some ear-aching raaaargh to get me through the commute to/from work". They never don't thrill me.

Can't believe this news. Saw SG for the first time only a few years ago with Nine Inch Nails - both bands killed it. NIN I wasn't surprised put on a good show, but Soundgarden was way better than I expected. RIP

Man, I just put on Badmotorfinger when I got home last night; this feels so eerie. That album and Superunknown are so classic for me.

I would say along with Jane's, Faith No More, Living Colour, they were an incredibly important band for us suburban weirdos in that sliver of time just before Nirvana up turned the entire apple cart...I road my bike to the store the day that "Badmotorfinger" came out, I couldn't wait for that record and I loved it.

I can't say I've listened in a long a time but they were such a huge band to me. RIP.

Listening to them this morning, and so much of it now sounds like an obvious cry for help (a la Nirvana and Alice in Chains).

listening to the day i tried to live and pretty noose for like the millionth time. i will always be amazed at how he turned those riffs into killer radio-friendly rock songs.

Shocking sad news.

First time I saw them I remember I was on crutches, at Pearl St. in Northampton 1989 and then a bunch of times in the next few years. A bud and I kind of snuck onto their bus (!) at a show somewhere in NJ and were scowled at by temp-bassist Jason Everman, but C. Cornell was friendly and welcoming.

At an impressionable age Cornell and co. relieved me of some stupid art/punk hangups I had about the music I most love—Led Zeppelin in particular—and in this regard for a brief shining moment were punker than punk.

RIP

RIP

suicide is the worst, i feel so powerless whenever i hear someone took their own life. no one should ever be compelled to do so.

And he has a kid, too. The pain Chris must have been in, to push him to kill himself even though he'd be leaving his son behind, is just unimaginable to me.

Has said cause been confirmed?

Every time I hear of something like this it renews my terror of depression (which I've had minor brushes with), that it can make someone ostensibly so successful and fulfilled do that to themself.

cornell had three kids :(

xpost yes—"band on the neck" does not nec. mean suicide. Sources on this?

xps I've seen it in a few sources - The Mirror, in the UK - but nowhere, I guess, 'official'

The reports I've seen - incl NYT and Independent - say that it is being investigated as an apparent suicide but not more than that.

I'm sorry i jumped to a conclusion.

Yeah, I think that's the reason for the odd language of the police report -- it's very likely to have been a suicide, but band and family didn't see it coming, so there will be careful investigation.

Cornell i think caught a bit more flak than deserved sometimes bc of his vocal style, especially in recent years. i mean i wasn't familiar enough w/his work post-soundgarden to say anything about it, but Badmotorfinger/Superunknown are all-time classics. and Temple of the Dog was probably the album that hit home the hardest for me. And it does now with this news. like i said upthread i mean it's just ridiculous that this whole slew of charismatic frontmen are gone for reasons that are all too common.

just heard your spot on 5live stevie.

v. nice sir.

Say Hello 2 Heaven is a wonderful song, and the alt versions on the TOTD reissue from last year are really fantastic.

xp haha did i say "fuck"? i was trying so hard not to say "fuck"

didn't hear it all, had to leave the kitchen.
no swearing during the part i heard.

totally stunned and bereft right now

been texting with mr veg & another friend, we're all just like wtf

cried all the way to work :(

fucking weird as shit, i had a dream about Soundgarden two nights ago.

I was playing basmotorfinger really. fucking. loud. on the commute to work this morning. Mind Riot slayed me.

Yeah, as mentioned, that song's always been my favorite and learning whatever we're learning about this, those lyrics start taking on even sharper edges. It's less about any sort of 'prediction,' more a real capturing of a mindset.

listening to down on the upside, which i think i secretly like better than superunknown

he was def the last rock god, now so many bands try so hard to be that but he just was that

It's less about any sort of 'prediction,' more a real capturing of a mindset.

I think it's also pretty explicitly about Andy Wood, too.

Weirdly, their cover of Spinal Tap's "Big Bottom" was the first time I'd heard of Tap, so I'm grateful to them for that introduction. Did they ever return to doing silly stuff like that? I get the impression it all got a lot more serious from Badmotorfinger on, but I was off the bus by then.

chris cornell was a rock god bc he had that voice and just easily slipped into the role. definitely the best rock star to come out of the Seattle scene imo. the other guy who comes to mind when I think of him unfortunately is Michael Hutchence, just a similarly huge figure who owned his role but apparently had something building inside him for so long.

i didn't really know a lot about black sabbath (solo ozzy was sort of hogging the spotlight then) and their cover of 'into the void (sealth),' fnm's 'war pigs' and (sorry) ugly kid joe's 'sweet leaf' were my primer

still prefer soundgarden's Into The Void and Faith No More's War Pigs over the originals. Using Chief Sealth's speech on INto The Void was an inspired move.

"Only the lyrics of 'New Damage', which are about how the American people have become unbelievably complacent about the way that the US government is eroding more and more basic human rights, could be described as particularly direct." - Cornell quoted in Melody Maker, 1991

maura otm - soundgarden was my gateway into Sabbath in high school

i love that Into The Void cover

The wreck is coming down / Get out, before you drown.

my first exposure to him was the first Audioslave record, loved it, never got into Soundgarden but i'll echo what many have said here that he always seemed like the most grounded and kind-hearted of the Gen X frontmen. So brutal knowing he had three teenage kids. RIP

That first Audioslave record is really good. The ones after that were...not.

too old to have been ripe for becoming a fan, what little i know of them was from that Hype! documentary.

actually, i don't mind the audioslave albums.
they're nothing special,
but they are mighty good rock albums, helped out by the vocals of course,
and sometimes that's all you need.

pretty bummed about this! when i was 12 my buddy made me a mixtape with a few soundgarden songs on it, and i played the hell out of it while playing resident evil. i also had the guitar tablature book for superunkown around the same time. i sang "hunger strike" to (more at) my wife the night we met because she told me she lived in the pacific northwest. bummed i didn't go down to seattle to see the temple of the dog tour or soundgarden in recent years, as i considered it pretty strongly but logistically it wasn't going to work out for me.

I guess it's looking more on the level now

http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2017/05/18/chris-cornell-death-detroit/

The detail that will haunt me is that his wife called one of the bandmembers -- doesn't say which one -- asking him to check on Cornell, and that he and hotel security had to break into the room.

heart-wrenching

Fuck that is so horrible.

i can almost guarantee that the three albums i listened to more than any others from 1994 were In Utero, Dirt, and Superunknown. it is ridiculous that all of those singers are dead now, wrong and ridiculous.

yeah.
totally.
that's a phone call you never want to have to make.

xpost.

So apparently during a lengthy version of "Slaves & Bulldozers" to close their show he sang the refrain from Zep's "In My Time of Dying?" Jesus.

.

i'm reminded of a couple shitty reviews for Audioslave's first, very very good album:

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/356-audioslave/

https://web.archive.org/web/20100201130917/http://stylusmagazine.com/reviews/audioslave/audioslave.htm

i don't think Audioslave was nearly the band Soundgarden was, but after awhile of being a bit agnostic i really appreciated their virtuosity even at their weakest.

i can almost guarantee that the three albums i listened to more than any others from 1994 were In Utero, Dirt, and Superunknown. it is ridiculous that all of those singers are dead now, wrong and ridiculous.

― nomar, Thursday, May 18, 2017 10:23 AM (seventeen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

just remembered, at the time of the release of his first solo album, my promo groove was on the way out,
so happened to be well chuffed/baffled, when i got this promo only career overview release :

https://www.discogs.com/Chris-Cornell-The-Roads-We-Choose-A-Retrospective/release/5680836

I was never keen on Audioslave but this track is mighty

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDMvN45sjo4

i really really love this one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WC5FdFlUcl0

yeah "cochise" is like a bomb going off. regardless audioslave always seemed to me like cornell being let down by the limitations of the players/arrangements surrounding him (i'm not extending this theory to the solo albums i haven't heard)

there's a great moment in the spin superunknown oral history where cornell describes how he felt when ben shepherd brought "head down" to the band, he's like, "this must be what being in the beatles was like." i love that. soundgarden were unparalleled

i never really had a thing for Soundgarden but I moved from the twin cities to Seattle in spring 1990 after the way had been blazed for me by my best friend at the time; after i got there I remember meeting Ben Shepherd at this insane dilapidated shared house on bainbridge island where my friend and his gf were living with a bunch of other freaks. Shepherd was just then joining SG iirc?-- And my friend introduced me to him and I laughed out loud because my friend and shepherd were dead ringers for each other. My friend and I weren't 21 yet and I guess he had borrowed shepherd's driver's license a few times without a hitch because they resembled each other so strongly. My friend and his gf had already both become junkies since moving to seattle but i didn't realize that for a few more weeks. at least half the people living in that bainbridge island house became junkies. one of them died a year or so later, another become a piece of shit scumbag, etc. seattle and heroin is such a cliche but it's hard to overstate how saturated in junk seattle was, you could just feel something wrong in the very air. At least anywhere even the slightest bit connected to music -- thank god i made friends in the comic book scene soon enough. anyway, flash forward to about 2010 and my friend who had seemingly made it out of the vortex and was back in the midwest with a wife and baby son and career helping kids suddenly hung himself with a belt behind a locked door. I have this feeling like the darkness was already there (BOB?) and the region was like this perfect cup for the junk to be poured into but idk. Anyway so much of that music is death music to me, it really was coming from a wellspring of horror in a lot of cases. Sorry for this prose poem but reading about how cornell was found and how unexpected it was really made me think of my friend who did that to himself and that seattle feeling.

Damn. Sorry about your friend, first of all. But that's a very vivid portrait of something on so many levels.

yeah, death music is a good way to put it. often feels like there's no way out when listening to Cobain, Weiland, Staley, et al.

sidebar: the Spin superunknown oral history brad referenced is a great read if anyone is interested

http://www.spin.com/2014/06/oral-history-soundgarden-superunknown-anniversary-reissue/

yeah jon otm, sad as it is to admit

not sure if this has been posted yet, but man

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuUDRU9-HRk&feature=share

https://youtu.be/IuUDRU9-HRk

Listening to BMF for the first time in years

These guys were musically so far ahead of all their contemporaries it's ridiculous, but without verging into guitar mag Tool territory & with Cornell who was a big enough voice and presence to actually stand on top of the mountains they were building

otm

yeah

All that and pop hooks as such! Amazing, really.

Just saw a post from Slicing Up Eyeballs on FB reminding me that today is also the 37th anniversary of Ian Curtis' passing.

this is really rough you guys

yeah Ned good point they did have it all, even with doing tricky time signatures and odd tunings and super abrasive elements and huge riffs they managed to make it all so catchy and appealing

often feels like there's no way out when listening to Cobain, Weiland, Staley, et al.

one of the reasons I never really feel inclined to (re) listen to this stuff

melvins is the survive-without-escaping version, somehow

Arguably it's because they escaped to SF that they're still here. (Which is oversimplifying heavily, but that's kinda how I view it. They knew they had to leave.)

idk Soundgarden never sounded quite on the same level of bleak to me

And I'm not saying the Melvins didn't have their problems -- I passed one of their many bassists once years back clearly on a heroin nod sitting outside -- but the core duo just seems to have taken a different mindset to things. But this is getting off topic rapidly on my part...

i suppose it is OT but still OTM

idk Soundgarden never sounded quite on the same level of bleak to me

Arguably it was more hiding in plain sight? I mean...Cornell *looked* great and was always undeniably there, 'present' in the moment. That kind of presence and image can, well, I don't want to say cover up a lot, but.

they just always struck me as having a bit more self awareness of essentially being a classic rock band idk

A friend from my freshman year in college was a huge music nerd from Seattle and after returning from a trip home he brought back this warbly tape of 4-track demos from Cornell that was such a massive departure from Soundgarden at the time (Louder Than Love, Flower & the Screaming Life/Fopp reissue)... it was way more in line sonically with The Winding Sheet or what would become the blues/gospel songs off Temple of the Dog, but with lucid imaginative lyrics, experimental song structures and crazy guitar tunings played on his acoustic.

The only song I recognized coming to fruition from that tape was "Seasons" which showed up on the Singles OST. I'd love to hear those spooky, warbly demos again if any old school Seattle folks know what I'm talking about.

that could be the tape he made in character for SINGLES, which is coming out as part of its deluxe reissue tomorrow

Almost a decade ago, my wife and I hired a car to take us to the airport. The driver had just driven Cornell a few days prior, and said he was one of the most genuinely friendly people he'd had in his car, including everyone. I still remember his exact words: "Just a real gentle soul."

Rest in peace, man.

Cornell *looked* great and was always undeniably there, 'present' in the moment. That kind of presence and image can, well, I don't want to say cover up a lot, but.

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, May 18, 2017 8:29 PM (twelve minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Think that's another reason he reminds me more of Hutchence now. 😞

i've been listening to them pretty much constantly again ever since the reissue campaign got going, they were as big a part of my teenage years as any kid back then but it took until my thirties to realize just what cornell had put into those superunknown songs.

: (

who will be the first to claim that the timbaland album is underrated?

me

well, not underrated per se, but i've always enjoyed how strange and tasteless it is

I'm gutted by this. What a tragedy. If only he hadn't been alone, I keep thinking.

Review of last night's show. Not sure if it gets the right balance, but I don't know what IS the right balance.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/music/2017/05/18/chris-cornells-final-performance-something-clearly-wasnt-right/101842384/

That said that last paragraph...oof.

(And I don't mean in a good way.)

yeah don't watch that stuff

I watched a couple songs from the first night of the tour and a couple songs from last night -- the difference in energy level and voice are startling

I forgot how great "Say Hello 2 Heaven" sounds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRbSFprzSaA&spfreload=10

i dont know if I can handle Temple of The Dog yet. i cried my eyes out at the live show in December when he was alive & singing, god knows I'd be a mess now

i am really struggling with this. i mean bowie & prince broke me but this is like my immediate musical circle, it's just too fucking real & i hate it

VG : hugs. xx

ty <3

aw

yep god almighty do NOT watch clips from last night's Detroit show, just don't do it to yrself

;_;

thanks for the warning- I don't want to remember him in some fucked up way.
goddamn I can't overstate how much I love that band. truly sad

i tried to do a top 10, so far i'm at 25 lol

I've always thought pre-major label Soundgarden was a bit hit-and-miss. I think they got better once they signed to a major...but I'm listening to "Screaming Life" right now and it is knocking it out of the park right now. Proper grunge biznizz

played through superunknown making dinner. i've never been one to play their records all the way through and i don't know why, they were really really good.

it's funny, i was so diehard about soundgarden that i fucking HATED superunknown when it came out

i hated all the dudes at college that suddenly were airdrumming to spoonman and i hated black hole sun on the radio endlesssly & i hated chris's haircut & the album was so new & polished sounding
i liked 4th of july & fell on black days but man thst album was a real sore point for me for a while until i grew out of it

so dumb

now i listen to it & it is so good all the way through, just so much going on musically & lyrically! fucking huge achievement

lol i'm younger than you but there was a ubiquity to superunknown even for me so i can totally see pushing back on those songs.

and then tonight i'm like the spoonman riff is up there with any jimmy page riff ever.

Superunknown is great.

Yeah I was way into Badmotorfinger and then Superunknown was their "sellout"' record for me where they "lost their edge". Of course that's silly in retrospect, it's a fine record.

There are some really good songs on Superunknown but I have always hated "Black Hole Sun." Not since it got popular, but since the first time I heard it. It's slow and boring, it's got that lacy-cuffs psychedelic thing going on that I hate...it's just not a good song, to my ear. But "My Wave" still kills, and a bunch of other stuff, too. Like basically every album from 1996, it's too long, of course.

I couldn't quite get over "Spoonman" to a degree -- I kept imagining Sammy Davis Jr. doing a riff on his "Candy Man," even more Vegas, though ("The shpoonman, he's got the shpoons!"). So I ended up more appreciating them for Superunknown where I had played Badmotorfinger into the ground, and I never quite returned to that same level in general with his work. Different sonic interests and so forth. Remarkable album nonetheless -- I remember it and The Downward Spiral came out the same day and charted 1-2 as a result. For a moment there things seemed aligned with my vision of the universe.

A very nice touch

The Space Needle will go dark from 9-10pm tonight in remembrance of @chriscornell. RIP. #noonesingslikeyouanymore https://t.co/D0XmOhTbkp

— Space Needle (@space_needle) May 18, 2017

I couldn't quite get over "Spoonman" to a degree

OTM. That song is dreadful, I never even bothered to listen to the album.

https://genius.com/Soundgarden-spoonman-lyrics

But I loved every release up that one, saw them a half-dozen times.

My Wave and Fell On Black Days are perfect meshings of sound, melody, arrangement, and singer.

Wtf "spoonman" is awesome

Lately I've been waking up early in the morning and putting on NPR to help me doze back off, so I was only half-awake when I heard about his death and now its fact is trapped between concrete reality and a hazy half-memory. It just doesn't square to me.

I may be the only person who thinks Ultramega OK is their best album, but their singles are all-time, and he was a brilliant songwriter.

i learned about this b/c my wife audibly gasped looking at her phone at about 7 a.m. while we were waking up. first thought was something happened at her job, second thought was something happened to trump.

this news was unwelcome, to say the least.

Michael B OTM. 7/4 riff is inspired.

Musically I have no problem with the song! But still.

I don't know what the lyrics are about, really, but I didn't think that was a concern for you.:)

Genuinely curious about the cavils!

I may be the only person who thinks Ultramega OK is their best album

The remastered version gives you a much stronger case.

nah I still have a block with that song

I did only just realize how Zeppelin-y Big Dumb Sex is with that big old fat riff, which makes the song even funnier

Is it just me or did he look very handsome on the "like a stone" video? That said I was never much of a fan of Soundgarden or Audioslave and I hated his Bond song in Casino Royale but I really respected him and liked him as a person... saw several interviews and fan videos of him instage joking with the audience and to my surprise he was not an asshole at all. I feel like most rockers from the late 80s early 90s were very unpleasant people.

Not Cornell tho... so he was a talented guy, humble and charismatic and pretty good looking. A keeper all around... real shame he wasn't happy with his life, seemed like he had it all.

My modest obit

Spoonman is about heroin right

the only thing you got wrong is that cornell was the only credited writer the majority of those songs. respect to thayil but if you believe the band chris came in with many of those twisty riffs mostly formed.

Oh I believe it.

I love Michael Beinhorn's pedigree -- Material's keyboardist producing this band!

xxxpost Moka, fyi Chris Cornell looked handsome in every waking moment of his adult life

dude was hot af

fuckin hot

remember in the mid 00's when he was suddenly super-tanned? even then

be still my ovaries

https://68.media.tumblr.com/7095b8a000a9bd1a822ac07703b231eb/tumblr_olcb9vuudJ1w4tfzvo1_400.gif

lolol

I think I've written about this previously on ILM, but back in the mid 90s I was in a band that briefly was being courted by a record label in southern California. The head of the label was pals with Chris Cornell and arranged for him to come down and hang out with us. We went out to dinner with Cornell and the label folks and then later hung out with him at his hotel room, mostly drinking beers, shooting the shit, goofing around. For some reason, we ended up watching Barbarella, which happened to be on the hotel tv. Anyway, Cornell was very nice to us, he was a chill, down-to-earth guy. We were of course very star struck. This was shortly after Superunknown came out, so pretty much the height of his career. There was really no reason why he should have to hang out with me and my band friends, but he was perfectly friendly and patient with us, and gave us some good advice about the record biz. I appreciated the fact that he was the one person we were interacting with that didn't come across like he was trying to sucker us in one way or another. He just seemed to really have his shit together and to be enjoying life.

One thing I remember is that in the record label guy's office there was a Christmas photo of Chris Cornell and his wife both in big garish Christmas sweaters with big smiles, very cute. It was nice to know he didn't take himself too seriously and could just be happy and silly, despite the heavy rocker image.

wow that's awesome

he has always seemed very thoughtful. and i love his super dry sarcasm, he has a pretty killer sense of humor like a lot of guys from that scene

possibly the best gif ever, at least for my needs

https://68.media.tumblr.com/ad84d8f2408c29edd533be0ab7e85d3a/tumblr_o4bifeOogB1scx7dho1_400.gif

xps to crut, fwiw

Cornell on "Spoonman"

It's more about the paradox of who (Artis) is and what people perceive him as. He's a street musician, but when he's playing on the street, he is given a value and judged completely wrong by someone else. They think he's a street person, or he's doing this because he can't hold down a regular job. They put him a few pegs down on the social ladder because of how they perceive someone who dresses differently. The lyrics express the sentiment that I much more easily identify with someone like Artis than I would watch him play.[6]

speaking of Beinhorn, this bullshit was still floating around int he '90s:

Jack Endino: I’m not a big fan of the production. It’s okay. It’s kind of noisy now when I listen to it. The production captures a feel, which I think is good, but it’s an odd-sounding record if you listen to it with technical ears

Yeah I really like him with the tan and the shorter hair.. its how I first saw how he looked like I think.

Moodles story confirms my suspicion that he was a really cool guy to be around and not a pretentious asshole like others in the scene.

lol 'my needs'

i don't think it's controversial to say that beinhorn's production was a little stilted, tho i think it mostly works

I can't hear how it's stilted.