Soundgarden

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.