alice in chains c/d

Just for the hell of it I made a list of the songs (from the 3 main albums and 2 eps) nu-Alice could play if they were avoiding Staley stuff completely. It's still a pretty impressive catalog.

"We Die Young"
"Sea of Sorrow"
"Bleed the Freak"
"It Ain't Like That"
"Sunshine"
"Put You Down"
"I Know Somethin' ('Bout You)"
"Brother"
"Got Me Wrong"
"Right Turn"
"Them Bones"
"Dam That River"
"Down in a Hole"
"Rooster"
"Would?"
"No Excuses"
"Whale & Wasp"
"Don't Follow"
"Grind"
"Heaven Beside You"
"Over Now"

From the set lists I've seen they are at least doing "Man in the Box," "Love, Hate, Love," "Angry Chair," "God Smack," "Junkhead," "Rain When I Die," "Sludge Factory" and "Again." Haven't seen any where they busted out "Sickman" or "Rotten Apple," though.

haha 'love, hate, love'. false ending to end all false endings.

yeah, but the entire lyric for that song is pretty fragmentary, yet it still seems to cohere into some fall-from-grace theme or whatever. That line just sort of dangles there at the end and throws me for a loop.

xpost

(shoddy mixed metaphor, sorry)

yeah!

the 'crawling back to start' implies a sort of voluntary, defeatist fall-from-grace as well. aic were never really short of grim

classic.

despite what anybody said, "Facelift" was classic and fun as hell....Dirt was amazing. Jar of Flies was great...

Sap was ok. Self-titled album was pretty good, not great. Music Bank had some really nice b-side material.

I'm really iffy on them writing new material with Mr. Duvall though (as has been reported).

Certainly I mean it isn't taboo or anything but even though Layne didn't write the majority of the songs, when I think of AiC, I think of his voice. They're synonymous. Just wish they'd use another moniker.

huge fucking dud.

^^^^rong

huge classic

Dirt was amazing. Jar of Flies was great...

OTFM

that tripod record still fascinates me. from the ugly cover art and revised logo to the bizarre songs and grimy mix, there is a serious what-the-fuck vibe going on.

strangely, i really like it. you've got to ask what 'so close' and 'nothing song' are doing on the record though. worthless, half ideas smothered in blandness. i'll defend the record on most other counts though and suggest that it might just be worthy of classic status.

Huge classic but please don't write anymore material under the name. don't tarnish it.

Herman otm

Charlie, you're right about strange songs on the self-titled album. A lot of them work too ("God Am", "Brush Away", "Frogs"). "Nothing Song" is indeed a dud.

love 'brush away', yeah.
and the spoken part on 'frogs' is very cool. don't quite know what layne was on about there, but that's pretty much the point.

yea that part always creeped me out a bit

uh huh
and you know, i'm gonna chime in as well and say please no more recordings under the alice name. i know what new cantrell-penned songs stand for - 6-minute guitar based plodders all over the place.

Yea, Guitar Magazine used to fellate the guy and no doubt he's talented but when they said he "held the cards" in AIC it really angered me, sure he wrote most of the material but what about Layne's vocals?

Not to mention Jerry's solo material (at least his first album, never heard the second) was BORING. Dude is a good backup singer but shouldn't sing lead on ANYTHING.

http://kn0x0rz.proboards102.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=general&thread=1206&page=1

i mean

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v136/primrosehill/littledudeslayne.jpg

+9

It's interesting to hear how much they remind me of the Byrds on their early releases.

i love "sap" and "jar of flies", i still listen to them pretty often. i like some songs off of "dirt" and "facelift" and the self titled, "dirt" being by far the most consistent. i was disappointed by the unplugged though. i saw them live in 93 at lollapalooza, they killed it.

well the new aic record seems to be going ahead. i'll be pretty curious about it if i'm at all able to disassociate it from the true alice name

No no no no no, AIC without Staley is a terrible idea.

I expect someone will do a really obvious 'fixed' on that post.

It worked for INXS. Uh.

Bad idea.

Awful idea.

And the press release!

Los Angeles, CA- Legendary rock band ALICE IN CHAINS has signed an exclusive worldwide deal with EMI's Virgin Records and are gearing up for the release of their first new studio album in more than 10 years. The band and producer Nick Raskulinecz (Rush, Foo Fighters) began recording last October at Studio 606 in Northridge, CA and recently finished mixing at Henson Studios in Hollywood. The highly anticipated album is scheduled for release this September.

Guitarist/vocalist Jerry Cantrell, drummer Sean Kinney and bassist Mike Inez reunited in 2005 at a benefit for victims of the tsunami in Indonesia. They began touring with new guitarist/vocalist William DuVall the following year.

"It's been a meaningful journey and a hell of a story," says Cantrell. "We're very excited to have a home at Virgin/EMI and are looking forward to writing new chapters in the book of Alice."

"We're in a good place," adds Kinney. "We've made a record that we're really proud of, we've got a team in place that's passionate about the music and we're excited for the fans to hear the new songs."
"Alice In Chains has had a big hand in the evolution of music and I still can't believe we get to work with them," says Rob Stevenson, President of Virgin Records. "This music is going to remind people what we've all been missing."
"There is a tremendous sense of excitement and dedication within EMI around the world as we head into this album release," Added Jeff Kempler, EMI's COO of New Music for North America and the UK,"Alice In Chains' place in rock history is undeniable and when people hear this remarkable new work it will be clear how timeless, potent and visionary this band is."
Alice In Chains were among the headliners at the recent Rock on the Range festival in Columbus, OH. Next up is a July 18 show with Kid Rock at Comerica Park in Detroit, to be followed by festival shows with Metallica overseas, including an August 1 date at Marlay Park in Dublin and an August 2 show at the Sonisphere Festival at Knebworth. Earlier this year, the quartet took a break from recording to perform a string of shows in Australia with Nine Inch Nails.

Over the course of their remarkable career, Alice In Chains has garnered multiple Grammy nominations, sold more than 17 million albums worldwide and achieved 11 top 10 hit singles.

I idly note that Staley isn't mentioned once.

Also, Layne Staley is still dead.

disgusting using the name Alice In Chains

new single, "a looking in view."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnU19MHwt7w

whole lotta dud. pretty forgettable.

i never really paid attn to dudes outside the radio staples but the gf turned me on to their records and goddamn if they're not the best grunge thing this side of nirvana

^^^ utterly, utterly piercing

Not great - some nice crunchy guitars, and it is unmistakably AIC, but it needs a way catchier chorus.

yeah i think it was a mistake to release a 7-minute long number for their "comeback" single.

i really don't like Nick Raskulinecz's production style at all.

those two sentences are unrelated...

new song is kinda boring but not terrible. is this really going to be a single? can't imagine people will care too much.

i can't the vocals on AIC songs

Can't resist?

the new song is really unmemorable

oops, can't *stand*

Man there was no reason for that to be seven minutes long by anyone's standards

hah im already fighting with ppl about this over on doomed forever

Just listening to Sap for the first time in years. It's disarmingly lovely.

it is. Much superior to jar of flies.

Agreed. There's something a bit ponderous about JoF.

i still have my sap import cd that i traipsed around glasgow looking for in 1992. (found it in 23rd precinct when it still had the rock bit downstairs)

so the new one huh. thoughts?

Listening to the Mad Season album for the first time makes me realise how SOULFUL a lot of grunge could be

This was the secret unlocked by the Afghan Whigs, by way of Ohio.

And Screaming Trees, too; not really much metal in either of those bands.

Yes to Mother Love Bone then?

yup

Nice. I suspect Man of Golden Words would be fairly high on my ballot.

we probably have another 3 years until my turn for the grunge poll comes around anyway but as this is the year Nevermind turns 30, it deffo should run this year imo.

I have metal poll in the near future but spottie is more than welcome to run the grunge poll instead of me if he would like to

Gonna be a bunch of crossover, I assume.

grunge poll! grunge poll!

oh snap sorry neechy i havent checked the list in a long time just figured it wasnt on there and i remember a long time ago volunteering to do one. But I'd love if you did it and i could design the images and help with the rollout for it? people feel strongly about the bands that need to be included and those that dont id be open to whatever.

im sure we can come up with something. Who knows when it will be our turn though.

there's been several new ballot poll threads(and new D/Ns for me) since i asked to be put on the list. iirc my request first time was missed by whoever was in charge (wmc?)

anyway it matters little. I'll be happy to co-run it with you or you can do it solo. Im fine either way.

Queensryche and Faster Pussycat will NOT be included though! lol

taking the grunge poll chat here:

ILM Ballot Polls for 2020 and beyond -- the ordering, timing, "I would have voted if I'd known about it," etc

Love them but I hate Rooster. It's so redneck.

― Sandy, Monday, March 3, 2014 3:12 AM bookmarkflaglink

this isn't an insult

aic were one of my first indications that there are rednecks everywhere and i celebrate them for it. always resonated a lot more with them than with someone like kurt cobain who shat on rural people every chance he could get. i remember a documentary where you could see jerry putting in a massive dip and i was just like, these are my guys

also re: upthread, calling jerry a background singer is so completely unhinged

it’s hard to remember but AIC came up on the tail end of mainstream hard rock metal’s popularity and iirc they were on one of the final big Monsters of Rock tours, so they def had one foot in that genre and obv had a kinship with a lot of folks whose life’s soundtrack was that music. When Dirt dropped it felt like such a true lived-in statement and very uncompromising, as much as I liked a lot of the other grunge acts (and I really did esp Pearl Jam tbh) I never got any sense of reportage from IRL shit like I did with AIC. which isn’t to say the other bands weren’t going thru IRL shit (obviously history shows they were) but Staley and co just really didn’t pull their punches. Gotta find my copy of this and replace it if I can’t.

I am glad I was able to catch them in both acoustic (short set at a benefit gig in 1992) and electric (near top of bill at Lolla 93, sadly missed a show right at UCI the previous fall) modes during the Dirt run. Still remember Angelo from Fishbone (and maybe one other bandmember) coming out for "Them Bones" at Lolla and Maynard from Tool joining on "Rooster," and both times it made it all the more intense, but I do wish I could remember their "Would?" from that show more vividly.

i think as a teen i just thought they sounded slightly heavier than the other big modern rock acts of the day, but it's wild how heavy they sound to me now. the intro to "them bones" is heavy as shit. i also love how maximalist they got around the self-titled, especially on something like "grind," SO many guitar and vocal tracks

I think that backing vocalist comment from upthread was me (from when I was BJO). Think my overall view is and has always been that I liked Jerry's voice, but I preferred him vocally serving more as a harmonic complement to Layne than being an outright lead singer. His voice is pleasant, but I liked it better when he was singing the moodier pieces on Sap and JoF then when he took two lead tracks on s/t.

He's obviously a driving force in the band, I just used to get salty when publications would slight Layne to praise Cantrell, I mean obviously the latter wrote or co-wrote almost all of their material, but without Layne's vocals, they wouldn't have achieved what they did (same if they never had Jerry). they were a power duo, albeit one where Jerry had to pick up a lot of slack when Layne was out of commission for long periods.

in conclusion Alice in Chains rules. "What the Hell Have I?" best song

Hair metal Lane takes on the PMRC!!! very cute

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

It's so weird to me to realize that the DuVall version of the band has, at this point, existed for three years longer than the Staley version and released just as many full-length albums.

I really wish more of the cock-rockier era of AiC survived. obviously there's Facelift, but there's also several tracks in the Music Bank boxed set like "Social Parasite", that were really mega-cool. it wasn't what they did best, but an interesting origin story, especially since most bands in that scene were more of a rebellion AGAINST hair metal.

I wish they'd repress Sap/Jar Of Flies on vinyl, those records are ASTONISHING. The Everly Brothers of smack. The hamronies of this group were insane.

I keep meaning to check out the DuVall records. Jerry Cantrell's a fantastic songwriter, and I've heard DuVall is great. But in my head Alice In Chains is Layne's story, and it ends when he ends.

Harmonies. Hamronies sounds like some kind of delicious American junk food.

"Rotten Apple" is incredible

Here's a another incredible relic of the God's Party Animals era of AiC:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXe8WecFvBk

Totally forgot about "I Can't Have You Blues"

Also Jerry Cantrell shower footage!

The DuVall era stuff is fine? I don't hate it, Cantrell gives enough reason to listen, but obviously just nowhere near the alchemy that Staley brought to it.

Sap and Jar of Flies are incredible, absolutely.

totally agree on the amazing vocal harmonies. I recently re-purchased this Japanese disc that has Jar Of Flies and Sap on one cd

the harmonies were great live too, going by the few live recordings they have