So, what have you been listening to lately?

[Dave W]

Speaking of Seattle bands you probably never heard of, here's John Ramberg's Stumpy Joe, early 90s, from their only album.

[gearHed289]

Never heard or heard of this 80s Seattle band before yesterday. I like this song. Most of their few other surviving recordings that I've heard are much faster punkier numbers.
Tina Bell seems like she could've been a rock star contender. Too bad they didn't get farther.
Reading about them, so far I've gleaned that whether or not they "invented grunge" as a few have gone so far as to claim, they were at least important in the history of it. Matt Cameron made his drumming debut in this band a few years before he joined Soundgarden and later Pearl Jam. Apparently they were much admired by local younger musicians who went on to be rather more famous (I've read both that Ccobain roadied for them and that the Melvins opened for them).

I guess I'd have to hear more of their music, but I don't hear any grunge in this at all. Very 80s (which I like). If the stuff out of 90s Seattle sounded more like this, I might have been more interested.

[westen44]

Jocelyn and Chris, brother and sister band from New York.

[slinkp]

I guess I'd have to hear more of their music, but I don't hear any grunge in this at all. Very 80s (which I like). If the stuff out of 90s Seattle sounded more like this, I might have been more interested.

Fair enough. It's a bit difficult to pin down anyway as I've always found "grunge" to be ill-defined, as it somehow encompassed all of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, the Melvins, Mudhoney, and Soundgarden. I guess one thing they mostly have in common is taking a punk-inspired ethic and slowing it down to sludgier tempos. 70s-heavy-rock-inspired riffs are common but not all of them have that either.

All that said, the slow heaviness of this one seems a bit grungey to me:

[uwe]

100% grunge-free, not overdressed and anyway it's the season. Back when keyboard gods and their tiny set-ups still had abs not apps ...

[uwe]

"It's a bit difficult to pin down anyway as I've always found "grunge" to be ill-defined, as it somehow encompassed all of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, the Melvins, Mudhoney, and Soundgarden."

Not to forget: A grainy, low-fi production sound.  We wouldn't want to sound like we recorded this in a state of the art studio now, would we?

And dropped-D tuning of course. What horror if the E string had the correct tension! 

[Pilgrim]

Tis the season....

[uwe]

[uwe]

[Dave W]

[Dave W]

From the 1966 movie The Ghost Goes Gear. The Oscar nominating committee must have missed this one.

[slinkp]

"It's a bit difficult to pin down anyway as I've always found "grunge" to be ill-defined, as it somehow encompassed all of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, the Melvins, Mudhoney, and Soundgarden."

Not to forget: A grainy, low-fi production sound.  We wouldn't want to sound like we recorded this in a state of the art studio now, would we?

And dropped-D tuning of course. What horror if the E string had the correct tension! 

Okay, I know you're taking the piss, but I can't help it ...  Certainly there was a fair amount of drop-D going on at the time, but most of the big Nirvana singles were standard tuning.
"Jeremy" and "Alive" are standard tuning.

And few of the major-label "grunge" releases ("Nevermind", "Superunknown", "Ten" et al) sound at all low-fi to me.
Earlier records released on Sub Pop et al, sure - but that's because they were low budget indie records, and comparatively few people actually heard those.

Once they actually had budgets to work with, probably the one major outlier is "In Utero" where Nirvana hired Albini to deliberately make their second major-label record sound as un-radio-friendly as they could.

I think Wikipedia hit on a common thread though:
"Lyrics are typically angst-filled and introspective, often addressing themes such as social alienation, self-doubt, abuse, neglect, betrayal, social and emotional isolation, psychological trauma and a desire for freedom."  Take away the gadgets and NiN could've been Grunge

[uwe]

  How you know me Jake!

But I forgot one other trait: An utter disregard for Western Civilization's theory of harmony - with Soundgarden and Nirvana being the worst culprits. All grunge musicians should have taken compulsory music theory seminars with Brian Wilson. You know, you can be depressive AND STILL KNOW YOUR CIRCLE OF FIFTHS!

Together with the consciously fuzzy and hazy production values (plus the reintroduction of vocal microphone sounds we had believed to have left behind in the 50ies), that aspect of grunge bugged me the most. A lot of it sounded like a beginner band with bad ears in a rehearsal space attempting their own songwriting. Soundgarden's Black Hole Sun gives me shivers to this day - and not of the good type. I find those chord changes unpleasant, harsh, wanton and disharmonious. I remember listening to the Nirvana debut in the car of my then-bandmate/guitarist from start to finish, being (unlike him) unimpressed and thinking to myself: "They're playing all these wrong chords, why did no one iron that out?" 

You Yanks (and further up North) are so good at being harmonic, don't deny what you are!



I never had issues with the grunge lyrics though, I like it dark!



Oh yeah, the keyboard playing of all those bands was excellent too. Another step back.

[Dave W]

Mickey and Peter

Posted in 2015

[slinkp]

I'm not Jake!