I don’t know what made me think of this, but for some reason the other night, the day I bought the Pearl Jam, Ten CD popped into my head and wouldn’t leave. I heard Alive, probably on MTV (back when there was music on that channel), and was stoked to hear a band actually playing rock n roll. If you remember back to 1991, if there was a radio on it was playing stuff like Jesus Jones and EMF, top 40 shit was still just the same old junk but any kind of “Alternative” station was playing those bands as well as Green Day’s debut piece of shit, Slappy Hours. I never made the association between Pearl Jam and Nirvana. I was already into Nirvana after hearing Love Buzz in ‘88 and Sliver in 1990 (college radio ruled back then). Who knew they were from the same scene? Grunge hadn’t become a household name for another couple years -long after Sub Pop Records basically created the scene. That information is way too easy to get now, you don’t need to hear it from me.
I never got into the whole flannel thing. Of course, I was 21 at the time and although I hadn’t “grown up” I was still about the clean look of the Rude Boys and the Skins – there was no way I was gonna be seen with a flannel tied around my waist looking like I hadn’t showered in months. I did, however, get into the Seattle sound pretty heavy. It was nice to hear bands using their guitars again and even more to hear it on job site radios. It was a good time for music back then and I jumped all over it. Between Grunge and Industrial I didn’t think music could get any better. What I didn’t expect was the two bands I loved the most from the Seattle scene, Nirvana and Alice in Chains to go to complete shit in a matter of a year and for Trent Reznor to leave Wax Trax and create the worst band in Industrial history, Nine Inch Nails. Grunge became Pop, Industrial became Goth, then Goth became Pop, not too sure what happened to the original Goth…, it’s no wonder that by the time the new millennium hit I wasn’t about to give any new bands a chance. If it wasn’t for Tool, Radiohead, Helmet and all phases of Drive Like Jehu the end of the nineties would’ve been a wash.
Sorry, I’m kind of all over the place with this. Funny how my head works… like being distracted by the fact that my wife and I both described our most loved encounter with each other last night; ends up we both described the same night. It’s almost like we were meant for each other -either that or we just don’t often have good things to do….
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