Category Archives: Seattle

Alice In Chains – Facelift: Fresh Blood [RIP – December 1990]

Something different, something new. Something fresh to sink your teeth into. Something familiar, yet not. Isn’t this what we are all looking for?

RIP Fresh Blood: Alice In Chains

RIP Fresh Blood: Alice In Chains

Unchain Alice, and that’s precisely what you’ll find. Although true to Seattle’s trademark grunge style, Alice brands it with their own personality. Heavily influenced by other Emerald City stars like Soundgarden and Mother Love Bone, their music reflects the close-knit camaraderie between the bands working the Seattle scene. With the big family attitude of the bands up there, it would mean there was something wrong if they didn’t.

However, Alice’s influences certainly aren’t limited to locals only. Their Columbia debut, Facelift, expresses their interest in The Cult and vintage Judas Priest as well. It’s a heavy, crunchy album rounded out by some slower tempos artfully produced by Dave Jerden.

Thanks in part to him, Layne Staley’s nasal-inflected vocals have matured into a strong, tough, streetwise sound; while Jerry Cantrell’s guitar injects painful emotion into cuts like Sea Of Sorrow and Love/Hate/Love, then fills Sunshine and We Die Young with raw, boisterous energy. The pounding rhythms come via Sean Kinney’s enthusiasm-filled drumming fleshed out with Mike Starr’s thick ‘n’ meaty bass licks.

The sometimes morbid, always thoughtful lyrics focus less on sex than the world in general, as viewed from the perspective of youth specifically. Staley attributes much of the band’s sound to the fact that they are all young and somewhat angry about the state of our society. But this does not mean that they have no sense of humor. Quite the opposite! They try to deal with serious subjects in their music while retaining an irreverent attitude about themselves. They like to have fun.

As for the name, they just don’t know. The stories range from Warrell Dane (Sanctuary’s singer) once wanting to form a thrash band that wore dresses on stage, to a recent quote from Staley that starts with the band owning a cat named Alice and concludes unprintably. Their name’s origination is generally credited to Staley, so I asked the major prankster Kinney what it means. He said, “For some people it sounds like a girl’s name, like Allison Chanes,” then he turns the question over to Cantrell, “What’s it mean, Jerry?”

“Alice In Chains could very well have been Herbert In Chains or Herbert In The Mud, for that matter. It actually means nothing.” Then, as an afterthought, “Actually, it sounds like the title to a really good porno movie!” To which Kinney adds, “we’re hoping to make one.” Alice will be touring the states in the months (which did turn into years) ahead, so remember: You’re never too young for a Facelift.

Billy Idol & Faith No More at Seattle Center Coliseum [City Heat – December 1990]

Hot Flashes – In ConcertDec 1990 City Heat InConcert: Billy Idol Faith No More
Billy Idol
Faith No More

This was  a Halloween not soon forgotten and a concert equally memorable. 18,000 crazed goblins, pregnant nuns, ghoulish beings and just plain night owls gathered to spend All Hallow’s Eve with kindred spirits. Pre-show I asked Faith No More’s Jim Martin if his festive self was dressing up for the occasion. An enthused, “Of course!” was followed by, “I’m planning to change my t-shirt.”

Tho visibly road-weary, FNM smashed open pumpkin night with “From Out Of Nowhere”, marshaling all the tenacity and power that makes their stage show a must-see. Center stage, sporting gorilla fur pants, red flannel shirt (no doubt an ode to our fair city) and a Doris Day wig, Michael Patton went immediately into his flinging, flailing, stomping routine that I overheard one truly un-PC mother describe as a “good imitation of a retarded person”.

Next up was their most current cool cut, “Falling To Pieces”. They crammed “Underwater Love”, “Surprise, You’re Dead”, (my favorite) “The Real Thing” and (the only number from a previous album) “We Care A Lot” into their formidable opening set – highlighted by joyously cheeky renditions of the Nestle’s Alpine White jingle and “The Edge Of The World”.

This being the dangerous combination of both Halloween and the last date of FNM’s stint on the Charmed Life tour, we were in for some surprises. In the midst of thumping out their “Epic” hit, Mr. Idol’s road crew thumped the band with a huge amount of smelt from the lighting rig in an overkill MTV reprise of their iconic video star. After flinging fish into the crowd and taking their bows, FNM returned to the stage for a cover of The Commodores’ “Easy (Like Sunday Morning)” with the help of three bath-robed housewives singing backup and opening their robes to flash mammoth false breasts. An un-false mooning from the girls accompanied the curtain call and there was still more fun in store.

As soon as Idol hit the stage with “Cradle Of Love”, it began. A gorilla (looking suspiciously similar in stature to Patton) came dancing around stage right, surprising the beautiful duo singing backups. Then it joined along with their choreographed dance steps, all the while Billy Idol rocking the chuckling crowd, oblivious to the show stealing going on behind him.

Mr. Idol gave an energetic performance that seemed little affected by his recent lameness. A slight limp barely noticeable, he posed and sneered and swaggered as if in top form.

He rattled off his long list of hits, from the latest back to Gen X days for “The Untouchables”. Songs from an MTV generation: “Eyes Without A Face”, “White Wedding”, “Rebel Yell” and “Flesh For Fantasy” which featured a pretty neat-o robotic, chest-baring dance move from the Idol one.

The real kicker, however, came in the midst of his encore, “To Be A Lover”. Heads covered with masks, paper bags and towels, five guys (quite rightly assumed to be FNM) circled Idol, dancing around him butt-naked. Pretty damn scary!

Seattle Times Tempo Section: Word by Patrick McDonald

Remembered in RIPAndrew Wood of Mother Love Bone

November 2, 1992 Tempo Seattle Post-Intelligencer

November 2, 1990 Seattle Times Tempo Section: Word column by Patrick McDonald

is remembered in an interview in the December issue of Rip Magazine. Conducted by writer Michael Browning, the interview took place last March 15, one day before Wood was found unconscious from a heroin overdose. He died four days later when taken off life support systems.

Wood is open about his drug problems, saying “I’m lucky to be sitting here.”He talks about getting out of rehab and insists he is clean. “I was a druggy until I went into treatment,” he says, “I’m not doing it anymore.” He’s upbeat and positive about MLB’s future.

A companion piece includes an interview with Xana La Fuente, Wood’s girrIfriend, who found him unconscious. “It’s really cool and weird, ’cause he wrote so much religious stuff in the weeks prior to his death,” she is quoted as saying. “All these songs about heaven and dying.” Incidentally, the Seattle Times Tempo Word Patrick McDonald 11.2.90same issue has articles on Queensryche and Alice in Chains.

Word by Patrick McDonald

Soundgarden: “Meet Ben Shepherd” [City Heat – August 1990]

August 1990 CityHeat Cover

August 1990 CityHeat Cover

Soundgarden. Yeah! City Heat’s got ’em. Had to travel for it tho. You think these guys would make it easy for Seattle’s Music Magazine by granting an interview in Seattle? No way! So we motored down to Portland for their show with Alice In Chains at the Melody Lane Ballroom on July 25th. Okay, truth is we were stoked for the road trip and the killer double bill!

Getting dinner and a photo shoot behind them, we sat down with Kim, Chris and Ben to get the exclusive poop. What’s that? Ben who? you say? On their records you know Hiro Yamamoto was playing bass. Then after the release of Louder Than Love you heard about Jason Everman dropping six in Nirvana to play four in Soundgarden. Now, who’s this Ben chap of which we speak?

Briefly, 21 year old Ben Shepherd has lived and played on Bainbridge Island for the past 18 years. Some of you relics out there may remember him from the days of Gorilla Gardens and The Metropolis when he was in, what he termed, a melodic punk rock band called March Of Crimes. Laying low, he’s since sang, played nad wrote for a band (who shall remain nameless) that played a very few shows in island towns before its swift demise.
Then from out of his relative obscurity, he is suddenly an integral cog in the critically acclaimed machine that is Soundgarden. We asked Ben to tell us the whole story of his transformation into SG’s ‘politically correct’ bassist.

Soundgarden

Soundgarden

Ben Shepherd: “Well, I’ve known Kim for a while, so he hunted me down and asked me to try out.”
City Heat: “Then what?”
BS: “Then they, ah………they fucked up (laughter all around).”
CH: “Like how?”
BS: “They took the wrong bass player.”
Chris Cornell: “Actually I had a dream, Ben. Did I tell you that? I had a dream I was in a room with your brother, apologizing to him for not choosing you in the first place. [Again addressing me] That was after we’d already chosen him.”

After Louder Than Love came out they held auditions for bass players. When Hiro decided to travel a different path it left the band in a lurch with not-a-lot of time to spend deliberating over a replacement.
BS: “I practiced or jammed with them a couple of times, I didn’t even know their songs worth a crap tho at all. But it was totally fun jamming with them. I hadn’t jammed with anyone for a while and it was flattering as fuck.”
CH: “Then what happened? You came in, jammed about a week….”
BS: “Not even a week, twice. Then Jason knew the songs better and they were in a really awkward bind at that time. They had the record out and needed to tour immediately, so they had to make a quick choice. So they chose Jason and the chemistry didn’t work.”
By the end of the tour they’d made up their minds to give the job to Ben.
CC: “We made the decision to play with Ben simultaneously with deciding that Jason wasn’t the right guy.”
Although both players had auditioned at the same time last year, member replacement is seldom easy and far from an exact science.
CC: “You can’t predict from a few meetings exactly what someone’s gonna be like and how they’re going to interact with the band. Mainly musically, but in most ways, we just didn’t click. It wasn’t anything necessarily ‘wrong’ with Jason. Band chemistry is really fragile so you can’t just make a choice and be one hundred percent correct.
CH: “So they got home and Kim called you up?” What did he say to you, ‘you’re on the team’?”
BS: “Actually Chris asked me. We were all looking at his little dog, hanging out at Chris’ place and he said, ‘Well, we were wondering what you’d think about playing with us?’. I just looked at my shoes real quick, ‘Fuck yeah!'”
So they had a few days to practice and after playing a couple opening numbers for Alice at the Lake City Concert Hall, were whisked off to Europe. The opening date of that tour happened to be the festival in Roskilde, Denmark.
CC: “His first actual show with us was in front of about 5,000 people.”
Karen Mason: “Was that a rush, first time going out?”
BS: “Well it was definitely a rush knowing my bass was plugged into a direct recording thing. That tripped me out ’cause the could hear every little sound.”
CC: “We were being recorded for broadcast by some radio station over there.”
After playing another big festival and a few more club dates, they’re back stateside and working up new material together. The band as a whole seems to gel well and all are contributing to the new songs. They’ve got a song on the soundtrack fro an upcoming movie and for those fortunate (intelligent?) enough to be members of Sub Pop’s Single of the Month Club, a tasty surprise.
The seven inch featuring H.I.V. Baby (produced by their sound man, Stuart Hallerman) will be available only to those elite peoples. But that’s not to say you may never find the tunes on a future full-length. Cornell likens Sheperd’s contribution (“H.I.V. Baby”) to a 90’s feeling “My Generation”.
CH: “What’s on the B-side?”
Kim Thayil: “Room A Thousand Years Wide.”
CH: “So you wrote H.I.V. Baby and play on both tracks?”
BS: “Yeah.”
CC: “Actually we were deciding between three songs that were his, but we have trouble with that kind of thing. If somebody writes for a movie or a single or something, a lot of times the songs will end up better than we’d expected and we want to save it for a record. So we kept juggling all these songs and couldn’t decide what to use.”
Next up is another (another? yes, another) U.S. leg supporting their Louder Than Love tour. Once the tour is finally over, they’ll be thinking about a new album which will be recorded either here in Seattle, Vancouver, B.C. or San Francisco. Just about anywhere but Los Angeles which, they all agree and inform me, is ‘completely uninspiring’.

Ben Shepherd onstage at Melody Lane Ballroom, Portland, OR.

Ben Shepherd onstage at Melody Lane Ballroom, Portland, OR, July 25, 1990.

Shots from this photo shoot are available directly from Karen Mason-Blair.
http://karenmasonblair.com/

 

 

Paisley Sin: Hot Flashes [City Heat – July 1990]

Paisley SinJuly 1990 City Heat Cover
It’s Not Just A Hobby… It’s A Hassle
Inde Demo Tape

Listening to Z-Rock the other day, I was somewhat surprised to hear The Secret on  that station. Then it occurred to me that the song rocks plenty for their format.

Which brought me back to, ‘Why was I surprised’?
I’ve had this tape for about a year now and I guess I just finally realized how versatile Paisley Sin is. From the denying Ain’t Nothin‘ to the starry night feel of Tribute to the funky, tongue-in-cheek This Is The Life, back to the heavy Out & Down.

This bass-driven collection of tunes runs the gamut. As such, it proves to be a good reference point but still nothing compared to the live Sin. However, it is a must for Seattle aficionados.

Looking forward, now more than ever, to their next release!