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Panic: “Reaching Epidemic Proportion” [City Heat – August 1991]

As the latest band on this fair city’s “signed” roster to release an album (Epidemic) delightfully devoid of trademark grunge, Panic readies for the headlong plunge into the mosh pit that is “thrash metal” with the intent to ride out the set by adding their own little twist to an already twisted genre. That twist is a blues groove undercurrent to the heavy metal rapids above, flowing into an ocean of sound and power that fluctuates with each listen.

Birthed a half dozen years ago between vocalist Jeff Braimes and bassist George Hernandez, they first called the band Cold Steel. About the same time, guitarist Martin Chandler and drummer Jack Coy were playing in Strychnine. When Strychnine disbanded, Marty joined Cold Steel and they changed the name to Panic. A demo or two later, Jack Coy came in to complete the Panic debut lineup.
Before their series of good breaks, Panic pounded the pavement and starved like most hard rock bands. Even with Some serious interest in their demo, they were too broke to dub any copies. With the financial backing of Lance Goodwin from Bubble Records, they did a run of cassette tapes and began mailing them out to labels but as many musicians know and Jeff indicates, “without representation or connections…it’s not really talent or songs or any of that. It’s timing, who you know and maybe, how you look.”
Well they apparently had something or other in their favor for shortly thereafter, with a demo called Sex And Violence, they began making some very influential friends. People like the original Metal Shop mistress, KISW’s Kathy Faulkner and Lora Porter of Combat Records. Lora was such a good friend that she got Panic’s cut Morbid Curiosities on the Z-Rock national network, where it became a regular on Mike Paine’s Headbanger’s Heaven. Not bad for a song off an unsigned band’s demo tape. Unprecedented, in fact.
Then came N.A.M.A. 1990. Panic scored not only a nighttime club showcase but even a 20 minute slot at the actual convention (which didn’t go quite like imagined).
“It was just a really dry, weird thing. Here we thought this was our big break and we played first of all these bands in this really dry room full of people sitting on chairs. We thought we were going to knock ’em out and we died. It was terrible,” Jeff cries. As fortune would have it tho, the nighttime showcase at The Central is where ‘it’ happened.
Exodus guitarist Gary Holt came up to them after the set and told the sweaty crew, “I wanna produce you guys’ record!” Gary was in town for N.A.M.A., traveling with his manager, Toni Isabella of the legendary Bill Graham agency. Toni quickly took on a similar enthusiasm for the quartet and signed them up with BGA. Next assignment: get signed to a label.
Having the benefit of established management and their producer selected for a debut, Panic was pretty well able to take their business wherever they wanted. After six full months of label shopping plus negotiations, they ultimately penned their deal with Metal Blade. With as sweet a package as they had going, you might wonder, ‘why not a major label’? By choice.
Afraid of being swept aside within a corporate mechanism, they chose the intimacy of an independent, Jeff tells why. “The thing with Metal Blade is that they were offering the money that we needed. We had Rick (Hunolt, another Exodus guitarist) and Gary lined up to produce the record so that was going to cost us. It was going to cost us to do it in San Francisco because they had a room picked out to do it in and they wanted to do it with their engineer. [Exodus] being on Capital, they have major label standards and all [these costs] came with those connections so we had to have more money than independents usually give their bands, but we got enough [from them] to do it the way we wanted it.”
As Marty explains, “The more it evolved, the more it became a family type situation, everybody was real tight knit. We didn’t have to go thru a bunch of fuckin’ red tape to get things done. We didn’t even have to go thru an A&R rep, Toni just went straight to Brian [Slagel, of Metal Blade] who is the president. So we didn’t have to go thru any of that bullshit and it saved us a lot of time.”
After that, things just fell into place. Before they knew it, they were in a Bay City studio. Now they had to choose the songs for the big plunge, “For any band that’s been together for any length of time, a debut album usually represents a long period of time writing songs,” Jeff relates. “911 is a three year old song, and the newest on the album, High Strung, I mean, I was putting finishing touches on it while the tape was running. I hope that the newer songs aren’t any less heavy, but they probably are a little more diverse.”
Marty describes their style of song structuring, “Me and George come up with riffs and we compile them and make songs then give Jeff a tape and he writes lyrics to them. It’s a chemistry and concept that works real well…and it’s just always worked [that way] for us.” He goes on to describe Braimes’ lyrics as “anonymous observations of a world gone wrong.”
However, this doesn’t mean they’re bringing out the soap box. “So many metal lyrics are just thrown away to ‘whatever works,” Jeff laments. “I think lyrics are really important and I don’t [just] mean in terms of a message or anything political.” To which he adds, “I don’t have the time at this point to get too tied up about what’s going on in the world. It’s not that we don’t ever hope to have a social or political conscience, it’s just that I hope to grow into it honestly. I also think anybody in rock and roll deserves to have a period of time where they can just do it and not have the responsibility of raising someone else’s children. I realize that entertainer do, or can, have a big influence and even tho I think there’s a lot of fucked up things happening in the world and young people probably do need guidance right now. I’m still one of those young people.” Now there’s a shot of honesty for ya.
In fact, they’re pretty adamant about two things; their music and the honesty of same. “We don’t put ourselves in any category, we just do what we do and if people think that’s a cop out or sellout, they can pretty much fuck off. Music’s supposed to be a sea of change, you’re supposed to do what you want to do.” Marty, obviously proud of his surrounding mates, continues, “Seattle’s based on honesty. Queensryche do what they wanna do, Alice In Chains do what they wanna do, we do what we want, still everybody seems to have a different identifiable sound. In L.A. you’ve got a bunch of glam bands that look and sound the same. It’s not even like that here. Everybody’s doing their own thing and that’s what people respect you for. We don’t go too far out of our little sphere of our style on this album but we’re not afraid to try different stuff with our music. That’s the way it’s gonna be, that’s what this band is about.”
This band is also about the full frontal assault of their live show. With relatively scant touring under their belt (a few CA dates with Pantera) it will be interesting to see how they hold up when they join Reverend on tour at month’s end.
Can they maintain the in-your-face intensity night in and night out?
I do know one thing: they’ll give it their best.
Next week they’ll be filming the vid for Blackfeather Shake with Tom Ensign on the roof of The Paramount. Should make a good vantage point for watching the epidemic spread.
Hellfire Club
PO Box 80042
Seattle, WA 98108

Guns ‘N’ Roses/Skid Row – In Concert: In Depth, Hot Flashes, City Heat [August 1991]

If you didn’t go, you’re probably sick of hearing what you missed and if you did, probably nothing could either erase or embellish your memory of the event. Still, here goes.

Skid Row kicked everyone’s ass with a high energy, hour long set playing only the best from their debut like I Remember, 18 And Life, Youth Gone Wild, they concentrated on new material as Sebastian Bach sweated his way all over the stage.

Slave To The Grind, Get The Fuck Out and of course, Monkey Business particularly rocked my world. Solid sophomore effort stood it’s ground live this night!

 

The Guns came out blazing and heavies like Mr. Brownstone and Nightrain, fell quickly. Keeping with his current trend toward exposed shins, Axl came out first wearing a kilt later changing to the more familiar bicycle shorts (rose patterned). He donned a plastic pig snout he said was given to him by Tacoma’s P.D. and slung some mud at St Louis’ P.D. finishing it with,

“Anybody who has a problem with that we dedicate this next song to them. It’s called Double Talkin’ Jive Mother Fucker!”

Duff was “Mr. Congeniality” for the hometown crowd as Axl ripped over every inch of the catwalks and stage sometimes having to backpedal just to slow down. New guys Matt Sorem and now full-fledged Dizzy Reed infused GNR with a renewed energy and soul. Axl wore his patriotic leather for the first of the ‘movie songs’, Civil War, which was followed by T2s screamin’ You Could Be Mine with Dylan’s Knockin’ coming later in the set.

In between faves like Patience, Welcome To The Jungle, Rocket Queen and McCartney’s Live And Let Die they showcased tunes from Use Your Illusion with Axl playing piano on November Rain and Izzy vocalizing on Fourteen Years.

Slash was smokin’ in leather chaps over his Levis, stepping into all the hyper-cool cigarette rock god postures and working his sunburst in the spotlight to create a shadowy caricature on the back wall (under the shitty seats). The video screens on either side of the stage constantly kept up with the action often times using some fairly sublime imagery; like Slashes’ fretboard wanderings pasted against Duff’s silhouette.

At one point idiots with bottle rockets almost ended the show but Axl quickly regained his composure to pound out a couple more new ones and wind the whole thing up with the encore, Paradise City. The end saw Izzy windmilling for all he was worth and Axl’s trademark stage dive, thanking “the faggot who tried to tear my shorts off.”     .

After the lights went up on the sea of crushed “recyclable” Dome cups, we headed backstage to have a word with some of the guys.

Well, we wound up in a sort of groupie purgatory with members of Skid Row and about thirty aesthetically pleasing females. Lacking either rock stardom or a certain curvaceousness, I did feel somewhat ill-at-ease being in this cattle run of a squeeze room.

But I got over it.

City Heat: “Hey, hey, what’s that you guys are listening to back there?”

Slash: “Alice In Chains.”

CH: “What else do you listen to backstage or on the road?”

Slash: “Alice In Chains.”

CH: “Anything else?”

Matt Sorum: “Yeah, Temple Of The Dog.”

Slash: “Oh yeah. That’s Matt’s favorite.”

CH: “What new songs did you play tonight?”

Sorum: “Estranged. Dust And Bones. Perfect Crime… lets see … Bad Obsession and Fourteen Years—that’s about how long it took for lzzy and Axl to get from Indiana to California to making it. Ah shit what else did we do?”

Karen Mason: “You did Matt’s solo tonight”

Sorum: “Yeah, (humble smile) we did a new drum solo, that’ll be on the album.”

CH: “What was Duff doing up there with you, tympani?”

Sorum: “Yeah he was playing tympani, it was fun.”

CH: “Will we see Volumes I and II before September?”

Sorum: “Well, I can’t really tell you about that because, fuck, I don’t know. Hopefully by the end of August”

As his voice trails off the last remark, I see the unspoken communication he’s making, and as I turn to look, I see that it’s with a very concerned brother who doesn’t seem to appreciate my electric accoutrements. As I try to make my mini cassette more inconspicuous…

Sorum: “That’s Earl. He’s very big and he will kill you. We’re cool Earl”

Mason: “We love Earl, he’s a very cool cat” (I hope so.-Ed.)

CH: “How’d you feel about the Puget Sound response?”

Sorum: “Rockin! Best show we’ve done since Philadelphia Spectrum.”

Mason: “Was that before St. Louis or after?”

Sorum: “Before.”

KM: (Justifying), “That was a fair question!”

CH: “How much longer does this deadly double bill last?”

Sorum: “Another two weeks then we take two off in LA before we hit it again with someone else. (Sensing the next question) I don’t know who yet.”

As Sebastian Bach saunters past, I turn to him…

CH: “So I hear you’re bailing in a couple weeks. Opening not good enough for you chart busters anymore?”

Sebastian Bach: “Nah, but… that’s not to say we won’t respect these guys in the morning.”

CH: I caught you guys (Sab, Axl, Duff and Slash) playing RIP Magazine’s [5th Anniversary party] stage together last November. Is that kind of when the friendship took hold?”

Bach: “Pretty much, yeah. [reflects] That was a fucken blast!”

CH: “By the way, (referring to their debut on Billboard’s Hot 200 at No. 1 with Slave To The Grind) that was quite the coup you studs pulled.”

Bach: “Yeah we’re real sorry about that too. Real damn sorry! We kinda said, “’scuse us, Paula (Abdul), we just need to slip in here.”

CH: “When you head back out, who are you taking?”

He points at the shirt on his usually bare chest indicating a band that signals another of their turns away from commercial conformity. Pantera.

Bach: “These guys. We love ’em.”

As the doobie and paper cup of Jack Daniels again make their way around the circle, so goes another night with two of the hottest (and most honest) bands in the business.

Temple Of The Dog – Temple Of The Dog [RIP – August 1991]

Temple Of The Dog
Temple Of The Dog
A&M

γγγγ Four Daggers

γγγγγ Lethal!
γγγγ Call the Paramedics
γγγ Heart Flutters
γγ Mild Abrasion
γ No Damage

The first time I heard Temple Of The Dog on record (having witnessed incendiary live shows long before), I wasn’t terribly impressed. With each successive listen, tho, it began to grow on me. It’s now at the point that it gets four daggers. Next week and several more spins from now, who knows?
What began as an outlet for the pain of a close friend’s death (Andrew Wood of Mother Love Bone) comes to you now as a musical offering from a non-band with no touring plans. It’s a collaborative effort featuring Matt Cameron and Chris Cornell of Soundgarden, Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard (moving on after Mother Love Bone) with Mike McCready sharing guitar duties both here and in their project Mookie Blaylock.
A while back, when they were considered Seattle’s two most charismatic frontmen, Chris Cornell and Andrew Wood were roommates. In the days following Wood’s overdose, Cornell put down his observations and feelings in the songs, Say Hello To Heaven and Reach Down. Altho these are the specific tunes written for Andy, references to him and his addiction permeate the record. The guys have a lot on their minds, like prison life (Four Walled World), organized religion (Wooden Jesus) and conspicuous consumption (Hunger Strike).
Side one, with the strongest cut of all (Hunger Strike) following the two songs about Wood, and the records hardest tune (Pushin’ Forward Back) following that, is reason enough to own it. Also Cornell’s vocals on the piano driven ballad, Call Me A Dog, and the slow groovin’ All Night Thing display a style and range much different from those on his Soundgarden efforts.
As you might expect from two thirds of the axemen who cut the mighty Apple, TOTD does have its Bone-esque passages but the record still stands on its’ own. Things get a little pretentious at times but, with perhaps a more accessible vibe? than the members’ other projects, Temple reveals a side of these musicians you may not hear again for a while.

The Seattle Times Tempo: Word by Patrick McDonald

RIP Magazine’s June issue features Alice In Chains.

“Press Watch: The latest rock rag to hop on the Alice in Chains
bandwagon is RIP, which has a feature article on the hard-rocking Seattle group in its June issue.

The story, by Michael Browning, starts out with a report on the band’s jam session with Poison at a concert here in January – they did Kiss’ “I Wanna Rock and Roll All Nite” – and includes a band interview conducted at vocalist Layne Staley’s “comfy Lake Union residence.” Staley explains that some of the songs on the band’s “Facelift” LP were in- spired by personal experiences. For instance, he recounts that he was treating someone he loved “really badly” and “writing it down on paper and singing it was really therapeutic. Once I could sing it and get it out, that pattern stopped.” And it’s cheaper than a therapist. The story says the band will tour Europe with Megadeth before returning home for a national tour of its own.”