31 May 2013 (Day 151) – Early grunge

Friday.  End of the working week.  There appears to be an unwritten rule at my place of employment that meetings are not held on this day.  If they must be held, it will generally be in the morning.  Friday afternoon meetings are generally verboten.  The great thing about this informal practice is that it gives everyone a chance to catch up on tasks that have emerged during the week.

I’m no different, but I have my own informal Friday practice.  It seems I use Fridays as the chance to play some of the louder elements of my collection at work.  Not louder as in everyone comes to my desk to complain about the racket.  If I’m using my boom box the sound level is still set to such a level that Jack can’t hear it.  (I know because I checked.)  In any case, I still need to hear my own phone ring.

But I’m not using the boom box today.  For some reason it has refused to play my CDs and I suspect a cleaning of the lens is required.  Scrolling through my iPod, I come across one of three bands in my collection  with claims to be regarded as the first true grunge act;

(# 391) Melvins – Houdini (1993)

Anyone familiar with the Nirvana/Curt Cobain story will know the integral role the Melvins played.  A three piece from Washington state in the United States, the Melvins were the band playing the type of music before the type of cult audience that Cobain craved.  But their influence goes deeper than that.  Their long time drummer Dale Crover drummed on the Nirvana demo tape that was instrumental in getting them signed to Sub Pop and it was their guitarist Buzz Osborne that introduced Dave Grohl to the band.  The similarities ended there. Whereas Cobain couldn’t stop himself from writing tunes full of melody (even when try to deny it on In Utero), the Melvins tendered to favour experimental or extremely heavy, slow moving sludge fests.  Houdini is an example of the latter and is arguably their finest album.   Ironically it was their first album for a major label, having been signed in the wake of Nirvana’s success.   In a way, the album almost sounds like a overview of grunge history.  Night Goat is a typical Melvins tune, full of throbbing menace.  Going Blind is seriously heavy, Set Me Straight is the best tune Alice In Chains never wrote and Capache contains feedback scrapings that were to heavily feature on In Utero. 

(# 392) TAD – Live Alien Broadcasts (1994)

TAD, named after front man Tad Doyle, formed in 1988 and played a melodic though extremely coarse sounding version of grunge.  Like the Melvins they were signed by a major label which dropped them after a single album.  Their next album was this, a collection of outtakes and tracks from previous albums recorded live in a studio , the two best being Stumblin’ Man and Throat Locust from their classic 8 Way Santa album.  The version of the former is track is especially notable for possibly providing the musical DNA that has effectively powered Slipknot.

(# 393) Green River – Dry As A Bone (1987)

(# 394) Green River – Rehab Doll (1988)

Almost every member of Green River is well known to followers of the grunge scene.  Original guitarists Mark Arm and Steve Turner have for the last couple of decades powered the mighty Mudhoney.  Their bassist was Jeff Ahment and when Arm decided to concentrate on being their lead vocalist, he was replaced on guitars by Stone Gossard.  Turner left the band before these items were recorded to be replaced by Bruce Fairweather.  This EP and 30 minute album have been released as a single disc with both items being recorded after Turner haddeparted.  For the most part, the music is the same sort of Stooges influenced rock sung by Arm that characterised Mudhoney’s early albums.  It is only over the last three tracks on Rehab Doll – Pork Fist, Take A Dive and One More Stitch – that you can start to head some of the musical ideas that Ahment, Gossard and Fairweather would pursue in their next band, Mother Love Bone and which Ahment and Gosard would refine in the band after that, Pearl Jam.