Quote: (05-19-2017 12:16 AM)K Galt Wrote:
I graduated high school in '91. Grunge was the contemporary heavy rock of my early 20's. Alice was my favorite, but Soundgarden was my second fav, followed by Pearl Jam and Nirvana. I was listening to Soundgarden since they released their Loud Love album. I was actually surprised when Badmotorfinger hit so much mainstream success.
I saw all of the Seattle "big 4" in concert except for Nirvana. When Nirvana came to Hawaii, the concert was sold out before I even heard the announcement that they were playing here.
Anyhow, I'm only referring to the other Grunge era bands for this thread in regards to the side topic of STP. In '92 and '93, I remember most of us young rockers considered STP ripoff copycats who were the first to jump on the grunge bandwagon.
All my cohorts in their 20's in the scene at the time called them "Stone Temple Posers" or "Stone Gossard's Pirates" a reference to Pearl Jam's rhythm guitarist. That's just how I remember it....
I met the guys in Pearl Jam when they played here in '92, met Alice when they played here in '93. Soundgarden only played here years later, on the Down on the Upside Tour, and Hawaii was their last show just before they broke up before Chris joined Audioslave and then this latest reunion with the band and tour in 2017.
Soundgarden actually broke up here in Hawaii that same night after what was scheduled to be the last show of the Down on the Upside tour. Supposedly they got into a total band argument at the Jazz Cellar nightclub in Waikiki (by that time it had been renamed the Rock Cellar, but us Hawaii folk will always remember it as the Jazz Cellar,) the very night they played their last show in Honolulu. That was sometime in the early 2000's...not exactly sure when.
Anyhow, in my estimation, Chris was the best talented and had the widest vocal range of the Seattle grunge vocalists, though I personally liked Layne Staley better.
But I am still saddened by the news of his death.
While I loved Temple of the Dog, my absolute favorite performance of the grunge era was Alice MudGarden with the song Right Turn...Chris Cornell and Mudhoney's vocalist Mark Arm guest starred on the Alice in Chains EP, SAP, in a truly awesome "unplugged" all-star jam.
RIP Chris
That, my friend, is one of my favorite Alice in Chains tracks ever (great EP, too). Cornell just EXPLODES into the track without warning and completely changes the trajectory of the song. That's not what guest vocalists do! But this dude was special.
This is hitting me particularly hard today. I was severely depressed in high school and grunge (AIC and Pearl Jam in particular) was almost like therapy that saved me from doing something reckless. It just had this particular way of spelling out what malaise, pain, and intense despair felt like, and I didn't feel alone as a result.
I'll admit that I've never been too hot about Soundgarden, despite the fact that, as a participant in choirs myself, I have always been in awe of Cornell's voice. Still hit pretty hard regardless. This is probably because many of the deaths that would have hit me the hardest already happened (Layne Staley, and to a lesser degree, Shannon Hoon, Andrew Wood, and Kurt Cobain) and Cornell is the surrogate. I'm really going to be a mess when Eddie Vedder buys it, but he seems to be a healthy guy.