Grunge Is Dead: The Oral History of Seattle Rock Music
by Greg Prato
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Book Summary Information
Author: Greg PratoEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-04-01
ISBN: 1550228773
Number of pages: 478
Publisher: ECW Press
Book Reviews of Grunge Is Dead: The Oral History of Seattle Rock Music
Book Review: And the Riff Goes On
Summary: 5 Stars
If you're into the history of Pacific Northwest rock, and you've seen the 1996 documentary Hype! (and if you haven't seen Hype! then what are you waiting for?!? Go get it now!), then think of this as a decade-later follow-up, only greatly expanded, both in perspective by the years that have elapsed since the craze subsided, and in breadth by the greatly increased number of interviewees.
There are a lot of names in common between this book and Hype!: off the top of my head, there's Jack Endino, Art Chantry, Charles Peterson, Susan Silver, Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman, and some of the more loquacious superstars such as Eddie Vedder and Kim Thayil. Yet Prato digs a lot deeper than Hype!'s producers did, his best find probably being Nancy McCallum, Layne Staley's wise, spiritual, yet fiercely funny firecracker of a mother. There are some major absences, the two most noticeable probably being Chris Cornell and Dave Grohl. But Prato has found enough "behind the scenes" personalities to more than fill in the gaps and tell the whole story, as complete as you could expect it. This is in contrast to Hype!, which completely omitted both Alice in Chains and Courtney Love (though to be fair, reading this book gives you the impression that Cantrell and company would have been way too strung out to participate in that movie even if they had wanted to), and which made the Sub Pop duo of Pavitt and Poneman look, shall we say, more "put together" than they actually were.
I'm something of a student of Seattle history, and before reading this book I read Fred Moody's Seattle and the Demons of Ambition: From Boom to Bust in the Number One City of the Future, and I'm glad I did. Except for the foreword and a brief summary blurb at the beginning of each chapter, Prato adds zero context or commentary of his own to the book--if one of his interviewees doesn't say it, it's not in the book. As for Moody, despite being a longtime native of the region, he wasn't any kind of insider to Seattle's music community, and he doesn't interview anyone in it. But his book does a brilliant job exploring the cultural and historical context of Seattle in the '90s, not only of the grunge phenomenon but many of the other home-grown Seattle phenomena that entered America's national consciousness during that period: Microsoft, Starbucks, the Mariners' 1995 championship run, Amazon, etc., as well as showing the subtle interconnections between them. The coda of Hype! is a title card that reads "YOUR TOWN IS NEXT." The implication is that what happened in Seattle in the late '80s and early '90s could just as easily have happened anywhere else. As Moody's book makes clear, that isn't true, on the contrary there was a unique confluence of geographical, climatological, political, psychological, artistic, and cultural factors which made Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains and the rest of these bands possible.
It's said that there are only a finite number of plots in the world. In terms of stories about musicians, I would argue that there are only two. The first is the arc from rags to riches to ruin to redemption, the same story you see in any given musician biopic of the week. In terms of Seattle grunge history, with its endemic drug and alcohol use, there was certainly no shortage of ruin. And there were three milestone fatalities, all of which Prato probes extensively: Andrew Wood, lead singer of Malfunkshun and Mother Love Bone, who died just before grunge hit the national scene; Kurt Cobain, who died right at the height of the world's grunge mania; and Layne Staley, who died after most people stopped caring and the airwaves were dominated by fourth-wave wannabe dreck like Creed and Nickelback. Also explored are the deaths of riot grrrl luminaries Stefanie Sargent and Mia Zapata. I have to admit, when I went back to watch Hype! I got a chill when I noticed that one of 7 Year Bitch's members was wearing a small tribute to Sargent; and of course watching footage of Zapata touted as an up-and-comer, knowing what her fate was shortly afterward, is just surreal.
In creating this book Prato conducted over 100 interviews, then broke them into paragraph-long chunks and interleaved them, grouping them by theme and ordering those themes roughly chronologically. The result is a chaotic tapestry of voices and subjects that are often hard to discern from one another. Yet through this chaos runs one common thread, one involving Mark Arm and Jeff Ament. This thread comprises what I would say is the other possible plot in a story about musicians: the tension between staying true to one's impulses as an artist regardless of popularity, and "selling out" to commercialism.
In any accounting of the history of grunge, the band Green River is always given as one of the seminal influences, and perhaps THE seminal influence for the whole trend. Green River was Mark Arm on vocals, Steve Turner and Stone Gossard on guitars, and Jeff Ament on bass. If those names sound familiar, it's because Arm and Turner went on to become somewhat famous by founding Mudhoney, and Gossard and Ament went on to become REALLY famous by founding Pearl Jam. There was tension in Green River whether the purpose of the band was to continue putting on the edgy, energizing live shows it was known for, or to buckle down and start putting out more commercial music. The two halves of the band couldn't see eye to eye, and the story goes that the last straw for Ament was when Arm boorishly dissed a new band that Ament and Gossard really liked.
That band: Jane's Addiction.
Perhaps due to Prato's editing, the rivalry between Arm and Ament isn't noticeable at first. Yet by halfway through the book it becomes really apparent, until finally the two of them are openly taking potshots at one another. And it is hilarious. For the record, I don't know these two, and for all I know the whole "rivalry" thing is just a running joke that they're both in on (and given recent reunions of Green River, this is quite possibly the case). But they really kick up some sparks.
Now, whether Mark Arm is right, and rock just means making an ass out of yourself on stage and who cares if you make any money out of it, or Jeff Ament is right, and rock is putting out melodic, solidly-produced albums that everybody loves, that's an individual choice that you'll have to make for yourself. For my part, I own every album that Pearl Jam ever put out, whereas Mark Arm's voice sounds to me like an off-key caterwauling that you couldn't pay me to listen to, so you can probably figure out which one of the two I agree with.
The last thing I want to say about this book is to keep your guard up regarding its factuality. As I said, Prato just allows his interviewees to tell their own version of things without any editorializing of his own. This also means that there is zero fact-checking going on, and the unreliable narrator could rear its head at any time. And if you read closely you'll notice that at certain points the interviewees outright contradict each other. This is perfectly natural: if someone is telling a story, there's nothing to stop them from embellishing it to aggrandize themselves, or make it a better story. They may recount something incorrectly because it was told to them incorrectly, or they simply misremember what happened. Such lapses don't make the story bad. They're just part of human nature.
In summary, this book is amazing, both for all of the stories it tells and all of the amazing little factoids you pick up along the way. If you are at all interested in rock music, '90s pop culture, or the Pacific Northwest, then this is a must-read.
Summary of Grunge Is Dead: The Oral History of Seattle Rock Music
Weaving together the definitive story of the Seattle music scene through a series of interviews with the people who were there, this book contains more than 130 interviews, along with essential background information. Digging deeper than other accounts, this history begins in the early 1960s, tracing the chain of events that spawned some of the greatest rock acts of all time in the 1990s, including Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Alice in Chains, and Soundgarden. First-ever interviews include Eddie Vedder's take on Pearl Jam?s history, a discussion among the members of Alice in Chains, and Layne Staley?s mother?s comments on her son's drug addiction and death. There is also plenty of information on less well-known aspects of the grunge scene, including the Riot Grrrl movement and the oft-overlooked but highly influential Seattle bands such as Mother Love Bone/Andy Wood, the Melvins, Screaming Trees, and Mudhoney. The end result is a comprehensive guide that includes a wealth of previously untold stories and offers a fresh and immediate approach to music history.
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