Everybody Loves Our Town

Everybody Loves Our Town
Author: Mark Yarm
Publisher: Crown Archetype
Total Pages: 610
Release: 2011-09-06
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0307464458

Twenty years after the release of Nirvana’s landmark album Nevermind comes Everybody Loves Our Town: An Oral History of Grunge, the definitive word on the grunge era, straight from the mouths of those at the center of it all. In 1986, fledgling Seattle label C/Z Records released Deep Six, a compilation featuring a half-dozen local bands: Soundgarden, Green River, Melvins, Malfunkshun, the U-Men and Skin Yard. Though it sold miserably, the record made music history by documenting a burgeoning regional sound, the raw fusion of heavy metal and punk rock that we now know as grunge. But it wasn’t until five years later, with the seemingly overnight success of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” that grunge became a household word and Seattle ground zero for the nineties alternative-rock explosion. Everybody Loves Our Town captures the grunge era in the words of the musicians, producers, managers, record executives, video directors, photographers, journalists, publicists, club owners, roadies, scenesters and hangers-on who lived through it. The book tells the whole story: from the founding of the Deep Six bands to the worldwide success of grunge’s big four (Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Alice in Chains); from the rise of Seattle’s cash-poor, hype-rich indie label Sub Pop to the major-label feeding frenzy that overtook the Pacific Northwest; from the simple joys of making noise at basement parties and tiny rock clubs to the tragic, lonely deaths of superstars Kurt Cobain and Layne Staley. Drawn from more than 250 new interviews—with members of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Screaming Trees, Hole, Melvins, Mudhoney, Green River, Mother Love Bone, Temple of the Dog, Mad Season, L7, Babes in Toyland, 7 Year Bitch, TAD, the U-Men, Candlebox and many more—and featuring previously untold stories and never-before-published photographs, Everybody Loves Our Town is at once a moving, funny, lurid, and hugely insightful portrait of an extraordinary musical era.

Grunge Seattle

Grunge Seattle
Author: Justin Henderson
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Total Pages: 144
Release: 2021
Genre: History
ISBN: 1467148857

Reprint. Originally published: Berkeley, California: Roaring Forties Press, 2016.

The Strangest Tribe

The Strangest Tribe
Author: Stephen Tow
Publisher: Sasquatch Books
Total Pages: 195
Release: 2011-09-20
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1570617872

Grunge isn’t dead – but was it every truly alive? Twenty years after the height of the movement, The Strangest Tribe redefines grunge as we know it. Stephen Tow takes a second look at the music and community that vaulted the likes of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Mudhoney, and Soundgarden to international fame. Chock-full of interviews with the starring characters, Tow extensively chronicles the rise of rock 'n' roll’s last great statement and contextualizes what the music really meant to the key players. Delving deep into the archives, Tow paints a vivid picture of the underground rock circuit of tattered warehouses and community centers. Seattle’s heady punk scene of the late '80s gave birth to a rowdy and raucous movement, influenced by metal, but wholly its own. Seattle made its own sound, a sound that came to be known internationally as grunge. Tow walks the reader through this sonic evolution, interviewing members of every band along the way. In 1991, Seattle’s sound took the world by storm--but this same storm had been brewing in the Pacific Northwest for a decade before it hit MTV. The Strangest Tribe is a reframing of this last transformative era in music. Not just plaid shirts, bleached hair, and angst, “grunge” is a word used to describe a rich community of artists and jokers.

Taking Punk to the Masses

Taking Punk to the Masses
Author: Jacob McMurray
Publisher: Fantagraphics Books
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2011-05-23
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1606994336

Taking Punk to the Masses: From Nowhere to Nevermind visually documents the explosion of Grunge, the Seattle Sound, within the context of the underground punk subculture that was developing throughout the u.S. in the late 1970s and 1980s. The book serves as a companion and contextual backdrop to the Nirvana: Taking Punk to the Masses exhibition, which opens at Seattle’s Experience Music Project in 2011. This decade-and-a-half musical journey will be represented entirely through the lens of EMP’s oral history and permanent object collection, an invaluable and rich cultural archive of over 800 interviews and 140,000 objects ― instruments, costumes, posters, records and other ephemera dedicated to the pursuit of rock ’n’ roll. Taking Punk to the Masses focuses on 100 key objects from EMP’s permanent collection that illustrate the evolution of punk rock from underground subculture to the mainstream embrace (and subsequent underground rejection) of Grunge. These objects are put into context by the stories of those who lived it, culling from EMP’s vast archive of oral histories with such Northwest icons as Mudhoney’s Mark Arm, cartoonist Peter Bagge, design legend Art Chantry, Beat Happening’s Calvin Johnson, Sub Pop founders Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman, the Screaming Trees’ Mark Lanegan, Nirvana’s krist Novoselic, photographer Charles Petersen, Soundgarden’s kim Thayil, and dozens of others. From the Northwest’s earliest punk bands like The Wipers, to proto-grunge bands of the 1980s like Green River, Melvins and Malfunkshun, through the heady 1990s when bands such as Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains and Mudhoney rose to the national stage and popularized alternative music, Taking Punk to the Masses is the first definitive history of one of America’s most vibrant music scenes, as told by the participants who helped make it so, and through the artifacts that survive.

Grunge Is Dead

Grunge Is Dead
Author: Greg Prato
Publisher: ECW Press
Total Pages: 697
Release: 2010-12-15
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1554903475

Grunge Is Dead weaves together the definitive story of the Seattle music scene through a series of interviews with the people who were there. Taking the form of an "oral" history, this books contains over 130 interviews, along with essential background information from acclaimed music writer Greg Prato. The early '90s grunge movement may have last only a few years, but it spawned some of the greatest rock music of all time: Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Alice in Chains, and Soundgarden. This book contains the first-ever interview in which Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder was willing to discuss the group's history in great detail; Alice in Chains' band members and Layne Staley's mom on Staley's drug addiction and death; insights into the Riot Grrrl movement and oft-overlooked but highly influential Seattle bands like Mother Love Bone/Andy Wood, the Melvins, Screaming Trees, and Mudhoney; and much more. Grunge Is Dead digs deeper than the average grunge history, starting in the early '60s, and explaining the chain of events that gave way to the grunge movement. The end result is a book that includes a wealth of previously untold stories and insight for the longtime fan, as well as its renowned story for the newcomer. Grunge Is Dead collects the whole truth of grunge music in one comprehensive volume.

The Grunge Diaries

The Grunge Diaries
Author: Dave Thompson
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 325
Release: 2021-09-15
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1493055704

Throughout the 1990s, Dave Thompson was the Seattle-based contributing editor to Alternative Press magazine—America's biggest-selling and most influential alternative rock monthly—and a regular contributor to other publications both nationally and internationally. Throughout this decade, grunge music ruled the world and Seattle was its birthplace and focal point. Thompson was an eyewitness to it all. His writings and interviews chronicled the entire history of grunge—from its roots in the earliest explosion of punk in the mid-1970s to its rise and ultimate fall from grace in the late 1990s. Drawing from Thompson's extensive experience and research—from personal files and journals and hours of interviews with both musicians and fans, other music industry figures, and a wealth of characters from the Seattle scene—The Grunge Diaries is an exhaustive account of this unique era. Featured are all of the major acts—Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Mudhoney, Soundgarden—and many lesser known bands and artists. But it's not only about the music, the fashions, and the personalities that still resonate today. The Grunge Diaries also tells the tale of the end of an era in American history—twentieth-century music culture's last hurrah before the dot-com monsters (many of whom were themselves based in Seattle) devoured its soul and faceless corporations rebranded entertainment. These were the days when fame was still within reach of anyone who knew three chords and had three friends.

Guitar World Presents Nirvana and the Grunge Revolution

Guitar World Presents Nirvana and the Grunge Revolution
Author: Nirvana
Publisher: Hal Leonard
Total Pages: 158
Release: 1998-10-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1476851190

(Guitar World Presents). In a relatively short time span, grunge music exploded out of its native Seattle and became the most dominant force of the early '90s. Groundbreaking bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Alice in Chains introduced a generation of young rock fans to their grainy, hard-edged brand of modern metal. The rise to prominence for these and other grunge monsters is detailed here, in Guitar World Presents Nirvana and the Grunge Revolution . The first section of the book serves as a tribute to the late Nirvana guitarist Kurt Cobain. It features revealing interviews with Cobain, a behind-the-scenes look at Nirvana's legendary MTV "Unplugged" performance, and an insider's guide to the making of their groundbreaking album, Nevermind . In addition, the book features interviews with many others who played key roles in the Seattle sound explosion, including Pearl Jam's Stone Gossard and Mike McCready, Alice in Chains' Jerry Cantrell and Soundgarden's Kim Thayil and Chris Cornell.

Accidental Revolution

Accidental Revolution
Author: Kyle Anderson
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2007
Genre: Alternative rock music
ISBN: 0312358199

Mud Ride

Mud Ride
Author: Steve Turner
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Total Pages: 307
Release: 2023-06-13
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1797222767

A down-and-dirty chronicle of the birth and evolution of the Seattle grunge scene—from amateur skate parks and underground hardcore clubs to worldwide phenomenon—as told by one of its founding fathers and lead guitarist of legendary alternative rock band, Mudhoney. In the late 80s and early 90s, Steve Turner and his friends—Seattle skate punks, hardcore kids, and assorted misfits—started forming bands in each other’s basements and accidentally created a unique sound that spread far beyond their once-sleepy city. Mud Ride offers an inside look at the tight-knit grunge scene, the musical influences and experiments that shaped the grunge sound, and the story of Turner's bands, Green River and Mudhoney, which went from underground flophouse shows to selling out stadiums with Nirvana and Pearl Jam. Including stories about the key moments, musicians, and albums from grunge's beginnings to its come-down from the highs of global success and stardom, this is the first account of the musical phenomenon that took over the world from someone who was there for it all. Written by Steve Turner, lead guitarist of Mudhoney, a foundational grunge band that inspired musical icons from Kurt Cobain to Sonic Youth, Mud Ride features a foreword by Pearl Jam's Stone Gossard and never-before-seen photographs and grunge memorabilia throughout. Take a seat and ride through the messy and muddy grunge scene that grew from the basements of the Northwest and went on to circle the globe. MUST HAVE FOR FANS: For cult fans of Mudhoney and all things Seattle grunge, this is the perfect book to add to your collection. Turner helped put Sub Pop Records on the map, a label that launched bands like Soundgarden and more. Mudhoney was also one of the first American grunge bands to tour Europe and the UK, laying the groundwork for the worldwide explosion of grunge. Learn more about the ins and outs of the birth of grunge and immerse yourself in '80s and '90s Seattle. A GREAT GIFT FOR MUSIC LOVERS: For the aspiring musician or anyone wanting to learn more about music history, this is an illuminating look into grunge and Seattle bands that have gone on to become world-famous. AN ESSENTIAL ROCK HISTORY BOOK: An amazing gift for readers of Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain's Please Kill Me, John Doe and Tom DeSavia's Under the Big Black Sun, and Michael Azerrad's Our Band Could Be Your Life. Anyone wanting to learn more about the history of grunge will delight in this great tell-all read. Perfect for: Music lovers, history buffs, and musicians Fans of Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Hole, Green River, and more Anyone nostalgic for the '80s and '90s pop culture scene People obsessed with grunge, rock, musical movements, or Seattle history Readers of Please Kill Me, Under the Big Black Sun, Our Band Could Be Your Life, Grunge Is Dead, and Everybody Loves Our Town: An Oral History of Grunge Gen Z readers who have embraced all things '90s, from the decade's fashion to its music, and have sparked a resurgence in popularity of grunge bands like Nirvana

The Flannel Years - a Photographic Tour by Karen Mason Blair

The Flannel Years - a Photographic Tour by Karen Mason Blair
Author: Karen Mason Blair
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2019-11
Genre:
ISBN: 9781734157307

Seattle based photographer Karen Mason Blair has lived her life with an exclusive photo pass that got her up close and personal with all 10 years of the grunge movement. She was lucky enough to right in front of many 90s bands before they exploded onto the world's music scene. Karen allows you to experience what she saw through her lens, whether you were there or wished you were! Most of these 150 + photos are Pre fame. The Flannel Years book is a print version of her touring gallery show, and a backstage pass view to some never before moments and stories that help shape the 90s Grunge movement.