Tag Archives: Screaming Trees

Reviews

Flashlite #735

Older Sun

Loud and heavy rocking episode today with new music from J Mascis’ Heavy Blanket and San Francisco band Older Sun. Lydia Lunch is here with a cover of Black Sabbath’s War Pigs. We introduce two bands from Melbourne AU: Cable Ties and Civic. Also, new for us are Märvel from Sweden and Blue Heron from Albuquerque, NM. Towards the end of the show, we pay a tribute to Van Conner, bass player of Screaming Trees who passed away on January 17th this year. He was only 55.

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Sisteria – Om-Yes
Civic – Born in the Heat
MÄRVEL – All For The Glory
Stack Waddy – Rosalyn
Heavy Blanket – Crushed
Older Sun – Misty Mountains
The Deviants – Broken Biscuits
Blue Heron – Push the Sky
Lydia Lunch – War Pigs
The Mark Of Cain – Visions Of Love
Predatür – Take A Walk
Cable Ties – Perfect Client
Screaming Trees – Julie Paradise
Solomon Grundy – My Mind

Reviews

Mark Lanegan: Bubblegum

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When Lanegan left us early this year with his mini album called Here Comes The Weird Chill it was just for a brief period to quickly hint what might be a creative peak of his career. On this new album he took only one song off of the Here Comes The Weird Chill (Methamphetamine Blues) and added a busload of new ones. Sonically, Bubblegum is an immediate continuation of Here Comes The Weird Chill, but with even more focus and even more great songs. His past solo albums were all somehow downbeat and it seemed that the crazy rocking days of early Screaming Trees (where he was a singer) were long gone. But, this one changes it all! If songs are not raw full with energy a-la The Stooges, then they are full of suspense, waiting to burst out of your speakers. Production is raw and Mark did it himself. I can’t help thinking that Mark was influenced by the new blues scene and all those crazy garage rockers from Memphis along with obvious influences in Tom Waits and Captain Beefheart. But don’t be scared – this album is good for everyday listening in every place, every occasion, suitable for any mood – bubblegum in one word! Another interesting appearance is backing vocal of PJ Harvey. I was never too impressed by her solo albums, but whenever I heard her as a backup singer (here and recently on Giant Sand and Gordon Gano records), I totally love it. http://www.marklanegan.com/ is his official site, but much more interesting stuff is on his fan page http://www.onewhiskey.com/. His label streams his latest video on-line – it’s really worth checking out.

Reviews

Mark Lanegan: Here Comes That Weird Chill

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(Written in January 2004). The year just started and we already got an album that will definitely play an important role in the year’s best selection! This is a new one by Mark Lanegan and it’s louder and stronger than any Screaming Trees album, let alone his solo albums. It’s rough, it’s tough, it’s experimental, but still it rock and moves just like it should. His voice is still recognizable even though it often distorted by various studio effects. Drums are raw and guitars cut like razor blades. This is for the first time in years that Lanegan doesn’t collaborate with his long time companion Mike Johnson, so that in itself indicates a significant stylistic move. This is a unique represent of this loud new blues style that can be found for example on Christ Whitley’s album Terra Incognita, or Tarbox Ramblers, but it also has a favor of raw garage sound such as we know from Detroit and Memphis scenes – but perhaps in a little nicer package plus Tom Waits poetics. The album runs for only 30 minutes, but that’s cool – it just makes you wanna play it again. New cd-albums normally last too long anyway. LPs used to be much more carefully thought of. They say this is only a teaser before the full length album comes out! Woohoo!
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Mark Lanegan

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(Written for the old site.) SST in the eighties was home for every punk-rocker in USA. And they aslo grew their special breed of longhair punkers who drew their influences not only from early punk, but also from hard rock and psychedelia. One of the most notable bands of that breed were the Screaming Trees. Three chubby guys and a babe magnet Mark Lanegan gave us a little bit of fresh air when they in late eighties made great three albums for SST. That part of their career is also wonderfully compiled on Anthology: SST Years.

But then came 1991, Nirvana and grunge… Of course, Screaming Trees were a perfect grunge band already and CBS signed them and they really hit it big with Sweet Oblivion in 1992. Paradoxically, Sweet Oblivion was lyrically their weakest album up to date. Moreover, Lanegan started his deep exploration on more traditional forms like country and blues and decided to start a parallel career as a solo artist.

Actually, in 1990. came out firt Lanegan’s album entitled The Winding Street, but his career really started to overshadow Screaming Trees when he came up with Whiskey for the Holy Ghost in 1994. That was a delicious album full of bluesy bar atmosphere.

Like after a big hungover, his album I’ll Take Care of You came out in 1999. Here we find Lanegan performing his favorite standards like Little Sadie. You can find there many cool songwriters, Fred Neil, Tim Hardin, Bobby Blue Blend and Buck Owens. The nicest surprize is a wonderful bluesy cover of Carry Home, which was originally done by a death punk band The Gun Club.

Just now, Lanegan came up with a new album, and a new hairdo and he’s more than welcome. Album is entiled Field Songs, and represents Mark in a new light. It all looks like Lanegan got influenced by gypsy music, and there’s much of that nomadic feel in his new songs. However, the list of guest musicians is quite interesting… Except for his old buddy Mike Johnson (ex Dinosaur JR), also Duffy (ex Guns’n’Roses) delivers some quite impressive drum attacks, Ben Shepherd of Soundgarden also shows she can play some serious guitar. Duffy is also now a part of Mark’s new touring band, so god help us… Anyway, great low key records and a nice bluesy break in usually jolly good atmosphere of The Little Lighthouse.

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