Mark Yarm

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I'm going to admit right off the rip that I've been told I'm still living in the 90's. I am-really. My teen years literally consisted of listening to music and playing in band. Grunge was and very much still is a large part of my life. So, when I recently discovered this book, I had to get it.



I think when many people hear the word "grunge" they instantly think of the four more popular 90's grunge bands including Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Nirvana and Soundgarden. Many don't realize that the movement emerged before these "big four."



Deep Six was released in 1986 and this is where it all started, of course I didn't discover these bands until years later when they became huge and I was a little older. There's a lot to learn in this book that was going on prior to Nirvana and Pearl Jam. It starts in the 80's and progresses up into 2011.

I loved the oral history format the author used for this book. The way it's written, you're basically reading quotes from scads of different people including band members, producers, managers, photographers, roadies and more. You'll learn about some of the stuff they did, places they went, relationships they had with each other, pain they endured from deaths, and more. There are pictures included, but I wish there were more.



How sad is it when listening to a favorite online "grunge hits of the 90's" music station, I'm reminded of the fact that the singers from the last four songs I've just heard are dead, and all from drugs. It's very depressing, but at the same time, I remind myself that grunge is not dead-at least not to me. I'll be ninety and still listening to this stuff. Many of these bands went forward and continued to be successful including, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Foo Fighters (Dave Grohl from Nirvana), Candlebox, and Alice in Chains, even with Layne and Mike gone, they're still going.



There are things you'll never know about the grunge movement if you don't read this book. Some of the artists that I believed had it all together, really never did. Some never finished school, many performed drunk and high, barely hung on, died, and some fought like crazy. You had band members switching around to different groups. It's wild and adventurous. If you listen to grunge or have been a fan in the past, read this...

5*****… (más)

Simply amazing. Not a quick read but a worthy item to add to the rock and roll bookshelf. If all you know about Seattle is Nirvana you probably can't appreciate how impenetrable the scene there was/is (even now) and how hard it is to find the right people and get them to tell you the truth. I hesitate to use the word "scholarship" with a book about rock music but there is definite scholarship here. I wondered how Yarm would be able to get even close to the truth by being an outsider but I think that actually worked in his favor - he wasn't part of anyone's camp, but had trusted individuals who crossed borders speaking up for him. It's also a picture of a forgotten time, when bands made their bones playing live, about forming alliances, about community, about how music can change the world. It was a herculean task, and Yarm nailed it. I'm glad he got people's stories before they forgot any more or we lost anyone else.… (más)

A fantastic history of the Seattle music scene labelled grunge. Yarm's strength, aside from the wealth of material he culled from his interview subjects, is the fact that he knows the scene. The book begins back in the early 80s and successfully traces the rise of the huge bands as well as the ones (like TAD) that could've made it big but didn't for reasons random, sometimes cruel, sometimes understandable, but ultimately fascinating.

Working with the structure of an oral history still leaves Yarm room to create a narrative. Juxtaposing contradictory perspectives allows for a certain sense of tribulation -- who do we believe if there are only two presentations of an event? Well, Yarm's done us the service of staying out of the way. Put another text might make conclusions based on the comments/quotes, but Yarm emphasizes that the issue here isn't really the factual trajectory of the individuals, but the overall movement. For example, who knows if Courtney Love is telling the truth. Ever. And who knows if anyone talking about Courtney Love is telling the truth or has a grudge. I want to give people the benefit of the doubt, but ultimately how people talk about the scene tells you more than the facts. Maybe that's not what everyone expects but if you go in looking for a beautiful mix of insider gossip, facts, perceptions, and caricature (not one of those things but all).

A highly satisfying presentation that moves quickly and doesn't seem to lack anything essential (except maybe Chris Cornell's post-Soundgarden decent into drugs and alcohol, though I suspect the blind spot was intentional and not due to a lack of interest or work on Yarm's part).

… (más)

Totally fascinating insider look at the music of my happily misspent youth. Interviews with lots of people involved, not just the most well known musicians although they're here too, including the influential women of the scene. Covers music, relationships, drugs, recording industry, flannel shirts, performance, touring and everything. It was interesting to see different viewpoints of the same event lined up together but the interview segments were disappointingly short. Great material but a choppy reading experience, maybe I'm just not an oral history fan but I would have loved some more sustained narrative and thoughts from the author to tie themes together. There are some great insights in here but if you flip though the book it looks kind of like a bathroom book when it is actually much more than that.… (más)