Ok, so I have this theory. I’ve done a fair few interviews now, and moreover around the music scene here in Manchester have come into contact with a lot of musicians and I’ve come to notice something: that most of the experimental musicians I meet still (when pushed) admit that their roots are in grunge rock, and it’s what they often fall back on when just listening to stuff at home.
Great, I hear you cry. So why is this relevant? Well, I have two or three ideas about how people have gone from grunge to the proverbial dark side of the moon. If you’re pissing your parents off with Nirvana one week, then is it really that big a stretch to move from there to say, cranking ‘Only Shallow’ by My Bloody Valentine at (ahem) 11 and seeing how much that pisses them off?
Aha, that not quite do it for you? Enter idea two: take the example of a song everybody’s heard: ‘Come As You Are’ off Nevermind: in the guitar solo, Kurt stamps on a chorus pedal and out comes this lush, crazy guitar tone. You really like that tone, you go out looking for it… you find it again in say, Deftones, or Perfect Circle, or Team Sleep (or, indeed, Ride) and from any one of those bands you can then veer off into art rock, progressive rock, trip-hop, or shoegazing. It won’t be long before you’re listening to Massive Attack, trust me.
Still not there? Option three: you like the ‘grunge sound’ and wonder where it came from. You go back a bit- Fugazi, Black Flag, Sonic Youth, Melvins, Dinosaur Jr., or (in the case of Smashing Pumpkins) stuff like The Cure, Jesus and Mary Chain or My Bloody Valentine. Going from these bands we’ve got the option of hardcore, post-hardcore, progressive, no-wave, drone, musique concrete, industrial, post-rock, stoner rock, shoegaze, noise-rock, goth rock, new-wave, math rock and (phew) psych rock.
All I know is that in Super Star Destroyer we have three main members- I’m a shoegazer, Tom is an indie kid who’s turned post-punk (think Japandroids etc.), and Jake is obsessed by the Flaming Lips. We decide to form a side project in SSD from all of our main bands, we get jamming, and what comes out? Mudhoney.
Your honour, I rest my case.
Great, I hear you cry. So why is this relevant? Well, I have two or three ideas about how people have gone from grunge to the proverbial dark side of the moon. If you’re pissing your parents off with Nirvana one week, then is it really that big a stretch to move from there to say, cranking ‘Only Shallow’ by My Bloody Valentine at (ahem) 11 and seeing how much that pisses them off?
Aha, that not quite do it for you? Enter idea two: take the example of a song everybody’s heard: ‘Come As You Are’ off Nevermind: in the guitar solo, Kurt stamps on a chorus pedal and out comes this lush, crazy guitar tone. You really like that tone, you go out looking for it… you find it again in say, Deftones, or Perfect Circle, or Team Sleep (or, indeed, Ride) and from any one of those bands you can then veer off into art rock, progressive rock, trip-hop, or shoegazing. It won’t be long before you’re listening to Massive Attack, trust me.
Still not there? Option three: you like the ‘grunge sound’ and wonder where it came from. You go back a bit- Fugazi, Black Flag, Sonic Youth, Melvins, Dinosaur Jr., or (in the case of Smashing Pumpkins) stuff like The Cure, Jesus and Mary Chain or My Bloody Valentine. Going from these bands we’ve got the option of hardcore, post-hardcore, progressive, no-wave, drone, musique concrete, industrial, post-rock, stoner rock, shoegaze, noise-rock, goth rock, new-wave, math rock and (phew) psych rock.
All I know is that in Super Star Destroyer we have three main members- I’m a shoegazer, Tom is an indie kid who’s turned post-punk (think Japandroids etc.), and Jake is obsessed by the Flaming Lips. We decide to form a side project in SSD from all of our main bands, we get jamming, and what comes out? Mudhoney.
Your honour, I rest my case.
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