Alice in Chains vocal doubling....

[chessrock]

Yea, even "Man in the Box" had some remnants of the glam-metal that they quickly did away with. Thankfully.

 

[JuSumPilgrim]

I'll chime in, 1994 was a great year for music.

Rush also released Counterparts late 93 I believe... also worthy to note was Catherine Wheel's "Chrome", another late '93 and popular in '94 release... and King's X "Dogman", an album with more balls than three Korn pitch-benders in drop B ... Dream Theater's "Awake", which was poorly produced but still a great listen (well, 'Space Dye-Vest' was pretty cool)...

... the early 1990s was exciting in Rock.

I haven't listened to the radio voluntarily since 1995. I have only a handful of albums since 1996, and they're favorite artists for the most part.

I thought the production on awake kicked ass. In terms of the nice blend of keys and guitars which although was a rush ripoff, it was an updated version with smoother more 90s sounding synths than rush used. Also the songwriting was basically flawless from beinning to end.

Chess, youre not THAT old. I have a brother your age and he's into def lepard, quiet riot and foreigner. At least you have good taste in music.

Btw, I agree with you about STP. Not just purple but most of their albums. They are solid songwriters, not the best of their generation but very solid. What they excel at are stylistic pieces that stretch the genre of grunge and post grunge (their late 90s stuff). They dont excel at poignant displays of emotion the way AIC does, they excel at inventive rhythms, vocal melodies and rifs that really show muscianship and a familiarity with many dif musical ideas. Productionwise though they dont totally cut it. I thought the vocals on most of the later stuff were not mixed well. Given the way scott changed his style of singing (smart to let the pathetic and derivative bands like creed, stained, etc do the early 90s grunge closed mouth thing while STP moved on) I think the vocals are too thin and mixed too low.

 

[chessrock]

I thought the vocals on most of the later stuff were not mixed well. Given the way scott changed his style of singing (smart to let the pathetic and derivative bands like creed, stained, etc do the early 90s grunge closed mouth thing while STP moved on) I think the vocals are too thin and mixed too low.

I think it was probably all the heroine Scott Weilan was doing. Funniest thing . . . Foreigner (Double Vision) was one of the first cassette tapes I ever bought. Kiss was all the rage when I first started getting in to music (I was about 7-8 years old). My friends and I worshipped those guys. And by the time I was in 7th/8th grade, it was all about the L.A. Metal scene: Quiet Riot, Ratt, Rough Cutt, Motley Crue, etc.

I guess I just must have (appropriately) grew out of all of that.

 

[CDT-sHaG]

man i relate to you guys soo much..

everything you've said about 1994 and those bands and cd's..

from 1987 through around 1995 I played bass and sang in a band (stayed with the same drummer the whole time)...and that music defined the era...we wrote, did a few covers of these bands, but the influences of these bands we're all over our stuff....

some covers i remember from those years, off hand, were:

"had a dad"

"mtn. song"

"Sympathy for the devil" (JA style)

"pigs in zen"

"trip away"

"Rusty Cage"

"Hands All Over"

"Loud Love"

"hunger strike" (temple of the dog)

"chole dancer/crown of thorns" (ahhhh mother love bone!!)

"Stargazer"

"Man in the box"

"higher ground"

"them bones"

"got me wrong"

"we die young"

"..can't remember the title...but the lyric ("i want to party on your p#$ssy baby"..) lol

there were more and we spread them out in our shows..picked maybe 3-4 each show...we had other covers but those we're the shit imho...brought down the house with a lot of them...

I felt, at the time even up to '96 or so.., a strange connection in what AIC, soundgarden, Temple of the dog, Pearl Jam, nirvana, Jane's Addiction (been into them since 89) and the red hot's we're doing musically...for me it was a magical time and I still wear those groups out..not so much STP, but I do like them...I think their writing is soo strong and un-flashy...

im 33 BTW...

peace.
CDT

 

[chessrock]

Too funny. I was playing bass in a cover band at that time, also.

I think it was almost mandatory that every single cover band at the time did "Man in the Box." Before that it was "Enter Sandman."

We did Mountain Song and Hunger Strike as well.

So what was your best cover?

 

[elevate]

I was in a band that did a little number we liked to call "Break on Through to the Other Sandman." We played a rocked out version of Break on Through, and then it would just seamlessly flow into Enter Sandman. I play drums, so I'm not sure, but it seemed like there were a lot of common notes between the end of Break and the beginning of Sandman. In retrospect it was a pretty wierd thing to do, but everybody seemed to dig it.

The early to mid 90's were a rather glorious time for music. Tool's Ænima­ in 95 seems like a turning point. It was the last great rock album from that time, and to me made everything else before it (and after it) look weak. After that pop seemed to start clawing its way back into the spotlight. Seems like today we have pop and rock co-occupying the spotlight, but it's not the kinda rock we grew up with - it's that contrived and manufactured poopoo a lá Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park.

 

[CDT-sHaG]

in all honesty it was a toss-up between "had a dad" and "Loud Love"......we nailed those 2 the best...

I sang "loud.." and our lead singer sang "had a dad".

the reason those 2 were better was because we played them longer and more often.....


what kinda gear did you have chess? bass-wise?

peace....

 

[mojka]

I'm a real old fart and I bought face-lift by purely throwing a dart at the CD wall in 1990. I had no idea who they were but they were not a "glam band" as the record label originally intended.
As great as Jerry is he still has too clean of a vocal. The growl and whine is gone and will be missed.

 

[Whoopysnorp]

I'd just like to say here that in just two more posts I'll be able to have a custom avatar.

 

[mojka]

Whoopysnorp,
What is a custom avatar and why should anyone care?

 

[Cyrokk]

Yea, even "Man in the Box" had some remnants of the glam-metal that they quickly did away with. Thankfully.

I think I understand what you are saying. And most people took to AIC when Dirt came out. Hell, there was even a blurb in Entertainment Weekly about Layne's death, and neither Facelift or Sap was mentioned.

I'm in the minority here. I think Facelift and Sap were the best albums AIC put out. Dirt was slick and heavy, and definately worth the purchase, but imo it just doesn't compare to the pure impact and emotion in their first two official releases. AIC in fact WAS a metal band at that time, and so was STP. But I was one of the few that got off the bus when they (and STP) began to soften their approach.

Cy

 

[chessrock]

what kinda gear did you have chess? bass-wise?

I had this really ugly-looking Cort bass. It was kind of a Steinberg/Geddy Lee deal where there wasn't a head on it. ) It was really easy to change the strings, but that's about the only cool thing about it. My drummer played a beat-up piece of crap that he used to throw in to the audience at the end of some of our shows.

We were a bunch of punks.

 

[enemyofthesun]

id rather go to the dentist then witness a cover band playing those songs

 

[CDT-sHaG]

hehe well have fun getting your root canal...