Suppose it may have been a fair bit different in the UK, bands like Poison, Bon Jovi, Crue and all that lot didn't have quite such an impact. We had the Smiths, The Cure, Primal Scream, The The etc. Like you had Regan - we had fucking Thatcher.
Those bands made a big impact over here. The Smiths and The Cure are still gigantic. I saw The Cure at a festival a few months ago. They, BY FAR, drew the biggest crowd at a weekend including Slayer, Weezer, Primus, and a bunch of other big names. The UK did a good job of exporting it's pop/alternative stuff to the US. You're lucky Poison didn't poison you like they did us.
When grunge came along it was like there was American music worth listening to again! Aside from Bad Religion and DKs 80s american punk was just pretty obscure over here. Even Bad Religion was hard to come by. There was this good record shop in Cardiff called Spillers where you could get a lot of good stuff though.
Suppose early Alice in Chains is a bit glammy. Soundgarden and Pearl Jam weren't doing anything glammy by the early to mid 90s though.
Soundgarden and Pearl Jam weren't glammy, but they are just guitar rock. They weren't trying to destroy any previous musical structures. They just played their localized version of rock and roll. They weren't giving anyone the finger. Drop some guitar solos into their songs, have Eddie Vedder sing an octave higher, and trade his flannel for spandex, and Pearl Jam is Cinderella.
The 80s in america is mostly known for cheesy spandex metal and pop shit like Madonna, but go a little off the grid from that and there were huge giant scenes of good music happening that no one outside of "college radio" cared about. I don't know how familiar you are with Sonic Youth and The Pixies, but listen to them and then listen to Nirvana. Without actually knowing the guy's history, I suspect Kurt Cobain spent a lot of time listening to them. And Husker Du. The Stooges. The Melvins. You can hear all of those bands in Nirvana. They were just another band coming from what was left of the american punk/alternative music underground....that wasn't ever really that far underground. Nirvana just happened to write the perfect anger-pop tune that anyone could grab hold of at a time when people were ready for it. Two years earlier and "Teen Spirit" might not have ever seen the light of day. I actually don't even remember that song from the show I saw. It certainly wasn't the big closer or anything.
Rancid - they really were off Yakk butter weren't they.
Rancid has some okay songs. I always viewed them as postcard punks for frat boy jocks. I've never been too enamored with US bands that tried to look and sound like they were from London 1976. It's just very poser-ish to me. Lars Frederiksen is a fucking tool.
I've been reading Babylon's Burning (just pre punk to Grunge) and listening to the accompanying box set.
Very interesting stuff - seems the Clash were quite contradictory, barely competent & conflicted (& couldn't keep a drummer) whilst with Bernie Rhodes. Still love all the LPs before Sandi though. OH, & the Pistols were considered sell outs because they learnt to play what they did quite well.
I think it's pretty sad that The Sex Pistols are still considered the poster boys for UK punk, while The Clash were always leaps and bounds better in every possible way. It's not even close. Seriously. Is there anyone reputable on this planet familiar with both bands that doesn't think The Clash is/were/are just better?
I listened to a P90 vs Humbucker comparison online ( both LPs P90 a 54 reissue & humbuckers in a 57 reissue) the P90s sounded much better defined but the hummers REALLY pushed out a lot more sound. I think I like P90s now.
Haha, I think P-90s are kick ass. They are like the perfect single-coil IMO. I think that for your kind of sound, they'd be right up your alley. Humbuckers can vary a lot though. A hot humbucker can almost double the output of a P-90. A mild humbucker can sound pretty similar to a P-90. I've probably mentioned about a trillion times that I've really come to realize that I generally don't like hot humbuckers. They're a thick mucky mess to me. They have their place for sure, but I prefer to retain some clarity through my caveman style of playing. My buddy uses Gibson 500Ts in his LPs, and holy shit they are scorching hot. Leads scream out of those things for sure, but rhythm playing is kind of a mess and they won't clean up at all with the guitar vol.
In terms of tone I've learnt a new thing about my little 5 watt Kustom - crank the amp & turn down the guitar! Sounds really clean but gets a bit bassy when turned up a bit then bets very trebbly when the guitar is cranked too. Probably more about the guitar than the amp.
Also the Boss OD with level fully cranked, tone with a little top rolled off & with just a tiny bit of gain (like less that 1) comes out really nicely.
Cool man, let's hear it!
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