NORTHWESTERN MUSIC
By T.G. Clown

          The Pacific Northwestern region, mainly Seattle, Washington, receives more precipitation than any other areas in the mid-continental United States.  The heavy rain forced many middle-class kids to stay inside their home and made it almost impossible for them to play outside sports or participate in any other outside activities.  Furthermore, Seattle only had about two all ages club where kids can hang out and attend concerts.  As a result, in the early 1980s, major rock bands didn't come to play shows in Seattle because there weren't any major venues to play in. 
          The irritated and bored suburban kids decided to take on inside activities such as rock music because of Seattle's limitation.  These restrained kids went down to their basements and played their guitars as loud and destructive as they could to take out their frustrations.  Little did they know that their unlucky weather and limited activities would turn Seattle into the most musically acclaimed city of rock n' roll in the early 90s. 
         These frustrated kids formed rock bands with their neighborhood friends.   An average Northwestern rock band was consisted of a vocalist, rhythm guitarist, lead guitarist, bassist, and a drummer.  The vocalist is the lead singer and has the responsibility as the leader of the band.  A rhythm guitarist plays multiple chords, creating harmony and pertains a forward movement to the music.  A lead guitarist plays hooks and bridge, which keeps the listeners interested in the music.  In a bridge, the lead guitarist plays a solo making the music exciting and spine tingling.  A bassist supports the melody while blending the music together.  A bassist gives the music a balance.  A drummer's job is to give the music a beat and to keep the music in the correct tempo.
          Everybody in this region played music because it was a cheap escape from their boring life.  These local rock bands played with their friends because they like to play music.  It was also fun and it exposed them to a new creative process.  These Northwestern bands shared band members, which brought the collective ideas together.  Furthermore, by the time the kids got out of high school, they already played shows and recorded music.  As a result, by the mid-1980s the Pacific Northwest had developed a regional sound, which later became known as "Grunge." 
          "In terms of influence, [the Northwestern] music [borrowed] from the rough-edges of rock's history.  Out of the 1960s [came] the spirit of social protest and artistic freedom.  From the late 1970s [came] the primitive do-it-yourself sensibility of punk and the slam dancing and stage diving mayhem that went with it."  (Farley 62).  Moreover, anything chaotic, destructive and loud was an influence.  These new Seattle-based bands created the most nosy, heaviest, and observe music of all time.  Furthermore, their rock status avoided dating groupies and models.  They also rejected commercial values of mainstream pop, but supported progressive social causes.  "They tend to be anti-sexist, pro-tolerance and pro-underdog, whether it's animals or human."  (Farley 65).
          Moreover, during the 1980s major labels centered most of their attention to superstars such as Bruce Springsteen and Madonna shutting down to the new music ideas.  As a result, "Seattle's Sub Pop Records [and independent record label] was founded in 1986 to capture the musical moment... Sub Pop co-founders Jonathan Poneman and Bruce Pavitt envisioned their small record company as a kind of Motown of the Pacific Northwest."  (Farley 63).  Furthermore, Sub Pop allowed the Northwestern region to open more venues for the up and coming bands.
          One of the primitive forms of Grunge band to come out of Sub Pop was Green River.  The band first got together with vocalist and guitarist Mark Arm, Steve Turner on guitar, Jeff Ament on bass, and Alex Vincent on drums.  Green River mainly focused their music sound on punk rock because of influences such as the Clash and Black Flag.  Later the band needed a replacement guitarist because Arm wanted to focus more on his singing.  "Turner and Vincent happened to know just the man for the job.  The two had met Stone Gossard (one of the most important and underrated figure in developing the absolute grunge sound) at Northwestern School of the Arts, a tony Capitol Hill private school...which is the real birth place of grunge."  (Neely 13).  Gossard studied music theory, jazz, and chorus at the school, which contributed to the band's traditional fare.  Furthermore, Gossard was interested in the Seventies hard rock, and more commercial bands such as Kiss and Alice Cooper.  As a result, Gossard brought a new flavor to Green River splitting punk rock and heavy hard rock in the middle.  The band later came out with Come On Down, which is known as the "Holy Grail of Grunge."  However, Green River broke up because Arm disapproved their music morphing into heavy rock.  Arm and Turner then formed Mudhoney, which was a punk-based band.
          Another band that was singed to Sub Pop was Soundgarden.  The band was Chris Cornell on vocals/guitar, Kim Thayil on guitar, Hiro Yamamoto on bass and Matt Cameron on drums.  They were the first of Sub Pop generation to sign to a major record label and they brought the attention to the Northwestern music.  Their music was dirty, sweaty, loud, and destructive.  Their amazing sound is characterized by bass-laden, heavy-duty metallic riffs that swings between melancholia and dark and avant-garde minimalism.  Furthermore, Cornell had a ranting voice and articulate lyrics to give it the ultimate Grunge touch.  Later, Yamamoto left Soundgarden and he was replaced by Ben Shepherd who was in a band with Gossard in their early childhood.  
          While Soundgarden was swimming in their success, Gossard and Ament formed a short-lived quintet band, Mother Love Bone.  They were a heavy metal and classic rock influenced band.  They were specialized in heavy-duty garage rock laced with drug-fuelled psychotic overtones.  Mother Love Bone foreshadowed the ultimate Grunge music with their personal lyrics, which reached out to the listeners.  However, their lead singer Andrew Wood died in March 1990, shortly after the release of their LP Apple.
         Later Soundgarden's Cornell formed a side-project band Temple of the Dog as a tribute to the late Andrew Wood.  The band was comprised of Cornell, Cameron, Mike McCready (guitar), Gossard, and Ament.  Temple of the Dog also had a guest vocalist Eddie Vedder singing a duet with Cornell in 'Hunger Strike.'  Little did they know Vedder would turn the Seattle music scene upside down with his raw, freshly, and emotional voice.  Temple of the Dog was the ultimate starting point of the Grunge success.  It had what Grunge music stood for.  "Their music are usually guitar-driven, with experimental touches.  While pop songs are often about love, [Grunge] lyrics are often about tougher feelings: despair, lust, confusion."  (Farley 60-61).  Say Hello To Heaven, a song about Wood, is a perfect example of the personal touches; "I never wanted/ To write these words down for you/ With pages of phrases/ Of things we'll never do/ So I blow out the candles, and/ I put you to bed."  This music reached out to everyday middle-class twenty-something generation.
         As the Northwestern battle between the punk rock bands and heavy metal influenced bands continued, a band out of Aberdeen came out of the left field creating a frenzy.  Nirvana, another Sub Pop sensation, had established the ultimate pinnacle of Grunge music.  Nirvana had "what angers today's rockers, and their fans...that life is unjust, which they learned at a vulnerable age.  [Grunge] rock is the sound of homes breaking.  If you are in your teens or 20s chances are your family has been through a divorce.  [Grunge] music has become an emotional sound track, speaking directly to unresolved issues of abandonment and unfairness."  (Farley 62). 
          Kurt Cobain, the lead singer and guitarist of Nirvana, was from a broken family.  His emotional sound and lyrics reflected on his suffering and torment of his childhood, which instantly reached out to the Generation X.  "Like many of Kurt's songs, Sliver seems to be autobiographical.  It's about a boy who is left with his grandparents for the evenings while his mother goes out.  He can't eat, he doesn't want to play, he just wants to go home.  He falls asleep and wakes up in his mother's arms.  Even the cover of the single is a picture of a transparent man, as if to say that the song within enabled the listener to see right through Kurt."  (Azerrad 145).  Sliver also reveals Cobain's anguish, and his often-violent guitar techniques, which sounds "like a couple making love, or fighting, or both at the same time..."  (Di Perna 76).  If you hear Nirvana's music you'll immediately hear that Cobain wasn't a happy guy, his vocal was scratchy, but it sounded almost angelic.
          However, there was another Seattle-based Grunge band that rocked the world.  In 1990, Pearl Jam was made up of Vedder on vocals along with Gossard, Ament, McCready, and Dave Krusen on Drums (who was later replaced by Jack Irons).  Vedder was also from a broken family, "Vedder never knew his real father.  He was raised by a man who he thought was his father and with whom he often clashed.  By the time his mother told him the truth, Vedder had migrated to San Diego, and his biological father had died of multiple sclerosis."  (Farley 63-64).  His childhood memories were reflected in the hit song Alive.  Vedder with his strong, emotional and raw voice sang, " Son, she said have I got a little story for you/ What you taught was your daddy was nothin' but a.../ While you were sittin' home alone at age thirteen/ Your real daddy was dyin'/ Sorry you didn't see him, but I'm glad we talked."  This was an ultimate pinnacle of the grunge movement because Vedder took his childhood conflicts and expressed it into his music.  When the kids heard this they felt connected, they felt that are not't alone.
          Furthermore, Gossard and McCready played clean texture of distorted guitars.  Gossard had infectious loose grooves and majestic rhythm works, which contributed to Pearl Jam's highly sophisticated style.  Their lead guitarist, McCready, who is probably the best solo guitarist of the 90s, played blues-based solos that soared the area.  While, Ament's bass blend the harmony together.
          Pearl Jam and other Grunge bands were also well known for their mesmerizing live performance.  Their music was flawless and wonderfully accomplished.  Furthermore, "Vedder reminded fans of an animal trying to escape from a leash.  Especially in the first year or so, he hurled himself into crowds, surfing on upraised hands.  He climbed the scaffolds around a stage, dangling from dangerous heights.  He stood still in front of a microphone, folded into himself, tearing emotions out of himself as he sang."  (Farley 64).  This was one of the reasons that the grunge bands climbed their way to the top. 
          Grunge music, like every form of art work, expressed their destructive feelings in their past and in their present.  Grunge music was a natural success because it helped to ease the pain for the youth.  Now days there are more divorces in families then there were ever before.  Divorces rip the children apart and leave them in anguish.  However, Grunge music was expressing some of the similar feelings that the kids were feeling.  By that the kids were able to relate to this music.  They felt that they weren't alone.  As a result, Grunge music became an emotional soundtrack for our generation as well an escape.
          Furthermore, Grunge music helped to unit the youth, which destroyed the saying that our generation doesn't care about anything or anyone.  "It appealed to me and my friends because our generation is so dead to the world.  There's nothing waiting for us when we get out of school," said Bonnie O'Shea, 21, a student.  (Farley 65).  But when five million people are listen to the same music our generation is united and we're not outcasts.