Music For Monday - Screaming Trees, Melvins, Seaweed, and Tad

I go through phases of listening to certain artists, genres, or sub-genres of music. The past week or so I've been on a Pacific Northwest ear bender primarily centered around these groups. Put some headphones on and enjoy the rock and roll. I've been into the Screaming Trees since my friend DD came home from college in 1988 with the Invisible Lantern album released on SST. He played "Ivy" for me and it was over for me. I was a bit chagrined that I had missed it since I was buying everything released on SST back then. I knew I had to get that record.

The Melvins are one of the cornerstones of how I ended being in punk garage bands for most of my twenties. I learned to play by listening to the Ramones first album and then playing along with barre chords, but when I first started jamming with my friends Toby and Wes it was the Melvins we first emulated. I loved the Black Sabbath doom sludge fueled maelstrom. Ozma was one of my favorite albums of 1989. 

Seaweed were like the Pacific Northwest version of Superchunk so it's appropriate they ended up on Merge Records before they disbanded. I liked their earnestness and tuneful songs even if sometimes they came across like a lite beer version of Mudhoney. 

Closing this post out we have my favorite band from this area and era: the mighty Tad. Tad Doyle's band which looked like itinerant lumberjacks played with such ferocity and menace you were presented with only two options: either leave the room or embrace their rusty corrosive power. The tune "Jack Pepsi" was one of our all time favorites as the story seemed like the kind of thing that could have happened to us if we had ever gone driving on ice while drinking Jack Daniels and Pepsi, and "Wood Goblins" is some freaked out beast tromping through the woods looking for blood and beer.