Green River (band)
| Green River | |
|---|---|
| General information | |
| Genre (s) | Grunge |
| founding | 1984 |
| resolution | 1987 |
| Founding members | |
| Mark Arm | |
| Jeff Ament | |
| Steve Turner (until 1985) | |
| Alex Vincent | |
| Last occupation | |
singing |
Mark Arm |
bass |
Jeff Ament |
guitar |
Bruce Fairweather (from 1985) |
guitar |
Stone Gossard (from 1985) |
Drums |
Alex Vincent |
Green River , named after the Green River killer , were, together with Soundgarden, one of the first grunge bands whose creative power also resulted in a long-playing record .
Band history
In early 1984, Green River was founded in Seattle by friends Steve Turner and Mark Arm from the garage bands Mr. Epp & The Calculations and Spluii Numa . There were also Jeff Ament from Derange Dictions on bass and Alex Vincent from Spluii Numa as drummer.
At that time, Green River released two contributions on the Deep Six sampler by C / Z Records with The U-Men , Soundgarden , the Melvins , Skin Yard and Malfunkshun, among others .
In the summer of 1985, Stone Gossard , Steve Turner's bandmate with the Ducky Boys , joined as the second guitarist . Turner, Gossard and Vincent already knew each other from school.
The next recording was their first LP Come on Down on the New York indie label Homestead Records . After the appearance of Come on Down , Steve Turner left the band because he did not like the stage behavior of the others and the music did not develop in his favored direction.
Bruce Fairweather , who had already played with Ament in Derange Dictions , came as a replacement . After they released a self-financed single on HP-Records with the pieces Together We'll Never , which dated back to the spring of Turner and a cover of the Dead Boys Is not Nothing to Do .
Following this release, they toured the west coast and started working with the newly founded label Sub Pop on the EP Dry as a Bone , which only hit stores in the summer of 1987 due to financial difficulties on the part of Sub Pops . (On top of that, a cover version of the song Ozzie by the band Tales of Terrors , which is about the Green River killer who inspired the band name.)
The next step was the production of the album Rehab Doll . During this time tensions increased between Mark Arm on the one hand and Gossard, Ament and Fairweather on the other. First, since the departure was Steve Turner , the songwriting of the reach of Gossard and Fairweather and became rock-heavy and complex, while arm rather tended to simpler punk rock. Second, there was friction over the recording studio for Rehab Doll . Arm wanted to continue working with Jack Endino , who had already set up his studio for them on Dry as a Bone , while the others wanted to work more professionally and preferred a 24-track studio.
During this crisis, Green River went on tour on the west coast again and had an appearance as opening act for Jane's Addiction on October 31, 1987 in Los Angeles . Arm wanted to invite some friends to the few seats they were entitled to for this performance, but Ament prevailed by reserving all seats for A&R managers. When finally only two of the invited guests appeared (one only after the appearance of Green River ), there was a solid argument in the cloakroom. Since Ament did not accept the criticism, Mark Arm got out that evening. For the same reasons, there was later an upset between Pearl Jam on the one hand and Kurt Cobain on the other, who, friends of Arm, denounced the "sell-out".
After the split , Gossard, Ament and Fairweather decided to find a new front man and drummer to keep making music. This they found in Andrew Wood , singer in Seattle known glam rock band Malfunkshun , and formed with this first under the name Lord of the Wasteland the formation, as Mother Love Bone was to achieve notoriety, from which, in turn, by tragic circumstances Pearl Jam were.
After Mark Arm had decided to found a new band with Steve Turner on the evening of his departure (Halloween 1987), the band Mudhoney formed shortly afterwards with Matt Lukin from the Melvins and Dan Peters .
On November 30, 1993, there was a Green River reunion during a Pearl Jam concert in Las Vegas, Nevada. Mark Arm, Steve Turner, Stone Gossard, Jeff Ament and on drums Chuck Treece were involved in place of Alex Vincent, who was living in Japan at the time. The band played the songs "Swallow My Pride" and "Ain't Nothing to Do" before leaving the stage.
In honor of the 20th anniversary of Sub Pop , another reunion took place on July 13, 2008 in Marymoor Park near Seattle. The cast consisted of all the members who were ever involved in the band: Ament, Arm, Turner, Vincent, Gossard and Fairweather.
style
Green River played a mix of punk , metal and hard rock . The fanzine The Rocket described the sound of Green River as "a mixture of Metallica and Lynyrd Skynyrd with the vocals of Henry Rollins ".
effect
The musical effect on other bands is not as clearly discernible as with later and more famous bands from Seattle. Green River, however, shaped and established the mixture of garage rock, punk and heavy metal led under the genre term grunge and thus opened the door to large record labels for bands like Soundgarden. The development and fate of Green River embodied, to put it more pointedly, the tightrope walk between subcultural independence and mainstream . Even if Green River is often considered the first grunge band, the impact of the successor bands ( Mother Love Bone, Pearl Jam and Mudhoney ) on the outside world was far greater.
Discography
- 1984: Come on Down (EP, Homestead Records )
- 1986: Together We'll Never (single, Tasque Force Records )
- 1987: Dry as a Bone (EP, Sub Pop )
- 1987: Rehab Doll (Album, Sub Pop )
- 1988: Rehab Doll / Dry as a Bone (compilation, Sub Pop )
Web links
- English fansite
- fan page
- extensive discography ( memento of July 8, 2003 in the Internet Archive )
swell
- ↑ "Cult rock band Green River to reunite for show"
- ↑ Green River: Reunion for the Sub Pop anniversary ( Memento of the original from July 13, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
