2018: May 3rd 6:28 AM

It is my opinion that Alice in Chains never had a bad album until The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here. Now, I like pretty much all the songs on this record, however, I find it difficult to listen to as an album, top to bottom. Maybe their time has run out, however the absolute Shock of finding that I really dug When Black Gives Way To Blue earned them a lot of respect in my eyes. In high school, pre-grunge, Anthrax was my band. After the influx of new material with the post-Nirvana wave, Alice was. Dirt made an ENORMOUS impression on me; I mean, there is no way to overestimate the effect that record had on me. And pretty much still does, although time and life experience has obviously diluted that experience. When Layne Staley died I felt what people felt when Cobain did. I followed Jerry Cantrell's two solo records and liked them to varying degrees, but something was, obviously, missing. A lot of time passed and then James Duval came in to the picture and I felt divided; I figured Cantrell was at least 50% of the band to begin with (at least), and his name did not have the 'branding' that AlC did, so why begrudge the guy? The test came down to the music, and I have to say, I dug Blue a lot. It's never been in regular rotation, but then again most Alice binges are sporadic events at this point and they usually center around the original albums. Recently I dug Dinosaurs back out and listened to it and found I really like it. The title track is especially haunting musically, and here's a video I'd never knew existed! The one thing that diminishes the track for me just a skosh is the slightly awkward rhyming couplet in the chorus, with "Jesus don't like a queer" working but only just - 'like' seems like a weak verb there. But that's nitpicking, which is okay when something is this good.

Playlist from 5/02:

Trust Obey - Fear and Bullets
Prince - Sign O' The Times
Kings of Leon - Because of the Times
The Raveonettes - Ghost single
The Raveonettes - 2016 Atomized
Alice in Chains - The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here

Card of the day:

What is it with this card? Actually, now I know what all the recurrences of this one were warning me about - I'm not putting it down here, but suffice it to say it's something I have to solve and when I do, I will have a tiny influx of $$$.

Previously Unreleased Mad Season Tracks?

Whoah.

Thanks to mxdwn for this tip off.

Alice in Chains - MTV Unplugged

As I come to the end of Mark Yarm's wonderful book Everybody Loves Our Town I find myself drawn once again back to my favorite band from that era, Alice in Chains. In that return I realized a major oversight in my record collection. I do not own the AIC unplugged.

Now, I know why I don't own it - its association with empty-v. However, Everybody Loves Our Town has made me re-think this.

The book is word of mouth - in other words it is comprised entirely of interview snippets conducted and arranged by Mr. Yarm and in the last chapters as those firsthand accounts address the death of Layne Staley there's a quote by AIC bassist Mike Inez that reads, "We discovered at that show that songs like "Sludge Factory" were even heavier acoustic. Layne that night was so haunting. His voice, especially his performance on "Down in a Hole," it still brings a tear to my eye. There was a couple times I had to pull my eyes off of Layne and remind myself, Hey, I'm at work. Instead of being a fan here, I better concentrate on my bass chords. He was just so mesmerizing."

I have a powerful relationship with Alice's music, and Staley's death was the first of two rock star deaths that have actually affected me (the other being Peter Steele's from Type O Negative). Staley reminded me of my best friend Jake, who died a looong time ago. Anyway, that quote from Mr. Inez made me really want to see/hear the performance in question so I went youtube.

Wow.

Nutshell, the second track off of 1993's Jar of Flies ep just kills me every time. But it's even more powerful here. All the tracks are fantastic, but that one and Sludge Factory - which since the first time I heard it has been one of my favorite Alice tracks - are just killer.