Tale of the Tape

While cassettes have played a large role in my music-loving past, I was never much of a fan of the pre-recorded tape. I rarely bought them, preferring to buy the vinyl and make tapes with an album on each side. After I finally got my first CD player in 1989 as a graduation gift, I basically just made the jump from vinyl to CDs.

For some reason, I preferred to buy cassettes of albums I was taking a chance on. Usually, they were a little cheaper, too. I have cassettes from Public Enemy, De La Soul, Digital Underground (guess I wasn't completely a convert to hip hop at that point), as well as Van Halen's Diver Down and several comedy albums including Eddie Murphy's Comedian, which got a TON of play my junior year of high school.

But in October 1990, I bought three tapes that were a pretty good indicator of where I was and where I was headed musically. I had been subscribing to Rolling Stone for a few years and although the magazine was definitely well into its decline, I still read the reviews faithfully. Sure, every new Stones or Dylan album would get a 5-star review no matter what it sounded like, but every so often I would read about a band that sounded interesting. Around that time, I read about new releases from three bands that caught my attention: Mother Love Bone, Soul Asylum and Extreme.

The MLB review was from the band's first and only album, Apple. I had never heard of the band before, but I was intrigued by the review's favorable comparison of the band to Led Zeppelin and Queen, as well as the fact that the lead singer, Andrew Wood, had died of a heroin OD just days before the album was to be released in March 1990.

The other bands I was somewhat familiar with. I hadn't heard any Soul Asylum songs before, but the Minneapolis act had been around for a few years. And the Horse They Rode In On was the band's fifth album but their first for a major label (A&M). I don't really remember what it was that made me pick up the tape, but it certainly wasn't from hearing a song on the radio. Soul Asylum barely made a dent on rock radio (at least around here, anyway), but the band's next album, 1992's Grave Dancers Union, was a huge hit.

And Extreme was a Boston-area hard rock act that had received local radio airplay on WAAF, the hahd rawk station out of Worcester. I wasn't too impressed with what I'd heard, but the review I read highlighted the band's transformation into a funk-metal force on its second album Pornograffiti. I had been digging bands like Living Colour, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Faith No More, as well as actual funk, so this sounded like something I could get into.

So I went down to the Lechmere department store (RIP) at the Liberty Tree Mall in Danvers, which at the time still had a sizable music department. Lechmere had a little bit of everything and it had started selling cassettes and CDs for decent prices, sometimes everything was $10 or less. I picked up the three tapes, having not heard a single note from any of them. It was the printed word that led me to check them out. I guess I bought the cassettes on the off chance they sucked; then they wouldn't befoul my glorious CD collection. I know, I know.

If you've read any installments of the Mixology series I've been doing, you know I grew up as a big fan of hard rock and metal. The Extreme album was a nice bridge from the DLR-era Van Halen (not so much of a coincidence, since Extreme singer Gary Cherone had a short-lived stint as VH lead singer in the late '90s) I loved to the funkier rock I was into in '90. Lots of big harmonies, heavy guitar riffing, Cherone's versatile vocals, but it was the guitars that made the difference. Guitarist Nuno Bettencourt was a monster on the album, especially on songs like "Get the Funk Out" and "It's a Monster," soloing all over the place and just exploding on the guitar nerd scene (within months, he would be on the covers of all the big guitar mags I loved to read). Of course, the songs that made the most impact were the ones that sounded nothing like the band: the dentist's office anthem "More Than Words" and the jangly acoustic "Hole Hearted." The album had been out for a few months when "More Than Words" was released as a single and the video was all over MTV; it eventually hit number one on the singles chart. By that time, I couldn't stand it. "Hole Hearted" was a decent song and notable for the video's inclusion of Boston Bruins Cam Neely and Lyndon Byers, and it hit #4. Extreme was on top of the world in '91. But by the time the band released its followup, the uber-pretentious TRIPLE-album III Sides to Every Story (get it?), in September 1992, the rock world had changed dramatically.

A substantial part of that change was due to Mother Love Bone. Yeah, yeah, Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was the Molotov rocktail that doomed hard rock and metal to a decade of disappointment. But the seeds were planted by bands like Soundgarden, Mudhoney and yes, Mother Love Bone. MLB had been playing around Seattle for a few years and its members were in influential bands like Green River and Malfunkshun before that. MLB is described as a grunge band, but I always felt that Mudhoney and Nirvana were the epitome of grunge: unapologetically grimy, loud and heavy. But MLB was an arena-rock band playing in clubs. Andrew Wood was a flamboyant frontman who namechecked Freddie Mercury and wore makeup while singing Zepplinesque rockers and backed by Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament, who went on to form Pearl Jam. This was the album that really had the biggest impact on me at the time and it was the gateway drug that got me into Nirvana, Mudhoney, Soundgarden, Temple of the Dog and Pearl Jam. It was a piece of the Seattle sound a full year before that exploded across the country. The album got no airplay whatsoever until nearly two years later, when the soundtrack to the movie Singles was released with MLB's "Crown of Thorns" on it. Mercury repackaged Apple and the band's previous EP Shine and the subsequent self-titled comp finally hit the charts.

As for the Soul Asylum album, it kinda came and went, but I enjoyed it immensely. Dave Pirner and the band had crafted a tight, crisp collection of alt-rock songs. Produced by session drummer Steve Jordan, the album revealed a band that had moved away from its snottier, punkier sound and into a more mature one. Songs like "Spinnin,'" "We 3" and "Veil of Tears" were instantly memorable. I looked forward to the next release, and Soul Asylum continued its evolution on Grave Dancers Union with a big-rock sound that really came together with songs like "Somebody to Shove," "Runaway Train" and "Black Gold." Sadly, the band was unable to capitalize on that huge success of an album with another hit. Every subsequent release absolutely tanked and Pirner became known more as Winona Ryder's scruffy boyfriend than anything else. But Soul Asylum got me to dig into the Minneapolis rock scene a little deeper and listen to bands like Husker Du and the Replacements, who now reside as rock royalty in my mind.

Fast forward to nearly 20 years later: Pearl Jam's still a major band with ex-Mother Love Bone dudes Gossard and Ament driving the engine. Soul Asylum's still together, although original bassist Karl Mueller died in 2005. According to the Wiggitypedia, Pirner and Soul Asylum are working on a new album, and supposedly Replacements (and GNR) member Tommy Stinson is now in the band. Extreme split up and reunited a few years back, although Bettencourt of late has been playing in pop singer Rihanna's backup band. And of course, cassettes live on only in the collections of dopes like me who never throw anything out.

Stardog Champion:



Veil of Tears:


Decadence Dance: