Which Era Are You?

[manintheshadows]

This is going to make some of us* feel really old, but I thought that this'd be interesting to see just how this board is made up.

Not as simple a question as "when did you first hear Mark Lanegan?" or "which is best?", it's more like "when did you first listen to him and think 'this is top-notch stuff and one day, I'm going to visit a messageboard all about him'?"

For me, I'm firmly in the first bracket. The time spent listening to Invisible Lantern - Uncle Anesthesia when they were all new to my ears was fantastic, and was a major part of some of the best and worst times of my growing-up (not that I ever did much of that).

So. That sort of thing, then.










*Me

[ShotByTheBlues]

Bubblegum actually got me into him, hearing "When Your Number Isn't Up" on my mp3 at 7am on a dark norwegian winter morning gave me two kinds of chills

Bought all his albums and found out I was most into the Scraps/Whiskey-era albums. I actually got into the Screaming Trees the latest, so I kinda heard his stuff in reverse?

Hm...

I think the first time I really noticed him, was on Songs For The Deaf and Rated-R albums. I had already heard some of his earlier stuff with the Trees, Mad Season...but I never cared much about this Lanegan guy who seemed to be everywhere

but then, when I first listened to Hangin' Tree and In The Fade I thought like...wow, this voice, who is this? oh it's this Lanegan!

So I went off to the record store and bought Bubblegum. Then, When Your Number Isn't Up and Wedding Dress gave me the rest, and now I'm in love...

;D

[mockingbird]

Screaming Trees w/Martin

well, for my sins (but not for Ms Sins)..

I'm Trees w/Barrett era.

loved Sweet Oblivion and Dust, saw them live, then went straight back to Winding Sheet and worked my way forward. basically, the first Lanegan-related albums i bought on day of release were Dust and Scraps At Midnight.

friends bought the early SST albums when we were getting into WS and WFTHG. i like the SST years, but dont love them... they made great listening, in chronological order*, on a roadtrip down to Newquay in the mid/late 90's though.

i'll be very interested to see how many people are too worried to answer this on the basis that they dont think their answer will be 'cool' enough..

*minus Clairvoyance because it was before re-release.

[Lungsey]

weird chill/bubblegum for me. I think my love for lanegan was there before. A friend gave me WFTHG en scraps and i did like them a lot and played them quite a bit, but the effect they had on me wasn't as huge as with the later stuff. I have been a big AIC fan for a long long time and i seriously think i got more into lanegan after layne staley died. It is almost like i made the switch because AIC was over (well, then anyway). I felt like before i didn't have the emotional space to love 2 voices that much at the same time. I don't know if that makes sense, but thats the way i always felt it is for me.

i joined the board basically because i was haunted by an mp3 that i was sure i had seen floating around but i couldn't find any info on it. I posted here to ask around. Well, i had m0ng0 do that for me really. I was too shy to jump in Then when i did join properly i think it was mostly because i was missing the AIC community i had been in (which exploded around my ears around the same time). That, plus the ridiculous screennames people here had

[manintheshadows]

mokkly said:

i'll be very interested to see how many people are too worried to answer this on the basis that they dont think their answer will be 'cool' enough..

There's been a couple of votes cast already without being accompanied by a post. Which is a bit of a shame as this place really isn't so snobby that there is actually a "wrong" answer. Because it doesn't really matter why anyone's here - someone (and I hope that they did) could have bought Dog Train for their kid and liked Sneakers so much that they had a look in the accompanying bumph and decided to hear some more of this bloke's stuff. There may be one or two Gary Heffern fans knocking about (as indeed Gary Heffern once was). There might even just be someone popping by, curious to find out just who exactly that guy was in the No One Knows video. In short, this place is (or should be) a lot more inclusive than it sometimes comes across. Or something.

manintheshadows said:

Because it doesn't really matter why anyone's here - someone (and I hope that they did) could have bought Dog Train for their kid and liked Sneakers so much that they had a look in the accompanying bumph and decided to hear some more of this bloke's stuff.

i bloody well hope so. that would be ace. in fact, i hope some of the kids that liked Sneakers might have asked their parents for 'more songs by that guy'. can you imagine??!

and as for the rest of what you said about snobbery vs inclusiveness.. that's absolutely right.

how could there be a wrong answer?

for example, i like the Beatles (ooh, they're always good for making universal examples that people understand). sadly, i wasnt there in Hamburg in 1962 to see them 'before they got those moptop haircuts and started making all those bloody stupid sellout records and it all went wrong.' instead, i got into them because my parents had the red and blue compilations on LP and i thought they looked quite cool and because my dad had an old VHS copy of the Yello Submarine film that i was forced to watch at some point.

Lanegan has been making records for nearly a quarter of a century, and many of the people here are 25 or younger, so everyone's experience and discovery will be different..

[Shoesh]

I saw him with qotsa and was intrigued even before he got on stage.
Troy did a really weird intro to the first song I ever heard Mark sing. It gave me goosebumps and then Lanegan got onstage and then I couldn't breathe anymore.

[Fields at Midnight]

Dammit Foz, this is one hell of a hard question for me.

I am going with Trees Pickerel. After reading "Come as You Are" where Kurt talked at length for his love of the Screaming Trees and Mark Lanegan, I had to hear them. The Pickerel era was the first I heard, along with the Winding Sheet, which cemented me as a fan. Pickerel's drumming on "Ain't it a Shame" from the Jury sessions is my all time favorite drum part.

[coffeeblues]

1996 - I was 15 with a group of my friends playing pool at a local pool hall. They had a big screen TV which played the MuchMusic (Canadian MTV) countdown every Friday night. I remember this is when you could go in particular places and smoke inside. I was always conscious of who the Trees were but I think the first time I paid attention to them was when the video for ‘All I Know” came onto the countdown. I don’t think it ever went that far up the chart but I remember seeing a few consecutive Friday nights in a row. I just remember my friends and I putting down our pool cues and going over to the TV to watch the video and thinking it was just really cool and talking about it. I grew up in a really small town and a lot of the other people in the pool hall would complain when the video came on, waiting for Boys II Men & Mariah Carey to come on. I am not knocking anyone, just not my thing. To each his or her own. To tell you the truth I liked the fact that no one else liked it and we did…

[carlito]

i am in the first category, and will ditto what foz said about the best and worst times and all that. the trees were a big part of my soundtrack for youthful fucking up.

[wolfjazz]

WHYYYYYYYYYYYYY DOESN'T MOOKLY SHUT THE FUCK UP THE BEATLES? WHYYYYYYYYYYY?
i love the beatles, revolver to me is one of the greatest albums ever, but the guy as a way of boring people to death everytime he posts something..always about the fucking beatles! it's driving me insane..really

[manintheshadows]

Because, as everyone has heard of them and of their work to a reasonable extent, they're an easy reference for whatever point is being made.

And if you don't like it, then just skip past to the next post, or counterpoint it with an example of your own.

[Stephanie]

Definitely early solo era. I was introduced to Mark's solo work on a great Sub Pop compilation I still have called The Grunge Years, and while I liked most of the compilation, "Ugly Sunday" just grabbed me and would not let go. From there, I began hunting down the man's solo albums. I think this was around '98 or '99, could have been as early as '97 or '96, I can't remember.

The Winding Sheet and Whiskey For the Holy Ghost entered heavy rotation, and to this day the most songs I remember well enough to sing in their entirety in the shower come from Mark's solo oeuvre. I can remember singing his songs in the shower as early as when I went away to school at 16. I remember sitting in front of the CD player and poring over his CDs before I left as well.

I like the Screaming Trees, was even lucky enough to see them live at Lollapalooza '96 (I was 13 ) and was blown away, my mom and I together decided that Mark was hot, would always call the other to the television when the "All I Know" video came on. The SST compilation has been the soundtrack for many a long drive. But I've only ever listened to the Trees sporadically, and never with any great passion.

Mark's solo stuff, however, touches some raw nerve deep inside that is unique, and my passionate connection to this music has never waned since its inception. I've tried fruitlessly to get other folks I know and love into Mark's solo work many times. But it seems that what I love so much about this music--the way it is so raw and tender, so searching, and yet devoid of drippy or overwrought sentimentality, the way the deep emotions it conveys are delivered with simplicity and equanimity--isn't something that others respond to with as much emotional power as I do.

I find solace in Mark's music. His beautiful voice affects me in visceral ways and will probably always be my favorite singer's voice, but the power of his solo work transcends that for me. Mark has obviously been through some shit, even if you didn't know anything about his life you could hear it in the music, the understated desolation of some of those songs. But yet he doesn't wallow or lash out, he just observes it, and almost always with a hint of hope.

That's why I became baffled when Mark's output began to get described as relentlessly dark. Sure, that darkness is there, but so many reviewers and commentators seem to miss the hope of this music, the deep spirituality of it, the peace with things it often can convey. To me, Mark sounds like a man who has been broken by the world, but who has made his peace with that, and can still love, and forgive. A person who can still see the goodness even in so much shit. Which is why I've never bought the view of Mark as the "Brooding Prince of Darkness" character that some commentators try to pass him off as. He sounds more to me like a man of faith than anything else, whatever that faith may or may not be.

So as much as I like Lanegan's other engagements with various rock bands, I find that a lot of the more subtle aspects of his music that make it resonate so deeply with me often get drowned out by more bombastic sonic environments. Mark is a great musician, a beautiful voice, and I would argue a typically nuanced lyric writer, and I tend to enjoy most of what he does artistically, but none of it affects me like his solo material does.

[kyselina]

Isobel/Soulsavers, etc. era for me, that's when I started getting serious about Mr. Lanegan's music.

I certainly listened to the Trees in the early-mid 90's, but after that, I pretty much forgot about them & Mark. I could blame it on my extended foray into goth/industrial/coldwave, I suppose.

I got into QOTSA a few years ago, and as I started buying up their catalog, I rediscovered Mark. Bought Bubblegum and BOTBS, and then before I knew it, found myself owning all of his solo work.

I've only seen him live once so far, with Soulsavers; second time will be a week from today.

wolfjazz said:

WHYYYYYYYYYYYYY DOESN'T MOOKLY SHUT THE FUCK UP THE BEATLES? WHYYYYYYYYYYY?
i love the beatles, revolver to me is one of the greatest albums ever, but the guy as a way of boring people to death everytime he posts something..always about the fucking beatles! it's driving me insane..really

WHYYYYYYYYYYYYY DON'T GREG DULLI AND MARK LANEGAN SHUT THE FUCK UP THE BEATLES? WHYYYYYYYYYYY? i love the beatles, the white album to me is one of the greatest albums ever (revolver is hyped up too much), but these guys have a way of boring people to death everytime they cover Beatles songs, name albums after Beatles songs, put lyrical references to the Beatles in their songs, musically reference the Beatles (I Was In Love With You, Strange Fruit, etc..)..always the fucking Beatles! it's driving me insane..really.

[Windom Earle]

the 'Singles' soundtrack introduced me to Screaming Trees. I liked 'Nearly Lost You' enough to go get Dust when it was released. Blew me away. I then bought some older records before the release 'Scraps at Midnight' ... and I got everything else from that point onwards. 'Dust' and 'Scraps ...' are therefore two of my favourite records of all time. And I wont here a bad word said against them.

i knew some Screaming Trees and QOTSA (though i didn't know that was the same guy at the time) in the early 00's. I also had the Free The WM3 album where Untitled Lullaby is on and i loved that song. but again, i didn't realize that was the same guy.... then last year someone told me to listen to Soulsavers which i had never heard of so i got it but never really got around listening to it. Then at some point i made a playlist in my itunes to listen to music i hadn't listened to yet to decide if i want to keep it or not. Revival starts and i went:
loved the whole album. so that's when i started to find out who this singer was and got every single recording i could possible find on him. He's since grown to become one of my all time favorite vocalist and songwriter.

manintheshadows said:

it's more like "when did you first listen to him

1992 the 1st time...1993 the revelation

manintheshadows said:

...and think 'this is top-notch stuff and one day, I'm going to visit a messageboard all about him'?"

Never. Unnecessary for me. Hidden to be happy. I'm here just to prove Mark lanegan is also known and appreciated in Europe.

[rgfish]

I heard "Nearly Lost You" and some other Trees singles on the radio at some point and liked them, but that was about it. When I really got into QOTSA was the first time I learned who Lanegan was and songs like "In the Fade," "Hangin' Tree," and "God is in the Radio," became some of my favorite QOTSA tracks.

Still, it wasn't until I saw Bubblegum in a store and bought it on impulse that I really became a fan. From that point, it was a matter of weeks until I had the rest of his solo work, and then started working my way through the Trees.

...Anyway he IS a cure to my soul, my heart & my ears . No more philosophy needed.

[nippysweetie]

Much the same as Roguefish. Qotsa was first for for me. The first time he stalked on and then off the stage I thought "who the fuck is this guy?" The next time I thought "me likey!" Then I got Bubblegum and it was all over. I was kind of sort of into the Trees when I was a kid but didn't pay too much attention - probably due to undeveloped and highly abused brain cells.

[skeletal2]

Uncle Anesthesia

[bluenote]

i liked the trees back in the day but didn't really get into them or mark until around field songs time, which doesn't seem to be an option