what do you all think of Mother Love Bone?

MALFUNKSHUN....featuring ANDREW WOOD and his brother and some rummer (not good with names)...very psychedlic 70's glam inspired..

In 1994-5 "Return To Olympus" was released...whichwas a sort of compiltion of their recorded works...not bad...Definite LOVE BONE seeds in evidence.

GREEN RIVER....slightly more STOOGES than glam but with a slithery sleaze tingeo them...when half of GREEN RIVER mixed with ANDREW WOOD....blammo!!!

MOTHER LOVE BONE...one of the greatest bands ever.

(and while this could be total hallucination (I have those sometimes) I swear once I was watching TV late at night and saw a commercial for something...it had a fishing boat in early morning misty light and the music was "Man of Golden Words"....instrumental...)

Just wanted to refocus the topic....for Fingers

Mother Love Bone was an exellent band, it would have been interesting to see if the band would have blown up had Andy Wood had lived.

I cant imagine myself ever classifying this with glam musically. Really good alternative rock though.

Listen to Andrew Wood's voice he sounds exactly like Vince Neil

I don't hear it...a little at times...but not always.

I don't hear the Vince Neil comparison.

And am I the only one that thinks glam is a look, not a musical style?

I think more of image in regards to the glam tag...granted there are bands whose music screams: "bright...garish....neon...Wow!!!"....tha is glam as well...

MLB was ok...good song or two...it's ashame Andrew Wood died...but his death also helped bring about Temple Of The Dog which I absolutely love!! The pain of losing a friend I guess inspired what I consider a masterpiece. Also love Badmotorfinger from Soundgarden (which I just consider to be some kind of metal and not grunge or alt. at all). Even earlier Soundgarden could be spastic, but it had its moments. Pearly Jam is a guilty pleasure. I love many of their songs.....

Well Fingers, if it makes you feel any better, I've had MLB sitting in my Glam section for ten years, long before I ever heard your opinion, so we arrived at the same conclusion independently.
However my particular Glam section is built on...
1. The discs sound only, nothing to do with the band's image.
2. Tends to be ideosyncratic on purpose, since I never got into Crue or Poison or any of that. I have one of the early pre-Phil Pantera discs there too, and lots of people don't see the Glam there either. My definition of Glam is totally based on sound, and very liberal, so I can see how people can disagee with it. But for what it's worth, I hear what you are hearing with MLB.

May I also say that the Mad Season album is outstanding. It's funny, after so many years, this thread really shines a light on the fact that the grunge genre was pretty kick ass. It's brought back some good memories.

Mother Love Bone were an excellent band one of my favs. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened had Andrew and the band survived in time for grunge's popularity, i think they would have been seen as to up beat "80's metal" for the grunge generation and would have been swept aside like the other fabulous groups from the early 90's that deserved sucess like Love/Hate, Warrior Soul, Saigon Kick, My Sister's Machine etc. Another band like Mother Love Bone from that era is Los Angeles band The Nymphs fronted by probably the most underrated female rock singer in history Inge Lorre, they had a similar psychedelic glam metal sound and image going.

Quote :

Mad Season album is outstanding.

Agreed! I forgot about that one. It's pure "mood music" for me...I'll always associate it with a dark rainy nights in a dorm room...and it seems best to this day on cloudy rainy days. Very mellow...

Eyesore - You may be right...that grunge phase did have some highlights-some of which I still have in rotation. I for one am thankful for the whole grunge/alt phase. It made some good music but more importantly it seems to have put Metal through the refiner's fire - producing the great music we have now- and it drew metalheads together despite genre differences...

I loved THE NYMPHS....as well as WARRIOR SOUL...hell, I like almost every band namechecked in this thread...

Can I also add Therapy? to the mix? Not a grunge band, really, but a great Irish alt-rock band that had success during the grunge phase with their Troublegum album. Actually, alt-rock is a very basic label. They definitely had some grunge sound, some punk, some alt-rock, even some more noisy stuff like Jesus Lizard or whatever. To this day they remain one of my favorite bands, though their last US release was like ten years ago.

U2 recently totally ripped Therapy? off with their "Vertigo" song. I mean, it's so blatant it's not even funny. Gimme a second and I'll post them.

EDIT: Actually, I can't do it now. "Sister" has a secret track, so the WMA on my PC here is 17MB. If anyone wants me to post it later I can, I'll chop it with CD-Ex. Anyway, for the curious, "Vertigo" is just like Therapy?'s "Sister." The riff, the bass line, just way too similar.

"Troublegum" was a staple of my collection for awhile....so was MACHINE Of LOVING GRACE's "Gilt" ....

I saw Therapy with King-X at a club show in 1994. At the time I thought it was a really strange pairing, so it's funny they are both mentioned here.

Bumped, was thinking about MLB and their place in the music scene.

Glam or Grunge? Well none really, nor are they the inbetween or crossover as many would make you believe.

More a 70's rock throwback from '89. Loose Aero funky, Zepish with a kind of droopy psychedelic 'drug' metal vibe throughout with the odd dramatic Elton John/Freddy Mercury piano moment.

Andrew Wood's charisma rich vocals recall the flamboyance of Freddy Mercury and the vocal licks of Steven Tyler

Wood's lyrics are non sensical and fantastical, almost as if they were torn from the pages of the boppin' elf himself Marc Bolan. That right their being probably the only connection with actual glam rock MLB had apart from the Johnny Thunders guitar aping that occurs on the Hanoi Roxy number 'Mindshaker Meltdown'.

So having said all that MLB's sound distilled down to it's essence is the best aspects of 70's rock tempered with a loose/reclined attitude with a charasmatic rock starry frontman.

This rock starry attitude was at odds with fellow Seattle frontman, who tended to be more the dettached mystery men from the the shadows of the long pines. Charasmatic as it may be it wasn't as in your face and down right ambitious as Andrew Wood. So he's not your typical Seattle frontman, but this rock starry attitude shouldn't be confused with the posers and preeners of that other left coast rock scene. Andrew Wood was something else, nothing seen before or since.

Their was no comparable band to them at the time, Guns N' Roses being the closest. But even thats hopeless, more in idea than sound. I lump them in a sadly small group of bands from the late 80's early 90's that embodied the true ethic of 'flashy' (mistaken as glam) rock n' roll, something far removed from the vapid Journey in Kiss's make up that plagued that time period. The Sea Hags, The Hangmen, Circus Of Power, Rock City Angels, Guns N' Roses, Nymphs, Dogs D'Amour, Mother Love Bone, The Throbs, Gunfire Dance, Electric Angels and a few others being the purveyours of real 'flash' rock n' roll.

And what about this thought/theory of mine, Pearl Jam's Ten musically was more a MLB record than a Pearl Jam record!

That's because most of "Ten" came from leftovers JEFF AMENT and STONE GOSSARD had from MLB sessions...

I loved MLB when I got it and played the crap out of it. I dug it out about a year ago and it bored me to tears. Guess my tastes have changed.

I was always liked MLB. Apple was really really good. The alternative glam comparison is a good call.

Freddie Mercury was mentioned earlier in this thread and he was one of Andrew's biggest influences. When Andrew died, his fiancee cut off a lock of his hair and played him his favorite Queen songs.

Shiney wrote:

That's because most of "Ten" came from leftovers JEFF AMENT and STONE GOSSARD had from MLB sessions...

Yeah, if you compare Ten to Apple and the Ten to Vs. (The first true Pearl Jam release) its easy to see that Ten has a whole lot more in common with Apple. Just the singer and lyrics are different, one is reclined Morrison cool sent through a crooked smile while the other is a flamboyant Tyler/Mercury rock star.

This Apple to Ten album comparison is kind of like comparing Highway To Hell to Back In Black.

Anyone who doesn't like Ten but likes Apple is fooling themselves unless of course they don't warm to Vedder's voice.

Being from Seattle and old enough to see all of the Seattle based bands mentioned above live and just about town, I will say that MLB was the best of the bunch! MLB definately did not fit into the Nirvana-ish, Soundgarden, Mudhoney world of de-tuned guitars and brooding song topics. I really really loved Shine and Apple. I even bought the S/T, which as stated was the 2 releases on one disc with a few b-sides. I wish the albm would have included the Ardent cover Hold your Head Up. I don't think any music movement would have kept this band from blowing up, they where jsut too damn good!

Malfunkshun was the band Andrew and his brother Kevin had together before MLB.

Kevin has been in a number of bands after Malfunkshun, The Fire Ants and 2 CD on Loosegrooves Records (Jeff Aments record label I think) in a band called Devilhead.

At the time there were a lot of great bands bouncing around Seattle. One that made it out was The Best Kissers In The World. They did and EP and 2 albums for MCA, the third being the never released Yellow Brick Roadkill. Great band, great lyrics that was for more melodic, Beatle-esque, pop rockish than the gloomy glum of flannel induced grunge rock that was taking the nation by storm.

Sorry for the ramble, but I love talking about Seattle bands, ther were just so many great ones that should be heard and especially talking about one of my fave's Mother Love Bone...

"I'm Captain Hightop The Love Commander Hide Your Mom Control Your Sister!"

And from the epic Chloe Dancer: "Chloe Is Just Like Me, Only Beautiful."

What about the fab Cat Butt, any band that lists the girlfriends of Tad, Mudhoney and Nirvana in the thankyou's list of their album is classic.

What about War Babies and the Sea Hags (commonly associated with San Fran but originally Seattle boys)?

Tad KO1.

rattpoison wrote:

What about the fab Cat Butt, any band that lists the girlfriends of Tad, Mudhoney and Nirvana in the thankyou's list of their album is classic.

What about War Babies and the Sea Hags (commonly associated with San Fran but originally Seattle boys)?

Sure all great acts (some a little gloomy for me). The Sea Hags absolutely rule, but they were a smidge before me. A little older and already out of town...

Now War Babies, good ole' Brad Sinsel...Kind of like the Brett Farve of The Seattle music scene. I think he was in his late 30's when that War Babies cd was released. Great voice and Tko is/was an awesome band. The bassist, can't grab the name now, was in a band with the guitarist from Second Coming before War Babies called Rough Justice.

Other great Seattle acts: And there are many... of varied styles.

Mistrust, Culprit, The Lemons, Tramp Alley (later became New American Shame), Bathtub Gin, Ignitor (not the current band, but an awesome metal act from around 1990), Brigand Raid, Cyperus, Talks Cheap, The Methodists, Whiskey Fix, Diamiond Lie (pre-AIC), Crush, Moss Dog, Unkind, Ashland, Rottweiler, Lipstick, METAL CHURCH!!, Held Under, Hello Goodbye, Heir Apparent, Re-Animator, Sato (with Mike Starr of AIC), The Bondage Boys (with Faster Pussycats Taime Down), Myra Mainz, Requim (Overkill styled metal), Below Sound, The Bang Gang (with Culprits and others Scott Earl on bass), Adam Bomb, Bone Cellar, Forced Entry, Sicko, Those Who Dig....

More to come.

BTW: great thread.

From Captain Hightop:
"I'm the instigator of the me generation, the official inseminator of the female population, baby yah!!" (If thats not sleeze/glam I don't know what is)


And agreed on PJ's-10. Great album and heavily MLB laden. The songs on the Singles soundtrack are alson in tha vein.
Quirky fact: Does everyone know taht PJ was originally called Mookie Blaylock and played around Seattle under that name?

Actually my favorite "Seattle" artists is the late great STEVEN JESSE BERNSTEIN...

That guy's poetry and delivery was so f'ing cool it made me abandon my collection of BURROUGHS spoken word cds for years.....