No Filler Music Podcast - Sidetrack: Green River - Swallow My Pride

Episode Date: January 24, 2018

For our sidetrack episode this week we dig a little deeper into Green River, the so-called original grunge band, with a look at their 1985 EP "Come On Down". For more information, check out the show notes: https://www.nofillerpodcast.com/episode/alice-in-chains-dirt#sidetrack Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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And you're listening to the very first side track episode of the No Filler Podcast. My name is Travis with me as always is my brother Quentin. Today we are talking about a band called Green River, who are widely considered to be one of the first bands to have the grunge label applied to them. So, cute, who are these guys? Tell us a little bit more about them. Well, we talked about Allison Chains in our last episode. We talked about their third studio album, Dirt. And we briefly talked about Green River

during that episode. Yeah, like you said, they're widely considered the first true grunge band. They formed back in 1984 in Seattle. They actually didn't have... They weren't very successful, really.

But they definitely had a huge impact on the grunge genre, for sure. And quite a few members went on to much bigger and better things. Like, their lead singer, Mark Arm, he's kind of the, he's who started the band. He later formed the band Mud Honey, which, now this could be just because I'm not into this kind of music that much.

I don't know about you, Travis, but I couldn't tell you one song from Mud Honey, but I know they're a huge grunge band. Yeah, I've heard the name, and I can't see that I've ever really gotten into them. Yeah. Well, Jeff Amint, he played bass in Green River and he went on to play bass in Pearl Jam. Well, I think I've heard of them.

Right. Yeah, so these guys, again, Green River didn't have much commercial success. But, I mean, if you're going to be the first grunge band, I doubt you're going to have commercial success. And I doubt you really want it anyways. It's not even, you know. Well. It was all about this movement. I mean, the legacy that they've left behind is the fact that they sort of ushered us into Grunge, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. And so that clip that we played right at the top of the episode was a clip from this documentary called Hype, which came out in 1996 as a documentary on Grunge. And that voice that you heard, his name's Layton Beezer. And he was just kind of, I guess in the simplest way he could think of, kind of showing just the subtle differences between punk and grunge, like early grunge. Just, and I'm no guitar player.

But really, it was just kind of the way that he, like the strumming patterns was the big difference. just a slight change yeah well and you know the the chords you know they sort of shift down a little bit yes minor minor shift in like the in like the notes and whatnot

yeah here dude I'm just gonna play it again that's punk rock and one day they just sort of started going and that was grunge you know he goes one day they just started going yeah well he's talking about Mark Arm and the dudes in Green River. So he's literally talking about those guys?

Yeah. Yeah, he knew them very. So, so Leighton Beezer, apparently he's just like a solo guitar, like he, he's jumped around to different bands here and there,

like, but he's just one of those guys that everyone knows, you know, like, especially around the mid-80s, early 90s in Seattle. Everyone knew Leighton Beezer,

you know, if he wasn't in, a band currently he was hanging around members of some of these bands. Part of the scene basically. Yeah, exactly. The Seattle scene, yeah. Exactly, yeah.

Yeah. So as we mentioned in our Alice episode, Mark Arm actually used the term grunge to describe one of his own bands. It wasn't Green River. It was another band that he was in before that. Mr. Epp in the calculations. Yeah, and he called it pure grunge, pure noise, pure shit, remember?

Yeah. Which is great. I love that. And then here I've got another little clip. He was interviewed on MTV in 2008. So this is, you know, quite a few years into being in mud honey. But, you know, they were asking them about grunge. And here's a little 20-second description of it.

from him? Grunge became a noun and they tried to like it seemed a way to sort of like pigeonhole a bunch of bands that were largely from the same geographic location

but that didn't really sound alike except that they were loud you know and maybe had kind of poor dress sense that's funny yeah we briefly touched on that on the Alice episode

as far as like how there just seemed to be a costume or like an outfit, a standardized outfit that you wear if you're in a metal band, which was, you know, you had the long hair, you had the eyeliner,

and sometimes the, I don't know what it's called, but the, you know, on the chin, on the cheekbones, you know? You're talking about like blush? The makeup.

I mean, yeah, the blush, man. I mean, some of those pictures of, of the 80s glam metal bands, it's just like, looking back at it, it looks ridiculous.

It looks ridiculous. So yeah. You look at it, it's like, how could you associate that with metal? But yeah, so in the 90s, grunge seemed to just distance. I mean, they hadn't, they had a look to them for sure. But it wasn't on purpose. But I feel like it, yeah, it wasn't. I've read too that, you know, and it's interesting too, that like he said,

it's tied specifically to this geographical location. But I feel like from then on, like in Rock, at least, there's no, there's no outfit. It's just you wear whatever you. People have, I mean, bands have certain looks that they try to go for. Right, right. Well, unless you're talking white stripes, or like the hives. Yeah, but I'm saying like, like I said, if you're doing it as a gimmick, yeah. Right.

But, you know. But, yeah, so one thing I thought was interesting at, I had raised. as well. The term thrifting, which you can imagine, just talking about, you know, just getting your clothes from thrift stores. Up in the Pacific Northwest, that term, like that term was coined

in the Pacific Northwest. And people, you know, you think the flannel shirts and the, you know, the big military boots and whatever, the big ass, the old military jackets and shit. That's because, for one, it's rainy and cold up here. You know,

number two, that shit, every thrift store that you walk into up here is just loaded with flannel. So it's not like they were, you know, it's not necessarily that anyone

was doing that on purpose. That's just what people wore and, and. But people just, you know, they, they, they came as they were,

as it, as, as, as, as Kirk Cobain would say, you know? Right. You just show up and jam,

dude. Yeah. So this is our sidetrack episode and really we want to keep it pretty short. Really, it's just a way for us to kind of talk a little bit more about the genre of the, from the previous episode and kind of share some more music with you that can be kind of tied back to, like in this case, Allison Chains. So, no, I just want to bring this up because I thought it was interesting and obvious if you live up here. So they got their name from this infamous serial killer. Names Gary Ridgeway, also known as the Green River Killer, which is, it's a river up here. I think there's another name for the river, but it's, you know, people call it the Green River.

Actually, not too far from where I live, dude. It runs pretty close to run. Oh, shit. Yeah, I know. that's right he's in prison now but yeah he he has been believed he was believed to

to have murdered at least 71 71 women throughout the 80s and 90s and he just he dumped their bodies in the green river Jesus so of course these guys are gonna

go with that for their I mean do you think they that in their minds they were just a metal band you know well like that the clip the clip that you played

yeah there's definitely elements of of metal in there I mean to me grunch has always been a mixture of punk and metal right yeah that's so yeah

I mean that's that's what it is that's what it's all about yeah and that clip that I played it's the title track off of their first EP called come on down and yeah the lyrics are come on come on come on

come on down to the river, they're probably singing about Gary Ridgeway. Sure, yeah. Man, all right. Now, I feel like that was kind of a theme in grunge lyrics. There's, you know, if you think about the Toadies, you think about that Stone Tbil pilot song. They sing a lot about rape and murder. You're right, dude. So I wonder.

Just a fascination with it because, yeah, it seems. Specifically, like they're singing about, like through the eyes of the killer, right? You know that song, that Tony song. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, dude. It's creepy as fuck. So anyway, yeah, so, you know, to keep this short, let's play the clip.

Yeah, so, yeah, one last clip I wanted to play from this EP. It's a song called Swallow My Pride. So this is our side track. Yep, this is our side track. Yeah, it's called Swallow. Follow my pride. It's, I feel like it's a little. So here's why I picked this song.

Listen to the drums. And it makes me wonder if, so it sounds a lot like Nirvana. I guess Dave Grohl. It sounds like Dave Grohl. Dude, that's exactly what I thought. Yeah. So, and you got to think, these guys probably all knew each other. You know Dave went to a Green River show at least one.

I'm sure. You know it. Oh, I'm sure. Because he was heavy. I mean, he was, you know, He was heavy into that scene as a youngster. Yeah. You know, before he started drumming.

So. The drummer's name is Alex Vincent. He didn't really go on to do much more after Green River. But anyways, here is a clip from Swallow My Pride off of Green River's 1985 EP. Come on Down. Yeah, so it doesn't really come across as much. in that song, but on some of the stuff on their main release, their full-length

record, dry as a bone. I hear a little bit of the pixies. And dry as a bone? No, no, no. It just in his vocal his vocal styling. Oh, yeah. His vocal styling. And there are other tracks on there that there was a particular track that almost sounded exactly like the teen spirit.

drum beat. Yeah. And you still got to, you got to remember, too. This is, this is only 1985. Right. That's, right. That, yeah. So, you know, Pixies came out of Boston.

So they weren't, they weren't in Seattle. But they formed in 86. So. Yeah. So Swallow My Pride definitely had more, more of that classic punk sound. Yeah. But. yeah it's like just kind of like from that that tiny little clip from uh late in beezer you know it all

just kind of started with with just a slight change in strumming patterns and all that yeah so again that was track three off of green river's EP from 1985 called come on down uh that song's called swallow my pride and that is that's going to do it for us this week that's our little sidetrack episode. Just a little something to keep you interested until the next. Keep you entertained. The next really. So coming up in just a few days will be the second episode of No Filler.

And it's going to be, we're going to change the pace a little bit and talk about Tyco, which is a chill wave down tempo artist. And we're going to talk about his second full-length album, Dive. That should be on your iTunes and your sound clouds, probably Saturday or Sunday. All that fun stuff. Yeah, that's a great episode. That's going to be good. Yes, we're going to try to cover a wide range of genres on this podcast and a wide range of decades.

So. Yeah, you know what? I'll say this. If you have any suggestions for an album that you'd like us to talk about, especially one that you think is a true no-filler album, shoot us an email and say, hey, twin bros, why don't you do this album? And we'll be like, okay, and we'll do it. I mean, we'll talk about anything on this.

Sure. On this podcast. I don't know if I want to say anything, but we'll talk about it. much. I mean, we have to like it to talk about it. But, true. We're absolutely open to, you know, there's just so many, there's so many albums out there that we're probably not thinking of. We have, we have a huge list of albums that we're, that we're planning on discussing, but guaranteed we are missing a ton of good stuff. So yeah, drop us a line. Go to our website, no-fillerpodcast.com.

There is a, there will be a contact form. You can fill that out. Or you can just email us. No-filler podcast at g-m.com. Hit us up on Twitter at no-filler podcast. Yeah, so check back on our website. Probably run Saturday or Sunday for our next episode, which again, we're going to be covering Tyco's second full-length album, dive.

It'll be streamable on our website. We'll have a SoundCloud stream. player on there. You can also just go to our SoundCloud page, soundcloud.com slash no filler podcast to check it out there. And yeah, that's going to do it for this sidetrack episode. Hope you enjoyed it. And again, please feel free to email us your questions, your comments, your concerns, your complaints. We want to hear it. Let us know what we can do to improve this little baby of a podcast that we got going on

here. This little baby. So yeah, again, that's going to do it for this week. Thanks again for tuning in. My name is Quentin. My name is Travis. Bye-bye now. 92% of households that start the year with Peloton are still active a year later. 92% because of a bike? Not just bikes. We also make treadmills and roars. Oh, let me guess for elite athletes only, right? Nope. It doesn't matter if you're an avid exerciser or new to working out. Peloton can help you achieve your fitness goals. 92% stick with it. So can you.

Try Peloton bikes, tread or row, risk-free with a 30-day home trial. New members only. Not available in remote locations. See additional terms at Onepellaton.com slash home-dash trial. At Progressive, we know there's nothing like the feeling of riding a motorcycle with your crew on the open road. That symphony of engines roaring in perfect harmony. It's a feeling that would be impossible to recreate on the radio.

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