Comments on: Feeling Outshined

By: Matt Dee

Matt Dee — Sat, 20 May 2017 17:00:43 +0000

A great commentary, with which I can strongly relate. The flash in the pan that was the so-called Seattle scene — at the risk of sounding cliched, I’m going to say it anyway — it changed my life. Prior to September 1991 when I first heard Smells Like Teen Spirit blasting over a PA system in our high school cafeteria, my mixed tapes featured the likes of C+C Music Factory and cheesy corporate hip hop. Over night, Nirvana and the big Seattle bands became my obsession and I never looked back. I would play air guitar on tennis rackets to tunes like Territorial Pissings, Alive, and Outshined. Eventually, I grew tired of the tennis rackets and asked my parents for a real guitar. To this day playing music continues to be a very enjoyable, fulfilling hobby for me and I owe it all to the inspiration from that brief moment in time in the early 90s.

By: Emory Lehman

Emory Lehman — Sat, 20 May 2017 01:58:13 +0000

Thank you Rob, you said it the best way anyone could. I, like you, grew up “cruising the loop” in my home town around the late 80’s doing the exact same thing. The only thing we had was we were right there in the Pacific Northwest before the “grunge” started. I remember seeing Chris in some hole-in-the-wall bar in downtown Seattle. Where it was, I can’t remember, but it was right after I turned 21. It was crazy. I have followed his career from then one. When I saw the news of Chris’s death, I was saddened by the news. And now of the news of it being suicide, it makes sense, but bad sense. You can take the man out of Seattle, but you can’t take the Seattle out of the man. From the stories, and interviews you can see how much Chris suffered from all the excesses. And for the last few years how he has leaned to deal and cope with his daemons. But they caught up with him after his show in Detroit. Another loss of a great music icon.

By: Sarah

Sarah — Fri, 19 May 2017 21:39:32 +0000

Grunge music was the genre that my mom and I bonded over when I was in college. Soundgarden and Pearl Jam were her favorites back in the day (I remember getting her posters that she hung in her home office), while I was more into STP and the Smashing Pumpkins. The movie Singles’ was the first one that we each bought a copy of on DVD as well as the soundtrack CD (wish they’d release a remastered version on Blu-ray, with all the music intact, of course!).

I was saddened when Scott Weiland passed away, but not surprised, considering how he never really could overcome his addictions. Cornell was different — his voice didn’t falter from his drug problems and he seemed more likely to survive it all and make it to old age. Except that 52 isn’t old at all.

By: Dave Farquhar

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 19 May 2017 21:32:09 +0000

I agree completely. Grunge certainly helped me, in strange but effective ways, to get through a difficult part of life. Like you, I wish it had helped the likes of Chris Cornell, Kurt Cobain, Layne Staley, Scott Weiland, and Mike Starr the way it helped us.

The pain was indeed real. I remember someone saying, after one of the aforementioned deaths, that grunge is what happens when children of divorce get guitars. Seems about right.