<\/p>\n

One of my favorite Soundgarden lyrics came from one of their most popular songs. I never heard Chris Cornell explain what he meant by “I’m looking California, but feeling Minnesota,” but nobody my age needed him to. I was eighteen when Soundgarden’s “Outshined” hit MTV and radio airwaves, and all of my friends and I had just made the transition from high school students to adults in the real world. No matter how California we looked on the outside, inside, we all felt a little Minnesota.<\/p>\n

The irony of the lyric is that nobody involved in grunge — not performers, not fans — looked particularly “California.” For most of the 1980s rock had been represented by guys with lipstick, eyeliner, and giant hair. In the fall of 1991, there was a hostile takeover. Overnight, the uniform changed from denim jackets and leather pants to flannel shirts, cargo shorts, and combat boots. Teased hair was out; dirty hair was in. Grunge had arrived.<\/p>\n

Pearl Jam\u2019s Ten<\/i>, Nirvana\u2019s Nevermind<\/i>, and Soundgarden\u2019s Badmotorfinger<\/i> were all released one month apart in the fall of 1991. Along with Alice in Chains and Stone Temple Pilots, these bands became the national face of grunge. Of course there were bands before them like Mudhoney and Mother Love Bone that started the movement, and several others that carried the torch, but this wasn’t meant to be a history lesson. <\/p>\n

It’s a memory of a moment in time. <\/p>\n

A movement.<\/p>\n

My senior year the cool place to cruise was 12th street in Moore, a two-mile section or road that by the time I discovered it was attracting thousands of teenagers each weekend. So many people cruised 12th street on Friday and Saturday nights that the city literally had to pass an ordinance to shut it down<\/a>. It was where teens went to see, and be seen. Nobody wanted to see guys like us, of course, but that didn’t stop us from going. Compared to all the expensive hot rods and tricked out cars, my friends and I looked like the guys from Wayne’s World. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I distinctly remember the night we pulled up to a stop light on 12th street in my friend’s Chevy Citation. As was fairly common at the time, the Citation had a stereo that well exceeded the value of the car itself. Next to us at the light was a jeep full of dudes and dudettes. They had perfect hair and bodies and teeth. We had Soundgarden. <\/p>\n

Our stereo was louder than theirs. With no doors to keep us out, the jeep’s passengers were helpless to defend themselves against our aural assault. The four or five of us, sweaty from sitting inside that Chevy Citation for hours, banged our heads along the music. In that moment, it felt like we were the ones on stage. Every note played on our pretend air instruments until the light turned green mattered.<\/p>\n

Nobody, not even a jeep full of beautiful people, were going to outshine us that night.<\/p>\n