# The Scientists - Did they start Grunge (Seattle sound)?



## StrangeHocusPocus (Mar 8, 2019)

*The Scientists - Did they start Grunge?*
If so why is it called Seattle sound...................
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scientists
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grunge
*1980-1985: Roots, predecessors, and influences*
Several Australian bands, including The Scientists, Cosmic Psychos and Feedtime, are cited as precursors to grunge, their music influencing the Seattle scene through the college radio broadcasts of Sub Pop founder Jonathan Poneman and members of Mudhoney.[155][156] The influence of Pixies on Nirvana was noted by Kurt Cobain, who commented in a Rolling Stone interview, "I connected with that band so heavily that I should have been in that band-or at least a Pixies cover band. We used their sense of dynamics, being soft and quiet and then loud and hard."[157] In August 1997, in an interview with Guitar World, Dave Grohl said: "From Kurt, Krist [Novoselic] and I liking the Knack, Bay City Rollers, Beatles and Abba just as much as we liked Flipper and Black Flag ... You listen to any Pixies record and it's all over there. Or even Black Sabbath's "War Pigs"-it's there: the power of the dynamic. We just sort of abused it with pop songs and got sick with it."[158]

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/aug/24/grunge-myths-nirvana-kurt-cobain

Kurt Cobain loved Abba, wasn't from Seattle and didn't invent grunge. Everett True, the man who pushed the singer's wheelchair on stage for his last UK show, sets the record straight


----------



## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

A case could be made for Dinosaur Jr. & J. Mascis being at or near the origins of grunge in the mid-1980s. Some people call Dinosaur Jr. "alternative"; some call their classics "grunge" (but clearly not part of a Seattle scene). Other than a geographical/temporal link, there is not a lot that typifies a peculiarly grunge sound, but Dinosaur Jr. comes close.


----------



## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

My my hey hey
The godfather of grunge is here to stay
It's better to distort
Than it is to decay away
My my hey hey

:guitar::guitar::guitar:

June 22, 1979!


----------



## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Listen to Pink Floyd's _Nile Song_ from 1969 - it sounds like an unwitting precursor if you cut it enough slack.


----------



## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

^ Yes the first time I heard that _Nile_ song was actually a Melvin's cover of it, at a '93 show they announced it as a Pink Floyd cover and I thought they were joking, later I discovered it was actually Pink Floyd.

I think Grunge is a hard thing to pinpoint the roots of, you can hear precursors and elements of it here and there in a lot of different places. To make matters more confusing the four 'poster boy bands' of the movement - Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam all sound very different from each other.


----------



## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

tdc said:


> ^ Yes the first time I heard that _Nile_ song was actually a Melvin's cover of it, at a '93 show they announced it as a Pink Floyd cover and I thought they were joking, later I discovered it was actually Pink Floyd.
> 
> I think Grunge is a hard thing to pinpoint the roots of, you can hear precursors and elements of it here and there in a lot of different places. To make matters more confusing the four 'poster boy bands' of the movement - Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam all sound very different from each other.


Well, they all had one thing in common-they wrote terrible music.


----------



## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Red Terror said:


> Well, they all had one thing in common-they wrote terrible music.


Some of it I like, but to each their own. Had I not grown up in Seattle in the early '90's and have all these nostalgic memories related to it, I might hate it right now too, who knows. At the time it seemed pretty special, and some songs still do move me, how about Pearl Jam's _Black_, go listen to that song and read the lyrics, can you honestly say you think that is a _terrible_ song? While you're at it listen to and read the lyrics to Soundgarden's _Rusty Cage_, pretty good stuff I think. Johnny Cash even covered that one.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

For most any genre you can look back and find bands/artists that "did it first" but didn't get credit for it because they weren't nearly as popular. I think it makes more sense to look at most popular music as a continuum of evolving styles rather than saying "X genre was invented by Y at Z time."


----------



## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

tdc said:


> Some of it I like, but to each their own. Had I not grown up in Seattle in the early '90's and have all these nostalgic memories related to it, I might hate it right now too, who knows. At the time it seemed pretty special, and some songs still do move me, how about Pearl Jam's _Black_, go listen to that song and read the lyrics, can you honestly say you think that is a _terrible_ song? While you're at it listen to and read the lyrics to Soundgarden's _Rusty Cage_, pretty good stuff I think. Johnny Cash even covered that one.


I grew up in the 90s as well, but I am not fond of nostalgia. At the onset of my teenage years I became a rabid Nirvana fan-I believe Cobain was already dead by then. Anyway, the songs bore me now; I don't find anything interesting in them. I suppose I outgrew that sort of music.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Grunge is, like most genres, one I have a love/hate thing with. I never, ever understood the hype for Nirvana. For me, they were always just a heavier Pixies, but with a poorer sense of melody, humor, and overall musicality. I'd take one Doolittle over a thousand Neverminds. Pearl Jam struck gold with Ten, but even at their best they were mostly just a slightly-above-mediocre classic rock band, and they became pretty awful after their third album. Soundgarden I liked, but more when they were doing the neo-psychedelia-meets-Black-Sabbath stuff than trying to be heavy blues like Zeppelin. Superunknown was a favorite album of mine back in the day. 

Of all those bands, Alice in Chains is the one I still listen to and still love. They were really, essentially, just a metallic rock band, but with a fantastic sense for creepy harmonies, angular melodies, and often odd time signatures. Cantrell was by far the best and most interesting guitarist to come from that scene. Dirt (the album) was a masterpiece of the depressed, angsty, heroine generation (a far better representative than the disaffected, apathetic Nevermind); and they wrote one of the most haunting songs ever in Nutshell.


----------



## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Since this has morphed into a more general discussion of our individual appreciations of grunge groups, I offer my own selections:

I agree with EY above about both Nirvana and Alice in Chains, as non-favorite and favorite respectively. Screaming Trees are very high on my list. Some fine tunes on the Andy Wood tribute album _Temple of the Dog_ and on Pearl Jam's _Ten_. Soundgarden's masterpiece for me was _Louder than Love_. But my ultimate grunge album--one of my Top Ten of All Time--is Mother Love Bone's _Apple_, a treasure box of one great song after another.


----------



## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Why do I have a Scientists album in my collection?









Not sure. Not sure I even ever listened to it, but maybe now I should.

I see from a price sticker on the album cover that I purchased the disc from Plastic Fantastic, a warehouse sized record reseller in suburban Philadelphia, back in the 70s and 80s. I must have bought my copy around 1987 or '88. Used, of course. The album itself was released in '86, which explains why my copy is "like new" (except for the small cut-out notch). The vinyl is pristine and looks like it was never played. I actually don't remember ever playing it, but I probably have, sometime back in the late 80s when I first picked up the disc for, according to the price sticker, $4.99. A fair price, I imagine.

So, where to start? Why not with "Swampland", a song of yearning for the exotic. Love of the weird. (Hey! I didn't make that up. The description follows the title on the track list on the back sleeve of the album.) After all, "Swampland" is the first track on Side One. So … let's get to it!

Ladies and Gentlefolk … presenting for your listening pleasure, from Australia by way of Wests Recording Studios, London, England … Big Time Records recording artists … The Scientists … with "Swampland", from their album _Weird Love_.

Hey, I hope I enjoy this. This will be a first for this album on my current turntable rig, a VPI Scoutmaster with a Maestro Wood cartridge running through JoLida tubed amplification into French speakers, Triangle Cometes bolstered by a supporting sub-woofer. The vinyl appears flawless. This should be good.


----------



## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

Strange Magic said:


> Since this has morphed into a more general discussion of our individual appreciations of grunge groups, I offer my own selections:
> 
> I agree with EY above about both Nirvana and Alice in Chains, as non-favorite and favorite respectively. Screaming Trees are very high on my list. Some fine tunes on the Andy Wood tribute album _Temple of the Dog_ and on Pearl Jam's _Ten_. Soundgarden's masterpiece for me was _Louder than Love_. But my ultimate grunge album--one of my Top Ten of All Time--is Mother Love Bone's _Apple_, a treasure box of one great song after another.


Winner of the "Coolest Cat On The Forum" award - not only for actually knowing about Mother Love Bone but for having it listed as one of the personal "Top Ten of All Time".

Andrew Wood - RIP - one of the all-time classic "characters" and a founding father of grunge who took "It's better to burn out than it is to rust" way too literally for his own good. He was a genuinely great guy - smart, funny, self-deprecating - once he started talking though good luck getting him to stop - :lol:

Check out this 



 - "Malfunkshun The Andrew Wood Story Full Documentary"

and this - 



 - "Andrew Wood Interview"

and the Malfunkshun album -






and this recording by Temple of the Dog which was started as a tribute to Andrew and featured Chris Cornell - RIP yet again!... - Steve Gossard, Jeff Ament (both ex-members of Mother Love Bone - then went on to Pearl Jam), Mike McCready (Pearl Jam), Matt Cameron (Soundgarden, Pearl Jam) and Eddie Vedder -

"Temple of the Dog" -


----------



## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

^^^^I forgot the band Green River, where the Ament/Gossard team first met; some great songs like _Baby Takes_, etc. Ament and Gossard stick in one's mind as one of the archetypal inseparable duos of rock (we could have a thread on those). Regarding Mother Love Bone and _Apple_, I fell in love with the album the minute I heard _This is ShangriLa_. And then the cascade of songs that tumbled out following that first: remarkable! Mother Love Bone was one of those lost bands where their entire reputation rests upon one (or maybe two) albums (that could be another thread, though we did have one way back on Bands Nobody Ever Heard Of).


----------



## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

Strange Magic said:


> ^^^^I forgot the band Green River, where the Ament/Gossard team first met; some great songs like _Baby Takes_, etc. Ament and Gossard stick in one's mind as one of the archetypal inseparable duos of rock (we could have a thread on those). Regarding Mother Love Bone and _Apple_, I fell in love with the album the minute I heard _This is ShangriLa_. And then the cascade of songs that tumbled out following that first: remarkable! Mother Love Bone was one of those lost bands where their entire reputation rests upon one (or maybe two) albums (that could be another thread, though we did have one way back on Bands Nobody Ever Heard Of).


Amazingly impressive depth and expertise on the subject matter - :tiphat: - I hadn't thought of Green River in years (and at best had naught but peripheral awareness of them as they were located 3,789 miles to the west) and had to look them up in Wikipedia to get the backstory straight -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_River_(band)

A couple of quotes -

"In mid-1985, the band embarked on its first nationwide tour to promote Come on Down. Release of the record was delayed, however, thus negating the purpose of the tour. From all accounts the experience was less than positive, though it helped cement alliances with other emerging American indie rock bands. Among them was Sonic Youth, who later quoted the song "Come on Down" on its own composition "Nevermind (What Was It Anyway)". After the tour, Come on Down was finally released by the New York-based Homestead Records. The record was released to little fanfare, and did not sell well. _However it is often considered the first album to be released by a "grunge" band, as it predated both the Deep Six compilation album and the Melvins' debut album._

"Legacy -

Green River made very little commercial impact outside Seattle, but what the band lacked in commercial success it made up for in influence. In general, Green River is widely regarded as being one of the pioneers of the grunge music genre. With its sludgy mix of hard rock, punk and metal, heavily influenced by The Stooges, Black Sabbath and Aerosmith, coupled with Arm's twisted lyrics and vocal delivery, Green River greatly influenced both its peers and bands that followed them. Even without the fact that some of its members would later go on to form some of the biggest bands of the Northwest music scene, Green River is still remembered for its musical foresight and innovation, years ahead of the rise of grunge."

Green River - "Come On Down" - complete album link -






Seriously... start up a thread on "Inseparable Duos of Rock" - brilliant thread idea!


----------

