A Tribute to Mark Lanegan: 1964 - 2022

Mark Lanegan: 1964 - 2022Photo by Jordi Vidal (Click photo to enlarge)

 

The following tribute to Mark Lanegan is brought to us by Brother Alan in Seattle.

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Happy Friday to all.

I have been morning the loss of a lesser known musician, Mark Lanegan. He was the singer for the proto-Grunge psychedelic punk band, Screaming Trees, and had a long and celebrated career as a singer. He died 2/22/2022 in Ireland. He had a massive amount of songs recorded as not only a solo artist but also as part time singer for Queens of the Stone Age & many other collaborations and vocals he lended to a huge # of bands.

He covered 2 Neil Young songs at least. Cinnamon Girl can be heard at this link:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dj05xjwMIgQ

Through My Sails can be heard at this link:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OU0UNGxBn_g

He was a junkie and wrote an incredible book about his life, staying clean for 10 years before his death.

Mourning, in the morning and more in the evening. 

Mark Lanegan has left this life. I never saw him play live. I was planning on hitting up his next show in Seattle, but it was not to be. You guys know about him, I am happy to see. I have been a fan for long enough to have everything you can get on label. Solo, Gutter Twins, 2 with Duke Garwood, all the Queens of the Stone Age albums with Lanegan on them (except the last one, in which he sings one song backup). I've got Mad Season deluxe. The 3 extra tracks on that which Mark sang on to complete them after Layne Staley died. Black Book of Fear is killer. And got the 3 albums with Isobell Campbell, Soulsavers, all of his solo albums, all of the Screaming Trees albums except their first LP, Clairvoyance (which followed their 1st EP), which is out of print and expensive, more so every day now. Prices and shortages of all his albums are surging, from $40 to $100. Many are unavailable, perhaps half.

So many great songs and albums. He would sing for almost any band or Artist that asked him to. So he has a million collaborations. And you can listen to all of his recorded tracks at MarkLanegan.com It may have been created in the spirit of NYA.

Screaming Trees were a "Psycedelic Rock" band that played punk style in a different way, but Mark's vocals made it. Lee Conner wrote a huge number of the songs, but somehow Lanegan blossomed into an ever-changing, shape-shifting master of his underground musical world. His main fan base is in Europe, he said. He was still largely unknown in the mainstream until his death.

Lanegan hated being compared to Jim Morrison, he said and related in his book, Sing Backwards and Weep (2020). Just got his lyric and writings book, I Am The Wolf. I was 100 pages into his first book when he died.

I discovered his genius too late, but somehow I got into a feeding frenzy and picked up every single release I could get my hands on. Who wants to stream low resolution?

Odd coincidence of timing that I had picked up a dozen of his albums and side projects in the 2 months leading up to his death. 2 of them are still in the mail: Phantom Radio, and Gutter Twins. I missed the price surge by a hair.

I was listening to the Screaming Trees first LP, Clairvoyance, for the first time (streaming) as I fell asleep the night before the world found out that he had died. I like to think that is somehow a good omen. I hope to see him at the Great Gig in the Sky.

I am having on ongoing Mark Lanegan listening party every day, from now on, until I am intimate with every album.

He also has a bunch of off-label albums he sold at shows. Live shows on CD and LP and "Dark Mark Does Christmas" 2 different albums, 8 years apart.

His last known album is Dark Mark vs Skeleton Joe. Its pretty cool and the videos are outrageous, gritty, powerful, electronic driven music.

I have been on a bit of a limited Neil Young diet as of late. Mark Lanegan is what is playing endlessly. I will let you know when the listening party ends. It will be about a month or two.

He is gone but NEVER forgotten. His Art enriched the world. He was extraordinarily prolific and his albums are typically very good. he doesn't really have bad albums, I guess.

Lanegan used to score Heroin for his good friend, Kurt Cobain, every day after Nirvana made it big. Cobain idolized Lanegan as a Big Brother because Screaming Trees were one of the originators of of the music that became Grunge. Them and Soundgarden. There were a lot of bands. Alice in Chains in 1990 released their first album, a masterpiece.

Mark Lanegan was close friends and using buddies with Layne Staley. In fact, he hung with him even in his later years as he circled the drain. They toured together and shot a lot. Mark said Layne always gave his live shows absolute devotion and poured himself into it with great power every night, no matter how hard he partied the night before, etc.

His Artistry draw comparisons to Tom Waits in some ways.

Alan in Seattle, where Grunge was born, where Mark Lanegan launched his career. Rest in Peace. See you at the show.  

Brother Alan in Seattle.

PS- Good night. 

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