Thursday, April 21, 2011

KEXP Kicks Off "Grunge" Documentary Series with Green River



KEXP in Seattle has begun a new documentary series entitled Grunge.  One of our favorite Pearl Jam precursors is featured in episode 1.



Our new KEXP Documentary series “Grunge” is produced in collaboration with Experience Music Project and their “Nirvana” exhibit which opens this week.

In the early 80s, one of the first bands to combine guitar sounds from heavy metal with the energy and onstage fury of punk rock was Green River.   Growing out of the punk scene at one of Seattle’s few all-ages venues, the Metropolis, they were the group that kicked off “Deep Six” the first compilation of (what would later be called) grunge.   It was not only the raw, sludgy, slower guitar sound that makes this band important in the formation of grunge. But the members of Green River would go on to lead some of the biggest names in the genre.
Frontman Mark Arm and guitarist Steve Turner would later form Mudhoney.  And guitarist Stone Gossard and bassist Jeff Ament played in Mother Love Bone. After Mother Love Bone’s singer Andy Wood died from an overdose of heroin in 1990, Ament and Gossard went on to fame as part of Pearl Jam.