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Seattle Film and Music Blog

EMP SCREENS ICONIC GRUNGE DOCUMENTARY NEXT WEEK

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EMP
Hype! came out in 1996 soon after the, um, hype surrounding grunge music pushed the genre into the mainstream and simultaneously thrust Seattle into the national spotlight. Director Doug Pray masterfully captured the history and development of the movement and how the subsequent media exposure eventually led to public backlash. Documented are key interviews and performances by bands that put grunge on the map, including Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Tad, Fastbacks, and many more. An excellent companion piece to the EMP’s current exhibit, Nirvana: Taking Punk to the Masses, the museum will screen Hype! next week with Pray in attendance to participate in a post-screening Q & A.

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STEREOGUM CHECKS IN WITH SOUNDGARDEN’S KIM THAYIL

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Stereogum
Since playing a reunion show in April 2010 at the Showbox at the Market under they pseudonym “Nudedragons” (an anagram, of course), Soundgarden has kept the media abuzz with excitement about the band’s upcoming plans. Chris Cornell and company have several headlining performances at summer festivals in store and the promise of a new record, which will be Soundgarden’s first since 1996’s Down On the Upside. The music blog Sterogum caught up with Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil, who’s kept himself busy over the years playing in Sunn O))) and the heavy metal band Protobot with Dave Grohl. Thayil discusses the unexpected reunion of Soundgarden, what it’s like to play alongside his old bandmates, his work in other bands, and what the future holds for him.

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SEATTLE’S FORGOTTEN SOUL SCENE “GROOVES” ITS WAY ONTO DVD TODAY

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Wheedle’s Groove, the award-winning film chronicling Seattle’s forgotten soul/funk scene of the 60s and 70s, is now available on DVD! With narration by the incomparable Sir Mix-A-Lot, interviews with the stars of Seattle Soul, and commentary from local music icons like Quincy Jones, Kenny G, Soundgarden, Death Cab for Cutie and Mudhoney, the film shines a powerful light on a vibrant and prolific musical movement that “grooved” Seattle decades before the grunge wave that put us on the map. The new DVD—which you can pick up via iTunes, Netflix, Hulu and a host of national retailers– also includes deleted scenes, concert footage, a What’s a Wheedle featurette and more. Also included the DVD special features is the film’s theatrical trailer, which you can peep below in case you just can’t wait until you pick up your own copy of the Groove.

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LOCAL ARTISTS RECOGNIZED BY RECORDING ACADEMY

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The Seattle Times
The Recording Academy announced its nominations for this year’s Grammy’s. While acts like Eminem, Lady Gaga and Jay-Z lead with the most nominations, several Northwest bands are represented in the listings. In the best hard-rock category, Seattle’s Alice and Chains and Soundgarden as well as former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl were recognized. Pearl Jam’s Backspacer was nominated for best rock album and Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds’ Kundalini Bonfire earned a nod in the best rock instrumental performance category. Kenny G’s Heart and Soul and Portland’s Band of Horses’ Infinite Arms were also nominated. For a full listing of the nominations, follow the link.

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UNRELEASED SOUNDGARDEN TRACK DUE ON ‘GUITAR HERO’

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Rolling Stone
The reunited Soundgarden, who haven’t released an album of new music since 1996’s Down on the Upside, will debut an unreleased track titled “Black Rain” on Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, Activision recently revealed. While whether “Black Rain” is an unearthed track or a new recording by the Seattle grunge rockers is unclear, the song marks the first new music Soundgarden fans have received from the band since “Bleed Together” was included on the 1997 greatest hits comp A-Sides. There’s no indication as to whether “Black Rain” will be released independent of Warriors of Rock. The game is due in September. Since announcing their reunion on New Year’s Day, Soundgarden have been largely quiet, staging only one secret show full hits and rarities in Seattle in April, the group’s first gig since 1997. However, things should pick up later this summer when Soundgarden headline their first “official” reunion gig on the closing night of the Lollapalooza festival in Chicago on August 8.

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SOUNDGARDEN DIG DEEP FOR FIRST REUNION SHOW

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Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone’s Chris Cross recaps the Soundgarden reunion show that happened Friday, April 16 at the Showbox at the Market. “It may have been their first time on stage together in a dozen years, but Soundgarden’s reunion show on Friday, April 16, dug deep into their catalog, back to their earliest, pre-grunge days. ‘This is our first show in 14 years, so it’s a lot of old songs,’ Chris Cornell said at Seattle’s Showbox. ‘But it’s not just songs that we stopped playing in 1998 – it’s songs we stopped playing in 1990.’” To read the full recap and see the set list, follow the above link.

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SOUNDGARDEN SET TO HEADLINE LOLLAPALOOZA 2010

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Rolling Stone
The Lollapalooza 2010 lineup was announced today and the festival managed to snagged Seattle grunge legends Soundgarden to headline the three-day event which will take place August 6 – 8 at Chicago’s Grant Park. Lollapalooza marks the first gig of any kind Chris Cornell and the Superunknown gang have performed since their 1997 breakup. “It was a very tough catch for us,” Perry Farrell told Rolling Stone of adding Soundgarden, who announced their reunion on New Year’s Day but have gone silent since. “They were ready then they weren’t ready, then they didn’t know what they were going to do and then they were going to go out with another group to tour. So we were really kind of on edge to secure them and it came down to the wire.” Soundgarden had previously performed on two Lollapalooza circuits when the festival was a roving tour, so Farrell was set on booking them again: “We’re happy that it all worked out and we have the exclusive first comeback show for them.” Follow the above link to read more about Lollapalooza 2010’s lineup.

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CHRIS CORNELL CONFIRMS SOUNDGARDEN REUNION

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Rolling Stone Magazine
Soundgarden fans woke up to incredible news this New Year’s morning: the band, which split in 1997, is officially reuniting. Frontman Chris Cornell confirmed the reconciliation via Twitter, writing, “The 12 year break is over & school is back in session. Sign up now. Knights of the Soundtable ride again!” and linking to a new Website, Soundgarden World. As of now, the site only offers fans a place to provide their contact information for updates on the reunion.

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SONIC YOUTH’S THURSTON MOORE WRITES TEXT FOR PHOTO BOOK ABOUT GRUNGE

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Pitchforkgrungebook
In a couple of years in the early 90s, grunge went from an exciting regional indie-punk scene to a word that you never, ever wanted to hear again. As the guy who helped get Nirvana signed to Geffen, Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore played a small but pivotal role in that transformation. Now, Moore has written the text for Grunge, a forthcoming book of photographs from Michael Lavine, due October 15 from Abrams Image. Lavine was one of Sub Pop Records’ house photographers. He took album art photos for Nirvana, Soundgarden, Mudhoney, Dwarves, Skin Yard, Screaming Trees, and many others, helping to shape, helping to shape the label’s stark aesthetic. Grunge will feature images of bands like Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Mudhoney, Beat Happening, and Boss Hog. For his part, Moore writes about the bands, the Seattle scene, and his friendship with Kurt Cobain. You can see a few photos from the book here.

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HOW WHEEDLE’S GROOVE REVIVED OLD-SCHOOL SEATTLE SOUL

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The Strangerwheedles
You’ve never heard “Jesus Christ Pose” done like this. Sung by Pastor Pat Wright and her Total Experience Gospel Choir, the Soundgarden metal song becomes gospel-ized into a slow-boiling power ballad in the hands of Wheedle’s Groove, a loose agglomeration of youngish and oldish Seattle musicians with funkiness laced deep in their DNA. This radically repurposed “Jesus Christ Pose” is just one standout on “Kearney Barton,” a new nine-track album released by local label Light in the Attic on September 8. Recorded in the North Seattle Audio Recording studio of revered engineer Kearney Barton (Sonics, Wailers, Black on White Affair), it’s loaded with phenomenal cover versions and complemented by three strong originals. Matt Sullivan, along with engineer/percussionist Dylan Frombach and DJ Supreme scoured their vast collections to recommend an interesting array of songs for Wheedle’s Groove to interpret. Sullivan says, “It’s an honor to be involved in a project like this—Northwest music history in the making.”

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