Dirty Flannel
@DirtyFlannel90 • 1,915 subscribers
A music time capsule from an era of creativity and variety. Late ’80s to mid ’90s. Alt. Indie. Grunge. Metal. And whatever else pops into my head.
Videos
Yesterday I posted about how MTV Unplugged was a real challenge. Get up on that small stage without the amps, without the wall of distortion, and see if you can still hold an audience. Alice in Chains picked up the gauntlet. They passed with flying colors. April 1996, Brooklyn Academy of Music. Layne Staley was already deep in the struggle, but that voice still cut through everything. Jerry Cantrell’s guitar work stayed sharp and heavy even when it was stripped down. The whole band sounded locked. “Rooster” was the one that hit hardest. No theatrics. No hiding. Just the song, the weight of it, and a room that went completely still.
Dirty Flannel1,040,651 Aufrufe • vor 22 Tagen
MTV’s Unplugged series was a real test for the musicians of that era. Sure, you sound huge wired up to stacks of amps with distortion and effects stacked on top of each other. But can you do it in a small room, up close to the audience, without all the gear to hide behind? Stripped naked of the electricity. Just the songs, the voices, and whatever you could pull out of an acoustic guitar and bongos. The Stone Temple Pilots walked into that room in 1993 and passed the test. Scott Weiland sat in a rocking chair like he owned the place. No theatrics, no wall of sound to lean on. Just the band and the material. “Plush,” “Creep,” “Wicked Garden,” and the first public airing of “Big Empty.” It held up. The songs didn’t need the volume to work. That was the point of the whole series. Some bands just got quieter. The ones that mattered found a different kind of power when everything else was taken away. “Plush” STP
Dirty Flannel889,543 Aufrufe • vor 22 Tagen
Going through the MTV Unplugged catalog to pick one song from each artist is hard because most of these sets are that good. I had to watch Nirvana’s Unplugged a couple of times. From start to finish, that performance is a clear example of why the whole concept worked. Take a band out of the big rooms, put them in a smaller space, strip away the wall of distortion, and see if they can still hold a room. I could’ve picked almost any song from that set. Nirvana didn’t write “Where Did You Sleep Last Night.” Nobody really knows who did. The song has been around since at least the 1870’s coming out of the Southern Appalachians. It’s been a folk song, a blues song, a country song. Lead Belly recorded it in the 1940’s and made it more widely known. You can hear Johnny Cash singing it in your head but he never did. Right before they started it, Kurt was sitting there talking with the band and the crowd about how to end the set, casually lighting a lung dart. Someone in the audience called out for more. He looked up and said, “Fuck you all. This is the last song of the evening.” Then he delivered it in a way that made the room go still.
Dirty Flannel122,112 Aufrufe • vor 21 Tagen
One of my favorite stripped-down MTV performances from that era was Blind Melon doing “Change.” They never did Unplugged, but appeared on MTV Most Wanted. Just them, the room, and Shannon Hoon’s voice. “Change” and “No Rain” were their commercially successful tunes in contrast to “Toes Across the Floor,” which a lot of people still argue was the stronger song overall. I posted a live version yesterday. The self-titled album (Blind Melon, 1992) went on to sell over 4 million copies in the U.S. (4× platinum). “No Rain” hit No. 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 1 on both the Mainstream Rock and Modern Rock charts. “Change” was more modest on the charts was more modest on the charts, but the song itself is about moving forward and staying optimistic. That performance really highlighted Hoon’s unique vocal abilities. “ We all can’t stay here forever so I’m going to write my words on the face of today.” “Change” Blind Melon
Dirty Flannel80,786 Aufrufe • vor 22 Tagen
I haven’t watched Pearl Jam’s MTV Unplugged from May 1992 in years. Had to go through it twice. From start to finish, this set rips through you like a tornado on a Midwestern plain. One minute you’re on the ground. The next you’re in the air. Then you’re dumped somewhere staring at a yellow brick road. Picking one song as the highlight is hard because the whole thing moves fast. Dave Abbruzzese’s drumming drives the set. Mike McCready, Stone Gossard, and Jeff Ament were solid throughout. Vedder has caught a lot of grief over the years about garbling his lyrics. That was generally absent here. The drums. The guitars. The vocals. All three come together on “Jeremy.” It’s the most powerful song they played that night. Maybe because of the subject: a neglected kid with homicidal ideations who lashes out. Vedder doesn’t paper over it. He channels the rage and explodes into the mic. Abbruzzese hits like he’s trying to knock the walls down. They didn’t just hold the room that night. They sent it to Oz.
Dirty Flannel58,247 Aufrufe • vor 18 Tagen
Not every band from that 1990’s stretch was trying to knock the walls down. Cake came out of Sacramento sounding like nobody else on the radio. They featured a trumpet out front that gave it that mariachi-band sting sitting on top of a funk band, a blues band, and a deadpan vocal. They never did pick a lane. John McCrea was never Vedder, Staley, or Hoon. He didn’t have to be. They could go from “The Distance” to “Sheep Go to Heaven” to a Gloria Gaynor cover that turned “I Will Survive” into something darker and meaner than the original. Gaynor hated it. That tells you they were onto something. Fun. Funny. Unpredictable. Same years as the flannel. Completely different room. They’re on tour this fall and I got my tix. Should be fun. “It’s only right that we leave you with a little bit of false hope before ending the concert.” “I Will Survive” Cake
Dirty Flannel44,633 Aufrufe • vor 16 Tagen
Molly’s Lips. The Vaselines put it out in 1988. Their version is almost sweet. Man and woman trading lines over jangly, simple guitars. A little naive. A little playful. It feels like it could have been recorded in a living room. Nirvana first started covering it in 1990. They took the same song and flipped it completely. They sped it up, distorted it, and turned it into something harder and more relentless. What started as a charming little indie tune became a short, sharp blast. Kurt kept the melody but stripped away the sweetness until it sounded like it belonged in a different world entirely. Same song. Two completely different animals. That’s one of the best things that era could do: take something small and flip it on its head until it hit harder than the original ever did.
Dirty Flannel48,461 Aufrufe • vor 23 Tagen
Live came up the hard way. Small rooms across Pennsylvania. The Chameleon Club in Lancaster. Regulars at CBGB by 1990 while they were still calling themselves Public Affection. Five years later they had changed the band name to Live and were on the main stage at Pinkpop in front of a massive crowd. “I Alone” is a perfect example of the soft-to-loud dynamic that Nirvana started using after getting the idea from the Pixies. Quiet verses… then BLAM…the whole thing opens up. Live didn't get the same recognition as some of the other bands of that time, but Throwing Copper went 8× platinum for a reason. The songs worked in the clubs and they worked in front of thousands.
Dirty Flannel24,280 Aufrufe • vor 20 Tagen
Cherub Rock still hits like it was written yesterday. Bodies packed tight. The floor moving. Everyone bouncing in the same direction like the room itself had a pulse. That song didn’t ask permission. It just hit and the whole place answered. That was the peak of a short window when the underground was suddenly everywhere and still sounded like it came from actual people in actual rooms. Let me out.
Dirty Flannel21,797 Aufrufe • vor 23 Tagen
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