Dry As A Bone (Loser Edition)

Description

Green River. Made up of Jeff Ament (bass), Mark Arm (guitar/vocals), Bruce Fairweather (guitar), Stone Gossard (guitar) and Alex Shumway (drums), the quintet put out three 12s and a 7 single during its brief existence.

Green Rivers influence on Seattles music scene spread far and wide thanks to the members dispersion into bands including Pearl Jam, Mudhoney and Love Battery, as well as the punk glam sludge rock songs they left behind. By 83, 84, there was definitely a movement that was happening within hardcore, like Black Flag slowing down for My War, says Arm. The Replacements and Butthole Surfers were rearing their heads, and theyre very different bands, but theyre not hardcore the Replacements are pretty much straight-up rock, and Butthole Surfers were God knows what. Sonic Youths Bad Moon Rising was around, and a lot of really interesting post-hardcore things were happening.

Green River, formed in 1984, were part of that evolution, with a sound that straddled a lot of different genres blues, punk, bloozy straight-ahead rock. The mini-LP Dry As A Bone which came out in 1987 and the bands lone full-length Rehab Doll which came out in 1988 were released as a single CD with a few bonus cuts, including their sneering cover of David Bowies Queen Bitch and their marauding version of Dead Boys Aint Nothin to Do, in 1990 but theyve been unavailable on vinyl for years.

Now, these slices of Seattle music history are not only back in print, theyre accompanied by items from the vaults that had been forgotten about for decades. Dry As A Bone was recorded at Jack Endinos Reciprocal Recording in 1986 and it shows the band in furious form, with Arms yowl battling Fairweather and Gossards ferocious guitar playing on This Town and Unwind opening as a slow bluesy grind then jump-starting itself into a hyperactive chase. The deluxe edition includes Green Rivers cuts from the crucial Seattle-scene compilation Deep Six, as well as long-lost songs that were recorded to the now-archaic format Betamax.

Rehab Doll, recorded largely at Seattles Steve Lawson Studios., bridges the gap between the taut, punky energy of Dry As A Bone and the bigger drums and thicker riffs that were coming to dominate rock in the late 80s. This new edition of Rehab Doll includes a version of Swallow My Pride recorded to 8-track at Endinos Reciprocal Recording, which features a more accurate depiction of how the band sounded when they played live. When I listen to these mixes, I think, This is how we actually sounded this is the kind of energy we had, says Shumway.

Green Rivers place in American music history is without question but these recordings paint a more complete picture of the band and of rock in the mid to late 80s, when punks fasterand- louder ideals had begun shape-shifting into other ideas.

2LP formats in gatefold jacket with custom dust sleeve and digital download code.

Loser Editions available to independent retailers pressed on dark (Dry As A Bone) and light (Rehab Doll) green double vinyl.