Remembering Mark Lanegan

I’ve not done this sort of thing before, but I absolutely loved Mark Lanegan. His death is a weird one. Growing up obsessed with the Seattle grunge scene you were always pretty aware that its leading lights weren’t built for longevity. Building on the death and myth of Andy Wood and even after the heroin related deaths of Kurt Cobain and Layne Stayley giving way to the mental health in males death of Chris Cornel, Mark Lanegan seemed to defy the logic which his pallor and lifestyle made a reality. Inside this car crash meathead was a hard working creative who was pumping out quality work long after most of his contemporaries’ creative juices had long become barren rivers.

When Kurt Cobain died, we were too young to really understand the significance. It kind of made sense given everything in the press was about his heroin addiction. It was sort of part of his persona and brand and made sense. He quickly went from being this underground guy we loved the music of to being some sort of icon on the front of every magazine. We went from obsessed to pretty uninterested quite quickly. He’d been stolen from us. Looking back it, it was probably quite a significant moment of my teenage years that I could only really share with a select few people around me that knew who he was.

When Layne Stayley died, I was in Amsterdam, and definitely not surrounded by people who would come close to understanding who he was. Heroin was his brand. It was largely a surprise that he had lasted as long as he had. It was fairly unlikely we’d see more Alice in chains and even less likely we’d see more Mad Season. It felt like an inevitability. We’d always have MTV unplugged.

When Chris Cornell died, it definitely came as a shock. I found out early in the morning before we were about to play The Great Escape. It left me in a daze. I was surrounded by people who were barely born the last time he’d done much of note and I was too busy to process. Once the dust had settled, I tried to reevaluate his solo work. It was pretty bad. It’s too polished. He sounded tired. Soundgarden and Temple of the Dog are high points in my music collection. Audioslave is not bad, but he dropped the pick of destiny long before he died.

It’s with that in mind that I hear of the loss of Mark Lanegan.

One of numerous grainy low quality photos I’ve taken over the years

Mark lanegan entered public consciousness as the moody singer of Screaming Trees. After my teenage brain had devoured everything Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Soundgarden and Alice in Chains had to offer, we all started looking for deeper cuts. Our uncool little band of music fans would scour record shops and listen to the few radio programmes that would play our music to work out how all these Seattle people were interweaved and connected without the benefit of Wikipedia and the internet. The inlay books of CD’s became our encyclopaedia.

Before long, we started to listen to Screaming Trees and the other nearly-rans. Screaming Trees were one of my favourites. I could never convince anyone else, but I loved their fallibility and mixed bag of influences; they managed to add much more psychedelia and 70’s garage elements while sounding a good bit more British. At their most polished on Dust(1996) they probably have more in common with early Radiohead than Nirvana, all while not seeming to give a shit. At the front of this weird band of nearly ran misfits was this huge baritone voice of this big tall grumpy guy with great hair. What is it about the pacific north west? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Maryhill heroin addict in the queue for his methadone with such good hair.

So Screaming Trees were just another band in the mix. Our little gang of 14 yr old officiados were in agreement that the band were little more than this big voice and that they didn’t have the immediate hits of the big boys. That was until I discovered The Winding sheet(1990).

I recognised Mark Lanegan’s name and found this cd in a bargain bin. Some heaven sent reach that I made blindly which changed my music listening for ever more. Presumably distributors were buying up anything they could find with a Seattle connection. Given that the album predates just about any success that had come to the Seattle scene, it’s wonderfully bold. It’s a much better exploration of his voice and songwriting than his Screaming Trees work. As a creative who continues to twiddle his thumbs over blank sheets of paper into his 40’s, I just can’t imagine how these ne'er-do-well’s find the focus and drive to put together something so inaccessible. I think Jack Endino’s role in getting people behind microphones during this period is highly underrated, but it definitely tells you a lot about how little Mark Lanegan cared about success or having his finger on the pulse. This album also featured Kris Novoselic and Kurt Cobain of little known band Fecal Matter proving that musicians I loved also loved Mark Lanegan. They covered Leadbelly’s ‘Where did you sleep last night?’ which was later covered on Nirvana’s MTV unplugged which gave a great sense of smugness to the gangly awkward teenagers who knew about the deep cuts.

The discovery of Mark Lanegan’s dark stripped back solo work just made me appreciate Screaming Trees even more. I saw him as this bluesy roots singer who had found himself in a backwater town where grunge-garage-psychedelia was the only outlet he had. I could hear his myriad influences in his lyrics and the music. Thankfully the rest of the world and the music industry didn’t agree so they remain mine and haven’t been squeezed through the polished industry mangle; does anyone really need to hear Jeremy or Black hole sun again?

By 1998 I was confident in my tastes and had grown weary of trying to convince people of Mark Lanegan’s majesty. In my eyes he was a god. Screaming Trees and Mad Season alone were enough, before I even admitted to the dark heroin-ballad albums he was doing in his solo career. He was playing a solo date in Glasgow and I headed along on my own. I sort of met Mark Lanagen and definitely met Queens of the Stone Age. I attempt to hilariously outline the story here.

From then on Mark Lanegan became a staple of the touring circuit. He was a kind of honorary member of Queens of the Stone Age, touring with them until about 2005 and collaborating on pretty much every album. This seemed to give him gravitas within the industry that let him collaborate with just about anyone who wanted to have him. He was a shrewd master of getting money out of me - he seemed to appear in Amsterdam every 3 months with a different band and a different collaboration. I’ve seen him with Isobel Campbell, Queens of the Stone Age, The Soulsavers and The Gutter Twins and numerous times solo.

If we ignore guest spots and whatever you count QOTSA as, he has 8 albums with Screaming Trees, 12 solo albums, 3 albums with Isobel Campbell, 2 Albums with Duke Garwood and one with The Gutter Twins. He’s one of the most prolific songwriters that I follow. He brought out a fantastic autobiography in 2020 an I recommend it to everyone that loves music stories. How he made it to 2022 is a miracle of modern science, doing it all while touring non-stop and releasing well over 25 albums is a miracle of creativity.

As far as I’m concerned, everything he has released is a gem. Compare anything he has released in the past 10 years with his contemporaries and tell me that Billy Corgan, Pearl Jam and Eddie Vedder are releasing anything which is anywhere near as fresh and relevant sounding as Mark Lanegan’s last SIX!! solo albums from that decade.

Anyway….. if you don’t know his stuff I’ll do my best to point you in the right direction.

If you listen to nothing else…. listen to Bubblegum(2004) by the Mark Lanegan Band. I think it's his best achievement as a solo artist. If you like your music loud and raw and fallible, Uncle Anaesthesia(1991) or Sweet Oblivion(1992) from Screaming trees. If you need it a bit more polished - Dust(1996) is a masterpiece. By far my favourite collaboration is Gutter Twins who have one single album called Saturnalia(2008). It is definitely one of the 500 albums that I’d put in my top ten of all time.

So long Mark. Thanks for all the gigs and all this lovely music you left us.

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