Lestay in the great Pacific Northwest of the 1990's for a minute to present Mad Season, a grunge-supergroup that made only one album ("Above") which is here in a super-deluxe edition which also contains a second disc, which cops the "Live at the Moore" EP and extends it with some more tracks taken from the same venue. Far as I know thisis the only material they left for us, if any of you have any rarities from this one, LOVE to hear em.The brief story of Mad Season:at some time in 1994 Pearl Jam/Temple of the Dog guitarist hooked up with bassist John Baker Saunders, who had played with various blues bands and drummer Barrett Maratin from Screaming Trees.....they talked of forming a "Supergroup" along the same lines of Temple of the Dog. Of course in need og a singer, they recruited Alice in Chains frontman Layne Staley. From such was born Mad Season. They played a few local gigs as "The Gacy Bunch", noted, here only because it is funny, and eventually changed to Mad Season which is an English term for the time of year when the psilocybin mushrooms are in bloom......clever, huh? I wish they'd stuck with The Gacy Bunch, but that's just one man's opinion.
Screaming Trees frontman Mark Lanegan contributed some lyrics and guest vocals, and a semi-unknown supergroup effort was born.
As for the album, it is quite good. All lot of musical talent there, churning out a representative sound of a specific time and place......"River of Deciet" is likey the highpoint, but don't forget "I Don't Know Anything", "Long Gone Day", "Artificial Red" and the rest.....a good album, relegated to the dusty shelves of the grunge era along with albums by Mother Love Bone and Tad.....but a real gem....by the way, Staley did the cover art as well, for better or for worse.
I have a vinyl EP "Live at the Moore Theater", a short disc with 4-5 live tracks from a 1995 showing that I was going to post with this, until my discovery that there exists a "Deluxe package" of "Above" which contains an additional CD, containing the whole Moore Theater show, or at least the EP in it's entirety and some other live cuts, assuming from the same show......anyway, lucky you guys, since I tripped on this last night, and I just brought it home in Pirate Bay format, any artwork or anything with it will be posted as well.....as I've said 1000 times before, MOST of my stuff comes from my CD collection/hard drives/I Pods that I have around here, 99% of which have NO cover art, they have plain white hand made labels......every now and then, though, when I trip over something like THIS on-line, my generousity knows no bounds and I turn it ALL over.......not a big deal with me, but some have nearly went spastic over the fact.
Enjoy this one, and let me know your view on the live disc, this is the first time I have heard the full/long version......always DID enjoy the EP, but the extra material is nothing if not interesting.There was talk of continuing on with Lanegan replacing Staley due to Staley's heroin problems, but the death of Saunders in 1999 (also from a Heroin overdose) but a damper on that......Staley passed away in 2002 due to his drug problems as well. They never did give it another shot, and most likely, that was probably the correct idea.
ABOVE DISC 1-01 Wake Up/02 XRay Mind/03 River of Deciet/04 I'm Above/05 Artificial Red/06 Lifeless Dead/07 I Don't Know Anything/08 Long Gone Day/09 November Hotel/10 All Alone/11 Interlude/12 Locomotive/13 Black Book of Fear/14 Slip Away/15 I Don't Wanna Be A Soldier
(Note: Tracks 1-10 constitued the original vinyl editon I have......tracks 11-15 were added to the "Deluxe" CD release package.
ABOVE DISC 2-LIVE AT THE MOORE THEATER-01 Wake Up/02 Lifeless Dead/03 Artificial Red/04 River of Deciet/05 I Don't Wanna Be a Soldier/06 Long Gone Day/07 I'm Above/08 I Don't Know Anything/09 XRay Mind/10 All Alone/11 November Hotel
Well, this was originally going to be an-all-vinyl rips presentation, but the discovery of the "Deluxe" set makes everyone a winner! Between the 5 extra tracks on Disc 1 and the full, fleshed out live set that in my collection was but a 4-song EP, well, I think this is an excellent job, and most likely EVERY recorded note these boyos ever threw out there. It's good stuff and I was peasantly surprised to discover there was more of it available than I had previously been aware.