It has been a busy week for me with work (see the first article below), with kids—who are out-of-school and on crazed camp schedules, and with various family members (not my wife and kids) all having Covid at the same time (everybody is getting better). So I might keep this a little short.

It is worth noting that today, in 1992—30 years ago—the soundtrack for Singles was released to the public. The soundtrack, and the related movie staring Matt Dillon, marked the official era of grunge music for the masses. Mudhoney/Screaming Trees/Nirvana/etc had all been releasing records and touring for years, with growing success, and Sub Pop, the label that released most of the relevant records from the scene, already had its logo on thousands of t-shirts belovedly warn by hipsters in the dark corners of nightclubs. There were earlier vinyl chapters for the art form like the Deep Six compilation that came out in 1985 featuring The Melvins and The U-Men along with Green River and Soundgarden which hit much closer to the grunge big bang…and then there was the Sup Pop 200 boxset in 1988 that took a deeper dive into the bands that were living and playing around the Pacific Northwest. But Singles, with a soundtrack that featured many of the above bands plus Pearl Jam and Alice In Chains…and even Jimi Hendrix to apply history to the conversation, brought the music to the world, in a similar way that The Harder They Come soundtrack did for reggae music.

Where is Mudhoney? A photo from the making of Singles with members of Soundgarden and Pearl Jam mugging it up with Matt Dillon and director Cameron Crowe

Singles also marked the death of the same movement, taking a cherished underground scene and “putting it on Broadway” featuring more radio-friendly bands that were not as much a part of the initial “grunge scene.” Now there is a rom com where Matt Dillon is wearing long hair and a plaid shirt hanging with his similar looking friends: grunge had jumped the shark. In their contribution to the soundtrack, with a song called Overblown (one of the best on the album), Mudhoney brashingly sings about the regretful (irksome) feeling they had about the exploitation of the sound they had helped create:

Everybody loves us
Everybody loves our town
That's why I'm thinking lately
The time for leaving is now

It's so overblown

By the time Singles came out, Nirvana had already released Smells Like Teen Spirit to mighty success. By the time Singles was released, even the fiercely independent band Mudhoney had signed to a major label. Who in their right mind would have let them do that (joke…I signed them to Reprise)? Grunge came, grunge became fashionable, grunge died. Singles is definitely a chapter in this story…and it seems crazy that it is 30 years old. Within a few years many of the bands had broken up and some of the voices were silenced. The ones that were still standing: the major labels had signed them all. As with many scenes, the triumph was the demise as America learned the names of the bands from Seattle (and the ones that looked like they were from Seattle) by listening to MTV, reading Rolling Stone and watching 60 Minutes. Overblown, yes…Interesting: very. And what a fantastic musical legacy left behind if you know the right places to start listening.

Jewish Non-Profit Reboot Launches Reboot Studios

This is what I have been working on lately…and am so thankful for the press we got around the public launch this week. Yes, we are building a media fund and it feels so good to be officially back in the entertainment business again. I will let the article speak for itself. And….more to come.

The Gospel According to Mavis Staples

Mavis Staples is the most enduring gospel/soul giant from the golden age of the medium (from any age) and this article wonderfully tells her story, past and current. This is a celebration. Thank you David Remnick for this article.

John Waters and Brontez Purnell on Dirt, Scams, and Sensitivity Readers

“San Francisco writer Brontez Purnell…spoke to the divine legend about making art, how he wants to be remembered, and whether he’d rather hang out in Warhol’s Factory or with the Cockettes.”

Margaret Keane, ‘Big Eyes’ Painter, Dies At 94

This is the end of one of the art world’s craziest stories, with paintings created that will forever be woven into popular culutre. Retold in the great Tim Burton film Big Eyes, Keane’s artistry matched her inner strength. RIP.

Orlando Museum of Art director fired after FBI raids Basquiat exhibition

From one art scandal to another…more modern….one. And this is equally nuts-o.

The art of getting DNA out of decades-old pickled snakes

Oh yeah: “A new study in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, however, reveals new approaches for getting and maximizing usable DNA from decades-old pickled specimens, and uses these techniques to solve a long-standing mystery about a small snake from the island of Borneo.”

Dedication

BY CZESLAW MILOSZ

You whom I could not save
Listen to me.
Try to understand this simple speech as I would be ashamed of another.
I swear, there is in me no wizardry of words.
I speak to you with silence like a cloud or a tree.

What strengthened me, for you was lethal.
You mixed up farewell to an epoch with the beginning of a new one,
Inspiration of hatred with lyrical beauty,
Blind force with accomplished shape.

Here is the valley of shallow Polish rivers. And an immense bridge
Going into white fog. Here is a broken city,
And the wind throws the screams of gulls on your grave
When I am talking with you.

What is poetry which does not save
Nations or people?
A connivance with official lies,
A song of drunkards whose throats will be cut in a moment,
Readings for sophomore girls.
That I wanted good poetry without knowing it,
That I discovered, late, its salutary aim,
In this and only this I find salvation.

They used to pour millet on graves or poppy seeds
To feed the dead who would come disguised as birds.
I put this book here for you, who once lived
So that you should visit us no more.

Country Girl, 1963, Margaret D. H. Keane

INTERIM

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The Signal From David Katznelson

Sack Full Of Candy, All I Got Was A Rock