In the last few weeks I've posted the new Alice in Chains songs from their new album, The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here. They performed live on Jimmy Kimmel this past Wednesday. I missed it, because I was watching my Spurs get thumped by the Nuggets - Image Source
even after a 14-0 lead. Anyway, there are such things as video cameras (good ones) these days.. So thankfully I found a site that posted the three songs they played, which were "Stone", "Hollow", and "Man in the Box", the first two of which are on the new album.
And yeah, Jerry Cantrell cut his hair!! Here you go:
Former Alice in Chains bassist Mike Starr, who played on the band's first two influential albums and was one of the last people to see singer Layne Staley alive, has been found dead in a Salt Lake City, Utah home, TMZ reports. Starr, who was 44, was arrested earlier this month in Salt Lake City and found to be in possession of six Xanax pills and six Opana painkillers. According to a police report, Starr asked an officer if he'd heard of Alice in Chains, and said he was in Utah with a friend to put together a new band. "It's a terrible shock and tragedy," the rocker's father told the website today.
Starr played on the Seattle band's 1990 album Facelift and cowrote "It Ain't Like That" (one of my all-time favorite AIC songs, and it's featured in the video in the next link), and "Confusion." He also performed on 1992's Sad EP and Dirt LP, which featured the band's breakout tracks "Down in a Hole," "Rooster," and "Would?" which also appeared on the soundtrack to the film Singles (the band also briefly performed onstage in the movie, too). Starr exited the band in 1993 and later admitted he'd been booted because his drug problem was out of control.
The musician, who appeared on VH1's Celebrity Rehab and Sober House in 2010, displayed erratic behavior while battling a vicious heroin addiction on TV. He wore headphones most of the time, and said, "My singer dies, and the only way I can hear him is through this... It takes me back to when Layne was alive." In a pivotal episode of Rehab, Starr spoke with Staley's mother and apologized for not doing more to help her drug-addled son. "I wish I would have called 911, he told me if I did, he'd never talk to me again," Starr said. "I was too high. I got mad at him, I said, 'I'll just leave' and his last words were 'not like this.' And I just left. I can't believe that. I'm so ashamed." Staley was found dead of a lethal mix of heroin and cocaine in his Seattle apartment in 2002.
When Starr first appeared on Rehab, his onetime bandmate Jerry Cantrell criticized the show for sensationalizing drug recovery: "[Mike is] a friend of ours, and we wish him the best. But that show's not really cool." Starr seemed to have kicked his dangerous addiction, and appeared on an episode of the following season's Rehab to demonstrate his progress. He was six months sober at the time of the taping. Source
A perfect time for a re-post of Junkhead - 1991:
RIP Mike - Now you & Layne can again jam together for eternity!
Watch Jerry's solo.. Jerry's rhythm.. the structure!.. There isn't a better live recording of Alice in Chains. Period.
Now check out this live recording from 2006 - 15 years later. The same awesome song - their best. William DuVall proves his case here. And they reproduce the exact same sound as from 1991. Cantrell included! Cantrell, especially..
There will probably be more Alice In Chains reviews. I play the best. So come back.
Them Bones gets a few extra tenths of a point for Sean Kinney's imaginative drum part alone. I've always really liked this song, as have the radio stations, but for many different reasons. It gets a ton of airtime because it's short & sweet. I like it because it's a well-written rock song, and I have always wondered why this song couldn't be a little longer. 8.3
2 - Dam That River I suspect that Dam That River could have been one of the first songs these guys wrote together. They left it off Facelift, and decided to include it with Dirt. Maybe? Nevertheless, there's nothing wrong with it - There are tons of songs that bands wait on. It's gonna sound like I'm overly critical of this tune, but I can't decide what it is about it that keeps me from giving it a better number.
Could be that this song really requires two guitarists, so to get the full effect, one must really listen to the original. In the newer live versions with William DuVall, Jerry does a great job, but frankly the song needs Layne's rhythm guitar part at the beginning and elsewhere. 7.4
3 - Rain When I Die
A superbly written song is justified by a miniscule number of ways, but one of those ways is that it's a great show-opener. Also an incredible example of just how good of a choice they made with DuVall. Written well.. played well.. complexity..
Yummy! One of my all-time favorite AiC songs here..
This song is like hello world - come along and listen to what we have to bring! ahhhhMmmmmmm ahhhhMmmmmmm ahhhhMmmmmmm ahhhhMmmmmmm 9.3
Along with Rooster, Down in a Hole nailed a ton of radio airtime. It's almost a staple of the band's sound. It might be one of the most recognizable songs. Certains songs will stay their course for more reasons than is really musically explainable. A lot like Stone Temple Pilots' "Plush", it's really one of the best ever, both of which unfortunately also got played kinda into the ground as well.
It has a really nice flow to it, and showcases a lot of different things. Everything really stands out here individually, even if the song as a whole doesn't particularly do it for you. Very tightly written, and pulled together in most live versions. 8.8
5 - Sickman Sickman is just sick! Awesome everything. An incredible song live, and is another great choice for an opener or encore song. Also a perfect example of Layne's influence, Jerry's imagination, their talent writing collaboration...
Especially 2:37-4:00 (certain parts of certain songs are definitely allowed to be separately judged, and this segment is special! Note: At 3:50-something, you're like, "awesome, here we go again!") 9.1
Rooster might have more radio airtime than any other AiC song. I'm not really sure why, except that it has the type of chorus - with its unique arrangement of backing vocals - that mainstream rock radio stations like. (Down in a Hole is another one succumbing to the same unfortunate fate in my eyes.) It doesn't pressure many boundaries, it's starts slow, and is actually very well written. It also rocks in a few instances that would intrigue Beavis and Butthead. 8.2
7 - Junkhead Junkhead is the best track on the album. It might be about a 9.0 or 9.1 if it weren't for the absolutely amazing solo. During this solo you realize why Jerry Cantrell has one of the most imaginary guitar minds there has ever been. But it's the structure of the song, and all it's intricacies that makes this one top-notch amazing.
Undoubtedly the one of the best moments of most of each of their live shows is Junkhead.
(3:11-4:10) - This is a top-10 all-time great example of best segments of the best songs. The solo experience makes the song.
That is a 4-measure 4-bar song portion that can stand on its own for any time period, present or past. It's a sweet little melody! It stays with you, and will stay with you enough that if it was playing ever so subtly in the background, you would not only still be enjoying it, you'd still be following along. And only live would these facts be most easily understood!!
"What's my drug of choice? Well, what have you got? I don't go broke And I do it alot..."
Analyzing any of Layne's words in this song is totally unnecessary. But the way he transfers his feelings at that time in his life (and their lives) directly into the lyrics of this song is primo eloquence! This is why the loss of Layne Staley (when compared to the loss of Kurt Cobain, Nirvana) is so much more profound, and unexpected, (..important?) to the genre that is now what we older guys still don't refer to as "Classic Rock". Some sounds are legendary, and AiC has one of those sounds. Always has - always will.
I also still can't think of any Alice in Chains song that's better. Yeah! -You got that right. 9.6
8 - Dirt
Dirt - part two of these guys doing what they love in their prime. Together with Junkhead, the pair is a prime example of music brought to listeners "before the fact". They routinely played the two together live ..and well before the release of this album. 8.7
9 - God Smack God Smack has a mean little crazy riff as its origin. A lot of people think this song was the reason behind Godsmack naming themselves as they did. The more I've listened to the song over the years, I doubt the song itself had much to do with it. No doubt Godsmack wasn't the only set of musicians who at the time was keen to the term "god-smacked". Obviously Alice in Chains were too. Might be the worst track on the album. Here is a live version from '92 when Layne was in a wheelchair. I wonder if they dubbed in rhythm guitar for this show? Hmmm.. 6.5
10 - Untitled (Iron Gland) OK I lied. This is the worst on the track. But then again, it's an intro, and a crazy little "Iron Man" parody. Still, how do you intentionally leave a tune untitled? Well, I guess if it's a 44-second intro to another song, you can get away with it... Especially if you put a title in parentheses (Iron Gland). 6.0
11 - Hate To Feel It's a shame too about the intro, because I kinda like Hate To Feel. As is the case with most Alice in Chains songs, Staley and Cantrell are gonna give you a lesson in harmonies and vocal arrangement. This track is no exception. Simply incredible vocals, and matching guitar work from both guys.. This one doesn't get enough credit. It was tough to find a great version to show you, too. This might be the best live version I could find, but if you're looking for better sound quality, and don't care to see a live version, here's the original with a video slideshow tribute. 8.6
12 - Angry Chair
Angry Chair is one of my personal favorites from back when. This song would begin, and it kinda blew you away, and then it changed, and then it was over. Still one of the best really short songs ever. Something about the rhythm guitar and bass behind the solo is really nice. And OMG the echo in the beginning that you may or may not be able to pick up on the live version, but is readily audible in the original! 8.8
Did I say something about short songs? "Would?" is even shorter, and for this reason, the radio stations also loved this one. And why did they choose to close the album this way? Only they know, I presume. Here's one of the better captured videos of a live AiC performance with Staley that I could find - for any song. 8.5
In the last few weeks I've posted the new Alice in Chains songs from their new album, The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here. They performed live on Jimmy Kimmel this past Wednesday. I missed it, because I was watching my Spurs get thumped by the Nuggets -
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