Note that I have begun folding hyperlinks into titles, so many of the bolded words are now hyperlinks.
The real beginning of Wayne's ear damage at the Dinosaur, Tad, Pure Joy Show in Seattle in 1988
The excellent album by Dinosaur, 'You're Living All Over Me', SST, 1987 - Note that this is a later release and displays the name 'Dinosaur Jr.', but this was originally released before they changed their name from 'Dinosaur' for legal reasons
The members of Treepeople were fans of the band Dinosaur when they were still called just Dinosaur and not 'Dinosaur Jr'., a name they switched to after some deadhead band threatened to sue them because it was also the name of their band, which formed earlier (or so I heard) [Upon reading the wiki page on Dinosaur, this band actually featured ex-members of Country Joe and the Fish, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Hot Tuna, Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. Oops]. Doug had discovered them at some point and played them for us. We dug them, too. The music was raw, emotional, loud, and kind of punk, since, like us, some of the band members came from a hardcore punk background (Deep Wound). It can't be denied that Dinosaur majorly influenced Doug's songwriting style, especially after the powerful Dinosaur album, 'You're Living All Over Me,' came out. In my opinion this album pushed him to play electric guitar exclusively, but I could be wrong. Our songs took on more of a rock edge, and this fit well with Scott's style, as he was already very rock in his playing, especially when playing leads. Many people used to tell us we sounded like Dinosaur, even some reviewers noted this, so, in the characteristically dry humor of Treepeople, we came up with the joke slogan; 'If you love Dinosaur, you'll like the Treepeople.'
Left: Dinosaur promo photo, 1987-ish Right: Dinosaur playing live around 1988
We saw there was a Dinosaur show coming up in Seattle with our friend Tad's band, TAD opening, so a few of us and friends made plans to go see it. I asked my friend Paul (RIP) to come with me and share in the gas money and driving, I drove my '76 Volvo 245 wagon. Doug and I believe his girlfriend drove up with some other people in their car.
The show was at The Central Saloon in Pioneer Square in downtown Seattle. This saloon is billed as 'Seattle's oldest saloon' and has been around in one form or another since 1892, when gold miners still went there for dinner and drinking and thus it is a large box of a place, like all good Western saloons. We arrived and filed in to stand before the stage. By the time we got there, the place was already packed with people.
Pure Joy took the stage and pumped out some great pop punk. We had never heard of them before. They were impressive. Next up was Tad. I think this was the first time we had all seen the band, and I remember thinking it was weird that Tad was playing guitar and singing when I heard about it. But they killed it and were super loud and BIG and bassy. We were impressed with Tad's ability to scream in such a primal way and somehow still make it melodic. As I have mentioned before, TAD was a major influence on the Seattle sound, and brought a heaviness to it that no other band did, but also brought a pure musical layer, in that, not only had Tad been a classically trained percussionist in his youth, but also the band collectively cared about the music, and that was their main focus. It wasn't about impressing anyone or trying to be a certain 'type' of band. It just came out of them and it was fantastic. See footage of this show in this excellent documentary on TAD, 'TAD - Busted Circuits and Ringing Ears' here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEAezTt5-TQ&list=UL8PJo7g1Lz-Y
Tad and Kurt Danielson reaching 'The Brown Note' at the Dinosaur show, Central Saloon, Seattle, 1988 - Screenshot mine from the film 'TAD - Busted Circuits and Ringing Ears'
Dinosaur was incredible. To this day, it was one of the top 5 live performances I have ever seen. They were RIDICULOUSLY loud and I was loving it. As I hint at in the title of this section, I am pretty sure the true beginnings of my tinnitus started at this show. I became totally immersed in the music; my hair was in my face, I threw my head back and forth, feeling it. Dinosaur was at their peak at this time, and they were very tight and focused. A lot of the intensity of the band, I came to find later after talking to friends who were friends with the Dinosaur cats, and reading about it in the excellent book, Our Band Could Your Life, came from the tumultuous relationship that Jay Mascis and Lou Barlow had. I have found in general that this kind of tension creates great music. That same idea has proven to be true in many bands I have been in as well. I see it as sort of how the tension in a sexual relationship creates great sex sometimes. Weird, I know, but I swear it's true. Think of your favorite bands and then think about this metaphor.
After the show, we all drove up to Capitol Hill to an apartment a group of Boise people had moved into recently. We were following one of them there and he was very drunk. Before he got in his car, he threw an empty beer bottle in the air and it crashed in the middle of the street, then he tore up the road and up the hill, weaving madly in his Volvo. I could barely keep up with him. At a stop light, he got into an argument with the guys in the car next to him. Some people I was giving a ride to started getting in on it and yelling out the window until I told them to shut up or get out. The guys who my friend started a fight with followed us to the parking lot of the apartment building and were ready for a fist fight. The perpetrator, my friend from Boise, ran away and slunk into his apartment (typical), leaving me and Paul to deal with the angry young men. Somehow, Paul talked them out of wanting to fight.
Recording with TAD's 'cultural guidance'
H-Hour (Tad's band from Boise) had moved to Seattle around '86. They had transformed into a harder, more edgy rock band by then. The first showcasing of their new sound was on a rare compilation record put out by CZ Records in 1989 called 'Another Pyrrhic Victory' (I happily own the first pressing on red vinyl!) with a great song called 'Medley', an aptly named journey through some heavy, emotional rock driven by Tad's incredible drumming. Other bands on the record are Malfunkshun (a band that would become Mother Love Bone), 64 Spiders, Green River, and My Eye. But that record hadn't come out yet at this point in the tale, and by the time it did, H-Hour had broken up and Tad had recorded an amazing solo 7 inch record with two songs on it, released in 1987; 'Ritual Device/Daisy' that Sub Pop released, which was a large part of steering the retro-'70s style Seattle bands into playing a harder edged music with a driving, heavy beat. Other bands like Soundgarden and Alice In Chains were also helping to create this sound, a more punky, metal take on bands like Led Zepplin or Black Sabbath. The Tad single led to the band TAD.
Tad Ritual Device/Daisy 7 inch on Sub Pop, 1987. There was no cover for it. I still have it. It still rocks.
Tad Doyle had settled in to the Seattle music scene very quickly, and had made excellent connections, which was a major benefit to us for years, and it is not an over-statement to say that we (Treepeople) would not have gotten as far as we did in Seattle without his help, which he offered kindly and consistently. The first manifestation of this help was to connect us with a recording session at Reciprocal Studios with the infamous Jack Endino, who had been recording/producing all the Sub Pop bands at Reciprocal, including TAD.
Jack Endino standing in front of Reciprocal Recording Studio, Seattle - Photo retrieved from:
As we arrived in Seattle for the session, I realized I had forgotten my drum cymbals! This greatly stressed me out, and I was given a hard time by my bandmates about it, understandably. Luckily, Tad loaned me his cymbals. We arrived at Reciprocal, which was located in the Fremont area of Seattle, and was one of the tiniest buildings I had ever seen. It was in a triangular shape to boot. Jack Endino was welcoming and mellow, with a friendly, crooked smile and a head full of hair. We set up and got to it.
It was our first experience ever as musicians in a 'real' studio with a producer who understood the type of music we were playing, and Jack Endino definitely knew what the hell he was doing (we worked with him again on our next session, more on that later). It was intoxicating, and it focused us. I believe that after this session, 'it got real', as they say. We realized there was so much more we could do than just play for fun and record demos. There was a whole machine in place in Seattle, and it was a friendly machine, at least it was then. People in the scene were nice to us, and nice to each other. Bands were in friendly competition at the time and the scene wasn't that big, though Sub Pop's marketing genius made it seem much bigger. Things hadn't blown up with Nirvana yet, and the, as Tad calls it, 'major label feeding frenzy' hadn't commenced. But shit was happening, and we would never approach our band the same way again.
The result of this Reciprocal/Endino session was our first 7 inch record with the songs 'Important Things/Handcuffs/In My Head'. If you listen to the first demo tape and this record back to back, you can hear the departure we had made musically. Besides Doug playing an electric strat now, the songs were more serious in terms of subject and tone.
Doug and Scott began to form the 'jigsaw' guitar puzzle they became known for, with each of their styles complimenting each other in an odd way. In the studio when you mix tracks together, you start by dialing in a sound for each instrument. While you do this, you mute out everything else. During this process while mixing Treepeople records, I was always struck by how one would never think, hearing Doug's guitar parts solo and then Scott's solo, that they would go together at all. But they did, and I think the jigsaw puzzle metaphor is apt. With this 7 inch, it became a signature of our sound.
Also, I began to focus more on creating some space in the drumming, adding far less fills, and the fills I did add were more strategically placed. This was due in large part to my listening to the drummers who were influencing me like Murph from Dinosaur and Mark Pickerel from the Screaming Trees. I still felt like I was kind of faking it as a drummer, but less so. Looking back, I was better than I thought I was at the time.
Busted
Seattle Bicycle cops in Volunteer Park, Seattle - Photo retrieved from: http://www.seattle.gov/police/units/bike_patrol.htm
During this trip to Seattle, we went with Tad to Volunteer Park to hang out. We went past some bushes to a trail at the end of the park to drink some beers. Riding up the trail were some bicycle cops, a man and a woman. They wrote us up citations for drinking in the park, which was a bummer. Doug was not of legal drinking age at the time and had been using an old ID of mine to get into bars. The cops didn't even notice this, as they split us up into two groups to write us up, and Doug and I were in different groups. This was great for Doug, but shitty for me, since I ended up with two citations! Later, after getting back home, I called the Seattle Municipal Court about this and played dumb. "Somehow I got two tickets," I said, making sure to sound bewildered. The woman on the phone said, "It sounds to me like that cop had it in for you. We will drop one of them."
First Treepeople 7 inch record, put out on our own Silence label - Note that in the picture of Doug on the record label, the mic stand was an upside down ski pole. That's how we rolled. Also notice that we credit Tad with 'Cultural guidance', which was indeed an apt credit - Design by Pat Schmaljohn, photos by Todd Haley
Finishing touches on the record
We returned to Boise with a 1/4 inch tape of the mix of our recording session which Pat edited himself (as in put the songs in proper order and chose the precise endings) on a reel to reel tape machine he bought. This made us all a bit nervous, watching him take a razor blade and scotch tape to the recording we had just done, but he pulled it off.
He also designed the covers on his Mac home computer, using a photo that a friend, Todd Haley, had taken of us playing in our jam room for the back cover, and one of me individually from a photo essay he was doing for school for the cover. It is of me buffing the floor at the Boise Co-op that I cleaned at the time on a graveyard shift. The floor buffer, incidentally, was named 'Lucinda' by me. I like the picture and I think that the oddness of it (many people could not tell what I was actually doing) helped sell the record a bit (see pictures above).
In general, I think this record, both in terms of music and packaging, was the best thing we ever put out ourselves (on our own label, Silence) and I am still proud of it. We now had a decent calling card and we began to send it around for reviews to see what the world thought.
Hear the song, 'Important Things' here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmqJ6FEYzMM
Hear the song, 'In My Head' here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJoWVtxN8P8
Next: From the small pond to the big pond
