Mad Season: 04-29-1995

I'm feeling nostalgic this morning for the good ol' days of the early/mid 90's. You know, when a "super group" was something worth getting excited about.

Mad Season is one of the most famous super groups to come from the late 80's/early '90s Seattle music scene, featuring Layne Staley from Alice In Chains on vocals, Mike McCready from Pearl Jam on guitar, Barrett Martin from Screaming Trees on drums, and John Baker Saunders from The Walkabouts on bass. Mark Lanegan guested on vocals for two tracks on their only album, 1995's Above. If you don't own that album and you're a fan of the music that came out of the Seattle area in the early 90's you need to go to the record store today.

This show was Mad Season' final live performance. I used a couple of sources to put together a high quality reconstruction of the show. Some of these songs were released on the video Live At The Moore Theater in 1995. As far as I know, there is no recording of the missing third track, "Artificial Red", out there for consumption.

Mad Season
Moore Theater
Seattle, WA
04-29-1995

Wake Up
Lifeless Dead
[Artificial Red] (missing)
River Of Deceit
I Don't Wanna Be A Soldier
Long Gone Day (w/ Mark Lanegan)
I'm Above (w/ Mark Lanegan)
I Don't Know Anything
X-Ray Mind
All Alone --> November Hotel

Download the show here.

Buy Mad Season's record here.

Mark Lanegan: Part V - Dusty Madness

This is part five of my piece on Mark Lanegan's career.

Part I is here.
Part II is here.
Part III is here.
Part IV is here.
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While the Screaming Trees struggled to put together a follow up to Sweet Oblivion that they felt lived up to their potential, Lanegan recorded and appeared live with Mad Season, one of the plethora of side-projects in which many of the now-famous Seattle musicians took part. Comprised of Pearl Jam’s lead guitarist, Mike McCready, Alice In Chains vocalist, Layne Staley, bassist John Baker Saunders, and Screaming Trees drummer Barrett Martin, Mad Season released Above in 1995. Two standout tracks feature vocals from Mark Lanegan – “I’m Above” and “Long Gone Day”.

I’m Above
Long Gone Day

I’m sure anyone reading this post has heard of Mad Season, but what may not be as commonly known is that the group was working on a follow up album after Above’s success. Staley couldn’t get it together to record vocals for the follow-up project, so Lanegan was reportedly going to take on vocal duties. As far as I know, the project, called Disinformation, never made it past the conceptual stage. There are many reports in the press confirming that songs were written for the record, but if any recordings were actually finished I haven’t seen evidence that they circulated amongst fans.

It took four years after Sweet Oblivion's release, with a full album recorded and scrapped in the interim, for the next dose of Screaming Trees music to hit stores. Though Dust wasn’t released until 1996, it was well worth the wait. Slightly more polished, but just as epic as its predecessor, the album demonstrated that the Screaming Trees had more than one great album in them. “All I Know”, “Dying Days” (featuring a blistering guitar solo by Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready), “Sworn And Broken”, “Traveler” and “Gospel Plow” are highlights. The record is one of those that finishes too soon, begging the listener for repeated plays.

All I Know
Dying Days
Sworn And Broken

Click here for PART VI.