Format: Tape

Many, many books have been written about the Seattle sound but one of the things I’ve always found fascinating is how one hundred miles to the east in tiny Ellensburg, Washington, the Screaming Trees created the template for everything that followed.

When I pop in my tape of Invisible Lantern (SST 188), which was released in 1988, I hear hints of Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, and Nirvana, but I also hear elements of the Sonics, the Wailers, and the Ventures—three garage rock titans of the Northwest.

It was this garage rock influence that vocalist Mark Lanegan demonized in his 2020 memoir, Sing Backwards and Weep. Lanegan was surprisingly candid with regards to how he felt about those early Screaming Trees records released by SST. He slagged everything from his bandmate’s physical appearance to the Screaming Trees’ sound. He does it early and he does it often—even as he glosses over a lot of the band’s early years:

“The Trees, on the other hand, were always fighting: fighting each other, fighting fans and promoters and bouncers, fighting to find a direction. Three records in, we still didn’t know what the fuck we were. We had no identity beyond our notoriety for our unhinged live show.”

Harsh? Lanegan was just getting warmed up.

“Our records were a shitty mishmash of half-baked ideas and catchy tunes derailed by the stupidest of lyrics. I fucking ached when I thought of all the opportunities we missed as we churned out shit record after shit record.”

A lot of people I talked to in the Northwest for Corporate Rock Sucks were caught off guard by Lanegan’s vitriol. While they were willing to accept Lanegan’s unflattering comments as his version of the truth, no one saw them coming, which made them all more hurtful.

Well, Invisible Lantern is not a shit record. Screaming Trees’ third studio album was the band’s fourth recording with producer Steve Fisk, an exceptionally talented musician and audio engineer who went on to work with virtually everyone in the Northwest.

When Fisk moved to Ellensburg to run a recording studio, Gary Lee Conner realized he’d been handed a golden opportunity. The extremely prolific songwriter and guitarist made the most of it by cranking out a series of fuzzed-out records drenched in frenzied feedback. Screaming Tree’s SST catalog sounds cohesive to my ears. The band was raw but Gary Lee Conner was miles ahead of his mates.

The main takeaway from Invisible Lantern is that Gary Lee Conner is just a ripping good guitar player. Riffs, hooks, melodies—he can do it all. He knows what made ’60s garage rock great. Lanegan knocks these songs as being derivative of that era but what I think he means is that he felt it was passé to be playing that kind of music in the mid-’80s. On that count I think Lanegan was wrong. Screaming Trees—along with other SST acts Das Damen and Dinosaur—were ahead of their time, playing loud, fast guitar rock to audiences who mostly weren’t ready for it. (The Lemonheads played a string of dates with Screaming Trees and Dinosaur and Evan Dando insists there was never more than thirty or forty people in the room.)

Songs like “Ivy,” “Invisible Lantern,” and “Even If” all capture the spirit of what Conner was striving to achieve.  “The Second I Awake” is a total shredder that might benefit from a more energetic performance by Lanegan (just saying). But his laconic vocals are perfectly suited for “Grey Diamond Desert.” 

While listening to the song last night, Nuvia called out from the next room: “Is that Nirvana?” No, but yes. It’s everything that made the music of the Northwest great.  

One last word about Lanegan’s rift with Screaming Trees. When I talked to Lanegan for the book, I asked him if there was a follow-up memoir in the works. He said no, but that his upcoming poetry collection, Leaving California from Heartworm Press, was the sequel. So I ordered it and was very intrigued by one of the shorter pieces in the book called “Poem for G.L.C.” Here it is in its entirety:

Although you were hard
On me

I am sorry
For my discourteous
Portrayal

Of you

I realize now
That most stories
Are much better

Left untold

Interesting, no? I wonder if Gary Lee has seen it (or if he even cares).

This post was originally published in slightly different form in Message from the Underworld.