Everybody Loves Our Town

August 1, 2011
Music writer and former Blender editor Yarm has compiled a sprawling oral history of the Seattle music scene and the grunge phenomenon of the early 1990s. Yarm conducted over 250 interviews with celebrities from Courtney Love to Eddie Vedder, as well as with the lesser-known musicians, producers, roadies, photographers, and fans who took part in the rise of Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Mudhoney, Soundgarden, Melvins, and many, many others. He chronicles the way in which the 1970s punk sensibility filtered through the gloom of the Pacific Northwest to create a unique soundâand put flannel shirts in the closets of millions of teenagers. Yarm is careful not to focus only on the bands that came to define grunge in the mainstream world. The stories of small clubs, teenage desperation, and bad behavior will resonate with anyone who came of age in a rock and roll milieu. Yarm has cleverly edited the interviews so that at times it feels like we're listening to a conversation or an argument. While the enormous cast of characters can be hard to follow and after a few hundred pages the stories of jealousy, drunken brawls, and overdoses start to blur together, hardcore fans of grunge will treasure this.

August 1, 2011

A harsh, harrowing, gritty examination of Seattle's finest rockers.

When most music fans think "grunge," they justifiably think Nirvana, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam, not necessarily in that order. With this massive oral history, former Blender senior editor Yarm also hips readers to such bands as the U-Men, Cat Butt and TAD. Because the bands' respective members are so engaging and insightful during their interviews, readers will probably fire up their iTunes to find out what these groups were about—which, we discover, was fearlessness. Their music was punk-soaked, angry and defiantly off-kilter, and they weren't afraid to set a stage on fire, incite a crowd or imbibe everything that could be imbibed. Readers will also learn about the semi-rises and painful falls of groups like Mother Love Bone, the Melvins and Screaming Trees through the voices of Mark Lanegan and Buzz Osborne, among many others who tell one hell of a story. The book is at once celebratory and heartbreaking, but what takes it to the next level are its underlying themes, specifically those of jealousy and self-abuse. At the beginning of the grunge movement—important note: Everybody in Seattle hated the word "grunge"—there was a familial, supportive atmosphere that went out the window once certain bands experienced what their rivals/brethren believed to be undeserved success. (Suffice it to say that it's probably best not to mention Candlebox to any Seattle-ite music nerd.) The number of drug-related deaths in the scene was such that one would assume lessons would have been learned. Unfortunately, that hasn't been the case: Alice in Chains bassist Mike Starr—one of the narrative's most memorable voices—died of an overdose soon after the book was completed, a sad coda to a book that pays homage the beauty and horror of modern rock.

Yarm's affectionate, gossipy, detailed look at the highs and lows of the contemporary Seattle music scene is one of the most essential rock books of recent years.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

September 15, 2011
As any veteran of dormitory culture knows, to reach a conclusion in a discussion, one must define one's terms. And so begins this oral-history exploration of grunge. Yarm tapped an impressive array of glib grunge-associated commentatorsmusicians (Dave Grohl, Eddie Vedder, etc.), producers (Butch Vig, Dave Jerden), even grunge forerunner Neil Youngto describe the 1990s musical phenomenon that seriously bummed out many of its adherents when it became a commercial success. But first, what is grunge? As it happens, many musicians identified with the term disavow it. Yarm asks, How is it that a band like Pearl Jama well-polished musical outfit whose sound owes more to classic rock than punk rockwas labeled grunge, a word that evokes skuzzy guitar tones and all-around sloppiness? Steve Turner of Mudhoney, a grunge mainstay, never considered anybody to be grunge. A freewheeling discussion with occasional disagreement and more than a little rock star posing ensues. Perhaps grunge is simply what Frank Zappa called a way of life. A fun, easy, informative read about an important if hard to define pop music genre.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)