#lanegan

[krispyweiss]

Book Review: “Lanegan” by Greg Prato

It’s a weird thing to put in a biography. But in this case, the following is true.

“When it comes to Mark Lanegan, there are many things that you are better off not knowing,” music journalist Charles R. Cross says of the former Screaming Trees and Queens of the Stone Age singer and solo artist.

Fortunately for “Lanegan” author Greg Prato, Lanegan wrote all that stuff in his harrowing memoir, “Sing Backwards and Weep,” freeing Prato to focus on other stuff in his oral biography.

Like Lanegan the man, “Lanegan” the book is non-traditional. Generous at 319 pages and including a passel of black-and-white photos from throughout Lanegan’s career, it’s self-published - released Feb. 22 on the one-year anniversary of Lanegan’s death from undisclosed causes - but professional in content and layout.

“I look at (Nirvana’s) Kurt (Cobain), (Alice in Chains’) Layne (Staley) or even more Andy Wood - Mark was darker than them all,” Cross says. “I don’t know that Mark’s death is darker, but Mark’s life was darker than any of those people.”

In addition to Cross, Prato spoke with Lanegan’s Screaming Trees bandmate Gary Lee Conner; QOTS bassist Nick Oliveri; collaborators Chris Goss (Masters of Reality), Mike Johnson (Dinosaur Jr.), guitarist Jeff Fielder and bassist Aldo Struyf; Sub Pop Records CDO Megan Jasper; original Nirvana drummer Chad Channing; former Red Hot Chili Pepper Josh Klinghoffer; former Soundgarden bassist Kim Thayil; Jesse Hughes of Eagles of Death Metal; and friends including Sally Berry, Clay Decker - who makes the dangerous assertion that Lanegan died because he was vaccinated against the coronavirus - and others. The result is an often-surprising portrait of a singular musician that paints Lanegan as an even more enigmatic figure than he seems in life and art.

“Like, we liked Lindsey Buckingham,” Hughes says in discussing Lanegan’s musical influences.

“How the fuck are you going to tell me you can see that? Point to a Mark Lanegan song and go, ‘Oh, Lindsey Buckingham.’ I couldn’t do it. So, the fact that I can’t do it tells me … Mark was in full possession the knowledge that he was unique.”

Rather than unfolding like a typical oral biography, Prato’s book is organized in 16 chapters built mostly around a single question such as “What made Mark so unique as a singer?,” “What was it like to work - in various capacities and on various projects - with Mark?” and “How would you like Mark to be remembered?” This makes “Langegan” as unusual and singular as Lanegan.

Though Lanegan left a ton of damage - to himself and his friends and collaborators - in his wake, the man who emerges from “Lanegan” is a musical omnivore (as his unlikely partnerships with Isobel Campbell and Soulsavers demonstrate) with a wicked sense of humor and a fierce sense of loyalty to the people he held closest.

“His heart was wonderful,” producer John Agnello says. “I know he was tough, I know he could be a cocksucker to people, but man, I saw things about him that I don’t think enough people saw.”

These are the things about Lanegan you are better off knowing. And they’re there for the learning in “Lanegan.”

Grade card: “Lanegan” by Greg Prato - B

3/27/23

[jarofalicesgrunge]

Alice In Chains and Screaming Trees Concert at Noorderlicht Tilburg 1993

📸 by Popline ©️

[guerrilla-operator]

MARK LANEGAN

[ostdrossel]

We have several maples in the yard but they don't really look super spectacular usually. This one decided to change things up, and I love it.

[finckyoufreeky]

I don't want Sam Reid's contact. I just want someone to tell him to request for Nearly Lost You cover for Lestat's show. His voice would be perfect for it.

Did you hear the distant cry

Calling me back to my sin

Like the one you knew before

Calling me back once again

[unholy-cvlt]

DEAD ON YOU

Take off your ragged

Turquoise and twilight coat

I got my head hung down for you

Someday you're gonna need it

But it's worn or the, cloth gets torn

And then there's only on way to go

It's goin' dead, dead

It's going dead, dead

It's goin' dead on you

[power-chords]

My "Where did he get it?!" moment, only with electronic music instead of jazz.

[mtvscreengrabs]

Long Gone Day - Mad Season (1995)

[jarofalicesgrunge]

Mad Season live at the Crocodile Cafe April 22, 1995;

📸: by Lance Mercer

[data-demon]

Mark Lanegan - Carry Home

[saisons-en-enfer]

Mark Lanegan

[fallen-starchild]

2 years 🕊️

[joseortegarules]

QotSA 2002

[dansandoa]