Review: 'The Greatest Band That Ever Wasn't'
Director: 'Barrett Martin'
Writen By: 'Barrett Martin'
- Starring: 'The Screaming Trees, Marklanegan, Gary lee Conner, Van Conner, Mark Pickering, Barrett Martin, Peter Buck, Joshua Homme, Duff McKagan'
- Genre: 'Documentary'
- Release Date: '3.11.23.'- Catalogue No: 'Sunyata books'
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Our Rating:
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This book is Barrett Martins side of The Screaming Trees story and the books full title is The Greatest Band That Ever Wasn't The Story Of The Roughest, Toughest, Most Hell-Raising band To Ever Come Out Of The Pacific Northwest, The Screaming Trees A Comedy/Tragedy In Three Acts. It is also Barrett's fourth book.
The book is split into three acts and contains 33 stories in total from how Barrett got to join The Screaming Trees, as the bands second drummer, after the original drummer Mark Pickerel left the band, by then Barrett had made his mark as part of Thin Men and also Skin Yard the band he was in with Jack Endino. He then goes into detail as to how he started to interact musically with the Conner Brothers, Van and Gary Lee before finally starting to work with the band’s singer Mark Lanegan.
Now I have to admit to not owning much music by The Screaming Trees so have to take Barrett's word for how great the music they made is, but the book does make me want to hear more, as I saw Mark Lanegan perform as special guest or as part of Queens of The Stone Age a good few times.
As Barrett establishes himself in the band and they start touring, we get some great and some very scary road tales, both before and after the recording of Sweet Oblivion, As the bands drinking and brawling take over at times, as does Mark Lanegan's love of Heroin, that throughout the book is explored in at times gory detail.
Just as the band looked like they were going to crack the big time, unfortunately the bands new management conspired with the bands label, to insist they join a joint tour opening for Alice In Chains, that did there sanity and careers more harm than good, the book explains how, as well as an even worse tour with the Spin Doctors, it shows how a great band is often one bad decision away from superstardom or cult status.
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As the touring takes its toll and the injuries mount up they get to join Lollapalooza but are given the dreaded early bird spot, that guarantees you play to a half empty field at best.
Barrett explains how and why Josh homme, Duff McKagan and Peter Buck get involved at various points, as the band starts to fracture Barrett starts to get involved in other projects including Mad Season whose album I remember being everywhere for a while, as they try to get things back to where they should be, we get tales of the recording of what was eventually the bands last album Last Words: The Final Recordings that was finally released in 2011 some 12 to 13 years after the recordings were made.
Barrett also tells us about his post Trees career and how finding sobriety finally helped him realize many of his dreams including getting a Latin Grammy for his work playing with the Brazilian band of Nando Reis.
The book gives a good overview of what it was like to be a touring musician in the 90's right down to the indignity of having to open for Oasis, if you like The Screaming Trees then this book will add a few more layers to the stories about the band Mark Lanegan has already told in his book Sing Backwards And Weep.
Find out more at Sunyata Media Website
https://www.facebook.com/barrettmartinofficial
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author: simonovitch
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