by GREG PRATO

Published by ECW PRESS

Review By Rotten

I am a big fan of the Seattle scene, with close links to the city myself, and of course with Grunge being the main big rock genre of my youth, I am interested in its history. When I heard of the release of this book, GRUNGE IS DEAD, billed an an Oral history of the Seattle scene, I knew it was one i had to read.

Then I read it.............

As we music fans know, there are three main people from the scene who are no longer with us, Kurt Cobain, Layne Staley and Andrew wood, legends each one of them, but this book seems to just want to pick at their corpses, and spends a fair bit of time trying to tell you how these guys were in their final moments on this earth and how bad these people looked and or behaved.

In the case of Alice In Chains's frontman Layne Staley, both his mother and a journalist who claims to have seen him just before his death paint a grim picture indeed of a shell of a man who had given to not looking after himself......well....I KNOW THIS TO BE COMPLETE BOLLOCKS!!!, I have been an Alice fan long enough to know the story and have seen picture evidence and even spoken to people who knew the guy personally who have reminisced with me in Seattle bars on my visits there who have given me insight.

I would like to see a true book about these people, One that focuses on the great music they made, their lyric writing process and such, rather than bullshit about what drug they were using, how much they took and why they are no longer with us.

Apart from sullying the memories of three of the Seattle scene's icons, The book does cover the stories of Soundgarden, The Melvins, Green River and Pearl Jam pretty well, along with Sub Pop records' rise to prominence. Eddie Vedder gives a detailed interview for the first time on Pearl Jam's history.

Personally, I think although the book is well written, If I want the ins and outs of the band members personal lives, I'll buy a book on them, but as it is there is already so much info on THE SCENE and THE MUSIC that could fill 3 books of this size.

If this book lost certain parts, it would be essential.......as it stands, its just muck raking.

If you are a true fan of the music Cobain, Staley and Wood made, LEAVE WELL ALONE!