POP NOTES

Mad Season issue tragically fleeting

Strange that a band with just a single official release from nearly 20 years ago should get the fullon reissue treatment with bonus tracks, a live disc and a concert DVD.

But Mad Season wasn’t just any band.

Formed in 1994 by Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready, Screaming Trees drummer Barrett Martin, Walkabouts bassist John Baker Saunders and Alice in Chains vocalist Layne Staley, Mad Season never really had a chance.

Above, the band’s only album,was released in 1995. It went gold and there were a pair of minor hits (“River of Deceit” and “I Don’t Know Anything”). There were also four shows, but commitments to their other bands and Staley’s ongoing struggle with heroin addiction derailed any real shot Mad Season had at becoming a going concern, or even a life as an on again, off-again side project. Oh, and by 2002 half the band would be dead.

Saunders, who met McCready at a Minneapolis rehabilitation center, died of an overdose in 1999,and Staley, well, you probably know what happened to him. His is one of rock’s saddest stories, an exceptionally gifted singer and songwriter whose addiction debilitated and handcuffed him and his bands. Alice in Chains never toured as much as it could have because of Staley’s heroin dependence, and an attempt to record more Mad Season tracks in 1996 never came to fruition because of his “failing health.” Staley, who had withdrawn almost completely from the public in his last years, overdosed on a heroin and cocaine cocktail on April 5, 2002. His body wasn’t discovered in his Seattle condominium for two weeks, and only then when his accountants noticed he hadn’t made any withdrawals from his bank account.

This Mad Season release - a remastered version of Above (Legacy, $34.99) with bonus tracks, a live album recorded at Seattle’s Moore Theater on April 29, 1995, and a DVD of that performance, along with a New Year’s Eve set at RKCNDY in Seattle, a radio performance and the “River of Deceit” video - stands not only as a reminder of just how good the band was, but as a tribute to Saunders and Staley.

While it would be natural to assume Above would be more like a Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains mash-up, the album is actually surprising in its textures and subtlety. It certainly isn’t as heavy as Alice, probably because the inestimable Alice guitarist/songwriter Jerry Cantrell wasn’t involved, and isn’t coiled as tightly as early Pearl Jam. Saunders, who grew up in Alabama and played with Hubert Sumlin in Chicago, adds a bluesy touch, especially to “Artificial Red.” There’s a definite ’70s classic rock influence, mainly in McCready’s guitar (just check “I’m Above,” a blatant Zeppelin rip-off), and Staley’s lyrics cast a dark pall.

A highlight is “River of Deceit,” a quiet meditation that, thankfully, doesn’t erupt into some arena rock ballad but instead remains thoughtful and even hopeful. It’s one ofthose songs you may have heard on the radio a time or two and forgot just how powerful it was.

Screaming Trees vocalist Mark Lanegan joins the band for the moody “Long Gone Day,” which has an almost jazz leaning as vibraphones and a sax are used to wonderful effect. Staley harmonizes beautifully with Lanegan, who contributed lyrics to three of the bonus tracks included in the new edition of Above. Another treat among the extras is a cover of John Lennon’s “I Don’t Wanna Be a Soldier.”

Closest to the early ’90s, Pacific Northwest grunge spirit of the time is the thick, thudding “I Don’t Know Anything,” which could have been an early Nirvana track or an Alice in Chains B-side. But it is somewhat unsettling, knowing what we know, to listen to Staley sing “I don’t know anything/I don’t knowwho I am … I don’t know who to be.” Of course, that’s not the only lyric that seems to reflect Staley’s slow deterioration; this album, like his Alice in Chains contributions, is full of them.

Watching the performance at the Moore Theater on the DVD is another unnerving experience. Rail thin and wearing a sagging sweater the color of dishwater, his blond ringlets forming a kind of halo and his hands covered by mismatched, fingerless gloves, Staley possesses a wasted charisma that is hard to deny. And though it may seem hard to believe now that so many imitators have appropriated his vocal style - those guys who make “years” sound like “yurrrrrs” - he was a truly unique singer, fusing an ethereal heaviness with a sensitive vulnerability.

In an Atlantic article from last year marking the 10th anniversary of Staley’s death, a band mate in one of Staley’s first groups recalled, “Layne had his own thing, and I think that was what was most appealing about him. He had a very distinctive voice. I didn’t want another [Jim] Morrison or Rob Halford.”

Like so many bands from that era - Mother Love Bone, Nirvana, Alice in Chains - Mad Season is haunted by ghosts of what could havebeen. At least the group left this small legacy.

And there’s something else, as seen on the DVD: Saunders stoically working his bass; Martin and Mc-Cready attacking their instruments; once he’s shed his sunglasses, Staley looking at ease and maybe even at peace behind that microphone stand. It makes one hope that he was, at least for a little bit.

Style, Pages 49 on 04/21/2013

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