Skeletons in the Closet

All this talk of “dead” bands… on the heels of getting a 5 (count ‘em, FIVE) disc set of Soundgarden rarities last night. Holy cow.
So a few members of this group already know that I am a total self-proclaimed mother-breather fan-boy* for Soundgarden. And if you didn’t, you know now.
Entitled “Odds & Sods”, it is comprised of 80 songs of unreleased or hard-to-find tracks, including Sub Pop demos, electronic remixes and B-sides. There are a few songs that the casual listener probably has heard, like “Seasons” from the soundtrack to “Singles”, “Right Turn” from Alice in Chains’ SAP EP, and the video version of “Fell On Black Days” that appeared on the “Superunknown” multimedia EP.

Some other standouts that are studio-quality recordings:

• “Karaoke” & “Kyle Petty (Son of Richard)” from the Down on the Upside sessions
• “Fell On Black Days (demo)” from Superunknown. Different lyrics and tempo, awesome.
• “Bleed Together” from DOTU
• “Blind Dogs” from The Basketball Diaries OST
• “H.I.V. Baby” from the Badmotorfinger days. Big muddy bass from a then-new-to-the-band-now-Ballard-loiterer Ben Shepherd

Some notable covers, wherein Chris sometimes sounds eerily like the original singer:

• “Hey Baby (Land of the New Rising Sun)” & “Can You See Me?” - Hendrix
• “Heartfist” ” - written for Ozzy, later recorded by Alice Cooper.
• “Communication Breakdown” - “Throw away your Zeppelin albums, Soundgarden’s here.”
• “Come Together”, “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide…” and “Helter Skelter” “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” - originally by some Liverpool band
• “Girl U Want” - Devo & Body Count’s “Cop Killer”
• “Into The Void (Sealth)” - part cover of Sabbath, part tribute to Chief Sealth. Rawkin.

Wow, this is a real time warp for me. I had maybe half of these songs a long time ago, all on TAPE. Back in the early days of the internet when people would - get this - *mail* mixtapes to one another. Yeah, unbelievable to think of that now, huh? Especially when “YouSendIt” and “YouTube” are commonplace verbs. I had pretty much worn these tapes out and later threw ALL my tapes out when I knew I’d find these files somehow in a digital format. So I have them now. In the interests of space, I won’t post the track list but anyone wants it, I can provide it.
I’ve heard over the years that SG guitarist Kim Thayil was supposed to be working on a “B-Sides” follow up to their “A-Sides” greatest hits record, but it seems unlikely. Regardless, this rounds out my SG discography. If anyone wants to check them out, just let me know.

* credit to Henry Rollins for coining that phrase. He’s a MBFB for Iggy Pop
For further information, see Seth Perlman’s fab fansite at http://web.stargate.net/soundgarden/

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