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J and Tim dig into the grunge, alt-rock, and indie albums that changed everything—the forgotten classics, the underappreciated masterpieces, and the legends worth hearing again. One album at a time. Let’s dig it out.
Episodes
Tuesday Jul 20, 2021
Tuesday Jul 20, 2021
The moniker "jam bands" had been around for decades before their 90s counterparts in Phish, Rusted Root, and String Cheese Incident brought their own takes out on the road. Athens, Georgia based Widespread Panic draw on the southern sounds of The Allman Brothers Band as well as other guitar heroes like Eric Clapton and J. J. Cale to craft their guitar and keyboard driven sounds. The trick with jam bands, regardless of decade, has always been converting the energy and improvisation of the live performance into a crafted studio product. On 1997's Bombs and Butterflies, Widespread Panic smartly avoids overly long passages for trimmed down and concise songwriting.
Songs in this Episode:
Intro - Radio Child
17:18 - Aunt Avis
19:06 - You Got Yours
41:18 - Glory
52:32 - Hope In A Hopeless World
Outro - Gradle
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Tuesday Jul 13, 2021
Tuesday Jul 13, 2021
Plenty of bands messed around with a lo-fi sound in the 90s, sometimes to euphoric effects, sometimes not so much. Swell dabbles: a white noise fractured guitar lead here, a flat acoustic guitar riff there. But on Too Many Days Without Thinking, they are merely small pieces of a more layered puzzle. Had it been played on Les Paul's through big amps, the album would have sounded very familiar, so dialing back the noise and putting it to sparing use helps elevate the band above their 90s rock peers.
Songs in this Episode:
Intro - Make Mine You
14:27 - When You Come Over
19:08 - Throw the Wine
22:36 - What I Always Wanted
29:01 - (I Know) The Trip
Outro - F*ck Even Flow
Support the podcast, join the DMO UNION at Patreon.
Tuesday Jul 06, 2021
Tuesday Jul 06, 2021
Well-regarded music historians often explain the 90s explosion of alternative music into the mainstream boiled down as the rise of Seattle grunge, the So-Cal pop-punk sound going national, and the movements that followed like the swing revival, electronica, nu-metal, and more. But lost in that simplicity is the more difficult and (quite frankly) weirder starting point of the decade, where bands were mixing and moshing across a spectrum of hard rock, funk, and more. A prime example is the one-and-done band Hash, who released their self-titled album on Elektra in 1993. The band sounds comfortable mixing Red Hot Chili Peppers-style funk with Living Colour-esque swagger and shredding with touches of 60s sitar-spiked psychedelia, all topped with big melodies and harmonies. It's a talented if at times overcooked stew, but finding bands that can play in this many sandboxes and maintain a level of quality is few and far between, even if some of the big swings are misses.
Songs In This Episode:
Intro - Twilight Ball
17:09 - In The Grass
22:08 - Ghetto
27:58 - Mr. Hello
29:36 - Traveling
Outro - American Chorus
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Tuesday Jun 29, 2021
Tuesday Jun 29, 2021
Lots of bands have brothers, but how about two pairs of brothers? Perhaps growing up with a musical sibling is the reason the Kerns and Dahle brothers are able to crafty such a hooky and satisfying album of power-pop tinged rock on their third and final released as The Age of Electric - 1996's Make A Pest A Pet. Along with fellow Canadian 90s rock bands like Sloan, Odds, and Zumpano, TAOE bring their own take to the nebulous power-pop genre, bashing through three-minute guitar lead bursts without sacrificing dynamics or melody.
Songs In This Episode:
Intro - Remote Control
18:56 - Mad at the World
21:34 - Nothing Happens
29:35 - Don't Wreck It
Outro - Unity or Grenadine
Support the podcast, join the DMO UNION at Patreon.
Tuesday Jun 22, 2021
Tuesday Jun 22, 2021
Launched in 1991 by Perry Farrell as a farewell tour for Jane's Addiction, Lollapalooza immediately became the defining musical tour of the decade. Inspired by the UK festivals like Reading, Farrell concocted an underground music celebration based on the bands he wanted to see and tour with - Siouxsie and the Banshees, Living Colour, Nine Inch Nails, Ice-T & Body Count, Butthole Surfers, Rollins Band, Violent Femmes, and Fishbone. After it proved a success, the tour exploded in size until, but seemed to lose steam at point through the decade, as the once groundbreaking festival became another opportunity to chase trends and showcase already hugely popular bands. We look back at each tour in the 90s, as well as compare it to the current incarnation as a corporate-driven destination festival in Chicago.
Songs in this Episode:
Intro - Smells Like Teen Spirit by Soundgarden (Nirvana cover, 7/22/92)
Outro - Sabotage by Beastie Boys (8/6/94)
Support the podcast, join the DMO UNION at Patreon.
Tuesday Jun 15, 2021
Tuesday Jun 15, 2021
Of all the bands to release big albums in 1994, there may be none bigger than Live's sophomore album Throwing Copper. In the studio heavyweights like Jerry Harrison (production), Lou Giordano (engineering), and Tom Lord-Alge (mixing) helmed the album that prepared the band for multiple radio singles, MTV hits, album sales around the globe. It also helped that they leaned into their successful influences, channeling U2, R.E.M., and Pearl Jam without coming across as imitators. Revisiting an album that was everywhere for over a year (it took fifty-two weeks to reach number one, the third-longest ever), digging into the lesser-known album tracks reveals a band that could embrace simplistic fun as easily as dour universalism.
Songs in this Episode
Intro - All Over You
17:19 - Selling The Drama
22:11 - Stage
33:13 - Lightning Crashes
44:19 - Waitress
Outro - I Alone
Support the podcast, join the DMO UNION at Patreon.
Tuesday Jun 08, 2021
Tuesday Jun 08, 2021
With vocals equal part sneer and sweet, supported by a thick and fuzzy bass, Moler is a little pop, a little punk, slightly grunge, and very interesting on their lone album from 1997, Golden Duck. The three-piece is at no loss for volume, cranking out over a dozen two and a half to four-minute gems that have plenty of attitude and energy. Lead singer and bassist Helen Cattanach, along with Julien Poulson on guitar and Steven Boyle on the drums, are a tight unit that only falters when the melodies don't shine, which happens a few times on the back half of an otherwise engaging album.
Songs on this Episode:
Intro - Mustang Base
11:35 - Pseudoephedrine
23:06 - I Do, I Do
31:39 - Warning Sign
Outro - Red Light Disco
Support the podcast, join the DMO UNION at Patreon.
Tuesday Jun 01, 2021
Tuesday Jun 01, 2021
We've revisited many 90s rock bands from Australia of various types, but Big Heavy Stuff is the first to nail the post-hardcore sound made (underground) famous by bands in D.C., Kansas City, and Chicago. On 1997's Maximum Sincere, the band takes full advantage of the spacious room recording to showcase the drumming via slowed tempos and minimal arrangements that spark and blaze sonically at just the right times. There is enough melody and interesting guitar work to keep the album interesting, always a tricky proposition when slowing down, but that leads to some less than stellar material on the back half the overall strong album.
Songs in this Episode:
Intro - The Train Stops Here
14:07 - Maximum Sincere
25:31 - Cheating on a Dead Wife
29:43 - May
Outro - Big Mouth
Support the podcast, join the DMO UNION at Patreon.
Tuesday May 25, 2021
Tuesday May 25, 2021
Few bands are more rightly associated with the rise of alternative music from the underground to the mainstream than Soundgarden. Starting out in the mid 80s as a prototypical Seattle band backed by Sub Pop, produced by Jack Endino, and indebted to the heavy thud of 70s Black Sabbath combined with punk aggression, the original line-up quickly coalesced, releasing a slew of material in just three years. With Sub Pop in financial dire straits, the band recorded the debut album for SST, and showcased Chris Cornell's unique falsetto paired with the band's growing technical proficiency. A year later, they would end the decade on A&M records and release Louder Than Love, which further evolved the band into the metal sound that drove original bassist Hiro Yamamoto to quit, unhappy with the musical direction of the band. Within these recordings are the DNA that would lead to the breakthrough Badmotorfinger, and set the band up as the pre-eminent hard rock band of the 90s.
Songs In This Episode:
Intro - Hands All Over (from Louder Than Love)
14:48 - Nothing To Say (from Screaming Life EP)
32:07 - Flower (from Ultramega OK)
42:26 - Head Injury (from Ultramega OK)
50:46 - Ugly Truth (from Louder Than Love)
Outro - I Awake (from Louder Than Love)
Support the podcast, join the DMO UNION at Patreon.
Tuesday May 18, 2021
Tuesday May 18, 2021
For such a short career, Jellyfish managed to pack decades worth of musical ambition and melodic knowhow into just two studio albums. The comparisons are nothing new - The Beatles, Queen, The Beach Boys, Badfinger, Wings - but while plenty of bands have been tagged with the "power-pop" label over the years, Jellyfish occupy a unique space of both defining and transcending the label. On 1993's Spilt Milk, for as much Raspberries and Cheap Trick influence a listener can spot, the band is clearly going for a bigger, more grandiose sound that draws inspiration from the stage and screen.
Songs In This Episode:
Intro - Joining A Fan Club
17:36 - All Is Forgiven
28:13 - Brighter Day
32:55 - Sebrina, Paste and Plato
Outro - New Mistake
Support the podcast, join the DMO UNION at Patreon.